Honeymoon in Red

Honeymoon in Red
Studio album by Lydia Lunch
Released	1987
Recorded	June 1982 (1982-06)–July 1982 (1982-07) at Game Studio in Berlin-Kreuzberg August 1982 at Cold Storage Studios in London
Genre	No Wave
Length	37:11
Label	Widowspeak
Producer	J.G. Thirlwell
Lydia Lunch chronology
Hysterie (1986)Hysterie1986 Honeymoon in Red (1987) Stinkfist (1987)Stinkfist1987

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic

Honeymoon In Red is a concept album released in 1987 as a Lydia Lunch album. Honeymoon In Red is sometimes referred to as a band or alternately as a collaboration between Lydia Lunch and The Birthday Party.

Album cover

The album's graphic design resembled a lurid 1950s Saul Bass movie poster, with cockfighting motifs. The liner notes from Lunch titled "THE TERRORTORY", comments on commercial and religious puritanical attitudes. It included an Annie Sprinkle (Post-Porn Modernist) photograph of Lydia Lunch's body superimposed onto a rural roadmap, also a photograph by a Chris Stein of Lunch wearing a suicide-blonde wig and heavy make up, holding up a large pistol.

Fallout and release

Mick Harvey has stated that the project was originally conceived as a new band; a collaboration between Lunch, Genevieve McGuckin and Rowland S. Howard. After the initial recording sessions in Berlin in June 1982, the tapes languished without a release. In 1987 Lunch readied the tapes for release on her own Widowspeak label, with added contributions by Thirlwell and Moore. Lunch had already fallen out with Cave and Harvey, and they insisted that their names not appear on the release, as they had no hand in the remix and overdubbing. Lunch subsequently used pseudonyms for Cave and Harvey (including "A drunk cowboy junkie" and "Dick Strum", respectively) and obliquely criticized them in her liner notes as "tight asses" and "Sheep in wolf's clothing".

A 12" Single of "Done Dun" (a Cave/Lunch duet) was released on side B of the Lydia Lunch/Thurston Moore/Clint Ruin single "The Crumb", and referred to The Honeymoon In Red Orchestra.

Music

It was musically eclectic, combining elements of Burlesque, No Wave, sixties pop singer Jacques Brel, American Underground, the use of a "varispeed" for atmospherics, a song by country pop songwriter Lee Hazlewood, dissonant piano and guitar and muscular bass guitar and the darkly charismatic personas of Nick Cave and Lydia Lunch.

The album generally resembles the angular pop of The Birthday Party's Prayers On Fire, although the song "Dead In The Head" recalls the strident guitar playing of Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. Unlike The Birthday Party, Honeymoon In Red emphasises vernacular speech akin to 1970s American television and film, instead of emulating the Southern Gothic literary genre. In a 1983 television interview, Lunch spoke of the experimental music as "religious music" that was "not rock".

Track listing

Side one
No.	Title	Lyrics	Music	Length
1.	"Come Fall"	Rowland S. Howard	Rowland S. Howard	4:54
2.	"So Your Heart"	Lydia Lunch	Thurston Moore, Clint Ruin	2:20
3.	"Dead River"	Lydia Lunch	Rowland S. Howard	2:40
4.	"Three Kings"	Genevieve McGuckin	Genevieve McGuckin	7:26

Side two
No.	Title	Lyrics	Music	Length
1.	"Done Dun"	Lydia Lunch	Murray Mitchell	4:28
2.	"Still Burning"	Rowland S. Howard	Rowland S. Howard	5:32
3.	"Fields of Fire"	Lydia Lunch	Rowland S. Howard	3:54
4.	"Dead in the Head"	Lydia Lunch	Rowland S. Howard	5:57

Personnel

1982 session

• Lydia Lunch – vocals
• Rowland S. Howard – guitar, vocals
• Genevieve McGuckin – piano, organ
• Murray Mitchell – guitar
• Tracy Pew – bass
• Nick Cave – vocals (credited only as "Her dead twin" and "A drunk cowboy junkie")
• Mick Harvey – drums, piano (credited only as "Anonymous", "Scatman Cramden", "Howie Dewitt", "Dick Strum", "Ralf Bellow", "Spencer Turk", & "Frank Leer")
• Steve Montgomery – mix

1987 remix session

• Thurston Moore – guitar
• J.G. Thirlwell AKA Clint Ruin – mix
• Martin Bisi – mix

Bonus track

"Some Velvet Morning"

• Lydia Lunch – vocal
• Rowland S. Howard – vocal, guitar
• Genevieve McGuckin – piano
• Barry Adamson – bass
• Mick Harvey – drums
• Peter Williams – engineer

External links

• Honeymoon In Red at Discogs (list of releases)