7 Year Bitch had to deal with more shit in a couple of years than most bands should have to deal with in a lifetime.
That's not where I want to start, though.
Because before all that, they were just a really good punk band.
I started hearing about them pretty much as soon as I got to Seattle in ’92.
Selene Vigil on vocals. Stefanie Sargent on guitar. Elizabeth Davis on bass. Valerie Agnew on drums.
They'd started a couple years earlier and were already playing around town with bands like The Gits.
Somebody put Sick ’Em on at the store and that was my introduction.
“Chow Down.”
“M.I.A.”
“Kiss My Ass Goodbye.”
“Dead Men Don't Rape.”
That last one gets your attention.
Still does.
They weren't polished and they weren't trying to be.
Selene sounded like she was about two seconds away from climbing through the speakers and starting an argument with you personally.
Valerie played drums like she was trying to put holes in them.
Liz held the whole thing together.
And Stefanie's guitar sounded nasty as hell.
I was in.
Then Stefanie died.
June ’92.
She was twenty-four.
I'd barely started figuring out who this band was and suddenly one of them was gone.
Roisin Dunne eventually came in on guitar and the band kept going.
That matters.
Because when people talk about 7 Year Bitch now, it's easy to turn their whole story into a list of terrible things that happened to people around them.
That's not what the band was.
They were funny.
They were angry.
They were political.
They could be a complete fucking blast live.
And they were close with The Gits.
Really close.
So when Mia Zapata was murdered in July ’93, it hit them hard.
It hit a lot of people here hard.
I've already written about Mia elsewhere on this site. I don't really want to do it all over again here.
But you can't talk about ¡Viva Zapata! without talking about her.
The title is for Mia.
“M.I.A.” is for Mia.
And “Rock-A-Bye” came out of that same grief and anger.
But ¡Viva Zapata! isn't just a memorial record.
That's important.
Put it on.
“The Scratch.”
“Hip Like Junk.”
“Miss Understood.”
“Damn Good and Well.”
It's alive as hell.
That's why I still love it.
A lot of people around Seattle were grieving in those years, but 7 Year Bitch didn't make music that just sat there feeling sorry for itself.
It kicks.
I saw them play more than once after I moved here.
I don't remember every date anymore, and I'm not going to pretend I do.
What I remember is Selene.
She had this way of looking out at a room like she was deciding whether we were worth her time.
Then the band would start and that was it.
No distance.
No polite little rock show.
You were in it.
¡Viva Zapata! came out on C/Z in ’94.
That's probably still the record of theirs I play most.
Then things changed.
They signed with Atlantic.
That surprised some people around here.
Maybe it shouldn't have. By the mid-’90s every major label in America seemed to have somebody wandering around Seattle looking under tables for another band to sign.
Gato Negro came out in ’96.
I remember being curious about whether a major label was going to sand off all the rough edges.
It didn't.
The production was bigger, sure.
But Selene still sounded like Selene.
“The History of My Future.”
“24,900 Miles Per Hour.”
“Whoopie Cat.”
“Sore Subject.”
Good record.
Different record.
They didn't last much longer after that.
By ’97 it was over.
And yes, everybody makes the same joke.
7 Year Bitch lasted seven years.
Very funny.
I'm sure nobody in the band has ever heard that one before.
These days I usually reach for ¡Viva Zapata! first.
But when I put on 7 Year Bitch, I try not to hear them only through everything that happened around them.
Stefanie matters.
Mia matters.
Of course they do.
But so does the band that kept getting onstage afterward.
That's the thing I remember.
Not four women standing around looking tragic.
Four women making a fucking racket.
