I consider it a very happy quirk of timing that this blog gets its first exposure to UK Riot grrrl sensations, Huggy Bear just at the point where I’m currently reading 1997 - The Future That Never Happened by Richard Power Sayeed, which is one of those books that is so insightful, entertaining and informative, it makes me grateful that I’m able to read. Although the front cover of the book is the none-more-1997 photo of Tony Blair shaking hands with Noel Gallagher at a Downing Street reception, it is not solely a critique of New Labour’s rise to power and its subsequent bungling of the opportunities which its huge majority after the 1997 General Election offered it, but rather an analysis of how New Labour’s modus operandi - take revolutionary Left wing ideas, water them down into far more modest principles and then present them to more widespread attention as CHANGE - was essentially a short sighted tradeoff between publicity of ideas/concepts designed to illustrate Britain as a modern, progressive country at the expense of carrying out broad social reforms which could have effected significant and longer lasting change. Power Sayeed presents this late 90s phenomenon of repurposing complex political and societal ideas into palatable PG rated cover versions of the original issue as something which didn't just affect the Labour Party, but other aspects of British life such as our relationship with the Royal Family, racism within the police (as seen through the prism of issues raised by the Metropolitan Police Force's handling of the murder of Stephen Lawrence) and, with exquisite timing, how feminism in the UK in the 1990s went from Huggy Bear to The Spice Girls.
That journey isn't quite the leap that it may seem on the surface when we consider that the Girl power slogan which underpinned the marketing of the Spice Girls was coined, not in a PR office in 1996, but rather several years earlier by Riot grrrl pioneers Bikini Kill, a band who would go on to release a joint LP with Huggy Bear. Power Sayeed demonstrates that although the Spice Girls were predominantly a commercial concern - especially given the number of commercial tie-in deals that their male manager signed for them - feminism did play a consistent role in the Spice Girls presentation to their fanbase, both within their music and their messaging. There was nothing about smashing the patriarchy, but plenty about individual empowerment, facing down sexism and the importance of strong, supportive relationships with women. Power Sayeed quotes a study carried out by Rebecca Hains for her 2012 book, Growing Up With Girl Power: Girlhood on Screen and in Everyday Life, in which she asked a number of American feminists for their recollections and feelings about the Spice Girl phenomenon. For those who had positive recollections, the group had provided....a viable form of beginners’ feminism - bringing empowerment rhetoric to girls in a gentle, easily digestible way, priming them for a more difficult, angrier, less mainstream feminist discourse later on. (Hains quoted by Power Sayeed in 1997 - The Future That Never Happened, p.206, Zed Books, 2017).
Had they been minded to do it, I think that Huggy Bear could have provided that next stage for girls who bought into the Spice Girls message and were looking for a deeper take on feminism as they matured. But the two phenomena missed each other. By the time 1997 rolled around, Huggy Bear had been disbanded for three years, while the concept of an international pop music juggernaut mixing feminist rhetoric with ringing cash tills in both record shops and many other shops was but a fanciful glint in Simon Fuller’s eye when Huggy Bear went into the BBC’s Maida Vale studios on 27 October 1992 to record their first ever Peel Session. Everyone knew of Huggy Bear, but no-one quite knew what to make of them. Although the irony years of BritPop and the mid-90s had not taken hold yet, their mix of hard-edged sincerity and dedication to their mission disconcerted as many people as it enthralled. Huggy Bear had embraced the Girl power ethos of Bikini Kill and their sister bands and sought to bring that energy and the issues that Riot grrrl bands sang about to British audiences. Themes which Wikipedia list as containing fun-for-all-the-family topics such as rape, domestic abuse, sexuality, racism, patriarchy, classism, anarchism and female empowerment.
Huggy Bear’s wish to base their musical identity around these themes would see them dismissed as tiresomely woke if they were trying to get started today and it didn’t do them many favours back then either. In 1992, the British propensity to make its excuses and find something else to do whenever it feels that it’s being lectured by artists was just as strong as it is today, though it felt less weaponised back then. Huggy Bear may have understood this and used it as one of the reasons why they chose not to push their agenda in a conventional way; eschewing interviews, using false names and remaining on a small label (Wiiija Records) even when the major labels came courting. It gave them a raison d’etre and prevented them from being Just Another Band. But regardless of their social/political aspirations, the question was whether their music could inspire passion and devotion to them and their causes. This Peel Session left me thinking that half of it was the like being stuck with a shouty bore at a party; but the other half would have me making donations and volunteering for any cause they told me to.
When considering the merits of Her Jazz, there is no time for sober perspective. It is quite simply one of the classics of the decade. Drawing the listener in with its Big-Spender-in-reverse opening riff, I’ve found the song open to different interpretations each time I’ve listened to it, and while the Boy/girl revolutionaries refrain seems to suggest a dual gender assault on societal norms, the reality appears to be that the girl has been lied to and manipulated by her mental mentor who taught her to lift her skirt and then taught her hurt, implying that this marks a break with someone who appeared to be an ally but who was ultimately a user. Had Huggy Bear been American, it would have been tempting to see it as an attack on male academics who use the teacher/student relationship as a means to entangle young women with their minds as a way of ensnaring them into their beds and in so doing try to hold on to their own youth under a facade of relevance, but she’s not fooled anymore. - Face it, you’re old and out of touch. It’s angry, euphoric and marks out the future as one for womankind.
Although associated with Riot grrrl, Huggy Bear were not exclusively a female band. Three of the four songs in the session saw lead vocals taken by Chris Rowley, but of these it was only Hopscorch that stayed with me. Despite starting with the kind of meandering guitar-line typical of so much early 90s mumblecore rock, the track soon bursts out of the gate with Rowley considering whether to make a break from a relationship that’s making him contemptuous of his lover and casting his eye further afield. Unfortunately, the session version doesn’t end with the sketchlet that completes the studio version, demonstrating just how hard it can be to say “I love you”.
Videos courtesy of VibraCobra23 Redux who has also posted the full session, which was originally broadcast on 11 December 1992 and which features 2 tracks, Nu Song and Teen Tighterns, which originally made my list but which failed to convince when listened back to subsequently.
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