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Everything was a challenge that needed to be conquered.
It was always, we have something to prove,
a wall to break down.
We're gonna, like, melt people's fucking faces off
because they expected us to suck.
We were literally out there
with people throwing pint glasses at our heads
and pulling their dicks out at us.
But we have a superpower when we're together.
And it was like us against everybody.
It was like us against the world.
Grateful Dead girlfriends over here or something?
Wait! We're totally not ready.
What do you mean you're not ready?
You're ready when we introduce you!
Rock 'n' roll!
Yeah, we're trying.
I'd like to introduce
the Grateful Dead girlfriends now.
Forget it.
Scratch that joke from the record.
You ready?
Donny Osmond.
You ready?
Well, don't fuckin' be sophisticated.
Make some noise or somethin'.
This is punk rock, you knuckleheads!
Welcome the Lunachicks!
♪ RIP out the ugly eyes of you ♪
♪ I tear your yawning jaw apart ♪
When I first heard of the Lunachicks,
I was like, what the fuck is this?
This is amazing, it was hilarious,
and it was rocking.
It kind of reminded me of Beastie Boys,
where it was just, like, punk rock but funny.
Really aggressive rock,
with all this drama to it,
and yet also, like, with a wink and a nod.
To me, they were like, wow, that's the whole package.
They were tough, they were dirty, gritty.
They had a bad-ass New York attitude,
but they were really funny.
It was kind of rad and inspiring
and kind of intimidating all at the same time.
♪ Do it, bad, bad, bad, bad
♪ Do it, do it
Bottom line is,
they're a great fucking band.
And they are incredible live.
They have this wonderful chemistry
that is the Lunachicks.
They were punks,
they were rock chicks, and they were great.
They had attitude.
I mean, I was really surprised that they didn't go further.
It was too much for some people.
Really.
But, I mean, fuck 'em if they can't take a joke.
♪ Signed hairy and blue, ooh, ooh, ooh ♪
♪ Stop shaving and get it waxed ♪
♪ No one likes a hairy trap
♪ Oh, hairy trap
There's one right there.
And one--and there's another one over there.
In the early nineties, we had a song called "Plugg."
So we had this idea
to spontaneously menstruate on stage.
So we packed Ziploc baggies full of fake blood.
I taped my baggie to the underside of my guitar.
Theo had hers taped around her thighs,
and we were all gonna pop the bags at the same time
and have blood everywhere.
So I had my guitar, and then the break happened,
and I went boom!
And blood everywhere.
There's blood all down my legs,
and there's blood all over my dress.
So they photoshopped the blood off,
and my legs have no blood on them.
The Lunachicks really tapped into
every girl's desire to take down the patriarchy,
whether or not it's a conscious thing.
In high school, I came across
"Jerk of All Trades,"
and I turned it over,
and I was like, "Oh, my God, they're all girls."
♪ Walk in front of a car at the mall ♪
I was like, holy shit.
I need to know everything about this band.
♪ You want to die, I can see it in your eyes ♪
And I brought that CD home and I played it
until every fart and burp and curse, I absorbed it,
and I was just like,
this is what I've been waiting for.
I've been waiting for this band my whole life.
We are working on a book
that's probably gonna be some kind of memoir.
So you're on stage.
You're--you have an audience for the first time...
Oh, I was petrified.
There was a lot of looking down.
We just started talking about making the book.
It gave us a reason to see each other more
and start telling the story of our lives together.
♪ Pretty ugly, pretty ugly
We started playing together when we were 17.
all: Lunachicks!
Gina. I play guitar
Sindi, guitar.
Theo. I sing.
Squid. I play bass.
♪ Whoa
♪ Whaa, whaa
I'm from Brooklyn.
My parents tried to control me
in a way I couldn't be controlled.
When I was very little,
my parents always said "calmly" to me,
like "Calmly, Theo. Calmly, Theo,"
to the point where I asked them
if my name was "Calmly."
My parents found the Sikh religion,
and so we spent the next year being Sikhs,
and then exactly a year later,
they're like, "We're not doing this anymore."
We went to Unitarian Church for, like, 5 minutes.
They were like, "Nah."
We went to Quaker meeting.
They were very strict.
And I wasn't allowed to be mad.
I was so angry and nowhere to put it.
I met Theo the last year of junior high school.
I was a bad kid.
I got in trouble a lot.
I was, like, the mean brunette.
I'm not actually a natural blonde.
Syd was just full of attitude,
like badass, cool.
Wore, like, lipstick.
And she did not like me.
Hated her the minute I laid eyes on her.
She was beautiful,
and, like, the boys had crushes on her.
I was totally snubbing the shit out of her
and then did one of those, like,
keep your enemies closer maneuvers.
We were in a dance class, and I was a dancer.
We had a dance show,
and you could, like, choreograph
dances in the show, so I was like,
"Heard you can dance." She's like, "Yeah."
"Want to be in my dance?" "Okay."
And then fell, like, in love with her.
Like, instantly.
I was like, "Oh, my God, I'm in."
I'm like, "I'm with the cool kids.
It's happening."
It's so, like, emotional
when you have girlfriends that age.
Before you're having sex,
that's, like, your first real relationship.
It's, like, as important as any lover,
you know what I mean?
Like, the amount of drama and tears.
We hung out constantly,
and I dragged her to my house, like,
"Let me show you this, let me show you that."
Like, wouldn't let her leave.
We were, like, best friends.
Gina, I met through my friend from camp.
I think we were both 12, and I was such a nerd.
I was such a nerd and a misfit.
All I did was draw all day.
My friend was like, "You're going to meet my friend Theo,
"and she's really cool,
"and she looks just like Julie from 'Fame,'
so just try to be cool."
Remember the movie "Fame"?
After seeing that movie, yeah, I was like,
"I wanna go to the Fame school."
This is no Mickey Mouse school.
You're not getting off easy because you're talented.
You'll work twice as hard.
Everybody wanted to go to that school.
It was, like, all these kids from drastically different
economic neighborhoods in New York.
You know, there's, like,
the rich girl from the Upper East side,
and the poor kid from the Bronx.
You know, they all, like, get into this
really exclusive program at this high school,
which is really exactly how it was.
And I got into the drama department,
so I thought it was really cool
that I got into "Fame" school.
I always wanted to be an artist.
So I got into the art department,
and freshman year, I found out
that Theo was gonna be in my class.
And that's how we reconnected and became friends.
New York in the '70s and '80s
was just a very different place.
A lot of abandoned buildings and wrecked cars.
You know, at 14, you could get a fake ID.
And I remember, they were like,
"You have to choose one of four occupations."
There was, like, four choices, and I was like, "Secretary."
You know, "Secre--secretary."
The first time I ever hung out with Gina and Theo,
we went to the Roxy,
and we went to see, like, Herbie Hancock or something.
Not punk rock at all.
It was so fun-- music and going out
and lying to my parents about where I was sleeping
and being out all night and taking the train
and, you know, all these crazy, like, risks.
And it was shitty--
really dangerous and shitty and gritty and fun.
We used to drop acid and go to Times Square in the '80s.
Watch the movie "Times Square."
It was like a playground for us.
A dirty, dangerous playground.
One of my first concerts was The Misfits
at the Ukrainian Hall, 1981,
and it was fantastic.
And then I started going to the Peppermint Lounge
on 45th Street.
15, 16 years old, and it was like Times Square in 1981.
It was really cool and scary.
And nobody raped me or stabbed me
or anything like that, so that was really great.
These are my girls!
I don't know where they came from,
but there they were, and I just loved them.
Sindi was the coolest girl in the world.
She's not that much older than me,
but I feel like she raised me.
When you're 15 and your friend has their own apartment,
live with their boyfriend, it's really different.
It's a big five years.
Sindi was a huge influence in every way--
style, clothes, music.
She became the most badass big sister to all of us.
All I wanted to do was, after school,
get down to the East Village.
The East Village was just a cool place.
Every chance I got, I'd be hanging around St Mark's,
going to Seconds Records.
You'd see all the punks hanging out on stoops,
and you'd be really kind of scared of them,
but you wanted to hang out with them,
'cause that's who you wanted to be.
