Disclaimer: Memory is a
funny thing, and an elusive one. Meaning; I might have some of this
wrong, as 1. My memory is not always accurate, like anyone and 2. It is
from my perspective only. Any friends who were there, feel free to
correct me or add things I have missed. It helps! Also, no gossip on
anyone here, it ain't about that. Personal details are on a surface
level, and friends, girlfriends and others are re-named to respect their
privacy. People in bands generally put their names out there on albums
and in interviews anyway, and are not in the habit of staying anonymous,
and therefore are named here. That said, anyone who is in the blog that
wishes me not to use their name has only to ask.
Seattle Years Disclaimer: As I enter the Seattle years in this music blog, the above disclaimer goes double, because so much happened and there are so many details to cover in this 14 year period; so many shows, so many bands, so many friends and so much change in my life. As a result of this and the fact that the four of us who formed Treepeople found ourselves in the midst of a scene which blew up around us and attracted the eyes of the world just 2 years after our arrival, not to mention the 12 years I played music following that, I am bound to, hell, I will forget something.
This means two things: I will be coming back to entries and adding things to them over the months following publication, and, that the part of the above disclaimer where I ask for help from people in keeping me honest and in remembering things is crucial to them. I thank anyone ahead of time who was there, and, those who weren't there who have access to valid info, for helping me to correct errors in dates or chronology. Yes, I have the Internet, but many bands, scenes and things I will cover did not receive the attention I feel that they deserved and thus I will recall them mostly from memory, or rather, memories; mine and those of friends. Also, friends who were in bands which I do not happen to mention, please don't take it personally, just remind me. I have created a monster in undertaking this blog, one which I am determined to ride until the end!
Lastly, as mentioned, this scene gained national attention, and thus, needless to say and as we all know, many bands/people became famous, became rock stars, were/are admired by millions, etc and etc...This makes another part of my original disclaimer even more important. This memoir is intended to tell my story, from my perspective. I have no intention of creating a place where people can seek gossip about famous people, nor is it about 'name-dropping'. I write of my impressions of people, bands, and the Seattle scene from the '90s into the early 2000s. I protect those who are my friends fiercely because a symptom of being known is frequent intrusion into their lives beyond a level that I feel is acceptable. Thank you for indulging me this disclaimer.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My other blogs: Short Story Long - (Top of mind, conversational, formal essays, photo essays, etc.) Artwork, Poetry
Seattle Years Disclaimer: As I enter the Seattle years in this music blog, the above disclaimer goes double, because so much happened and there are so many details to cover in this 14 year period; so many shows, so many bands, so many friends and so much change in my life. As a result of this and the fact that the four of us who formed Treepeople found ourselves in the midst of a scene which blew up around us and attracted the eyes of the world just 2 years after our arrival, not to mention the 12 years I played music following that, I am bound to, hell, I will forget something.
This means two things: I will be coming back to entries and adding things to them over the months following publication, and, that the part of the above disclaimer where I ask for help from people in keeping me honest and in remembering things is crucial to them. I thank anyone ahead of time who was there, and, those who weren't there who have access to valid info, for helping me to correct errors in dates or chronology. Yes, I have the Internet, but many bands, scenes and things I will cover did not receive the attention I feel that they deserved and thus I will recall them mostly from memory, or rather, memories; mine and those of friends. Also, friends who were in bands which I do not happen to mention, please don't take it personally, just remind me. I have created a monster in undertaking this blog, one which I am determined to ride until the end!
Lastly, as mentioned, this scene gained national attention, and thus, needless to say and as we all know, many bands/people became famous, became rock stars, were/are admired by millions, etc and etc...This makes another part of my original disclaimer even more important. This memoir is intended to tell my story, from my perspective. I have no intention of creating a place where people can seek gossip about famous people, nor is it about 'name-dropping'. I write of my impressions of people, bands, and the Seattle scene from the '90s into the early 2000s. I protect those who are my friends fiercely because a symptom of being known is frequent intrusion into their lives beyond a level that I feel is acceptable. Thank you for indulging me this disclaimer.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My other blogs: Short Story Long - (Top of mind, conversational, formal essays, photo essays, etc.) Artwork, Poetry
Murder in the Seattle Scene
Mia Katherine Zapata ~RIP~ Photo retrieved from the Mia Zapata wiki page ~
I have dreaded this entry, as you can imagine. I
have written in this blog of how, as a young musician, quite often by accident, I have
ended up in the midst of important moments or incidents in music
history. This is an incident I wish I would have never been near. It
shook us all to the core, and my best friends in the scene were tight
with Mia, had moved to Seattle together with her from the city scenes in
the Ohio punk scene, people like the drummer, aforementioned Maria
Mabra, (who lived right next door to me and my girlfriend) friends of
mine who had befriended her playing shows with The Gits, the band she fronted so powerfully.
