When this blog last covered content by Huggy Bear, I spent a lot of time writing about the political significance of Riot grrrl and how, by the mid 1990s, the music industry had managed to repackage the aims and theories behind the movement into phenomena like The Spice Girls, which while not lacking a degree of subversive intent, was carefully cultivated for mass-market consumption. What I had forgotten about, having only been dimly aware of it at the time, was just how frightening Riot grrrl seemed to people at the time. Not in a generationally threatening sense, the way early rock ‘n’ roll or mid 1970s punk rock was seen to be - no Riot grrrl affiliated act ever made the front pages of a national newspaper or provoked cries of moral panic - but the refusal to compromise or conform to industry expectations always meant that mainstream support from the music industry/press often seemed to be lukewarm at best. I suspect out of fear that these male-dominated industries could find themselves over-run with opinionated women who might just have dragged the lead figures off on the tumbrils to a rock ‘n’ roll guillotine, there to lop off…not just their heads. As subsequent posts will show, John Peel was providing support and approval to many of these revolutionaries at the time.
Such an atmosphere of queasy threat and mistrust can be heard all over the opening movements of Into the Mission. Sometimes, I like to cast certain songs as rock ‘n’ roll crystallisations of certain films. The works of Abel Ferrara are my particular go-to on this. Into the Mission feels like the work of a band who had spent a lot of time watching Ferrara’s 1981 rape-revenge psychodrama, Ms.45, also known as Angel of Vengeance. In it, Thana, a mute seamstress working in the garment district of New York City, is raped twice in one day. Once in an alleyway on her way home from work, and the second time when she gets home and finds her house being robbed. She manages to fight off and kill the home invader and takes his 45 caliber pistol out onto the streets where she conducts a night-time vigilante campaign of shooting various pimps and ne’er do-wells who are threatening women. So far-so Death Wish, but the movie raises the stakes by showing that the combination of the rapes that she suffered and the sense of liberation she feels in murdering street thugs have warped her mind to the extent that, in time, she sees ALL men as worthy of being murdered. Soon, she’s stalking and trying to kill men who have done nothing more than have an argument with their partners. The movie climaxes with her attending a fancy dress party with her work colleagues where she murders her own lecherous boss and then attempts to shoot as many men as possible. The lead up to the scene, where she is shown in her apartment, heavily made up but dressed as a nun and kissing the bullets she loads into the gun is one of the most memorable in exploitation cinema history.
It’s this scene I have in mind, when I hear Jo Johnson’s semi-seductive/semi-threatening reveal that Baby’s on a mission/Baby’s not alone/Baby’s not in a trance/Baby’s coming home. Whereas the sublime Her Jazz was a call to action, Into the Mission is the sound of that action taking place. The line, Baby’s not alone conjures the image of hundreds of women bursting forth and wasting the patriarchy. The thrashy abandon with which the band deliver the chorus sounds like an audible grin of delight as they fire off their bullets and take down their targets. And is that throwaway comment at the very end of the track someone saying, “Blow him away”? Perhaps…No wonder the industry was frightened, and tracks like Into the Mission perpetuated the myth, created by concerned members of the patriarchy that feminism didn’t mean equality, but rather subjugation of male identity.
Although the track could be found on Huggy Bear’s side of their split album with Bikini Kill, they also chose it as one of the tracks to give away in a limited edition single, made available as a Valentine’s evening gift to attendees at their gig at the Richmond in Brighton on 14/2/93.
Video courtesy of random content.
All lyrics are copyright of their authors
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