There was Lismar Lounge,
the Pyramid on Avenue A,
King Tut's Wah Wah Hut.
CB's, of course.
There was, like, a sort of '60s
garage-y scene going on.
All these underground bands that were very influential--
the Swamp Goblyns that then became the Kretins,
and then Da Willys, the Man Eaters.
I was just like, "Oh, my God, I need to do this.
I can do this if they could do it."
We had a band called Freaks,
and we started to see those little Lunachicks,
and they were not old enough to get in,
and they would stand outside when we played.
And we loved that, and we loved them.
And I kept always telling them,
"You know, you should be a band."
Yes, why shouldn't it work? It's us.
And everything we do is fun and great,
so this can also be fun and great.
And sure enough, it was.
Yeah, baby.
Are we gonna do the whole thing?
Yeah.
Oh, wait.
♪ Wheoo, wheeoo
I like that, "Wheoo, wheeoo."
We have it all figured out.
Theo's gonna sing. I'm gonna play bass.
Sindi's gonna play guitar, 'cause she has a guitar.
And they're like, "You can play lead guitar!"
And I was like, "I don't know how to play lead guitar."
And they're like, "That's okay.
"We don't know how to play anything either,
so let's just do it."
Ready!
OK.
♪ No remorse
We were awful.
We were so awful.
♪ This life of yours is mine to take ♪
We were practicing in my bedroom, in my parents' house.
Theo's heavy metal boyfriend, Mike,
ended up being our first drummer
and played our first show, I think, when we were 18.
♪ I touch your corpse
♪ One more time
I think it was our second show,
and Kim and Thurston from Sonic Youth were there.
We wanted to be this mishmash of MC5
and Black Sabbath and The Clash and Iggy--
you know, all our favorite bands.
But we did not sound like that.
So Thurston Moore was there,
and he thought we were a noise band.
He called up Blast First,
and that became our first label,
with the idea that Thurston and Kim Gordon
would be producing our album.
I write most of the lyrics,
and people come in with different songs,
and we sort of meld together
to make this sort of mind-warping combobulation
of sound and noise and stuff like that.
Our songs are about people we love
and people we hate and TV shows we love and--
and killing people.
We just write songs about it.
We don't really do any of that stuff.
The things that we did after school--
the TV watching and the pot smoking
and then the binge-eating--
these all became fodder for Lunachicks songs.
Hey, hey, hey!
So we wrote a song
about Mabel King from "What's Happening!!"
♪ Mabel King, you are the queen ♪
We wrote a song about Jan Brady of the Brady Bunch.
♪ Well, I know I cracked
♪ The family picture with my bike ♪
Jan, look out!
♪ I wasn't wearing my glasses ♪
On top of watching TV,
we were obsessed with B movies,
and we were obsessed with John Waters.
Totally obsessed.
Welcome to Mortville, ladies.
And there's a scene in "Desperate Living"
where the babysitter is tripping...
What have you done with my baby?
- I don't know, I'm trippin'! - Trippin'?
And she puts the kid in the refrigerator.
Are we gonna reveal what the name of our album is?
We might as well.
- "Babysitters On Acid"! - "Babysitters On Acid."
♪ Hello, dear, there's some popcorn in here ♪
♪ There's soda and ice cream, but don't touch the beer ♪
Getting on that mic and feeling
the loudness and the power,
I remember feeling finally free.
♪ Yes, ma'am, and I'll see you later ♪
♪ Don't worry, I'll be on my best behavior ♪
You're such a visual band.
People talk about the Lunachicks like,
"Oh, yeah, they dressed up." - Yeah.
Combing thrift stores was, like, a big...
- It was, like, a big-- - Pastime of ours.
That's what we would do.
I really would love them
to get back together.
Shitting in the Salvation Army always.
Shitting in fuckin' thrift stores
all over the country--so gross.
I think there would be a tremendous interest
from all over the world.
I'm saying this with all the respect in the world.
You're in it. You don't...
You have a different perspective.
In my mind, if you went on tour,
you would fucking kill it.
I'm telling you.
Anyhoo.
My identity was really wrapped up in the band
for a long time.
I wouldn't say I turned my back on that identity,
but I always had a fear of holding onto the past.
You hungry for pizza?
OK, whoever wants pizza, come down!
I also had two kids
and opened two restaurants in 12 1/2 years.
People are like, "Oh, that poor older woman
"with tattoos that has to bus tables for a living,
we feel really bad for her."
I feel like the older I get,
the clearer the sense of my own mortality
and feeling time slipping away,
and wanting to make as much art and music
as possible before I die.
I am releasing a new single every month,
and I'm making videos.
OK.
Whoa!
I would love to see this on top of what you have on.
They are normally 21, and today they're 15.
I have my own lip gloss company.
The glosses are named after rock 'n' roll icons.
This is "Highway Star," which is a Deep Purple song.
Ha-ha-ha. Get it?
- What band were you in? - We were in Lunachicks.
I was in Lunachicks. - Oh, my God!
- The singer. - I love Lunachicks!
So are you guys reuniting?
No.
People always ask us if we'll play again,
so every once in a while, it comes up,
but we haven't played together in a very long time.
I had all the girls up to my country house,
and then as we were all sitting there,
I did bring it up, like,
"We really need to do one more show."
And they were all like, "What?"
We could do, like, seven or eight shows.
Seven or eight?
Uh-oh! Wheels are turning. Wheels are turning.
- Um... - Oh!
Maybe we could get Depends to sponsor us.
I still record music,
I write songs,
but I haven't been in front of an audience in years.
I feel like I'm gonna pass out.
Do I want to, you know, hang out with my girls again?
Yeah, that would be great.
Um, being on stage?
I--it would be fun.
But there's a lot of history there.
We normally play in New York at...
- CBGB's, Pyramid. - The Ritz when we can.
The Ritz when we can. We used to--
Sonic Youth was producing us
for Blast First Records,
which was their English record label.
But it wasn't going well.
Is it on?
It didn't really work out
because of the artistic differences,
which is unfortunate.
♪ Distract you, where to
We sort of had a souring in the studio
because the Lunachicks were way too obnoxious
to work with at that point.
I think that Kim and Thurston were attracted
by the fact that we were very young and we were amateurs.
But we didn't want to be amateurs.
We really wanted to be rock stars.
So they wanted to bring out the badly played chords
or the broken distortion pedal sound,
and we were really kind of embarrassed by that stuff.
I mean, my hero was AC/DC Angus Young
and Tony Iommi.
We really wanted to be, like, heavy rock gods.
I mean, we wanted to sound like KISS.
And that was not her vision for us.
So we were snotty, and Kim stormed out,
but the label already had invested
a couple bucks into the recording.
They thought it was worth something.
So we stayed with the label,
and we scrambled to get a girl drummer.
We found out about Becky Wreck,
this crazy drummer girl from Philly.
She rolled into town on this motorcycle,
and she was super queer and super cute
and, like, a great drummer.
She was a strong character.
So we thought, she'll be perfect.
♪ Popping wheelies on her motorbike ♪
♪ Straight girls wish they were dykes ♪
I wrote the lyrics for the L7 song
"Fast and Frightening."
"Popping wheelies on her motorbike,
straight girls wish they were dykes,"
is specifically about Becky Wreck.
♪ She's frightening
This is how we found out about L7,
because Becky had also
been contacted by L7, who was looking for a drummer.
So we were both making her offers
and fighting over her, trying to get her.
When we met Becky, we were blown away by her.
And we were like, "We're getting Becky.
"How do we get her?
How do we steal her and get her to move to LA?"
And then she said,
"No, I'm dedicated to the Lunachicks.
I'm gonna stay out here."
And we were brokenhearted.
The Lunachicks were funny,
super smart hot chicks--
young, crazy to be around.
So much fun to be around.
I felt like I have a chance to be a part of something
that nobody knows about yet.
I think I knew I could put them on the map.
I think I really knew that.
At an early age, I knew women do not
get treated the same as men.
Like, something's wrong.
