What do you say to all the lonely but beautiful kids in villages and cities who know they want to do something but instead end up spending all their energy loving your band and treating you as heroes?
Chris says:
Heroes have a sad ritual to eternally perform, that of dissappointing their followers, destroying themselves when all the powers go bad... We love you more when you do stuff. Something, anything. New Poetry. Art. Schemes. Circulation 1-1,000,000.
a favorite note sent - early 99 - from Stephen
How-do,
I just stumbled upon your Huggy Bear site after a particularly nostalgic eve during which I've been typing words such as Pastels, Vaselines and Pooh Sticks into Yahoo's search engine. Great site, btw! - I only wish there were more lyrics, but hey-ho. The fact that there IS a site at all amazes me somewhat. Props and soforth! God, HB were so vibrant, it's no surprise the press dumped on them from a great height. "Making blinkers fashionable" as someone once sang.
Whilst ripping my room apart in search of my birth certificate (as one does) last week, I discovered a letter from HB that I'd entirely forgotten about. It's postmarked Oct '92 and it's in response to something I'd sent them asking if they'd take part in some bizarre photo-shoot/sexual politico-protest project I'd dreamt up while at art school in London. Not only did they bother to stick pictures, a fluffy monkey and lots of string (!) on the envelope (alongside much scrawled sloganeering), but there are handwritten rants from both Niki (who signed herself Sable St Felony) and Chris.
AND they referred to me as a "secret agent" and an "ambassador of the new Yap Yap Revolution" - awww, shucks. Enough to make a boy blush. I'd forgotten about their Suede hatred, btw - ironically, they were my other fave band at the time.
Best HB memory - the final gig at the Laurel Tree in Camden (which Niki blagged me into, saying I could go-go dance for them - sadly I never did), asking Chris why they were splitting (he replied in typically obtuse style by wibbling about pencil sharpeners for 10 minutes), the armbands they were wearing (arf) and Graham Coxon making a drunky fool of himself on the dancefloor.
Anyway, just thought I'd 'share' that with you. I'm off to bed now...
Pip pip!
Stephen.
PS: Top HB songs: Single Bullets, 16+Suicide.
PPS: A bit from Chris's letter: "ooooh at lust, a mop-top bunnyboy who still has his tail... everybooby kips sane oh yer should weight for the days 2 cum 2 cum all the time, but we don't wanna hang by the CORNER each day we wanna GO GO now, help us boyfren to realise OUR shabby shuddrin shameful scheme dreoms (sic)... turn us into such darlin grenades... wanna make it spin like a top, get it on, goin' like a D. We got the punk soul freeks ready and reddin... Tuff Luv Style" - STARS, the lot of 'em!! Is it TRUE he now has a beard??! Heaven forfend...
some praise - NOV 1998 - from Matthew
I never got into Huggy Bear at the time, but a couple of years larter I got into a few bands who cited them as a major influence. I was immediately knocked out by how differerent they where to the angle presented by the music press during their time: far from the shambling noise I had expected, here was a band with an incredible anger, energy, focus AND pop suss. The first few singles (collected together as a mini-album) and the split LP with Bikini Kill are absolutely essential, and will no doubt be reappraised in years to come as some of the best of this decade. I never saw any of their notorious live shows except a small clip of a chaotic Word show, but the records I've heard contain more energy than a thousand bands - hunt out the records and start the boy/girl revolution NOW.
a huggy bear show review - OCT 29 1994 - The Splash Club - from an "insolent pup"
The venue's real name is The Water Rat - sort of appropriate for the state I was in when I arrived, having utterly failed to meet my friends. Luckily they'd got there about 15 minutes before, catching the end of Skinned Teen, and we supped a quiet drink while avoiding Fabric.
Opinion on Fabric passed on by a friend who saw them support Codeine - -
Steve from Codeine : "What, this is a real band? With records?".
Fabric are the proof that this is a Wiiija Records night, and make about
as much sense with Huggy Bear, as some of those more bizarre Sarah
nights (i.e St.Christopher and anyone else :-).
As soon as they stop playing the crowd rotates from one room to another, the Jacob's Mouse & Faith No More T-shirts head to the bar, and the rest of us back into a not-very-large hot room, sharing our recently caught illnesses in the damp atmosphere.
Jon not-in-Huggy-Bear anymore is here looking severely Mod-like, tailored suit and all, sundry people older-than-me with children's backpacks, and a few 'industry' types (you can tell by their snidy little moans - it must be so hard to feel you HAVE to show your face for bands you don't like).
They take to the stage, line-ups & images changed since even a few months ago. . . Chris is on vocals for most of the night (the policy being the lyricist sings the vocals), and there's nothing any earlier than this summer's singles, apart from one song in encore ('Pansy Twist').
Chris is looking very Billy Childish, in fact, and I suddenly remember
how great a voice he's got, dropping down to a sort of male Kim Gordon
whisper, before a ripped vocal cord scream.
Nikki's on bass, Jo on guitar tonight, and Karren (as usual) on drums,
and it's really tight sounding, taut...
Is it indiepop? Not really I guess. I'm not even sure I'd listen to it much at home, but live it all makes sense, incoherent raw intelligence, early Sonic Youth noise, in a friendly environment.
[Which I do think is another side-benefit to their 'cute' image - the 'real punks, we are real punks, they're not punk, they don't look punk' crowd are put off, and can go and injure each other to whatever Fugazi rip-off is in town tonight. Or Fabric, probably].
A night in Bethnal Green & then a 6 hour wait for the next available coach back to Wales - not the best of endings, but c'est la vie.
*Insolent Pup*