Polarbear

Polarbear is a name used by at least two separate acts.

Steven Camden

One Polarbear is the spoken word and poetry project of Steven Camden, who is from Birmingham in the UK and was born in 1979. The project combines spoken word performance with writing and movement. Camden says he likes peach cobbler and Diego Maradona, and the work is closely associated with his interest in polar bears and football-style dribbling imagery. He also describes himself as apathetic about costume drama and salt-fish.

The project’s origin story includes Camden’s childhood experience of being told he had “water on the brain” because of the size of his head, followed by a period in which his mother noticed changes that led her to seek further advice. In the account given of his early years, a doctor dismisses the idea that the skull is shrinking, while a reclusive holistic medicine practitioner examines him over three days and concludes that he has strong physical skill, observation and rhythm, linked to an internal “essence” in the brain. That diagnosis leads to the idea that he needs artistic release, and his mother buys him his first pencil and notepad.

As Polarbear, Camden remixes Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip’s “Letter From God To Man” in 2008. In 2010 he releases Accidental Powercut 1.

Los Angeles side project

Another Polarbear is a former Los Angeles side project involving Eric Avery, formerly the bassist in Jane’s Addiction, and Biff Sanders of Ethyl Meatplow. Most of the recording takes place at Motiv, a studio in downtown Los Angeles.

This version of Polarbear releases the self-titled EP in 1996 and the Chewing Gum EP in 1997. It also records Why Something Instead of Nothing?, which is re-released in 2004 and is regarded by some Jane’s Addiction fans as the strongest post-Jane’s Addiction release by any original member.