In third grade, when they ask us
if you want to play an instrument at school,
I said, I want to play drums, and everybody,
"Why do you-- girls don't do that!
Why do you want to do that?"
So I had to go home.
I had to have my mom sign a form, which was--
she made me put flute first.
My teenage years--
already feeling like, I'm a woman,
I'm gonna get treated less than--
I realize, oh, my God, I'm gay.
And that's--that's really bad.
By then, I was really angry.
I totally got into punk
and rebelled against everything else.
I just wanted to play as fast
as the Dead Kennedys or Bad Brains.
Nobody was even gonna take me serious
if I was just halfway decent.
Whatever it is that Sonic Youth saw,
my playing was so hard and in your face,
it was the glue that was gonna hold it
and make it like, holy shit,
there's something going on.
Like, it's not just, like, in the beginning stages anymore.
Like, this is something.
♪ Got a pus pocket waiting for you ♪
♪ Got a flesh bubble from huffing too much glue ♪
♪ I got a precious pimple loaded with some goo ♪
Early on, when Becky was trying to figure out
whether she even wanted to be in our band,
her and Syd started a relationship.
That might have been why Becky ended up staying with us
and not joining L7.
That's my guess.
It's always the girl.
So me and Becky were a couple for a while,
which pissed everybody off.
I mean, who the hell wants to be in a band with a couple?
Nobody.
We did this four-song EP.
We're 18.
We get booked on this tour of the UK
with Dinosaur Jr.
We pack our bags and get on a plane,
and it was on.
♪ Lunachicks on the run
♪ Lunachicks are having fun
♪ Lunachicks make lots of noise ♪
♪ To prove rock 'n' roll's not just for boys ♪
♪ On the road and on the rag
♪ We fucking rule so we gotta brag ♪
♪ Gonna take over the world someday ♪
♪ Stay off our path or get out of the way ♪
Our first tour was when we learned
to be together-- in hotel rooms,
in people's houses, in the van.
So many hours in the van.
I remember thinking,
this is what it is?
I mean, this is how it's gonna be?
This is it?
♪ This is serious
Peeing in the parking lot.
Peeing everywhere.
Theo was unarguably the master of peeing in a cup.
Periods.
We would all get on the same schedule.
Hormones. Not cute.
♪ Step off
Of course, tons of snacks.
We were teenagers, and we would get somewhere
and immediately want to go to wherever there was candy
and try whatever we could.
It was like Willy Wonka going in and finding
these candies you had never seen before
that were so beautiful and, like, pink and gummies.
And it was incredible.
We had to stop sometimes at two or three borders
in a single day, and there was no
being waved through borders for the Lunachicks.
No border said, "You guys are all right.
Keep driving."
We're driving around with a rubber chicken
and giant flies and big plastic bones.
And we were searched regularly.
Sometimes dogs, sometimes no dogs,
although we did also have border guards
that then we put on the guest list.
Early on, it was all fun.
We were the best of friends.
Right, uh, after that little historical note,
to the Lunachicks and first from them
in session tonight, "Binge and Purge."
We were on Blast First for only one album.
We recorded "Binge and Purge" on an American label.
♪ Binge and purge
We went on our first American tour
opening up for the Dictators.
It was called the Chicks 'n' Dicks tour.
Dictators have passed the punk rock baton
to The Lunachicks.
Have you known each other for a while or what?
Some of us did.
From hangin' around downtown.
And, uh, that's how we met.
In the street.
We want to know about the Lunachicks.
We had a name for ourselves in England,
but in America, we were a very underground band.
We were playing small venues.
This was punk rock.
This was total punk rock.
♪ Cuttin' in the bathroom, waiting for that bell ♪
♪ They say its high school, but I think its hell ♪
♪ Puffin' a joint
I'm Jewish, but I grew up in New York,
and I thought, like, everybody was Jewish.
And then we started touring in the United States,
and they're like, "Wow, it's a real live Jew!"
So the obvious thing to do would just be
to write Jew on your face as big as you could,
especially if you were playing with Social Distortion
and there was gonna be, like,
a thousand racist skinheads there.
Back then, guys would just take over
and slam into everybody,
and the girls would get stomped or pushed around,
grabbed, groped, molested by the audience.
That's not OK-- you can't fuckin do that,
especially not at one of our shows.
Girls and young women could be at the front,
be in the center, express themselves, dance,
and know that we were looking out for them.
Theo would stop the show
if she saw something out of line.
Those were our girls.
Stop, stop, stop, stop!
Stop! Stop!
What the fuck are you doing, asshole?
Just cut it out.
You are obviously bothering these women a lot, okay?
Everything was always centered around Becky.
Just picture, like, the Tasmanian devil
with a whirlwind around her.
She did her whole Howard Stern thing.
Come on out, Becky.
- Becky Wreck! - Becky Wreck here. She is--
Howard Stern had a cable show.
He was, like, probably the number one
shock jock in New York.
And I went on a lot because--whatever.
I was willing to kiss girls on TV.
All the women go wild for you.
Isn't that true? - Yeah.
All this notoriety happened after that.
So we'd be at the airport-- it'd be like,
"Oh, Howard Stern!"
A lot of the fighting and the drama
had to do with the fact that we were a couple.
Syd was my best friend.
We did everything together.
I was the voice of reason.
You know, the older and wiser.
And then along came Becky,
and she snatches my bestie
and turns her into, like, somebody else.
So we were a little bit at odds.
Not a little bit at odds.
We were--we had some issues.
I think, by far,
Sindi was, like, the toughest Lunachick.
Maybe she felt like I was competition.
But I just felt like, fuck, she's badass.
Like, yeah, we're on the same team.
The feelings across the board
were always intense.
We were playing this show in England.
There was, like, a huge mosh pit.
Sindi dumps her guitar and dives into the audience.
I dove into the crowd.
It took about two seconds,
and I was, like, fucking naked.
The clothes were gone.
I saw her shirt come ripped up like this
and hands on her, and I freaked out,
and I stopped playing, and I ran over,
and we're trying to get security
to get her back to the stage and get her safe,
'cause I saw the look on her face.
She was horrified.
But I think she felt like she had to play it off.
And her being tough about it confused me.
Becky got furious.
She got furious at me.
I understand that she maybe felt violated herself somehow.
But it was really not cool.
The last thing she needed was someone to yell at her.
But I was only coming from, like,
"You did something where we can't protect you.
Don't ever do that," you know.
Like, that's kind of how I felt.
You know, that was really fucked up that that happened.
I can--I--I--
you know, I can still see it.
And it was, like-- it was really fucked up.
You still wanna bother people, meet us outside.
Me and every single fucking girl in this place,
and we'll fuckin stomp your ass off.
♪ Your crotch is burning
♪ Well, ain't that a shame
♪ Too bad that I'm not the one to blame ♪
♪ Take this
♪ Take that, take that
♪ But no one is ever gonna take my fucking rights back ♪
♪ Don't touch me in the streets, no ♪
We were going to play Reading Festival.
It was fucking exciting.
♪ Chicks are super strong
We were like,
"Becky you can't take any drugs over."
They would say, "This is when we're leaving.
"You better clean up.
Plenty of time to get your shit together, Becky."
And I, "Yeah, yeah, yeah."
And no, no, no, 'cause I had a ten-bag-a-day heroin habit.
Reading Festival was a huge deal,
and Nirvana was playing.
Nirvana was on Sub Pop, and then they broke.
And the industry realized you can have punk-based music
be commercially successful as well.
There were very high expectations on everybody
from the underground because Nirvana did so gangbusters.
But it was really kind of a cool era
because there were a lot of female bands
playing aggressive rock.
Us, The Breeders, Lunachicks,
7 Year Bitch, Babes in Toyland,
and later Riot Grrrl.
We were all kind of banded together,
I think, in supporting each other.
We have been thinking about playing a show.
Stop thinking,
because thinking has never helped.
You just go do what you're built to go do.
Even if you don't physically do something,
your spirit or soul or subconscious
is still doing it, because you're made to do it,
and you will walk on like you had never left
and do what you're built to do. - Yeah.
I think that the time is now for a Lunachicks reunion.
