Nov 2015
OP035
LIVE 1977-1979
Teenage Jesus and the Jerks
| # | Track | Artist | Time | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Less Of Me (May 17, 1978, Max's Kansas City, New York, NY) | Teenage Jesus and the Jerks | 01:27 | ||
| 02 | My Eyes (May 17, 1978, Max's Kansas City, New York, NY) | Teenage Jesus and the Jerks | 01:34 | ||
| 03 | Popularity Is So Boring (May 17, 1978, Max's Kansas City, New York, NY) | Teenage Jesus and the Jerks | 01:10 | ||
| 04 | Orphans (May 17, 1978, Max's Kansas City, New York, NY) | Teenage Jesus and the Jerks | 01:39 | ||
| 05 | Eliminate By Night (May 17, 1978, Max's Kansas City, New York, NY) | Teenage Jesus and the Jerks | 00:41 | ||
| 06 | Freud In Flop (January 17, 1979, Max's Kansas City, New York, NY) | Teenage Jesus and the Jerks | 00:41 | ||
| 07 | Burning Rubber (January 17, 1979, Max's Kansas City, New York, NY) | Teenage Jesus and the Jerks | 01:38 | ||
| 08 | I Woke Up Dreaming (January 17, 1979, Max's Kansas City, New York, NY) | Teenage Jesus and the Jerks | 02:05 | ||
| 09 | Crown Of Thorns (January 17, 1979, Max's Kansas City, New York, NY) | Teenage Jesus and the Jerks | 00:45 | ||
| 10 | Baby Doll (January 17, 1979, Max's Kansas City, New York, NY) | Teenage Jesus and the Jerks | 01:31 | ||
| 11 | Race Mixing (January 17, 1979, Max's Kansas City, New York, NY) | Teenage Jesus and the Jerks | 01:07 | ||
| 12 | Don't Talk About Love (August 8, 1977, Max's Kansas City, New York, NY) | Teenage Jesus and the Jerks | 01:00 | ||
| 13 | No Morality (August 8, 1977, Max's Kansas City, New York, NY) | Teenage Jesus and the Jerks | 01:47 | ||
| 14 | Instra-mental (April 17, 1979, Max's Kansas City, New York, NY) | Teenage Jesus and the Jerks | 00:44 | ||
| 15 | Baby Doll (April 17, 1979, Max's Kansas City, New York, NY) | Teenage Jesus and the Jerks | 01:41 | ||
| 16 | Freud In Flop (April 17, 1979, Max's Kansas City, New York, NY) | Teenage Jesus and the Jerks | 00:44 | ||
| 17 | Race Mixing (April 17, 1979, Max's Kansas City, New York, NY) | Teenage Jesus and the Jerks | 01:02 | ||
| 18 | Crown Of Thorns (April 17, 1979, Max's Kansas City, New York, NY) | Teenage Jesus and the Jerks | 00:48 | ||
| 19 | Red Alert (April 17, 1979, Max's Kansas City, New York, NY) | Teenage Jesus and the Jerks | 00:27 | ||
| 20 | The Closet (November 04, 1978, CBGB's, New York, NY) | Teenage Jesus and the Jerks | 02:39 | ||
| 21 | Instrumental (November 04, 1978, CBGB's, New York, NY) | Teenage Jesus and the Jerks | 00:15 | ||
| 22 | Freud In Flop (November 04, 1978, CBGB's, New York, NY) | Teenage Jesus and the Jerks | 00:44 | ||
| 23 | Burning Rubber (November 04, 1978, CBGB's, New York, NY) | Teenage Jesus and the Jerks | 01:36 | ||
| 24 | Red Alert (November 04, 1978, CBGB's, New York, NY) | Teenage Jesus and the Jerks | 00:30 | ||
| 25 | Orphans (August 3 or 4, 1978, Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto, ON) | Teenage Jesus and the Jerks | 02:04 | ||
| 26 | Eliminate By Night (August 3 or 4, 1978, Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto, ON) | Teenage Jesus and the Jerks | 00:41 | ||
| 27 | The Closet (August 3 or 4, 1978, Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto, ON) | Teenage Jesus and the Jerks | 02:49 |
Teenage Jesus and the Jerks began to formulate their visionary brand of aural catharsis sometime during the first half of 1977, amidst the sordid ruins of a then fully down-and-out Lower Manhattan. The mastermind behind this juggernaut of sonic libertinage was a barely pubescent but world-weary runaway who called herself Lydia Lunch. Influenced strongly by the Marquis de Sade and Henry Miller, Lunch shrewdly decided to graft the existential horror of her own writing onto harsh, atonal music after being exposed to the room-clearing live output of other contemporary rock-music deconstructionists like Suicide and Mars. With an agenda of conjuring nightmarish intensity in lieu of technical instrumental ability, Teenage Jesus instantly made the supposedly “nihilistic” and “raw” current wave of so-called Punk acts sound like slick, good-timey pop music by comparison. Teenage Jesus and the Jerks were The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, lisa, She Wolf of the SS, and Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, transliterated into a blatant mockery of the increasingly tired, basic rock-band format.
Posthumously, there have been numerous reissues of the primary Teenage Jesus corpus, namely the first side of the Lydia Lunch double compilation album Hysterie (CD Presents, 1986), a very incomplete anthology titled Everything (Atavistic, 1995) and Shut Up and Bleed (Cherry Red/Atavistic, 2008), which also featured Beirut Slump tracks. These less-than-fastidious documents contained reverb-laden transcriptions of the studio cuts directly from vinyl copies, as well as random live tracks of mediocre fidelity. This particular collection about to be released on Other-People is meticulously edited and mastered from rare bootlegs taped during the initial 1977-1979 period of classic band, and only one title (Crown of Thorns from January 17,1979) has been legitimately released to date, albeit in a completely different sound quality. Almost every known Teenage Jesus and the Jerks composition appears on this compendium and Ms. Lunch herself is quite satisfied that this just might be the final nail in the coffin….
If it is the sound of deliberately organized and deployed agony you are seeking, your bath has been drawn and the razor awaits.
Weasel Walter, Brooklyn, NY, June 30, 2015