In 1991, indie rock festivals didn't really exist, but K Records co-founders Calvin Johnson and Candice Pedersen basically willed one into happening. The duo put together what they called the International Pop Underground Convention, a six-day marathon of punk and indie bands coming to their Olympia, Washington hometown. The bands included Fugazi, Bikini Kill, L7, the Melvins, Built To Spill, the Fastbacks, Unwound, Nation Of Ulysses, Seaweed, and Johnson's own band Beat Happening.
But the most historically significant event of the festival was the gig known as Girl Night, not least because that's the first time Corin Tucker ever performed in front of anybody. As the story goes, Tucker was a teenage kid from Eugene, Oregon who'd just finished her first year at Evergreen State College. Earlier that year, she'd seen Bikini Kill and Bratmobile, and she'd had her mind blown.
When someone Tucker if she had a band and wanted to play the festival, she said yes, even though she'd never so much as written a song. She got Tracy Sawyer, her best friend since middle school, to play drums, and they called themselves Heavens To Betsy. The bill at Girl Night included Bratmobile, 7 Year Bitch, the Spinanes, a couple of side things from Bikini Kill members Kathleen Hanna and Tobi Vail, and the first-ever Heavens To Betsy performance.
Tucker, terrified, got up with Sawyer and played two songs, and she left people's jaws hanging. Heavens To Betsy went on to release one classic album, Calculated, and a few 7" singles before breaking up in 1994. Immediately afterward, Tucker formed Sleater-Kinney with Carrie Brownstein, and they did amazing things together.
Earlier this year, Tucker and Sawyer got back together, playing Heavens To Betsy's first shows in 32 years. Tomorrow, they'll kick off a North American tour and release baby's gone, a 16-song compilation taht includes the demo tape that they recorded in 1992. Bratmobile’s Molly Neumann recorded that tape, and she also wrote the liner notes for baby's gone.
One of the songs on that demo tape was "seek and hide," which never made it onto any of Heavens To Betsy's later records. It's one of the songs that they played at their first show, and someone has miraculously discovered footage of them playing it that night. The video is shaky and unfocused, but god, what a time capsule.
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