We did sell out Irving Plaza, remember?
That was such a fun show.
We could play a show in the next six months
or whenever we wanted to, if we were gonna do, like,
you know, like, just, like, New York or LA
or, you know, whatever.
Like, we can--I don't think we'd need a whole year.
I want to wait as long as possible.
I gotta mentally prepare.
I gotta physically prepare.
Um, I don't know. I don't know.
I mean, I don't see my life slowing down at all.
So I just feel like there's never gonna be a good time.
It seems like every '90s band is on tour,
so... everybody's doing it.
♪ The ice is on fire, Antarctica burns ♪
All I remember about the Lunachicks
is that every time I saw them,
I was high on LSD, blackout drunk,
and they were good-looking girls
until they got on stage,
and then they turned into a bunch of old ladies.
Is that Gina Volpe?
You guys played with GWAR a lot.
The Lunachicks were more than a band.
It was a gang.
Like, it was--
I can't remember what it was, but you were like,
"You can't tie a Lunachick down!"
You're not talking about regular girls,
these are Lunachicks here!
You can't tie me down!
You can't tie down a Lunachick.
You gotta be free.
I remember the time GWAR was on "The Joan Rivers Show."
You know, the Lunachicks are in it.
We're in the front row.
Yeah, "Yay!" Cheering.
As Oderus Urungus, lead singer of GWAR...
Dave Brockie, rest his soul, he was a huge Lunachicks fan.
We were banished here to serve eternal penance.
We would tour with GWAR, and by then,
Syd was dating Oderus, the singer.
I was very jealous,
so I was starting shit with him.
The only thing more fun than being in a band with a couple
is being in a band with a couple
who's breaking up.
It got so dark.
There was this cloud of, like, anger and bad energy,
and the drugs got worse,
and they were a mess, and it was--it was toxic.
I thought all their good ways,
I was hoping that it would rub off on me.
I really, really was.
But that's not what happened.
I was doing heroin.
Nothing was more important to me than doing heroin.
The final show with her was with Murphy's Law,
and it was Halloween.
We all wore, like, bald wigs
and mustaches and plaid suits,
and she was so high that it was, like,
in slow motion, you know?
So that was kind of it.
Either they kicked me out or I quit
and then thought they'd ask me back,
but they probably kicked me out.
And I--and I probably thought,
"Ha, what are they gonna do without me?"
Well, they did a lot without me, so...
Then we took our friend Kate Schellenbach,
who is in Luscious Jackson,
we took her out for a tour.
I got a call from one of the Lunachicks
saying that they were doing a tour of North America.
"Can you play drums for us?"
And I was like, "Oh, my God, yes."
I was so psyched.
It was like being asked to play drums
for, like, your favorite band.
It was like, so fucking cool.
Hey, Marsha, that was really groovy.
I first heard the Lunachicks
when there was some college radio station
playing "Jan Brady,"
and I was like, what the fuck is this?
♪ Well, I am Jan Brady
I was obsessed, played it, like, nonstop.
Then they were playing a show at Pyramid.
They came out-- they said Theo was killed
and that she wasn't gonna be performing tonight
'cause she was killed by Nadia Comaneci, the gymnast.
I would like a really warm welcome
for Mrs. Nadia Comaneci.
And so out came Nadia Comaneci,
which was Theo in, like, pigtails
and, like, a tracksuit.
I am very happy to be here.
Makin' It With Other Species
They fuckin' rocked.
I was so thrilled and so pumped.
Once I saw them, everything changed.
I swear, if I hadn't heard them,
there probably would not have been Luscious Jackson
in the form that it was, so it really was
a huge, huge thing for me.
♪ Pick, pick, pick, it's makin' me sick ♪
♪ I wish the sleep fairy would come do the trick ♪
♪ Oh, yeah, oh, yeah
Back then, there's no Internet.
There's no social media.
The only way to let people know you had a show,
you had to make a flyer
and paste it all over the city.
And then when you were on tour,
you would start organizing street teams.
And these are just dedicated fans who'd hand out fliers
and tell people about your shows.
♪ Toss and turn, toss and turn ♪
Being an all-female act from New York
was a novelty and made people take notice.
You have to then keep them looking and listening.
And that we were able to do on our own merit.
It was so much fun touring with Kate.
But she needed to play with Luscious Jackson,
so we knew it was temporary.
We found ourselves two albums in,
and a few years now down the road,
we were looking for a label.
We didn't have a manager.
We were looking for a drummer.
We met Chip the first time
we were looking for drummers before Becky,
and we thought she was so cool,
and we wanted her to be in the band,
and she said no.
I'm from a small town in Pennsylvania.
In kindergarten, they offered
musical instruments to everybody.
So I went, "I'm playing the drums!
That's what I want to do."
And the teacher would always hand the drums to the boys.
So I was like, "Why--why can't I be handed the drums?"
Being gay and not out in Pennsylvania
at the age of 13, 14, 15, 16,
I didn't like anybody.
There was nobody to strive to be part of.
You know? I--I wanted better.
And better was New York.
I came upon Lunachicks early on.
They were very young, and I auditioned for them,
and they said, like, "Yeah, cool.
We want you as our drummer."
So I called Squid to set up a rehearsal,
and her dad answered the phone,
and I said, "Yeah, is Squid there?"
And you could tell he was yelling up the stairs,
"Sydney, you have a phone call!"
And I was like, "What the hell?"
And I think I told them, it's like,
"Oh, you know, look, I can't do this.
I've got some other things going on."
Years later, we just called her up and said,
"Hey, we have a tour coming up.
"Will you come on the tour with us,
and we'll just see how it goes?'"
So I went on tour with the Lunachicks to Europe,
and it was the greatest fuckin' thing ever.
♪ Lookin' at you with your seven toes ♪
♪ Always there when I'm tastin' the woes ♪
♪ Your shit stinks worse than the rest ♪
♪ But my honey, I think you're the best ♪
In England, there was one show
maybe two weeks into the tour
where we're in a dressing room,
and there was, like, a big glass mirror
in the dressing room.
After the gig, the girls are, like,
stripped down naked-- you know, like, fhoosh--
and I'm looking at this mirror,
and it didn't sit right with me.
So I looked in the mirror, and it's like,
"That kind of seems like something's back behind that."
And I went outside the door and I opened the door,
and three guys came running
out of the door behind the wall.
And I went in to the girls.
I'm like, "There's a two-way mirror.
This is a two-way mirror, you guys."
So we realized that they were, like,
watching us change, and we were so pissed.
I just remember seeing the girls
having, like, a look on their face of just being,
you know, like, violated,
and that struck a thing in me.
So all hell broke loose, and Chip was right there,
ready to beat the shit out of these guys.
I took a chair, and I smashed it through the window.
I did one of those things with the rungs of the chair.
I just, like, went...
And I started picking up lights, going, smash!
I believe we were all wearing tutus.
So we surrounded the owner in our tutus.
"There's a two-way fucking mirror, you fucking assholes!"
"What, what? No, no, no."
And Squid's like, "Yeah, there's a two-way mirror!"
They're like, "Well, what do you want us to do?"
And Syd was like,
"You take off your fucking pants!"
And, like, made the guy pull his pants down.
Imagine these demented Barbie dolls
standing over you in tutus and, like, blacked out teeth,
like, "Now you take off your pants!"
We're all like, "Yeah!"
And he did. He took his pants down.
What is he gonna do?
We reported it to some tabloid just to get the word out.
Like, this is so wrong.
But the next day after that, the band came to me
saying, "We want you in the band.
Do you think you could be our drummer?"
And I was like, "Yeah, yeah."
It's like, if that was my initiation, like...
"We want you in the band. Just join the band.
Come on, you're one of us."
So she did.
♪ Walk in front of a car at the mall ♪
♪ Trip and fall in the hall
♪ Smash your head against the wall ♪
♪ You want to die, I can see it in your eyes ♪
♪ Rob a bank, tip the boat, sell yourself ♪
♪ Break the law
♪ I like you better
When Chip joined the band, we became tighter, faster.
We had kind of reached a new level.
