Lydia Lunch, Joseph Keckler, and Kevin Shea

THE ECSTASY OF OBLIVION combines the dynamic spoken word and musical histrionics of Lydia Lunch and Joseph Keckler, two of New York’s most notorious performers, coming together to create an intimate evening of provocative musical poetry. Drummer extraordinaire, Kevin Shea sets the mood with a devilishly seductive backbeat.

Lydia Lunch is passionate, confrontational and bold. Whether attacking the patriarchy and their pornographic war mongering, turning the sexual into the political or whispering a love song to the broken hearted, her fierce energy and rapid fire delivery lend testament to her warrior nature.

Queen of No Wave, muse of The Cinema of Transgression, writer, musician, poet, spoken word artist and photographer, she has released too many musical projects to tally, has been on tour for decades, has published dozens of articles, half a dozen books and simply refuses to just shut up. She performs in a variety of mediums, is a rabid collaborator and continues to release new music as well as re-issuing classic material from her vast catalogue of written and musical works.

Since 2019 she has been hosting The Lydian Spin a weekly podcast that featured Joseph on episode 84, as well as dozens of musicians, artists, writers and filmmakers in conversation.

Her decades long career is the subject of The War is Never Over, a feature length documentary by Beth B –which is presently touring the UK, Europe and the USA throughout 2021 and into the spring of 2022.

Joseph Keckler is a singular artist known for his stirring voice, vivid prose, and performances that ‘dance between comedy, commentary and communion, his output includes songs, films, essays and epic operatic monologues that court both the sublime and the ridiculous. Hailed a “major talent” by The New York Times, Joseph performs widely and has been featured by NPR Tiny Desk Concerts, Lincoln Center, Centre Pompidou, Adult Swim, Opera Philadelphia, among others. In 2019 he premiered Train With No Midnight, a dreamlike travelogue and Let Me Die, an amalgamation of death scenes, and toured the United States as the national support act for rock band Sleater-Kinney. His humor and art writing has appeared in McSweeney’s, Lithub, and Vice and his first essay/story collection Dragon at the Edge of a Flat World was published by Turtle Point Press in 2018. This year he is an artist in residence at The Ringling Museum of Art and Dartmouth College and is working on new music and videos.

KEVIN SHEA started his training in elementary school and continued steadily through his college years at Berklee College of Music and subsequent graduation from New School. The global community first took notice of Shea back in the mid ’90’s with cult avant trio Storm & Stress on Touch and Go Records. Since then he has maintained a relentlessly prolific presence internationally with countless projects in the Rock, Avant-Garde and Jazz genres — including work with God Is My Co-Pilot, Mostly Other People Do The Killing, Great Lakes, Rhys Chatham, Talibam!, David Taylor, and most recently Lydia Lunch’s RETROVIRUS. Village Voice named him 2012’s Best Drummer in NYC. In 2021, Shea moved to Germany after receiving Moers Festival’s 14th annual Improvisor In Residence scholarship. He now resides in Brooklyn.