In 1991 Niki Elliott, Jo Johnson, Jon Slade, Karen Hill, and Chris Rowley started playing shows as Huggy Bear in the London/Brighton area. Within a year, they had managed to gain so much hype that they were packing local venues with a vast array of interested teenagers and began releasing a series of EPs and singles. By early 1993, they were playing on/being violently kicked off of major British television and touring with American riot grrrl punx like Bikini Kill. The following year, they lost Jo Johnson, released their first and only full length, and broke up. This is basically what I know of Huggy Bear in a nutshell, in addition to the fact that they directly influenced some of my favorite bands of all time. Their EP compilation, "Taking the Rough with the Smooch" is one of my favorite releases ever. It's one of those things that feels like it was cooked to order specifically for me. Ranging from catchy anarcho, post-punk, twee, garage, spoken word, and everything in between, the whole atmosphere created by this album is just perfect, it still feels relevent and doesn't seem to get any more dated no matter how much I listen to it. Here's a video made of my favorite song off the album, "pansy twist"
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1 comment:
righteous.
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