It really became the machine that it was meant to be.
We were looking for a label,
and we met with Go Kart,
and they were just starting out.
Greg basically said to us,
"Because I'm new at this and eager,
I'm gonna make everything about you guys."
And he did.
He put all of his time, energy, and money into
getting "Jerk Of All Trades" up and running.
- ♪ She can dance - ♪ She can sing
both: ♪ She can do most anything
♪ She is the jerk, the jerk of all trades ♪
- ♪ She can build - ♪ She can fight
both: ♪ She can bust out your light
♪ She is the jerk, the jerk of all trades ♪
♪ Never, ever
There are songs on "Jerk Of All Trades"
that so summed up that time and feeling and power.
And we were like a gang or an army,
or we were on this mission.
No one ever fucked with us.
And if they did, we always won.
That's it! I got a gun.
Everybody hit the deck, or the nun gets it!
None of them took any shit from anybody in the audience,
which I loved.
I mean, Theo used to, like,
just tell people to fuck off.
And she threw her tampon at somebody once
in the audience that was giving her a hard time.
Like, you know, I just thought,
oh, my God, that's so amazing.
It's so John Waters.
That was such an exciting year.
Things were really happening.
Theo was doing a lot of modeling.
Designers started coming to her, like,
"You're tattooed and you're gorgeous,
and, you know, we want you to represent us."
She had done the Calvin Klein campaign...
Just be.
That got blasted 'cause
they said everybody looked like junkies.
"Be what?" some critics ask.
Be dirty? Ragged?
Made to look like they're strung out, wasted on drugs?
She was on "The Jon Stewart Show."
The lead singer for the Lunachicks.
Everybody welcome Theo.
When I was-- oy, when I was in school--
I'm sorry, "oy"?
Oy vey!
The last thing I expected to hear from you
was, in fact, "oy," I have to say.
I found this gal, the cover of the "Pretty Ugly" album,
Barbie head, that we did burn.
♪ Why must I stand on my toes
♪ Perfect smile and skintight clothes ♪
♪ Cinched waist, no cunt to piss with ♪
♪ A stamp on my ass
I was six or seven.
I got this giant Barbie.
It was super tall.
It was a drag queen.
At that moment, it clicked,
and I was like, I want to be that.
I want to be a giant woman.
And that's what happened.
I was trained by Miss Guy and all these drag queens,
learning how to make myself into that.
♪ Bitterness Barbie, boobs are sagging ♪
I really enjoy being in front of the camera.
I enjoy dressing up.
I enjoyed getting my makeup and hair done.
I don't think the band really liked it.
What they have to do is get me to the airport
from--you know, to New York.
There was some tension. I felt it.
And then back for the gig.
- Guaranteed, right? - They're gonna--
We want a written contract that says that
you'll be back in time for the gig
or we want a thousand dollars for each of us.
- Totally. - Yeah.
If, like, for some reason,
you're plane is delayed and you miss the gig,
we can't, like, afford to not...
- Oh, no. - Just make sure you--
The only thing I would miss is soundcheck.
And then I'd get to the show.
Um, well, that's all your problem.
OK, we'll take a smaller fee for that.
I felt like they didn't want anyone to look too pretty.
And it's like, why can't we be good-looking too?
You know, we're funny, and we're gross,
but it's okay to--to show all sides.
To me.
Because on the other side of me was this person
when I got on stage that was like,
"Fuck you. Nobody can fuck with me.
And if anyone does, I will kill you."
The Lunachicks had a lot of gay fans--
gay boys, gay girls, and everything in between.
Boys dressed up, girls dressed up,
butch girls, femme boys.
It was a super fun mix of people at a Lunachicks show.
By the time of "Jerk of All Trades,"
they were packing out every club they played.
Plus, then they would also be opening
for bigger artists and playing amphitheaters and arenas.
Are you ready to rock, Tokyo?
The album "Jerk of All Trades" was doing really well,
and we were going on bigger tours by then.
♪ Light as a feather, stiff as a board ♪
♪ Stiff as a week in May
♪ I dare you, I dare you
♪ Do it now or you can't play
♪ Jump the bridge, just for kicks ♪
♪ Jump the bridge and pray
♪ I dare you, I dare you, do it and die today ♪
♪ Light as a feather
♪ Stiff as a board, stiff as a board ♪
You know, there's people
that just can't take it on tour.
And the fact that the five of us, like, survived so well,
at least I thought we did.
I thought we, like-- we really thrived together.
Five people and a tour manager and a merch girl.
I saw it all as going very, very, very well.
There was a lot of laughs.
There was a lot of laughing going on.
Welcome to the annual
Plumber Butt Race Up the Hill contest,
and wait, hold on.
Let me get a close-up on those.
Oh, yes, it's contestant number one
right there on the right.
That's Chip.
Contestant number two, Theo,
and contestant number three, Squid.
Well, they all look pretty good, I must say.
This is going to be a tough decision.
Plumbers, set your mark. Go!
Oh, my gosh.
Oh, that was a close race, folks,
a real close race.
I don't know.
I think we might have to have a rematch.
♪ You're a mental case
♪ 'Bout time I smash your face ♪
♪ Got a habit of steppin' out of line ♪
♪ Oh, yeah, well, here comes your time ♪
We would get a lot of young girls
coming up to us and saying,
"Oh, my God, you have really changed my way of thinking,
"of seeing myself in the world
or helping me understand it's okay to be who I am."
When I hear things like that from fans,
it's like, that makes all that suffering
that we did on the side of the road
and sleeping on floors and, you know,
running out of gas, like, worth everything.
♪ Great green globs of greasy, grimy gopher guts ♪
♪ Mutilated monkey meat
♪ Chopped up little birdies' feet ♪
♪ French fried eyeballs rolling down the dirty street ♪
♪ And I forgot my spoon
In the beginning, it was like,
"Oh, my God, we're in a band. This is so fun."
Is this not made for me?
But we're also feminists,
and we're pro-choice,
and these things are being threatened still.
My mother also has been fighting
for her right to choice since the '60s,
and she continues to fight,
and I will continue to fight as long as is necessary.
I found all these shirts, and there's this guy.
Us and Fugazi, Pearl Jam,
and L7, who put the whole thing together.
1992.
And we're still fighting for our choice today.
♪ I can't go on like this
♪ I didn't understand a word you said ♪
We did do a reunion once before.
♪ You didn't mean to not to ♪
♪ But you didn't 'cause you couldn't ♪
♪ But would have if you could have ♪
♪ And you might, but you wouldn't ♪
♪ Say what you mean
In 2004, we played a big pro-choice show
in D.C. with Joan Jett.
♪ Well, today will soon be yesterday ♪
♪ Tomorrow will be today
♪ And I'm waiting every day
Ah!
♪ For you to say what you mean ♪
♪ Mean what you say
♪ Say what you mean, don't say it mean ♪
♪ Say what you, say what you
♪ Say what you, say what you mean ♪
all: Lunachicks!
Lunachicks!
Lunachicks! Lunachicks!
Lunachicks!
Oh, my God.
Holy--Stormy, you are so adorable.
Holy shit.
I have missed you guys so much.
I was so excited when Theo called me.
So tell me how this whole thing came about.
Is there a book that's coming out?
Yeah, we're working on a book.
- Yeah. - Are you guys wanting
to go out and do an actual tour?
Or are you just wanting to kind of do more,
like, fly in, fly out--
Can we do, like, some anonymous show
just very far away, so if we suck,
that nobody really knows?
Um, you know, you can't stop people
from taking cell phones into shows,
so everything gets recorded now.
Good thing you look so good, Kogan.
Ditto, Silver.
You got nothing to hide, girl.
Don't be shy.
When we first started, we were literally
banging on pots and pans in my bedroom of my parents' house,
and it became more serious.
♪ When I look into your big brown eyes ♪
We knew that, because we were women,
people were looking at us to fail.
And although we never took our image seriously,
we took very seriously being taken seriously.
You know, it's like, fuck you.
We can play.
Fuck you. We can play better than you.
We wanted to be kids.
We still wanted to be kids.
