Biography
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Years Active
1977 – 1979 (2 years)
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Members
- Bradly Field
- Gordon Stevenson
- James Chance
- Jim Sclavunos
- Lydia Lunch (1977 – 1979)
Teenage Jesus and the Jerks were an influential post-punk group from New York City, New York, United States, who formed part of the city's No Wave movement. Founded by one-time CBGBs waitress Lydia Lunch and saxophonist James Chance, the group was active from 1976 to 1979, releasing only a handful of singles.
Chance eventually left to form The Contortions and pursue his own equally abrasive musical direction. Both groups were featured on the seminal "No New York" LP, a showcase of the early No Wave scene compiled and produced by Brian Eno.
Infamous for playing ten-minute sets filled with thirty-second songs, they sought to take music beyond what Lunch saw as the traditionalism of punk rock. The group left behind little more than a dozen complete recorded songs with most of the surviving titles collected on the 18-minute career retrospective CD titled "Everything". However other studio versions of several songs exist alongside a few live recordings.
Lunch and Chance both went on to become cult figures of the New York underground music scene and the group has been cited as a significant influence on subsequent post-punk groups such as Sonic Youth and The Istics.
The band reunited in 2008 for a series of performances, with Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore. The band continued to perform without Moore throughout 2009, including dates in Canada.
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