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Cat-Scratch Fever
7 Year Bitch sharpens its nails on Gato Negro
By David Holthouse
Well, stick a monkey in front of a typewriter and sooner or later
he'll write a haiku. (Note: ...or a music review like the caliber of this one? *laugh*)
Four years into a career ignited as a lark, and fueled on hype and
connections, 7 Year Bitch has finally come up with a few decent
garage-punk songs. And, Christ, how hard can that be?
If the Bitches (as they're known to friends) were a high school
band from somewhere very American, like, say, a suburb of Des
Moines, they'd be the chick band that all the jocks were scared of,
and that every other guy in school secretly lusted after. All that
painted, sweaty hair, exotic makeup, thrift-store chic, electric
noise and pheromone-soaked aggression.
But 7 Year Bitch isn't from Iowa. 7 Year Bitch is from Seattle,
Washington, where the playing field is big-league and littered
with the wreckage of bands that were miles better than this one
ever wasbands that busted their asses but didn't come up with the
right gimmick or know the right people.
7 Year Bitch did both. Three of the band's founding
membersdrummer Valerie Agnew, vocalist Selene Vigil and
bass player Elizabeth Davismet as employees in the same
health-food store at Seattle's Pike Place market in 1990. The
Rainy City music scene was one big, fat buzz at that time and the
three decided towhat the hellstart a band and get in on the fun.
"No, we didn't know how to play our instruments," Davis said in
a recent interview, her incredulous tone implying "stupid
question."
"When we started off, we didn't really know anything about
writing or playing music, so there was nowhere to go but up."
And up it went; the band that climbed the ropes without learning
them first. Filling out its lineup with local guitarist-in-training
Stefanie Sargent, 7YB started playing sporadic dates around
Seattle in 1991mostly opening slots and parties for free beer.
The band sucked, of course. But the members also knew Eddie
Vedder's wife, Beth, who, in early 1992, secured the group a spot
opening for the Red Hot Chili Peppers on a national string of
rain-check dates (Pearl Jam had opened for the Red Hots on the
original tour, but had to be in Europe for the makeup shows).
"[The Peppers] said they wanted to help out an up-and-coming
band from the same city, and Beth set us up," Davis says. The tour
was pretty much a disaster. "We were petrified, and we sort of
knew we didn't belong there," Davis says. "We didn't play
especially well."
No matter. A Seattle indie label, C/Z Records, inked a deal with
the band anyway, a few months after it came off the Chili Peppers
tour. Shortly before 7YB's debut album, Sick 'Em, came out in
early 1993, Sargent died of a heroin overdose. Coming on the
heels of her band's unlikely performances with the Red Hots, the
guitarist's death made national news in the rock press.
The band decided, after a few months of mourning, to press on,
and Fastbacks bassist Kim Warnick invited a friend from Los
Angeles to drive up to Seattle to meet the surviving Bitches.
Roisin Dunne had little talent or experience as a musician and
possessed only a passing familiarity with 7 Year Bitch's material.
Two weeks later, she was in the band. 7YB's second album, Viva
Zapata, came out in the spring of 1994, immediately after an
embarrassingly bad European tour.
Like Sick 'Em, Viva Zapata was a collection of crude,
brown-wrapper aggro rock that hopscotched between punk and
metal. Normally, either album would have died a quick death on
college radio. But, sick as it is, tragedy and hype sell
recordseven bad ones.
There is no question that the members of 7 Year Bitch were
legitimate close friends of Gits singer Mia Zapata before she was
raped and killed in July of 1993. But there is also no question that
putting Zapata's name in the title of their second album and a
portrait of her as a Mexican bandito on the cover was a smart
business move.
Zapata's brutal murder quickly became a cause clèbrewith that
movement, when Viva Zapata came out, the rock press tagged the
band a riot grrrl act anyway, primarily because of the track
"Dead Men Don't Rape," (Note: This song is on Sick 'Em, not Viva Zapata) a song more notable for its title than its
substance.
"We never were a feminist band," Davis says. "To me, extreme
anger and wanting to kill a rapist is a completely normal female
response, not a political one."
Shortly after Viva Zapata came out, 7YB signed a contract with
Atlantic Records. The band's first major-label LP, Gato Negro,
was released in February. Surprisingly, it's not half-bad. Starting
with the slinky, drag-race guitar riff on the album's opener, "The
History of My Future," Gato Negro holds a few tasty surprises
for anyone who's followed the band's dubious rise up to now.
Most of the album is merely serviceable, but at least it won't make
you cringe. And several cuts are actually pretty damn good,
including the lurching bruiser "Whoopie Cat" and "Crying
Shame," a languid broken-heart lament with a mean hook that
comes out of nowhere.
"Yeah, it's obviously our best album," says Davis. "The older
stuff we just sort of always had the bass play along with the
guitar. There's more separation now and it makes the songs more
interesting."
Davis says the band spends its free time on the road in thrift and
health-food stores. Signing with a major, she says, has not jacked
up the band's lifestyle. She seems to take pride in pointing out that
she's eligible for food stamps. "I made more money pulling
espresso part-time," she says. "But I'm having more fun on tour."
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