We wanted to play better than all the guys
because people really would say,
"Oh, you guys are pretty good for girls."
No, we can't book another female band
this month because we had one playing last month.
No, we can't feature another female band in our magazine
because we did one two weeks ago.
They had filled their quota.
That was given as a reason by these people and with no shame.
There was a rock station in New York.
They flat-out said, "It's too many female bands
for one playlist."
We happened to be playing a show that was
sponsored by that radio station,
and they had a banner in front of the stage,
and Theo was like, "Q104, pure cock rock!"
And she ripped the banner.
And they were like, "We're never gonna play you ever now."
We had the same booking agent, Stormy.
And the Lunachicks were kind of more of
an established band, right?
So Stormy suggested that we could open up for 'em
on their tour, and we were thrilled.
We're watching 'em play, going,
Jesus, these guys are like-- they're a big band.
We got our work cut out for us,
trying to keep up with them.
And then "Smash" came out.
♪ La, la, la, la, la
And now we needed someone to open up for us.
The Offspring had opened for us.
Then, boom, they're millionaires,
and we're opening for them at arenas.
The whole music industry changed,
and all of a sudden, punk rock became mainstream.
And people were making money-- and, like, a lot of money.
And you would hear about some person that got signed,
and then they were in a bus the next day.
And we were like, we've been sitting in a van for 12 years.
Isn't it lovely?
Lovely mobile home to call our own.
We finally got an RV.
And then, like, when we get these little breaks...
After, what is it-- nine, ten years of touring?
Like an RV for the first time,
and then someone would be like, "Yeah, you fucking sell-out!"
Like, are you kidding me?
- What's going on? - We're going to the home
of the Lunachicks on tour.
Hello, Lunachicks.
We're here from "Lifestyles of the Poor and--"
No!
The roots of what you want are always
punk rock and start from nothing.
I mean, that's all really fun.
But as you become older, and you see other people
with a whole team of management and publicity
and money being put into your art
that makes it more accessible for people,
there was always that feeling like,
if we could get that little break,
that we could reach more people and sell more records.
You know, they were all phenomenal musicians.
I remember Gina teaching me how to play guitar
in the back of the bus one time.
Seriously, like teaching me guitar riffs that,
you know, I didn't know how to play.
It was a very male-dominated world.
And that's part of why
I really enjoyed bringing them on tour,
'cause, like, you don't see this every day.
This is really cool and different and unique.
You know, they didn't get their due, for sure.
The other bands, they all shared with us,
and they treated us well,
so I didn't begrudge any of them their success.
But there was no fathomable reason
why we weren't also participating in that.
We had paid all the dues.
All the dues had been paid with interest.
And it just didn't make any sense.
♪ You'll never be good enough ♪
♪ Whoa, whoa
♪ You got less teeth and more tits ♪
We were living the life of being in a band,
and, I mean, that was everybody's focus.
There was no, like, going back to law school
when this is done.
Like, this is all we were doing.
I never went to college.
I mean, it's not like we had eggs in other baskets.
That was gonna be our lives.
Never get poop on your creepers.
We were always scrambling for money.
I bartended.
I bussed tables.
I started go-go dancing in gay and mixed clubs
and babysitting too.
I started tattooing.
I tattooed for 14 years.
I tell you, man, those Lunachicks,
those are just, like, the most beautiful creatures
God has ever graced this planet with, man,
especially Squid, the bass player.
If I had to fall in love again,
that's who I would be in love with, I'll tell you what, man.
Back then, the legends in your life are
your New York characters from the '70s.
And they had, all of them, become heroin addicts.
So by the time we're teenagers,
it was like, anything but heroin.
♪ I'm falling
Except for those of us who just couldn't resist.
♪ I'm falling and there's no one to catch me ♪
I was using, more and more, in secret.
It was a secret until I couldn't keep it
a secret anymore.
I remember busting Syd being high at rehearsals
and being like, you know, "I know you're high.
You better not do it again."
She'd be like, "No, no, I won't do it again.
I promise."
I had no idea what that was-- what it was about
and how deep it was
and how much of a monster it is,
that addiction and that drug.
♪ All you got, you're throwing it away ♪
It was so painful, being so helpless--
wanting to make her stop, not being able to,
being afraid she's gonna die.
♪ Even if I loved you more, turn it into disdain ♪
♪ Even if the sun is shining, it's pouring acid rain ♪
♪ Can't hold on for one more day ♪
Me and Sindi had a hard falling out.
We stopped being friends for a long time.
It was hard, 'cause, like, Sindi was my sister.
I had personal experience that nobody else had
of losing people close to me to drugs.
And, you know, I adored her.
And I saw that I was losing her,
that we were losing her.
So most of my anger came from sadness.
When we recorded "Pretty Ugly,"
Sindi recorded her parts and then split.
She wasn't there much.
I was very close to Sindi,
but I think she had a different agenda.
Being on tour was very different in the early days
than in the later days.
Bad mood.
People started to get a little bit more
snippy with each other.
I found that I was distancing myself
from the rest of the band more.
And there was this divide of
what they thought was important
and what I thought was important.
I didn't care as much about succeeding,
about making it.
I was still in it to have fun.
We wanted to be better than we were the year before.
That was really important to all of us--most of us.
But I don't think it was as important to Sindi.
We started writing more complex riffs
and faster rhythms, and she couldn't keep up.
And it was a problem.
♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪
♪ Oh, yeah
They wanted me to tighten up my musical act,
and I didn't want to.
To me, it felt like they were looking for a reason
that the success wasn't coming.
And at some point, the finger was pointed at me.
I, fair enough, could be sloppy on stage.
I did not spend my free time noodling on the guitar,
because I thought I was in a punk rock band.
So we said, either you put the effort in,
or you leave the band, and it's your choice.
I think she felt betrayed that we would give her an ultimatum,
because it was her band too.
It was heartbreaking.
I cared about them all so much.
If I had believed I was holding us back,
I would have done whatever it took.
I just didn't believe there was a need for it.
Sindi from the Lunachicks.
I knew I was a great stage presence.
I knew it wasn't me.
But if they were gonna insinuate that it was me,
any joy that was left then was stabbed in the heart.
So we all agreed to part ways.
It wasn't super amicable,
but they are really important to me.
They always were important to me.
Those girls are my lifelong sisters.
So you guys are on the Iggy Pop tribute album.
all: Yes.
There was a recording that we did
of "The Passenger," the Iggy Pop song.
I just couldn't get there.
Like, I just--I was, like,
shooting coke or something crazy.
Every 15 minutes, I had to, like, fix.
I kept getting dressed and trying to leave the house.
And then I'd just be back on the couch
with a needle in my arm.
I never got to the studio.
I couldn't do it.
I think, in her mind, going on tour,
"I'm gonna kick it.
I'm gonna leave New York and stop."
She was drug sick
for the whole time we were in Japan.
And it's like, Squid-- like, we were in Japan.
We were in Japan, and you didn't even know it.
She had her awesome vintage car,
her '64 Chevy Nova.
This one night, she was in a bad way,
and she's doing some kind of heroin-speed combo or--
I don't know what she was doing.
She was picky, skinny, nervous.
It was bad.
I'm sitting in the front with her,
and we're going to get on the Brooklyn Bridge.
There was, like, one of those concrete dividers.
She nodded out, hit the divider,
and the whole car bounced into the lane of--
would have been oncoming traffic.
If there had been traffic,
if there had been any other cars,
we would be probably dead.
But somehow, it wasn't our time.
I called Syd's dad.
"Things are bad.
We have to save her."
We called an intervention.
It was a small group of us-- the band, Howie,
her sister, and her mom and her dad.
And you have to tell the person,
"We're out if you can't get your shit together."
I didn't know at that time
if she was gonna walk out of the room,
and I would never see her again.
I was so ready to go.
I was just like, get me the fuck out of here.
Like, I can't help myself.
I didn't want to lose everything.
I mean, I never cared about anything
as much as I cared about the band.
It was everything.
So they pulled me out.
They dropped me into rehab.
And I stayed clean after that,
and I've been clean ever since.
