March 1, 2018 by A.S. Van Dorston

The Seattle music scene in the early 90s had an abundance of tragedy and hype. Somewhat lost between the cracks, the headlines and big names was the fact that the band that created some of the most enduring music was also snuffed out the most brutally. The accidental overdoses of 7 Year Bitch’s Stefanie Sargent (June 27, 1992) and Hole’s Kristen Pfaff (June 16, 1994) and Cobain’s suicide stung, but The Gits’ Mia Zapata was yanked from the world violently and completely against her will, raped and strangled on July 7, 1993. They performed their gritty punk blues outside the spheres of grunge and Riot Grrrl, yet were respected and revered by participants in both of those scenes. Because when it came down to it, it was all just one fairly small local scene that was marketed with different labels after the fact. The fact that Zapata was such a charismatic and loved singer made no difference to her tragic end, which made the inflated importance of grunge in the media seem inconsequential, and the squabbling over the meaning of Riot Grrrl petty. If anything, Zapata’s murder proved how important Riot Grrrl and all other feminist efforts to put a spotlight on the senseless violence against women that had not really gotten any better in the past millennia.

I never got to see The Gits live or know the band, but the loss of their singer is in some ways as heartwrenching as the loss of Kristen, who I was once close to. It was difficult to listen to their music for many years, especially those ten awful years when the murder was still a mystery, the killer loose and unpunished. At the time investigators thought it would be someone who knew her, which totally tore the tight knit scene apart, everyone second-guessing and wondering. Turns out it was just the random, brutal attack of a psychopath, who was identified in Florida after being arrested for a different crime, and his DNA was matched in the database. The 2005 documentary provided some closure by telling the story of the capture of Zapata’s killer in 2003 and sentencing in 2004. I noticed the movie is currently streaming for free on Amazon Prime and rewatched it. This time I was able to better enjoy the music of it. I appreciate how the entire first half of the movie focuses solely on the story of the band, and the creative process that produced some of their greatest songs, like “Another Shot Of Whiskey,” “While You’re Twisting, I’m Still Breathing,” “Cut My Skin It Makes Me Human,” “Second Skin,” “Seaweed” and “Precious Blood.” In any of those songs, Zapata’s vocal talents can stop you in your tracks and inspire goosebumps. Her affinity for the blues approached Janis Joplin levels, while conveying emotional power through melody not unlike Stevie Nicks. She could have also been influenced by Kat Arthur of L.A. punkers Legal Weapon. The great Joan Jett valiantly stepped in to perform with the band (as Evil Stig) to help raise money for a private eye, and while she did a great job, the legend’s performance could not quite measure up to Zapata’s massive talents. Fundraising efforts also helped create the Home Alive organization. There really has been no one like her since, which is too bad. The world needs that passion and empathy more than ever.

In recent years attention was brought back to those days with the release of the 2011 documentary, Hit So Hard: The Life and Near-Death Story of Patty Schemel which included a lot of footage of Kristen Pfaff that was weird to see, the 2016 Babes In Toyland reunion tour (the Minneapolis band has roots in the left coast which briefly involved Courtney Love), the blu-ray release of L7: Pretend We’re Dead last October, the September reissue of the 1996 documentary of the Seattle scene by Doug Pray, Hype!, which includes The Gits, and Carrie Brownstein’s (Sleater-Kinney) memoir, Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl (2015).

In re-listening to music from the era, albums by Team Dresch, Slant 6, Babes In Toyland, LeTigre and Sleater-Kinney stand out. Albums from Bikini Kill, Lunachicks, Red Aunt, L7, Heavens To Betsy, Excuse 17, Tribe 8, The Frumpies, Adickdid and Bratmobile hold up okay, but don’t feel like classics. The two Gits albums, however, tower above them all. They appear to be out of print most places, despite being reissued by Broken Records in 2003, remastered with bonus tracks, but you can get the files, CD or LP of Frenching The Bully (Broken, 1992) and FLAC files of Enter…The Conquering Chicken (Broken, 1994) at Midheaven Records, along with Kings And Queens, their 1988 demos, and the 2000 odds ‘n’ sods collection, Seafish Louisville. They’re also on Spotify

In case the mention of Legal Weapon floated past you, they’re very much worth checking out as the missing link between the melodic punk of The Avengers and the punk blues garage noir of Gun Club. For their first EP, No Sorrow (Arsenal/Triple X, 1981), their lineup included Bags woman Patricia Morrison, who left afterwards to join Gun Club. Death Of Innocence (1982) and Your Weapon (1983) are the classics, while Interior Hearts (1985) sees them experiencing growing pains, striving for a wider audience and incorporating country and Americana along the lines of X. It’s a mixed bag, but no worse than X’s Ain’t Love Grand from the same year. The polished hard rock of Life Sentence To Love (MCA, 1988) was less successful, and they returned to punk on Take Out The Trash (Triple X, 1991) and Squeeze Me Like An Anaconda (Last Resort, 1994). Their swan song was a self-titled album in 2002, the highlights are some of their strongest songs since 1985. The early albums were issued by Triple X in 1991, and can still be found used with a little patience, and are also streaming on Spotify.