About

Squad Set? You Bet!

Ten years ago we formed the first ever UK radical cheerleaders. We were bratty and arrogant and couldn't play any instruments. So instead we wrote cheers  instead of lyrics, choreographed dance routines instead of making music, and practiced our cartwheels instead of guitar solos. We annoyed 90% of people that came to see us. 


We were heavily inspired by the movement of radical cheerleading taking place in the USA, but formed our own squad slightly differently. We weren't a mass of people performing only at demonstrations, but instead performed as 'spoken word artists' (we never chose this for ourselves but promoters didn't know what to call us!) at gigs with other bands in the riot grrrl/queer/diy scene. There was just the two of us - Kandi and Casio.


Our cheers were political, personal, and funny. And our dance routines plus pom poms were astounding. Sometimes we got cheers, sometimes we got booed off stage (more on that later).


Through the years we played with lots of our favourite bands, played at a lot of ladyfests, produced a split cassette, wrote lots of zines, had an album out, appeared as guests on other albums, and waved a lot of pom poms. 


We played with a lot of our heroes who didn't really get the attention they deserved at the time, and even less so now as people begin to reflect on that period. Similarly our own shoddy efforts aren't really documented anywhere. Possibly because we didn't really play outside of Manchester or Leeds much. Possibly also because as we previously mentioned we annoyed people who didn't recognise our efforts as punk, and instead dismissed us as shockingly embarassing amateurs that needed to go away. 


We thought we were awesome and we thought our friends were awesome. So we started this blog to document some of the things we did, some of the shows we played, and some of the people we played with. We are gonna have some interviews up here real soon with some of those people to give them the massive pep rally they deserve so their awesomeness doesn't become totally invisible.


We are also working with Eva Monkey and together we are making a little film about us that we hope to start work on soon. More on that later.