Um, ay-yi-yi-yi-yi.
Oh, this is where--
something about this one.
Which one?
- This one. - The deli?
- This one. - This building?
Something like methadone clinic, something not cool?
Well, that's your department.
- Something dark. - Something dark.
Something dark.
Something dark and ouchy.
- Oh, my God! - Oh, my God!
Is that for me?
And it's got sprinkles!
Oh, my God, I just want to hug you again.
I am so hungry.
Oh, thank God.
both: Oh!
Hey!
There's something in the air right now, in this place.
You know what I mean?
Like, you know, seeing everybody, and...
there's been a lot of talk.
You know, I'm feeling a real buzz.
Squid.
Really loud, like 11, right?
♪ And if I don't pick up the phone ♪
Ha!
"Luxury Problem," I felt like that was
a really powerful album as musicians and songwriting.
We had grown a lot.
We were finely tuned.
We played our instruments a thousand times better
than we had when we began.
♪ I can't see addicts anymore ♪
That album, "Luxury Problem," is fantastic.
I told my band, you know, we ought to get those guys
and bring them on tour with us
so we could spread the joy.
Spread the filth.
To go out with two bands
like the Go-Go's and the Lunachicks together,
I mean, that's a marriage made in heaven.
We had so much fun with them on tour.
It was like just a gang of girls hanging out,
getting into trouble.
We all understood each other.
We--we got the humor.
Lunachicks!
And they really cared about keeping humor
in everything that they did.
But let's face it, I don't know if America
was completely ready for them.
You know, back then, if you're a girl band going out,
it was certainly gonna be a tougher audience.
At some shows, there were knuckle-dragging idiots
chanting, "Show us your tits."
It's fucked, you know?
And so we saw 'em have to deal with that.
Every show, there's some dick in the audience,
"Show us your tits."
Like, it's just a given.
That happens every show.
But these were arenas, and hundreds,
if not thousands of guys, started chanting,
"Show us your tits!"
It's hard enough to be out there doing it,
and then to have that on top of it,
it was very hard on your psyche.
The traditionally male-dominated Warped Tour
has added five bands
with female members to this year's lineup.
♪ You think that you are hot stuff ♪
♪ Think that you're pretty cool ♪
On the Warped Tour,
Blink 182 was one of the headliners.
They just thought, "Oh, this is a funny joke.
Like, which girl are we gonna get pregnant tonight?"
And it was constant.
"Suck our [bleep]. Show us your tits.
We want more, you know, [bleep]."
And so, eventually,
Theo started giving them shit on stage.
We're like, you know what? That's not funny. [bleep] you.
The Lunachicks didn't like our boob comments.
They didn't like our band.
The Lunachicks did not like our band.
This song is for all the girls.
And it's called "Knuckle Sandwich,"
'cause don't take fuckin' shit from anybody.
♪ Don't want to hear it, don't want to hear it ♪
♪ Don't want to hear it, no, no, no, no ♪
We had a real heavy guy-band thing going on.
And being gay, I wasn't enamored
by all the guys and all the crew.
You know, it's nothing but guys,
guys, guys, guys, guys.
And the girls addressed me and said,
"We want to make sure that you're cool.
You seem to be, like, annoyed with the boy bands."
And I was like, "No, man, I'm cool."
You know, I was in the band for life.
You know, I was--I was a lifer.
But then there was a question brought up
at the end of our last album.
It's like, "Oh, we want to adjust
the songwriting credits."
Oh, really?
Put your mask on.
Chip.
We were very "all for one and one for all."
So when we first started recording, you know,
all of the rights to everything
were shared equally.
It was a joke.
I mean, 3/4 of what?
Nothing.
A song about my dead hamster?
As we grew up, we began to write separately
rather than building music together as a group.
I had said I would like some kind of acknowledgment
or some extra credit for some of the things that I've done.
Basically, I was asking for
a higher percentage of writers' share.
All right.
Well, that puts me at the worst level.
So now you're gonna make me
the least paid person in the band?
You know, being the drummer, I--I don't write songs.
But if I play behind a guitarist,
I can influence what they're doing.
Like, you're coming in with A-A-A, B-B-B,
and I'm going, hey, let's stop here,
and I'm gonna do a fill, and now let's double time it.
And I would always write the intros,
the bridges, the outros.
I guess I stoked a fire
that I didn't even realize existed,
but I hit a nerve, and the whole thing
kind of just blew up.
Chip stood up, maybe overturned a table,
called me every name in the book,
stormed out of the room.
Yeah, we are crackers.
Chip was, to me, my partner in crime.
I could always count on Chip to go out after the show
and get into trouble-- like, go see the town,
stay up all night.
Chip was like...
She was like your older brother.
But at that moment, we didn't see
how we could go on tour with each other.
It was maybe just a ridiculous moment.
I loved my time in the band.
I would not hesitate to play with the girls.
Oh, no, no, no.
I have dreams.
This is the unfinished love affair.
♪ Isn't it hard when you're spoiled rotten ♪
♪ Got another luxury problem
♪ Problem
Whoo!
♪ Got a roof over my head
♪ Got a tub and a bed
♪ Yet my life is on the brink
♪ Yeah, my life, it fucking stinks ♪
We were all so proud of the last album we just made.
We were touring with the Buzzcocks.
We spent a month in Australia.
Like, we were having a great time.
But I also started to feel like
I'd rather quit while we were ahead.
Summer of 2000, Helen was drumming on that tour.
Theo, Syd, and I were talking about our future.
The question came up, you know, well,
how much longer are we gonna do this?
And I said, "I think I'm ready to go."
And Theo, surprisingly, said, "Yeah, me too.
I feel exactly the same."
And Syd was like, "Wait,
what are you guys talking about?"
I never thought it would really end.
It totally fucked me up.
It was the first time in my whole life--
'cause we started so young--
that I was, like, without that.
I was like, what the fuck am I supposed to do now?
We made this thing.
And there were other bands that make more money.
There are bands that sell more records.
But nobody could be us.
We were the best version of us.
That sounds so stupid saying it.
But it was, like, this feeling like we couldn't be outdone
because we were just being who we were,
and that felt perfect.
And I think I have always wanted to feel that again.
Hi, everybody.
Tonight we're going to be celebrating the Lunachicks catalog.
Feel free to sing along.
It wasn't that long after we broke up,
I found out I was really sick.
I had cancer,
and I needed emergency surgery.
I went into the hospital,
and Gina and Theo were there with me.
And I, like, had this moment where I just--
you know, who fucking cares how many records you sold?
I've had, like, this fantastic life
that money can't buy, you know,
the kind of things that we did
and the times that we had together.
The fact that they were there with me was--
like, I got--I got, that, like, we--we won.
- Oh, my God. - Oh.
Attack of the 50-foot woman!
Oh, my God, Gina!
Oh, that's some perspective, isn't it?
It's a little too much perspective.
A little too much perspective.
I came to LA in 1997.
I have no history of drug use here,
so it was like a clean slate.
I'm coming up on 20 years of recovery off of heroin,
off of alcohol, off of pills.
Yes, my dear.
It was really important to me
to just not hide from who I am.
Hey, everybody, you're here with Becky Wreck today.
Guess what we're making.
Carne motherfucking asada!
Yeah!
I'm a private chef now.
You know, I've always felt the anti-queer vibe
from people, but now I feel the ageism.
I mean, I never used face cream.
I never used earplugs.
I mean, all the things I never did,
they take--it shows, you know,
but I mean, whatever.
What do I care?
My history of my life is on my face.
I'm still here, and I'm still rocking.
I've got a house in the country,
in Pennsylvania,
and I maintain a 3-acre property.
I have a job, a loving wife,
and I got my drums in the barn.
Well, you see the beard.
I grew up in a time
when you really didn't come out like that.
Now kids are coming out as trans.
You know, it's like, for me,
it's like I had to wait my whole life.
You know, people have always told me, "Chip, you're a dude.
You're a dude."
So now I'm enjoying this, you know?
I gotta tell you, the testosterone thing
is pretty fucking cool.
I work as a makeup artist now
in the fashion industry.
