Jingo de Lunch
Perpetuum Mobile

Arghhhhh. Growlllll. Sgrunttttt.

Guttural sounds, shaved heads, sculpted muscles, tattoos: hardcore-punk is not a genre that suits the fairer sex.

Then sometimes it happens that the fairer sex is not quite so gentle, and out comes a Yvonne Ducksworth.

This stuff here is all for her.

Yvonne, born in Canada in 1967 but moves to Germany with her family at twelve, when she's still playing with Barbie. Except she pulls Barbie's hair out and bites her head off.

At fifteen, she goes to live alone in Berlin and her mom and dad celebrate the occurrence for a whole month.

What will become of a child - because at that age one is still a child, come on - in an unknown and hostile metropolis?

If you're Yvonne, you start an hardcore band - like Combat Not Conform first and Manson Youth later - you get tough, go around, meet people.

C.N.C. and M.Y. even gain some traction at home and open for the genre's sacred monsters when they come to play around there, but Yvonne isn't satisfied because everything sounds too much the same, flat, and try distinguishing her band with your eyes closed from the multitude of useless ones populating the hardcore galaxy in those noisy years.

Yvonne starts brooding these whims around Christmas 1986.

One might say, sure, the joyful Christmas atmosphere, mom and dad far away, solitude felt with tenfold anguish. Who knows, maybe it's that too, but I think it's more because Yvonne, to celebrate Baby Jesus, treats herself to «I Against I» which has just come out and proudly displays itself in the novelty shelf in that hole where she refreshes daily with her dose of Arghhhhh, Growlllll, Sgrunttttt.

That record devastates her literally: there, Bad Brains are Bad Brains, no possibility of saying, they resemble these, they're inspired by others, period. At 00:00 on December 25, 1986, the big building where Yvonne, holed up in 30 square meters, consumes a frugal cold dish in perfect solitude, is ripped apart by the screams of H.R. and a flurry of hardcore-reggae-punk that's worse than the bombings of 1945. Yvonne sees the light, her neighbors grab their helmets and flee to hide with the provisions hastily gathered, and when they return that strange little girl from Canada is no longer there.

She's with Sepp, the guitarist of Manson Youth, explaining the light to him.

Sepp knows Tom who knows Steve who knows Henning. Yvonne explains the light to all of them and they notice the sinister light shining in her eyes and don't dare oppose her. Do you see the light? Yvonne asks them; of course, it blinds us, they answer in unison.

Here we are, we are Jingo De Lunch, they present themselves to the astonished venue managers where they go to play their mix of hardcore and metal, you hired us; yes, we hired you, but to play tonight, not to wrestle in the mud, this is a respectable venue. And this is enough to give an idea of their image.

However, their image spreads quickly, so much so that after a few days Yvonne and company are in front of the head honchos at We Bite Records, which maybe isn't Dischord but it's not that far off, and after a couple of months here's «Perpetuum Mobile».

Exactly a mash-up of hardcore and metal that a few years later is called crossover, Bad Brains as a guiding spirit - and thanks a lot, guys, this is «Pay To Cum» the way we play it; a punk attitude that Yvonne was born with, her a Canadian when Canada is burning with D.O.A. and Subhumans - and thanks to you guys too, this is «Fuck You» our way.

Songs that go a thousand miles a minute, a profusion of stop-and-go, rhythm changes that you can't keep up with, above all that voice.

Yvonne is, in my addled mind, the voice of hardcore-punk, one of those that fills you with emotion, and certainly not a technical monster; but the line above says hardcore-punk, not operetta. And anyway every time that absurd warble starts off «What You See», every time she angrily counts dos, tres, cuatro and «Fate» starts, every time she spits venom in «Thirteen», every time bum bum bum bum NOOOOOOO and that spoken that’s ok half and what follows in «Scratchings», I don't understand anything anymore.

In 1988 Jingo De Lunch play in Rome, I'm not old enough to drive, I'm not old enough; so I hijack my brother to drive me to the concert; he doesn’t even go in and goes off on nocturnal excursions and doesn’t even imagine what he’s missing; Henning doesn't stop headbanging for a second, Yvonne jumps like a madwoman from one side of the small stage to the other, and who knows where she finds the breath but she's twenty and all twenty-year-olds have breath to spare, but when she starts headbanging too with those thin dreadlocks she has on her head, it’s delirium.

Then come the mini «Cursed Heart» and the lp «Axe To Grind» that are worth the same as «Perpetuum Mobile», only lacking the surprise effect because that voice has been resonating in my head for a couple of years.

Then comes the move to Phonogram and that's where the Jingo De Lunch that fascinated me end, those who, on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of «Perpetuum Mobile», are resurrected in the beautiful collection «The Independent Years» which places «What You See» at the opening as an incontrovertible statement of intent.

Today Yvonne is on the verge of 50, has acted in TV series, has presented the show Metalla (!!!!!) for German TV, has become vegan and is involved in several formations active for the defense of animal rights, manages a bar, is on the Berlin Bombshells roller derby team and continues to rock and play bass in a sludge metal band.

How much do I love her!