The 1992 Reading music festival is remembered mostly for the headline performance by Nirvana. With rumours of singer Kurt Cobain being ill and may not being able to perform there was genuine worry that the band was going to be a no-show. However, the rumours turned out to be bogus and the band played a storming set by all accounts. Kurt had fun with the rumours though when he came out on stage being pushed in a wheelchair.
Nirvana wasn’t the only band that caused a storm that day in August. Another band who are good friends with the headliners had one of their biggest moments in the spotlight at that festival. They aren’t a household name, but they are one of the most influential all-female bands of the grunge/alternative era. The band is called L7, and they didn’t take any crap from anyone. This week the Beat Marches On to the 30th August 1992.
Los Angeles in the mid-1980s was full-blown hair metal territory. Metal bands all wore makeup and platform heels and sprayed enough hairspray to become a fire hazard. Bands like Motley Crue and Twisted Sister roamed around the sunset strip living up to the sex, drugs, and rock n roll lifestyle.
The scene was very male dominated at the time and not many female groups broke through to the mainstream. If anything, they got shunned. This isn’t a new thing for female groups in the rock genre. For every Go-Go’s or The Runaways, there were ten in the background that could play better than the men. It felt like being in an all-female group you had to be exceptional to be noticed.
Around the hair metal era in LA, a new all-female band were being formed. These girls were different. They had punk attitudes and preferred the speed metal of Motorhead to the hair metal of Motley Crue. They came to a venue kicked ass and partied hard post-show. Their name: L7.
Named after a 1950s slang term for a square, the band made a name for themselves on the underground LA scene through to the end of the decade. Then as the 1980s turned into the 90s a new movement in music broke out. Gone were the platform boots and make-up and the new look was plaid shirts and ripped jeans. The Grunge era had begun.
Because L7 was signed to the lead grunge label, Sub-pop, they were wrongly assumed as a grunge band. Although they had grunge tendencies, they were more a hard rock band than anything else. As the grunge scene started to explode the more successful bands from the label such as Mudhoney and Nirvana brought the band along with them as tour support, which helped get them national attention.
In 1991 after Nirvana’s second album Nevermind exploded throughout the world the race was on to sign the next Nirvana. Major record labels robbed the little independents to get any grunge band they could find. This included L7 and they were signed to Warner Brothers. This meant they could record at better quality studios.
The band went to sound city studios in LA to record their next album. Produced by Nevermind producer Butch Vig and recorded at the same studio as the album it was more veering towards the grunge sound of their contemporaries. Their third effort ‘Bricks are Heavy’ was released in April 1992 and got an international release a first for the band.
This meant the band could tour outside the USA, another first for them. Off the back of the album and their first and most successful single, ‘Pretend We’re Dead’, they set off for Europe on a tour. By the summer one of the big festivals came calling to the band.
Bank Holidays in the UK have one guarantee: that it’s going to rain! With most workers in the UK having a three-day weekend they all have to stay in because it will rain. For all three days. Then when they go back to work on the next day it will be bright and sunny. This was the case in 1992 when the Reading music festival took place. It wasn’t just rain; it was thunderstorms and high winds. It was so bad the organisers had to close two of the three stages for safety concerns for most of the weekend.
With all the bad weather over the weekend, the field it where it was held was quickly turned into a bog. By the time L7 took the stage in the middle of the third day, there was no grass left, just mud. This was the band’s first appearance at a festival like this of any kind and didn’t know what to do in this situation. At the shows they performed at previously enabled them to sound check and prepare the monitors etc, etc. At the festival, because of the tight time restraints, you can’t do that much.
The audience was getting techy while the band set up. Singer Donita Sparks tried to entertain the crowd while they were sorting out their instruments but wasn’t winning them over. A couple of songs into the set some mud started to head towards the stage. Sparks was berating the crowd for throwing the mud on stage which led to more heading their way. In the aid of her friends from the side of the stage, Becky Wreck of Lunachicks tried to distract the crowd to launch the mud at her.
Not having any fun, Sparks put a massive clump of mud on her head and went behind her amplifier. After talking to her bandmates, she comes back with an item on some string and held it between her fingers. Then Sparks threw it into the crowd from the stage and shouted “Eat my tampon fuckers, watch out for Tuberculosis” yes, she threw her used tampon into the crowd. There was a bit of struggle to get to the sanitary product as the singer’s shorts were being held up with Duct Tape as she didn’t have a belt. According to reports, the tampon did make its way back onto the stage. It appeared on the edge of the monitor while Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds were performing their set towards the end of the day.
When the reports came in after the incident some critics said the mud flinging from the crowd was a sexist thing but there were other all-male bands on the bill were also pelted with mud too. In a later interview bassist Jennifer Finch said that as a prank, the band threw used tampons at passing cars to unsuspecting victims from their touring van. After the incident, L7 was being mentioned in music publications across the world.
Not being content with upsetting the UK music festival community about a month later the band went on controversial Channel 4 TV show The Word. The show had a cult following and helped launch the music careers of many artists like Nirvana and Oasis. It was chaotic and had whacky gameshows and pushed the bar to the edge of censorship.
On this occasion, L7 had been booked to play there was the search to find the best British male backside. Wanting to add more chaos to the show towards the end of the band’s performance of ‘Pretend We’re Dead’ Sparks decided to drop her trousers and underwear for the whole world to see. Well, most of the UK’s youth. Luckily the front was covered by her guitar until the singer walked off stage and saw more of her than we ever imagined. Even the show’s host Terry Christian was dumbfounded and didn’t know where to look.
Unfortunately, the two controversial moments for L7 were the highlights. The music post ‘Bricks are Heavy’ didn’t perform as well as the breakthrough. They broke boundaries proving women can rock as hard as men (these four especially) and influenced a new generation of female rockstars. They weren’t afraid to stand up for their rights as the incidents had shown.
By 2001 the band had gone on permanent hiatus after six albums and touring the world. Some members changed but they still rocked just as hard. Back in 2015, the original lineup of the band reunited and they toured the US on an arena tour. They even released new material in 2019. There’s been no word of tampon flinging on the recent tours this time around.
The Beat Marches On is a music blog written by Jimmy Whitehead. Jimmy has been blogging for six years specialising in Sports (especially American Football). If you want to follow Jimmy on Twitter: @Jimmy_W1987
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Websites used for research are:
L7, Reading 1992: riffs, mud fights and a flying bloody tampon | Pop and rock | The Guardian
Throwback To When A Tampon Was Thrown At The Crowd At Reading Festival (festivalsherpa.com)
There is a documentary called ‘Pretend We’re Dead’ based on the band’s career available on Amazon Prime.
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