I didn't know Mia well at the time, but I was just starting to get to. I first had to get past the immature attitude I had toward The Gits, I don't believe I was the only one who had been in Treepeople who held these feelings, I am pretty sure it was Pat who shared them, (it matches both of our personalities.)
Treepeople had played a show or two with The Gits,
it was inevitable, the scene was small enough to where bands playing
music even somewhat similar to each other would end up on the same bill
at some point. When we played shows with The Gits, it always felt
like they were snooty and distant in our interactions with them. In
retrospect, I know that part of this was simply the difference in
communication style of people from different parts of the country; that
is, the further East you go, especially past the cordial bubble of the
Midwest, people don't engage in much smalltalk, or worry about hurting
feelings by being direct. I lived on the East Coast for 5 years, and it
was one of the things I liked about it. At this point in my life, the
point I am writing about, I had a long way to go on the front of
straightforward communication being the preferred style, and, I suffered
from then from the same affliction as my fellow Pacific
NorthWesterners; I assumed someone who wasn't throwing all the polite
phrases and expected colloquialisms was 'mean' or 'stuck up.' Also most
likely to blame for this attitude was us misinterpreting the fact that The Gits were on a mission. They wanted to be known, they wanted to get bigger. Also in retrospect, I see that the hunger of The Gits
was genuine, from the heart, it was not part of the main motivation of the vast
majority of bands from transplant scenes in Seattle post Nirvana;
Being the 'Next Big Thing.' At the time, I assume I felt, incorrectly
as you can see, they actually were part of that contingent.
As
I mentioned, one of Mia's best friends was one of mine as well, Maria
Mabra. I had gotten to know Maria as she played in bands that played
with my bands sometimes (one being the aforementioned, wonderful band Shug), and also as she lived next door, in the
apartment house owned by the same company that owned our apartment
house, and where Doug Martsch and his ex lived not too long before, the
scene of my last conflict with Pat that led to my departure from Treepeople. Drew
Quinlan from Violent Green also lived there, and was constantly
4-trak recording all kinds of wild stuff, I was often there with him,
and also as mentioned before, Maria's boyfriend Ajax often joined us. My
point is, I spent a lot of time next door, and Mia often dropped by.
Drummer, singer/songwriter Maria Mabra
Photo retrieved from:
The
more I talked to Mia and got to know her, the more I realized how much I
liked her. She was intelligent, funny and well-spoken, while maintaining roughness around the edges, a punk rock attitude I was familiar with. She was down to
Earth and no bullshit, and her performing was simply electrifying
(something none of us ever denied, it was undeniable.) I later referred
to her in a song I wrote about the period of death in the Seattle music
scene (unreleased) as 'Punk's own Janis Joplin,' and I stand by that
description. She had a similar raw feel to her vocal delivery, gravelly,
sincere as fuck, and lyrics that cut right to it, whether political or
personal. They even looked a little alike, or maybe it is just the
spirit shining through that makes me see that? Both were born in the
South...At any rate, they both had that down home feel underneath a strong intellectual curiosity. That was my impression of her,
anyway. Mia also brought a much needed voice for women in the punk scene in '90s Seattle, which was as male-dominated as any at that time.
Janis and Mia - I always felt there were similarities to their singing styles and their general attitude and demeanor
And then, in one night, after leaving the Comet Tavern on Capitol Hill, she was gone. Raped and murdered and left on the street, with her arms out in a Christ pose. In that music scene, as in any music scene and as I have mentioned, there was death, most often an OD or a suicide, horrible enough on their face, but this was something more, this was a hell we were fortunate enough to not have to experience in Seattle compared to other cities of similar size. And certainly not, as mentioned, in this tight scene that while getting crowded, was still somewhat civil, and intimate, even if more snotty.
