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Biography

(Click here for Lach and the creation of the Antifolk scene and here for more info on the scene's history etc.)

Timeout London calls Lach "NYC's living legend" and credits him side-by-side with Bob Dylan, Syd Barrett and The New York Dolls as the roots of the modern singer-songwriter movement. The NY Times labels Lach "The mastermind of Antifolk, like a Lower East Side rendezvous of Bob Dylan and Patti Smith." The Antifolk movement that Lach started in the early eighties has produced such well-known performers as Beck, Regina Spektor, The Moldy Peaches, Hamell on Trial and many more.

It does at times seem as if all roads lead to a mysterious figure out of NYC's East Village known simply as Lach. Google him as much as we want and he still remains an enigma. Touring rarely. Releasing only four albums over twenty years. Each album a critical darling with rave reviews from everyone from Billboard to Mojo to Spin to NME and back again. And still very little is actually known about this shadowed songwriter.

We do know he was born in Brooklyn, New York in the middle of a storm. He was trained as a classical pianist from an early age only to abandon it once he heard The Sex Pistols, The Jam and The Clash for the first time. Realizing he was a songwriter, Lach backtracked and explored the roots, relishing the works of Dylan, Ochs and Guthrie.

In the early 80's Lach went to Greenwich Village's Folk City figuring they'd flip over him. They flipped all right, kicked Lach right out onto the street! It seems Lach's punk/folk hybrid was not at all welcome. Fuck 'em, he thought and moved to the Lower East Side opening his own illegal after-hours club "The Fort". The same week Lach opened The Fort, Folk City held the New York Folk Festival, so, Lach held the first New York Antifolk Festival. Thus, Antifolk was born.

A year later the cops told our hero to move on. The Fort became a mobile club inhabiting various New York hotspots, finally settling down at The Sidewalk Café on Avenue A where it has now resided for a dozen or so years.

Since those early days Lach's Antifolk movement has grown into a worldwide phenomenon and Lach's music, style and attitude has influenced countless performers.

Over the last few years Lach has actually been spotted away from NYC sharing the touring stage with such compatriots as Suzanne Vega and punk pioneers Television. With a 14-date summer tour of the UK coinciding with two Lach specials on BBC-2 Radio and a new album ready for release in the winter, 2008 will be the year that our reluctant Anti-hero blinks into the sun of popular acclaim. Goodbye underground, hello backstage tour riders!

The Press on:

Lach:
"Lach is the mastermind of Antifolk, a loose concept involving acoustic guitars and punk-rock attitude, like a Lower East Side rendezvous of Bob Dylan and Patti Smith. Like black snow, stalled subway cars and random violence, Lach is a Manhattan institution."- NY Times