“'73 was such a bleak fucking period in New York when they started—just desperately poor and dark and dirty. That bleak frustration and hatred really comes out in the music. But yet it's cloaked in this catchy garage facade. It occupies its own genre, for sure.” That’s none other than brutarian queen, iconoclastic No Wave leader and Teenage Jesus and the Jerks provocateur Lydia Lunch waxing poetic on the brutally dank monstrosity that was early 1970’s-era New York City and how proto-punk sleazoids Jack Ruby embodied that devastation.

Let's step back for a second, though. Who is Jack Ruby?

Formed in 1973, this cast of forward-thinking fuck ups—Iggy-idolizing singer Robbie Hall, guitarist Chris Gray (deceased, 2014), Serge synthesizer skronker (and future David Letterman writer and New York Times Ethicist columnist) Randy Cohen, eventual Contortions bassist George Scott (deceased, 1980), violist Boris Policeband (deceased, 2001) and anonymous drummer "Nick”—offered up a career arc encompassing barely a handful of live gigs and a demo before becoming stuff of legend—influencing Lunch and art-punks like Sonic Youth before ultimately fading into obscurity.