Rape and murder were for other cities, other scenes - for television shows like America's Most Wanted, (who actually would very quickly become part of the hunt for this killer, who seemed to have disappeared like a demon in a wisp of smoke.) We were disturbed to the core, all of us in the punk/pop punk scenes, and all the scenes touching them, radiating out (for the influx of so many bands was creating scenes inside scenes, and even the small scenes already extant blew up a bit - say for example the Rockabilly scene.) And soon the world knew. Our grief was public and part of the national conversation. If those of us who weren't fans of how Nirvana's success revealed our little scene to the eyes of the world weren't already smarting, this would still have been like having the news media at a family funeral.
Family loss and the resulting stages of grief
The night of the day Mia was murdered (July 7th, 1993) [Actually, the story I am about to recount would have been July 8th, I have realized since writing this] I ended up with Maria and many from the Ohio contingent, sitting around at first, in Drew and Maria's apartment. I should have known the vibe of the evening was going to be even more fucked up than one would expect when a guy from the Ohio Contingent was eyeing me oddly, suspiciously. Then he started grilling me, his eyebrows arched. "Where were you that night? I don't know you." I didn't respond, out of respect for the moment, but I was not happy at this, understandably. He left me alone, eventually. And then we were all walking, me and about 6 people, including Maria, Ajax and Drew. We weren't consciously doing it, but we wandered from the apartment in a Southwestern direction and ended up in front of Mia's house. We all had been drinking Bushmills, heavily, for hours at this point. Every one of us was completely lit.
I am pretty sure all of us, to a person, started bawling. Saying random things about Mia out loud, not caring who heard. We held each other, sat on the curb. I think someone in the neighboring house stuck their head out the window and yelled at us to keep it down, and one of our drunken number yelled back, and we rerouted them back to Maria and Drew's place, shushing them.
Even though I lived next door, on occasion, I would fall asleep on the couch at Drew and Maria's place. I was pretty drunk this night as was everyone. I woke on the couch to someone trashing the apartment, throwing things. For reasons of privacy, I won't name the person. But the scene soon escalated and the person took out a buck knife and was going for one of their own wrists with it. I pinned them against the wall, someone else came up and got the knife out of their hand, my finger was cut by the knife. And then I realized it was the exact same spot that I had gotten into my last physical conflict with Pat, against that same wall, where Doug pulled us apart, only a couple years before. I shivered at the eeriness of this revelation (or it is entirely possible I had the revelation later, after thinking through what had happened.)
This kind of intense grief we wrestled with that night is as unpredictable as fire in the wind. The police had been called. I watched my friend sit on the hood of the car, a hoody on. They stared off into space and I had no need of psychic powers to know they were thinking about Mia. We all would be, for years to come, for the murderer would walk free for a decade more before being caught. But at the time, we hoped, hoped for at least that, that the murderer who took her away from us would pay. It would be a long, agonizing wait, especially for Mia's family and her bandmates.
Again, we in music scenes had experienced much death, and rape, which shows its vile colors in every corner of humanity, but we were not familiar with murder. And the guy who was insinuating I may have had something to do with Mia's murder was lashing out in grief, but that attitude cut to the core of another thing that was different than other deaths; Someone was directly responsible for this death, someone other than the deceased themselves, (which of course caused ripples of pain and dysfunction in its own way) and that someone could be anyone. It was a disturbing added layer. And it wasn't like some murder mystery, where all the potential suspects are gathered into the parlor. It was an open wound that never fucking healed. It was as if a demon appeared, violated her, killed her, and became a puff in the air. But it was much worse; it was a human, walking the Earth. A face in the crowd. We may be passing them on the street, on any given day. Or we worked with them. Or it was someone we all trusted. It was unnerving.
Healing~
The only thing left, or so it seemed at first, to help this wound heal somewhat was to catch this monster, this motherfucker, who silenced such a voice. Such a spirit. I was selfishly also bummed that she was taken as I was getting to know her, and to feel we could become good friends someday. This has repeated in my life with losing people, this timing. It is life, a part of it, as much as death; It knows no timetable of friendship, doesn't give a shit about it.
But there were other ways to heal. There were benefit shows that cropped up, and the involvement of Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill, and Joan Jett, who seemed passionate about Mia's death and wanted to help. And people rallied to make sure this kind of thing wouldn't happen to other women, people like local badass musician/songwriter Cristien Storm, who co-founded the self-defense organization Home Alive (still active.)
See Home Alive site here:
Delayed justice
Much of this has been written of extensively, has appeared in documentaries. I am not here to rewrite all of this, but to touch on my personal observations of what I saw and how it affected the music scene. But in 2003, Mia's murderer was finally brought to justice, through DNA evidence. I don't even want to write his name here. I want his name to die. Not his crime and what it means to women everywhere, but his name, it should die.
