Recording info: Recorded live in London @ The Venue on 26-Nov-81. Mixed by Tony Cohen @ AAV Studio II in Melbourne in Jan-82.
Note: Split release. One side by The Birthday Party, other side by Lydia Lunch. All but "Loose" also released on "Live 1981-82" album.

Features both new tracks & classic from Sonic Youth, Lydia Lunch, Clint Ruin (a.k.a. Foetus), Thurston Moore & Lee Renaldo of Sonic Youth, Lucy Hamilton and more! Includes: 8 Eyed Spy 'Do Wah Diddy', Sonic Youth 'Death Valley '69', Clint Ruin 'Why Don't We Do It In The Road', Lee Renaldo 'NoExcuse', Thurston Moore 'Still Burning' and Teenage Jesus & The Jerks 'Orphans'. 23 tracks total. Double slimline jewel case. 1998 New Millennium Communications release.

Flavored in her hard-boiled, post-mod Raymond Chandler style, but running an eclectic gamut with help from the Anubian Lights production team in channeling beats, diseased invectives, word projectiles, and twisted cabaret noir. "Smoke" delivers serious night music and features performances and contributions by Nels and Alex Cline, Carla Bozulich, Vinny Golia, Terry Edwards, and NYC avatar Adele Bertei. Presented in a deluxe 4-color 24-page booklet, and utterly perfect for the 3 a.m. social extension of your choice, or perhaps a soundtrack for the skeletons in your closet.

"Recorded Live At The Knitting Factory, Brooklyn, NY on November 15, 2012"
In November 2012, Lydia Lunch toured select cities across North America with a monstrous unit dubbed RETROVIRUS, featuring guitarist Weasel Walter (The Flying Luttenbachers, etc.), bassist Algis Kizys (Swans, Foetus) and drummer Bob Bert (Sonic Youth, Pussy Galore, Chrome Cranks). The set consisted of a quasi-chronological display of musical raw power, ranging from material by Lydia’s classic units Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, 13.13, 8-Eyed Spy and Shotgun Wedding as well as touching on her solo debut “Queen of Siam” (ZE Records, 1980) and various other projects up to the present. The reception to these hour-long sets of bloodyminded sonic bullying was uniformly rapturous. To quote V. Vale, of RE-Search infamy: “That was the most intense show I’ve seen you do, Lydia.” Intense it was, and the smoldering intensity of that tour is trapped on this ripping new release.
As one will hear on this compact disc, RETROVIRUS is a well-oiled monolith of a unit: Scathing guitar shrapnel strafing ominously massive bass slabs, hurled forward by pulverizing drum thunder and topped by Lydia’s signature perma-scowl vocals. This is no county fair cover-band - RETROVIRUS is a totally modern take on the atrocities of the past and present, devoid of simpering nostalgia, bristling with a scoriatingly modern sheen of violence and momentum. Now is the time for people to get INFECTED.