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Babes in Toyland

Babes in Toyland

Formed:
1987 in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Disbanded:
1997

Representative Songs:

"Bruise Violet," "Handsome and Gretel," "He's My Thing"

Representative Albums:

Fontanelle, Spanking Machine, To Mother

Similar Artists:

Influences:

Followers:

Made Out of Babies, Suffrajets, Katastrophy Wife, N.U.M.B., Frigate, Venus, Angelica, Hole
  • Genre: Rock
  • Active: '80s, '90s
  • Major Members: Lori Barbero, Kat Bjelland, Maureen Herman, Michelle Leon

Biography

Babes in Toyland is about as harsh as rock music gets -- guitarist Kat Bjelland screams and thrashes her guitar to the gut-pounding, throttling beat of bassist Maureen Herman and drummer Lori Barbero. Over their two albums and two EPs, the all-female trio offers no escape from their strongly female-oriented, but not necessarily feminist, rock.

Bjelland formed Babes in Toyland in 1987 in Minneapolis, after playing around San Francisco for several years in various bands which featured, at various times, Jennifer Finch of L7 and Courtney Love of Hole. After releasing a single on Sub Pop's singles club, Babes in Toyland came to the attention of Sonic Youth, who took them on a tour of Europe. Soon, they recorded their abrasive debut, Spanking Machine, with producer Jack Endino; one more independent EP followed before they signed to Reprise. Between labels, original bassist Michelle Leon left the group.

Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo produced their second album, Fontanelle, which showed no signs of concession to a major label. In early 1993, the band broke up for several days before re-forming to record the Painkillers EP and hitting the road with Lollapalooza 1993.

Even though Lollapalooza offered the group a boost in public exposure, they chose not to capitalize on it; instead, it took them nearly two years before they released a new record, Nemesisters, in 1995. With Babes in Toyland on hiatus, Bjelland formed Katastrophy Wife with husband Glen Mattson; in the spring of 2000, Reprise issued the Babes collection Lived. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
 
 
Wikipedia: Babes in Toyland (band)
Babes In Toyland
Origin Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
Genre(s) Punk Rock
Grunge
Riot Grrrl
Alternative rock
Years active 19871997(1997-2001 was hiatus)
Label(s) Twin Tone Records, Strange Fruit Records, Reprise Records, Insipid Records
Members
Kat Bjelland
Lori Barbero
Maureen Herman

Babes in Toyland were a band formed in Minneapolis in 1987. Members included Kat Bjelland (guitar and vocals), Lori Barbero (drums) and Michelle Leon (bass), who left the band and was replaced by Maureen Herman in 1992.

Biography

The band achieved notoriety through Bjelland's "baby doll" image--sometimes referred to as the kinderwhore look--which contrasted dramatically with the raw power of her singing voice and her aggressive lyrics.

The band's first major label album, Fontanelle, sold around 200,000 copies. The lead song on the album, "Bruise Violet," is said to be an attack on Courtney Love of Hole: "You see the stars through eyes lit up with lies/You got your stories all twisted up in mine." (Love is a former bandmate of Bjelland's.) However, in a recent interview Bjelland has denied this, saying instead that "Violet" was the name of a muse to both her and Courtney. The song's video was shown on Beavis and Butt-Head, where the band was described as "chicks" who could "rock."

The band was picked to take part in the 1993 Lollapalooza tour.

While the band was inspirational to many performers in the riot grrrl movement, they never participated directly.

The band was the subject of the 1994 book Babes in Toyland: The Making and Selling of a Rock and Roll Band by Neal Karlen, which dealt with the band's signing to Warner and the recording of Fontanelle. (Bjelland described the book as being "like cartoon caricatures of us," while Herman said that Karlen "would make a great fiction writer"--Minneapolis Star Tribune, August 18, 1994.) The band also appears in the 1992 documentary 1991: The Year Punk Broke.

On April 8, 1994, Babes in Toyland played a benefit show for Rock Against Domestic Violence with 7 Year Bitch, and Jack Off Jill in Miami at the Cameo Theater, the same day lead-singer of American grunge rock band Nirvana, Kurt Cobain, had been found dead in his Seattle home.

Babes were featured on the cover of Entertainment Weekly, and were referenced in an episode of the sitcom Roseanne as well as an episode of Absolutely Fabulous.

