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‘We didn’t intend to create outrage’: Huggy Bear on radical politics, riot grrrl – and causing chaos on live TV
They said they’d exist for three years, then split. And that’s what the British punks did, winning love and notoriety for their feminist, queer worldview. Thirty years on, a new book tells their story
‘You should be able to heckle if there’s something sexist on live TV.” In the staff room at the Lloyd Park Children’s Charity in Walthamstow, where he has worked for 30-odd years, Huggy Bear’s guitarist/vocalist Chris Rowley is reflecting on his band’s appearance on a 1993 episode of post-pub Channel 4 show The Word. Their performance of combustible anthem Her Jazz – three minutes of needling feedback, Cro-Magnon riffing and Niki Eliot’s impassioned howl of “You’re old and out of touch!” – was genuinely anarchic on a Friday night “youth” show that typically passed off stage-managed sensationalism as something more radical. Discovering riot grrrl was like that bit in The Wizard of Oz when everything turns to Technicolor Chris Rowley A fortnight after The Word performance, Huggy Bear began their first nationwide tour, accompanied by idols Bikini Kill.
Or read this on The Guardian