Being a woman who's aging, it's not easy.
And then coming from that industry,
I think it makes it even worse.
I feel more and more comfortable about it
every day, but still,
I'm working on so much to feel good.
Do you have any red lipsticks?
Of course.
And I also want to tell other women that it's OK
and tell my daughter that it's OK.
You don't have to be a Barbie doll.
It's so hard with everything that we're fed,
still, to really believe that.
My single came out,
and I am preparing for the music video.
I have two dancers, um,
and I am making these masks for them to wear.
The hardest part about being an artist or a musician
is having to sell your personal self.
I don't have the personality.
It's not who I am.
This is who I am, you know, what I make.
Would you be scared if you saw this?
♪ Break the rules
Only 1% out of all the billions
of incredibly talented artists out there
probably make a living doing art.
So I do resent the struggle of always being broke
and always trying to figure out, what am I doing?
This is crazy--I'm too old
to be piecemealing my life together,
and I should have a real job.
But that's just not me.
I've never stopped creating.
For me, if I stopped, I would probably die.
It's the last day of business of my restaurant
that I opened in 2005.
This was my career after my music career.
Our lease expired, and our neighborhood is
turning a little corporate corner.
So this will be, like, a BMW showroom or something.
I feel a lot of things.
This whole identity just is dissolving
around me, you know?
I kind of feel like it's me again.
all: Sydney! Sydney!
I really feel artistic again.
I feel creative again.
It's, like, rushing at me,
like these football players, like, charging,
you know, on some play.
I don't know anything about football.
Oof.
Oh, my God, you can see the dust flying.
Hello, WFMU listeners.
This is the "Rock and Roller Derby" show.
I am Suzy Hotrod, your host.
♪ Za-za-za-za
I think I'm gonna stick with my promise
that every week until the Lunachicks reunion shows
in November, I'm gonna play a Lunachicks song,
because I love that band so much.
It took us a few years to get it together.
♪ Bad, bad man
♪ Bad, bad man, bad, bad man
And then, of course, we got shut down by the pandemic.
But we're finally ready to play.
Hello, Cleveland.
Check, check, check, check, check.
♪ Ooh, yeah
Michael!
- Hi, how are you? - Hi.
Hi, hi, hi.
Wow.
Wow, you're, uh-- you guys are old.
Good, good.
Yes, we have arrived,
32 years later.
How are those knees holding up?
- Not. - No?
OK, let's get up. Sorry.
We continued working on the book.
Book is done.
The title of the book is "Fallopian Rhapsody."
It's named after their song.
Finally, it's actually here.
You guys, we have a book.
It's so crazy!
♪ Shake, shake, shake
We're ending there.
I'm so psyched to get on stage with my best friends,
who are so kickass and remarkable.
And I couldn't be more proud to be on stage,
kicking it and playing rock 'n' roll,
because, come on,
it's the funnest thing in the world.
OK?
Years in the making.
Yeah!
We made it.
It's the Grog Shop.
- Grog show! - The Grog Shop.
Love you.
Ready?
We're gonna go in there and fucking kill it.
♪ You're a
♪ Mental case, 'bout time I smash your face ♪
♪ Got a habit of stepping out of line ♪
♪ Oh, yeah, well, here comes your time ♪
♪ You're a damn disgrace, an insult to the human race ♪
♪ Try and make me feel bad all the time ♪
♪ Good thing you're not my sign ♪
♪ Oh, can't have me
♪ Can't have me
♪ You always want what you can't have ♪
♪ And, baby, you can't have me ♪
♪ You're
Getting to play together for the first time,
talk a little bit about what that was like
to be together again on the stage.
♪ A bleeding heart
♪ Not even worth a fart
♪ Got the worst halitosis that I've smelled ♪
♪ You can just go to hell
It's like another world.
Like, instead of we had something to prove,
it's like people wanted to like us.
It was a completely different
fucking universe out there.
A world where everybody wants you to win.
♪ You can't have me
♪ Can't have me, can't have me ♪
♪ Always want what you can't have ♪
♪ Can't have me, can't have me ♪
♪ Can't have me, me, me, me
♪ Me
We have a special surprise for you tonight.
It's our old friend, Sindi B!
♪ Well, I am Jan Brady
♪ And you must believe that
♪ Or forever perish in your doubt ♪
Being back on stage with the Chicks felt like home.
It's natural, like magnets that pull us together.
I've been living in Germany for 15 years,
not playing in a band, but doing other stuff,
like having a family
and stuff that is very un-rock 'n' roll.
But I'm still rock 'n' roll.
♪ What a trip
♪ There I am
These lifelong friends who are my chosen family,
being together on stage,
there is nothing like it.
It's a once-in-a-lifetime thing
that has lasted a lifetime.
♪ Miss Demeanor on the stage ♪
♪ Miss Hap, oh, I implore you
♪ It's no mystery, I don't want to know you ♪
♪ Miss America, I can't ignore you ♪
♪ Can't wipe out all our progress ♪
♪ With a little cotton ball
♪ Slice and dice your face to perfection ♪
♪ Slip up a word and down you fall ♪
♪ Teeth are capped, lipo-sucked ♪
♪ Hair is set and nose is contoured ♪
♪ Tummy tucked and boobs are lifted ♪
♪ Uncross your legs, your pantyhose shifted ♪
♪ Am I smiling enough
♪ Am I smiling too much
♪ Am I tucked in and buckled
♪ Do my tits touch
♪ Hi, how are you
♪ How high are you
♪ Let's get started, it's never enough ♪
♪ You put the extra in ordinary ♪
♪ You add the minus to the plus size ♪
♪ You put the blues into my brown eyes ♪
♪ You put the turd into Saturday ♪
♪ Can't wipe out all our progress ♪
♪ With a little cotton ball
♪ Slice and dice your ass to perfection ♪
♪ Slip up a word and down you fall ♪
♪ Am I smiling enough
♪ Am I smiling too much
♪ Am I tucked in and buckled
♪ Do my tits touch
♪ Hi, how are you
♪ How high are you
♪ Less teeth and more tits, it's never enough ♪
♪ Never be good enough
♪ You got less teeth and more tits ♪
♪ What a bunch of hypocrites trying to change the world ♪
♪ Oh, oh, oh
♪ Bonded tooth smiles, traveled so many miles ♪
♪ What you gonna do now
♪ Oh, oh, oh
♪ Hey, yo
♪ Something different and meaningful ♪
♪ Makes that smile not seem no evil ♪
♪ When that crown falls off your head ♪
♪ Will you still feel better off dead ♪
♪ Yeah
♪ I wanna see something else
♪ Why don't you show me something else ♪
♪ I want so much to see something else ♪
♪ Why don't you show me something else ♪
♪ Hey, hey
♪ Hey, yeah
Oh, my goodness.
Something, something there.
Something, something. Help.
♪ Ugliness is only skin deep ♪
♪ And I know the beauty is a beast ♪
♪ Ugliness is only skin deep
♪ And I know the beauty is a beast ♪
both: ♪ Beauty is a beast, beauty is a beast ♪
♪ Beauty is a beast, beauty is a beast ♪
Guitar solo, bridge, something.
I don't know.
Maybe do that thing from the beginning.
- That's this. - Oh.
I can do that, something off of the--
and then just...
♪ Pretty ugly
both: ♪ Pretty ugly
- ♪ It's a thin line - ♪ Pretty ugly
- ♪ Want you all the time - ♪ Pretty ugly
- ♪ Face I love to hate - ♪ Pretty ugly
- ♪ Try to stare - ♪ Pretty ugly
- ♪ And I don't care - ♪ Pretty ugly
- ♪ It's a thin line - ♪ Pretty ugly
- ♪ In your own mind - ♪ Pretty ugly
♪ You one ugly son of a bitch ♪
♪ Pretty ugly
- ♪ Butt ugly - ♪ Pretty ugly
- ♪ But I want to kiss you - ♪ Pretty ugly
- ♪ On your ugly lips - ♪ Pretty ugly
♪ You ugly son of a bitch
♪ You one ugly mo-- ugly motherfucker ♪