The band split and reformed throughout the 1990s, losing their record label when Herman left the band in 1996. Dana Cochrane, formerly of the band Mickey Finn, played bass with the band on live gigs in 1996.[1] Leon briefly rejoined for a short period in 1997. In 1998, the band was credited with the song Overtura: Astroantiquity/Attacatastrophy on the CD Songs of the Witchblade: A Soundtrack to the Comic Book, which Bjelland co-produced. Bjelland and Barbero played with a new bassist, Jesse Farmer, in 2000 (St. Paul Pioneer Press, November 24, 2000). But a year earlier, Bjelland had formed a new band, Katastrophy Wife, which seemed to replace Babes as her main vehicle. Babes in Toyland (with Farmer on bass) played a reunion show billed as "The Last Tour" on November 21, 2001--released as a live album called Minneapolism--and this seems to be the last official Babes activity; Bjelland played some shows in Europe in 2002 as Babes in Toyland with a new drummer and bassist, but stopped using the name after Barbero and Herman raised legal issues.[2]

Members

Previous Members

  • Michelle Leon – bass
  • Cindy Russell - vocals
  • Kris Holetz - bass
  • Jessie Farmer – bass
  • Dana Cochrane – bass
  • Maggie Dunne – bass

Discography

Albums and EPs

Title Year Type Label US Sales
Spanking Machine 1989 Studio album Twin Tone Records 70,000
To Mother 1991 EP Twin Tone Records 50,000
The Peel Sessions 1992 Compilation album Strange Fruit Records
Fontanelle 1992 Studio album Reprise Records 220,000
Painkillers 1993 EP Reprise Records 60,000
Dystopia 1994 Compilation album Insipid Records
Nemesisters 1995 Studio album Reprise Records 150,000
Lived 2000 Compilation Almafame
Devil 2000 Compilation Almafame
Viled 2000 Compilation Almafame
Minneapolism 2001 Live album Cherry Red Records

Other releases

Title Year Type Label US Sales
Natural Babe Killers 2000 Compilation album Recall Records
Collectors Item 2001 Compilation album Digimode Entertainment
The Further Adventures of Babes In Toyland 2001 Compilation album Fuel 2000 Records

Singles

Year Title Album Label
1989 Dust Cake Boy Spanking Machine Treehouse Records
1990 House (None) Sub Pop
1991 Handsome and Gretel Fontanelle Insipid Records
1992 Bruise Violet Fontanelle Southern Records
1993 Catatonic To Mother Insipid Records
1995 Sweet '69 Nemesisters Reprise Records
1995 We Are Family Nemesisters Reprise Records

Charts

Year Single Chart Peak Position
1995 "Sweet '69" Modern Rock Tracks #37
1995 We Are Family Hot Dance Music/Club Play #22

Contributions

Year Title Album Label
1989 "Watching Girl" Every Band Has A Shonen Knife Who Loves Them Giant Records
1991 "Handsome & Gretel" Indie Top 20 Volume 13 Beechwood Music
1991 "Ripe" New Season - The Peel Sessions Strange Fruit
1991 "Fresh Crawl" Teriyaki Asthma Vols. I-V C/Z Records
1991 House The Grunge Years Sub Pop Records
1992 Handsome & Gretel Best Of Independent Beechwood Music
1992 Sometimes Volume 4 Volmume
1993 Dirty Milk for Pussy Mad Queen Records
1993 Dust Cake Boy Sonic Youth In 1991: The Year Punk Broke (VHS) Geffen Home Video
1994 Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft If I Were A Carpenter A&M Records
1994 Say What You Want S.F.W. A&M Records
1995 Sweet '69 Alternative Final Mix 11 Warner Music
1995 More, More, More Spirit Of '73: Rock For Choice 550 Music
1995 Sweet '69 Triple J: This Is Twelve - Too Louder Compilation Australian Broadcasting Corporation
1996 Handsome & Gretel (Live) Volume Fourteen - Reading '95 Special Volume
1998 Overtura: Astroantiquity Songs Of The Witchblade Dreamworks

Videography

  • 1991: The Year Punk Broke
  • The Best of Kat Bjelland and Babes in Toyland (DVD part contains Music videos, making of albums, and live preformances)

Bookography

Year Title Author Label
1991 'Babes in Toyland Lyric Book Babes in Toyland Twin Tone Records
1994 The Making & Selling of a Rock & Roll Band Neal Karlen Avon Books

References

  1. ^ http://citypages.com/databank/17/814/article2812.asp Citypages.com Retrieved on 05-10-07
  2. ^ http://citypages.com/databank/23/1111/article10255.asp Citypages.com Retrieved on 05-10-07

External links


 
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