The Lydian Spin

Photo By: Jason Quigley Award-winning filmmaker and photographer Alicia J. Rose has directed over three dozen music videos for artists like First Aid Kit, Cake, and Bob Mould, while visually branding bands like The Decemberists. Her unique visual style, grounded humor, and witty storytelling deliver deeply resonant, authentic narratives. Her acclaimed web series The Benefits of Gusbandry and award-winning debut feature A Kaddish For Bernie Madoff are widely available. She is currently helming the episodic Girls in Trouble: The Series and the film/podcast Menopunks. Rose is also a lifelong musician, former college radio DJ, rock promoter, and indie music industry leader.

The veteran punk journalist and resident Austin chronicler Tim Stegall returns with a new book in tow. Anarchy in the Studio: Punk Music 1970-1979 (Ruffian Books) is a, five-hundred-page love letter to the genre's formative decade, told twelve inches at a time. Tim, who has been documenting punk and the underground since 1985, moves beyond the usual CBGB and Sex Pistols myth making to map the sweeping, messy cross-pollination of the era through more than a hundred and forty essential records. Lydia aptly notes that Tim is both a "master archivist" and a "fanboy fanatic".

Karen Fiorito returns to The Lydian Spin. On this episode, Lydia and Tim talk with her about The Urgency of Now: ¡No Pasarán!, a new multi-disciplinary political art exhibition and "Get Out The Vote" activation. Curated by Karen, Dale Youngman, and Isa Gordon, the project is a direct response to the current political climate, with the United States at the center of conflict and upheaval around the world—from Venezuela, Cuba, Canada, and the Russia/Ukraine war, to Trump's unnecessary war with Iran. The exhibition bridges historic movements of civil resistance with today's landscape, featuring local and international artists including Lydia Lunch, Dread Scott, Kim Abeles, Sue Coe, Guillermo Bert, Andre Miripolsky, Rick Robinson, Man One, and Karen will be exhibiting as well. Exhibition Details: The Urgency of Now October 1 – 31 Gloria Delson Contemporary Art (GDCA) 727 South Spring Street, Los Angeles

Filmmaker Todd Stephens is best known for his semi-autobiographical "Ohio Trilogy" — Edge of Seventeen (1998), Gypsy 83 (2001) and Swan Song (2021) — all set in his home town of Sandusky. Gypsy 83, his directorial debut, follows two small-town goth outsiders who leave Ohio for New York, chasing Gypsy's dream of performing at Night of a Thousand Stevies, the long-running celebration of Stevie Nicks. Twenty-five years on, Stephens has re-edited the film from frame one and restored it in 4K from the original 35mm negative, adding over forty minutes of unseen footage and an expanded soundtrack featuring The Cure, Cocteau Twins, Echo and the Bunnymen, Ministry and Clan of Xymox. It stars Sara Rue, Karen Black, John Doe and Birkett "Kett" Turton, whose performance as Clive won the Grand Jury Award for Outstanding Actor at Outfest. Turton made his debut in Rollercoaster (1999), later trained at RADA, and has since appeared in Blade: Trinity, Saved!, Dead Last, Kingdom Hospital, iZombie, The Flash and Keeper. 

    Photo: Sabrina Santiago Early in his career, photographer and current New York Times photo editor Jeffrey Henson Scales documented the Black Panther Party in the late 1960s. These photographs were compiled in his 2022 monograph In a Time of Panthers: Early Photographs. During the 1970s, he worked in the music industry as a tour manager, production director, and equipment manager for acts including Minnie Riperton, Cher and Frank Zappa. He also shot album covers, film posters, and promotional photography for groups such as Michael Jackson, The Bangles, and Arrested Development. Jeffrey's photo work was featured in the National Gallery of Art's 2025 exhibition Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955–1985. His photographs are held in the permanent collections of both the Museum of Modern Art and the National Gallery of Art.

In 1991, Larry Hardy founded the enduring Los Angeles-based label In the Red Records. Guided by Larry's personal taste for raw, "atonal garage music" and sonic extremes, the small operation has cultivated a catalog of over 300 titles, championing underground acts like Ty Segall, the Black Lips, and Jay Reatard. On August 21st, In the Red Records—in partnership with the newly revived Vengeance Records—will release Gravest Gravy by The Cramps. This previously unreleased 12-track album is sourced from the band's October 1977 sessions at Ardent Studios in Memphis, produced by Big Star's Alex Chilton. While those sessions produced early classics like Surfin' Bird and Human Fly, an entire album's worth of material had been shelved and lost to time. Larry recently discovered the original quarter-inch reels in the vault of Cramps guitarist Poison Ivy. Now, with preservation and restoration help from Henry Rollins and Ian MacKaye, these legendary tracks are finally getting their first official release.

It's been a busy summer for Lydia and Tim. Stay tuned for more guests joining in the coming weeks, but for now, we're catching you up on everything in this brand-new "minisode"—recorded all the way from Lydia's bed in Brooklyn and from Tim's tour in Japan.

During their June 2026 tour across New Zealand and Australia, Lydia turns the mic on her touring  partner, Andrew Coates of Melbourne's Black Cab. Together, the duo brought a , live reimagining of Suicide and Alan Vega to stops in Wellington, Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide, and Perth. The run commemorated the tenth anniversary of Vega's passing, channeling the energy of the 1970s NYC underground where Lydia's bond with Vega and Martin Rev began.

Reg Bloor is a guitarist, instrument builder, and founder of the Systems Neutralizers record label. For 18-years she collaborated with composer Glenn Branca, serving as a guitarist, concertmaster, and manager on international tours and multiple albums. On June 12, 2026, she will conduct Branca's Symphony No. 13 at Lincoln Center, and she is currently preparing the release of his Symphony No. 4. Independently, Reg has released four solo guitar albums, co-founded the bands The Paranoid Critical Revolution  and Twitcher, and contributed to several film soundtracks.

Robert "Bobby" Swope belonged to a talented cadre of avant-garde visionaries—among them Arto Lindsay, Connie Burg, Mark Cunningham, and Gordon Stevenson—who first crossed paths as students at Florida's Eckerd College in the mid-1970s. This collective moved to New York City in 1977,  where they formed the nucleus of the No Wave movement alongside other luminaries like Lydia. Bobby first met Lydia at her birthday celebration in 1978, where she was introduced to both Bobby and his sister, Liz. Captivated by their energy, Lydia invited the siblings to join Vivienne Dick and Jim Sclavunos in Beirut Slump, a side project conceived to run parallel to her band, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. Bobby adopted the stage moniker Bobby Berkowitz, a satirical nod to David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam who had terrorized New York City from 1976 - 1977. Beirut Slump's tenure was brief—spanning a year of rehearsals, a single release, and three live performances—the group eventually dissolved as Lydia moved on to new frontiers. Following his foray into the musical underground, Bobby pursued a variety of professions before co-founding a successful antiques enterprise with his partner. The business eventually relocated to Pennsylvania, ultimately paving the way for Bobby's current chapter in Mexico City where this interview took place.