The Bear That Borrowed My Bass

The last time my black Yamaha bass guitar got any real play was when it went on tour with the British riot grrl/queer-core band Huggy Bear for a month, circa 1994.

I'd dropped out of playing my own music a year earlier when I quit this band and that band to spin records on the radio, hoping that championing others' music would cure my burnout. It worked, especially when my friend started floating me test pressings from the label she'd started out in Olympia. One was by a trio called Bratmobile, another by some group named Unwound, and another was this 10" vinyl record that merged British punk with avant-garde aesthetics and a blazing political sincerity that I wasn't hearing in much music at the time. The friend's name was Tinúviel, her label was called Kill Rock Stars, and that 10" EP was Taking the Rough with the Smooch by Huggy Bear. It blew me away.

So when Huggy Bear showed up for their U.S. tour that next year without any equipment and Tinuviel asked me if Nikki could could borrow my bass, the answer was "Take it!" For their first show, they stuffed themselves into a tiny soundproof booth in Cambridge Mass, and the entire band played into a single DJ mic for a live broadcast on WHRB's Record Hospital (I still have the tape). Afterwards we got scallion pancakes at the Hong Kong and I learnt that Brits call scallions "spring onions."

And what happened to Huggy Bear? They were touted as Britain's flagship band in the riot grrl movement, a movement that suffered a lot of media hype in the early 90s. Yet that hype enabled their avant-political-punk music to top Britain's indie charts, often surpassing more mainstream male-fueled outfits like Pavement and Nirvana. Huggy Bear's fashion aesthetic and girls-up-front feminism has had lasting effects in youth counter-culture internationally, and they were one of the few bands with an outspoken queer boy revolutionary fervor back when such things were virtually invisible in the media—underground or otherwise.

And my bass? It's still here. I haven't played it in years.

The Zine I Almost Made With Michelle Tea

What: I collaborated on a fanzine with Michelle Tea.

Where: Boston.

When: 1989-1990.

Why: Michelle and I were teenagers, still living with our fams, both working not-quite-hip minimum-wage jobs on Newbury Street in Boston. We'd each scored interviews with our favorite bands at the time—I'd lugged a boombox to chat it up with Chicago proto-grunge band The Jesus Lizard on their first tour, and Michelle had a typewritten transcription of her interview with pioneer goth rockers Christian Death. That was all each of us had, so we decided to pool our interviews and put out a zine.

What happened: Despite our collective teenage fervor, two interviews isn't quite enough to warrant a zine. Some friend of Michelle's had contributed some stupid four-panel comic about a guy getting run over by a lawnmower, but that was it. Eventually Michelle and I drifted apart and the zine never happened.

Legacy: Michelle Tea went on to co-found the Sister Spit spoken word tour and has authored and/or edited over a dozen books, two of which (The Chelsea Whistle and The Passionate Mistakes and Intricate Corruption of One Girl in America) are largely about our circle of friends who hung out in Copley Square in the late 1980s. Her work is a milestone for a generation of writers and readers interested in feminism, queer culture, sex work and memoir. Meanwhile I went on to write about Bollywood music for a couple of magazines and put out a handful of highly obscure publications under the name Cardboard Capers before contributing a chapter to the anthology Realizing the Impossible: Art Against Authority. 

Michelle and I reconnected in 2004 and she's invited me to read at the underground writers series that she hosts at the San Francisco Public Library. Check back to see if this actually happens—or if it becomes another episode in the Almost Archive.

How I Joined Guitar Wolf

What: I played guitar for the Japanese noisabilly band Guitar Wolf.

When: May, 2006.

Where: Chicago, Illinois.

How: My very last night living in Chicago and Guitar Wolf was playing at a club. I’d nabbed their first two LPs (sounding like a rockabilly band recorded on broken equipment) and spun them on the radio in Boston. I loved these records. Anyway, some friends came with me to give me a proper send-off in that packed club. We were right up front against the stage and I had drawn a big “A” on one of my hands and a “♠” on the other in a plea that the band would play “Ace of Spades” by Link Wray. When the three members of Guitar Wolf came out they took no notice of the marks on my hands or that their instruments were totally out of tune. They were brilliant, a sheer cacophony of 1-4-5 riffs in total disarray. I pulled a dirty hanky from my pocket, wrote “Jack the Ripper” (another Link Wray classic) on it and flung it at the guitarist at the end of one song. It landed on the head of his feedbacking guitar. He looked at it and passed it to the head of bass player’s instrument, who then passed it on to one of the drummer’s sticks and the band played my request.

The crowd was already going nuts when Guitar Wolf jumped into “Kick Out The Jams” by the MC5. Midway through the song the guitarist threw his guitar down and came after me, grabbing me by the arms. I tried to run but he pulled me onstage, strapped his guitar around my neck and yelled the words, “Jam on it!” into my ear. He held his guitar pick in the air, slowly bringing down into my outstretched palm. As soon as I had that pick between my fingers, I struck up the MC5’s three unforgettable chords, adjusting the pitch for the de-tuned guitar while my friends danced up a storm at my feet.

Memorable moment: Saying “bye” to the drummer after the show while he was throwing up in an alleyway.

Legacy: Guitar Wolf have since launched their own clothing line and starred in the Japanese zombie horror movie Wild Zero. Check it out: