A Short History of Babes in Toyland

Kat Bjelland's take on feminism did not require positive discrimination in a world of men, especially when it simply meant the introduction of yet another female stereotype. For Bjelland, feminism meant having the freedom to do whatever she wanted to do, regardless of cultural or musical restrictions.

Thought by many as the best female guitarist of them all, Kat Bjelland was a pretty good songwriter. Courtney Love spent two months in the San Francisco-based band Sugar Baby Doll with Bjelland and Jennifer Finch. They played two gigs, one in someone's front room, and then the three of them morphed into primal female indie rock stars. Love went on to form Hole, Finch put together L7 and Bjelland moved to Minneapolis where she started another all-female trio, Babes In Toyland.

Musically, the band reflected the current mood for melodic hardcore with screamed vocals and Bjelland's violent attacks on her beloved Rickenbacker guitar, all set to a paired down primal-rock rhythm section. They got lumped into the short-lived subculture of Riot Grrrl, and had high profile tours with Faith No More and Sonic Youth as well as a famed headline performance at Lolapalooza.

The debut 'Spanking Machine', released to much acclaim in 1990, was notable for Bjelland's primal scream and very unsettling lyrical content. It also bore little resemblance to the loose, earthy grunge prevalent at the time, a lot rawer, more akin to early garage punk than checked shirt wearing, long haired neo-rockers that inhabited many a grunge band.

The second album, 'To Mother', was more varied, opening with the ranting 'Catatonic' and closing with the soothing 'Quiet Room'. 'To Mother' was eagerly championed by the likes of John Peel and was clearly good enough to get them a decent major label record deal for their third album which was called 'Fontanelle'. It was produced by Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth fame. It was the album that blew away their more one-dimensional contemporaries. 'Bruise Violet' is a thinly veiled attack on certain prominent people associated with the Riot Grrrl scene, and from there on the album proceeds to songs dealing with the specifics of violent relationships. For the remainder of the album the subject matter takes in lust, drugs and heartbreak, but Bjelland never allows the lyrics to become gratuitous; her words are always honest and vivid, and all the more unsettling because they never seem cliched.

The band followed 'Fontanelle' with 'Painkiller' and the undervalued 'Nemesisters'. Babes In Toyland are a band inspired by the opportunities opened up by the growing success of the independent post-punk rock scene. Bjelland's background and 'little girl' look got her band tagged as a forerunner of Riot Grrrl along with Hole and L7, later encompassing Bikini Kill and UK band Huggy Bear. Babes In Toyland tried to play down the connections, concerned that their real message was being ignored for the sake of stereotyping. They always had more in common with the Throwing Muses, really.