The Gits

The Gits  By Tim Sommer 

Mia Zapata of the Gits was the greatest rock singer of her time. This is not hyperbole; if you ever saw her, you know it’s true. She was likely the greatest singer in punk rock history, the woman who married the 78 and the ’78. Tragedy did not make this true. Mia Zapata made this true, and the ferocious, spring-loaded shrapnel frame built around her by Andy Kessler, Matt Dresdner, and Steve Moriarty made it true.

Mia Zapata (1965 – 1993), the vocalist and front person for The Gits (1986 – 1993), was not the type of voice one usually associates with a punk rock band. She had the sizzle, sass, shriek, grace, rasp, and fury of a classic blues shouter (what if Janis Joplin had fronted Fugazi, we ask?). There was a purity and accuracy to her voice. She could simultaneously point it at the stars and scoop cigarette butts off of the venue floor. It sounded like a voice on fire, desperate and angry, pleading and commanding, all at the same time (what if Amy Winehouse had fronted Fugazi, we ask?). And her onstage persona was utterly devoid of bullshit: Mia Zapata was a rag doll, a stick figure, a sock puppet, alternately bent with sadness and arched with rage. Sometimes, she looked like she was in pain, clawing at an ulcer; other times, like a holy woman on a soapbox, testifying the joy of truth; and still other times, like someone draped in a bedtime t-shirt reading from the margins of her notebooks. The voice and the presence were extraordinary, and there was nothing like it anywhere in punk – it was like finding the missing link between Nina Simone and Johnny Rotten (what if Joss Stone had fronted Fugazi, we ask?).

Much of this story takes place in Seattle during the strange night fog of the early 1990s, but did that matter? No. The Gits were beyond era or place. Maybe that’s why they were one of the most important acts to emerge from Seattle during that time. The Gits defied any categorizations – were they ferocious post-hardcore sideways-metal screw-propellor punk rockers? Some cross between Iron Maiden and an SST band? And although Mia Zapata was undoubtedly a once-in-a-generation talent – a wrapped-tight urchin/ingenue/artist applying a shredded Bonnie Raitt blues-rasp perfect-pitched alto to tight punk rock – the band matched her and inspired her to double down. Andy Kessler (guitar – metronomic and furious), Steve Moriarty (drums – martial and explosive), and Matt Dresdner (bass – fluid, punching, beat-addicted and melodic) wrote and performed with a jaw-tightened fury, a clenched soul that shrieked and stomped with precision. The Gits were an angry, inflamed slinky fully in tune with the Bessie Patti Smith of her time, truly the only singer who could summon Joplin, Poly Styrene, Sam Cooke, Iggy Pop, and Ian MacKaye all in the same goddamn song.

The Gits were formed at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio in mid-1986. Matt, Mia, Andy, and Steve moved to Seattle in middish 1989, landing in a house on Capitol Hill where they (and fellow travelers) woodshedded and rehearsed for the next few years. The Gits put out three EPs in 1990 and ’91 before signing with C/Z Records and releasing their first full-length album, Frenching The Bully. Soon, Seattle, North America, and the world felt the kind of awe the Gits inspired when peak emotion meets peak grindage.

Now, Sub Pop is re-releasing the entirety of the Gits’ catalog, including all four extant albums (three of which, sadly, were released posthumously): Frenching The Bully (1992), Enter: The Conquering Chicken (1994), Kings & Queens (1996), and Seafish Louisville (2000). All have been remastered by Jack Endino, one of Seattle’s most respected producers and engineers and the band’s closest studio associate.

On July 7, 1993, Mia Zapata died. We leave it at that, not only because you can read the sad details elsewhere but because this is not about death but an extraordinary life. So, friends, please listen to one of the greatest punk rock bands of all time, fronted by the greatest woman rock vocalist of the last half-century.