I am pasting a considerable chunk of the Wikipedia page on Mia Zapata as it is well-sourced (including by her bandmates and family, I know) and, well written. It sums up what happened following Mia's death pretty well:
"...In the aftermath of her murder, friends created a self-defense group called Home Alive. Home Alive organized benefit concerts and released albums with the participation of many bands, including Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Heart, and the Presidents of the United States of America. Joan Jett also recorded an album with the surviving members of the Gits called Evil Stig ("Gits Live" backwards). The Home Alive group's instructors offered a range of courses, from anger management and use of pepper spray to the martial arts.
In 2005 a documentary, The Gits Movie, was produced about Mia Zapata's life, the Gits, and the Seattle music scene. Its first showing occurred at the Seattle International Film Festival in May of that same year. Another version of the film appeared two years later at the 2007 SXSW (South By Southwest) Film Festival. The final cut of the film was released theatrically in over 20 North American cities on July 7, 2008, the 15th memorial anniversary of Zapata's death. The following day the film was released on DVD along with a Best of the Gits CD (both from Liberation Entertainment).
¡Viva Zapata!, by punk band 7 Year Bitch, was released in June 1994, on C/Z Records in Seattle, as a tribute to Zapata. Some of the songs on the album address the issue of Zapata's murder directly.
Following Zapata's death, Joan Jett and Kathleen Hanna wrote a song called "Go Home" that was later released on Jett's 1994 album, Pure and Simple. Later, a video for "Go Home" was released which depicts a woman who is being stalked and attacked but is then able to defend herself against the assailant.
wasIn February 2013, a play called "These Streets", inspired by the stories of and featuring music by Mia Zapata and other female musicians in Seattle, debuted at ACT theatre in Seattle.
Zapata's death caused a sense of defeat and fear within the Seattle community. The Seattle Times marked Zapata's murder as the moment "the Seattle scene lost its sense of invincibility." Cristen Storm recalls Zapata's death as a reality check, stating: "[They were] all very tough people and as a group of women, [they] are all really strong, outspoken, and hard-hitting, very opinionated women and that perception of, 'We're not victims at all in any way and this can't happen to women that aren't victims,' and I think [Zapata's death] shattered that myth for us, [and showed] that it happens to all types of women."
Mia Zapata is often cast as a symbol for feminist activism, a martyr, and an angel. Dresdner said "[Mia] was sainted, and that was very peculiar... she became this icon for feminism and all kinds of things that she had very little to do with in her actual life." Margaret O'Neil Girouard, who wrote her thesis on Zapata, believes Zapata is an example of women artists being classified based on the perceived motivations behind their art. Moriarty believed "[Mia wanted] to relate to people on a personal level in her lyrics [rather] than on a political level.".
Andrew Kessler (the Gits' guitarist, known as Joe Spleen) believed "[Mia] had no social or political agenda and no real interest in that stuff. Also, after her death, she quickly acquired a symbolic status as a feminist icon, martyr, and poster child for rape and violence toward women in the eyes of many folks—which had nothing to do with who she was as an actual person. In fact Mia would be mortified that she has been remembered and portrayed in such a way."
Mia is often associated with riot grrrl, though bandmates such as Kessler claim she had no involvement and "little interest" in the movement. It has been speculated that this association may be due to her presence as a "charismatic female musician" in the Northwest, who was performing throughout the emergence of riot grrrl. ..."
See entire Mia Zapata wiki page here:
I can support/share the opinion that she would not want to be known as part of or as being associated with riot grrrl. That was not who she was, she was closer to hardcore punk, I would say. I never got to know the other members of The Gits well, but did interact with them some and watch them after Mia's death, and they handled their massive grief, which was in full public view, honorably, and they have worked hard to make sure she is remembered for who she was.
I feel that this is a point to stop. It is an entry that should stand on its own. RIP, Mia. Thank you for sharing your passion and for giving the Seattle scene much needed integrity and a much needed woman's voice in a male dominated arena. Your voice was silenced, but it will be carried by other voices. Much love to your family and bandmates and everyone who was touched by who you were.
I welcome any valid corrections and additions (or comments remembering Mia, from fan or friend): waynerayflower@gmail.com
Here is a pretty awesome video montage of photos and footage of The Gits that captures the spirit and passion of Mia's performing, and the camaraderie of the band, accompanied by the song, 'Second Skin.'
The Gits - Promo photo
