All-female punk band L7 made an X-rated impression on TV audiences with their first and last appearance on UK television in 1992.

I still recall the shock of that night in November 1992 watching The Word, as I always did on Friday nights, and seeing L7 make their British TV debut.

The Friday-night C4 show never shied away from controversy – in fact it invited it whenever possible – but it was still a startling moment when Donita Sparks stripped off her trousers (and pants) mid-song in front of the TV cameras.

It seemed so implausible that I remember turning to my girlfriend and asking: “Did she just take off her jeans?” as if I needed another witness to corroborate what our eyes had just seen.

Until then the most notable thing about the performance was the full frontal assault of the music itself: the quartet played with wild abandon and punk spirit – of which that, of course, was an example.

It was the height of the Grunge era and L7 were being sold as a Grunge band – and later presented as part of the Riot Grrrl movement – though they had formed in 1985 before either genre was even invented.

Donita Sparks and Suzi Gardner were both part of LA’s mid-’80s art punk scene in Echo Park where Gardner, a poet, had already contributed vocals to Black Flag’s song Slip It In.

When they made their breakthrough album in 1992 the two guitarists were joined by bassist Jennifer Finch and drummer Demetra Plakas, whose performance here is especially remarkable.

Pretend We’re Dead comes from that third album, Bricks Are Heavy, produced by Butch Vig, which opened with the confrontational Wargasm, featuring a sampled scream by Yoko Ono.

By the time they appeared on The Word in November that year they were already controversial, which is probably why they’d been booked.

A few months earlier they played the Reading Festival where Donita had caused another controversy after they had to pause their set due to technical problems and the crowd began throwing mud. Sparks responded by removing her tampon and throwing it into the crowd, yelling: “Eat my used tampon, fuckers!”

She talked later about her contribution to TV history on The Word. “That show had weird stuff going on, they had a men’s bum contest and a hidden camera in Oliver Reed’s dressing room, showing him intoxicated with his shirt off, which was really fucked up. So I added my contribution to this craziness.

“We were never asked to do live television again.”