Jennifer Finch<\/a>, whose own cropped top isn\u2019t all that demure. But combined with a pierced navel, multiple tattoos, and a stocky build, the effect isn\u2019t sexy but confrontational. The members of L7 are, proudly, the weirdest-looking people at Gladstone\u2019s. Drummer Dee Plakas has extremely green hair. Guitarist Suzi Gardner sports one of those gleefully hideous multicolored leather patch jackets that the \u201970s revival has made trendy again.<\/p>\n\n\tL7 may be coming into their own in the age of grunge and riot grrrls, but it\u2019s old-time punk rock that\u2019s central to their D.I.Y. fuck-you spirit. Ramones. Sex Pistols. X. Inspired, insanely energetic sloppiness. Mean, squealing, subversive guitars that Sparks and Gardner wield like the weapons they are. Tough, uncompromising lyrics whose allegiances sport a ferocious Thelma-and-Louise-blow-up-the-truck feminism.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cHow many times must you be told\/ There\u2019s nowhere we don\u2019t go\u201d is the anthemic refrain of \u201cShirley,\u201d off L7\u2019s new disc, Hungry for Stink<\/em>, a paean to champion drag racer Shirley Muldowney. \u201cWhat\u2019s a beautiful girl like you doing racing in a place like this?\u201d a reporter asks Muldowney in the sample off the film Heart Like a Wheel<\/em>. Muldowney replies, \u201cWinning.\u201d L7 loop it over and over again. \u201cWinning.\u201d \u201cWinning.\u201d \u201cWinning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t\u201cIt was so ironic, because in the beginning, we used to get a lot of questions like that,\u201d says Finch. \u201cWoman in a man\u2019s world, all that kind of crap.\u201d L7 are not, they emphasize, \u201cfoxcore,\u201d riot grrrls, insert-label-of-your-choice-here girls.<\/p>\n\n\n
\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n
\n\t\u201cTo create genre out of gender is just horrible to me,\u201d Finch says. \u201cI think journalism perpetuates that. I hope the story angles for L7 will eventually be the same as for Nirvana or Cracker. There\u2019s a uniqueness in being a woman, but not that much.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tStill, L7 delight in throwing their gender into people\u2019s faces \u2014 quite literally at England\u2019s Reading Festival in 1992, where Sparks removed her tampon onstage and tossed it into the genuinely shocked audience. (Tampax has yet to take advantage of this unique endorsement opportunity, though Midol \u2014 whose cramp-relief products appear on L7\u2019s concert rider \u2014 did send them a big box of free merchandise once.)<\/p>\n
\n\tL7 also rely on a fierce camaraderie any pro sports team would envy. Cigarettes. Politics. Unity. There are no stars in L7. They don\u2019t do individual interviews or photo shoots. They communicate as a team, finishing one another\u2019s sentences, a wisp of conversation lending itself to yet another in-joke.<\/p>\n
\n\tBeing misquoted \u201chappens to us a lot,\u201d says Finch.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cDid you pitch this story, or were you assigned to it?\u201d Finch asks suspiciously. \u201cDid you come out from New York just for this?\u201d L7 protect their turf.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhen they first started out, in the mid-\u201980s, L7 practiced at the home of Maxine Nazworthy, the benevolent and free-spirited Max Factor heiress who acted as Medici patroness to a whole generation of L.A. punks, including the Chemical People, Redd Kross, and Down by Law.<\/p>\n\n\n
\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n
\n\t\u201cIt was funny driving to Beverly Hills to rehearse,\u201d says Finch. \u201cVery ironic.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe bassist is the only native Angeleno in the bunch. Sparks and Plakas are refugees from Chicago, while Gardner grew up in Sacramento, California.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cAll these losers that were in my hometown playing rock & roll, they didn\u2019t have a clue,\u201d Gardner says. \u201cI knew I had to get out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cSuzi was involved in the River\u2019s Edge<\/em> scandal,\u201d offers Sparks.<\/p>\n\n\t\u201cRiver\u2019s Edge<\/em> [the film based on a real case wherein a teenager murders his girlfriend, then takes his buddies to see the body] epitomizes that whole area and the kids I hung out with,\u201d Gardner continues.<\/p>\n\n\t\u201cSuzi found the body,\u201d says Finch.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI nearly was<\/em> that body,\u201d says Gardner. \u201cI swear to God, I came, like, this close.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\tLuckily, she hooked up with Sparks instead, enduring a few years of lame, sociopathic bassists and drummers before discovering Finch and Plakas. L7 was released by Epitaph in 1988, followed by a 1990 Sub Pop EP, Smell the Magic<\/em>. But it was 1992\u2019s Bricks Are Heavy<\/em> and its surprisingly commercial single, \u201cPretend We\u2019re Dead,\u201d that started moving their CDs (250,000 and counting).<\/p>\n\n\tThey\u2019ve since crossed over to the movies, recently playing the band the Camel Lips in John Waters\u2019 movie Serial Mom<\/em>. \u201cBabes in Toyland couldn\u2019t do it,\u201d quips Finch. \u201cWe were honored to do it, \u2019cause we\u2019ve been John Waters fans for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\tNow, L7 are about to have a Lollapalooza summer, complete with anticipated hefty sales of Hungry for Stink<\/em>, a record that\u2019s such a triumph of stripped-down energy over any snotty trend du jour that it practically demands big-time success.<\/p>\n\n\tL7 may throw in the occasional quirky love-and-angst tune, like \u201cAndres.\u201d (\u201cDown in North Hollywood\/There\u2019s a guy with long hair\/He\u2019s really, really nice\/But we had a problem,\u201d wails Sparks, who has the most bizarrely expressive voice this side of Bj\u00f6rk \u2014 squealing, growling, soaring, often during the same note.) But it\u2019s their deep defiance that raises the album to the level of a classic. \u201cPeople like you just fuel my fire!\u201d screams Sparks on \u201cFuel My Fire,\u201d backed by a Tilt-a-Whirl rhythm section that comes off both assaultive and joyous.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cPeople Like You\u201d seems to apply to a lot of oppressive Republican types and miscellaneous assholes, but L7\u2019s primary political focus remains Rock for Choice, the pro-choice organization they founded in 1991. This summer, they hope it will be included among the Lollapalooza booths.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWhen we started Rock for Choice,\u201d says Sparks, \u201cone of the things that concerned us the most was that Bush was in office representing a huge contingent to take away women\u2019s rights. Since then, we\u2019ve moved on to other issues, more grassroots: Right now, Rock for Choice money is buying surveillance equipment and bulletproof vests for clinic workers, which run around $2,500 apiece.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tRock for Choice benefits around the country raised a lot of money for the Fund for the Feminist Majority. \u201cMore than our goal,\u201d says Sparks. \u201cBut in Pensacola, Florida, we did this huge show with Pearl Jam, and there was very little money raised because it was so expensive to put on, and Pensacola law enforcement insisted on a very large security staff. It\u2019s good-old-boy territory. They were going to cancel the show otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tGood old boys sometimes show up at their gigs, to no avail. \u201cThere will be an occasional something like, \u2018Show us your tits,\u2019\u201d says Finch in perfect Beavis-and-Butt-head-ese. \u201cBut we\u2019re the ones with a microphone. To battle us is ridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tIn the Gladstone\u2019s meeting of L7 versus the lobsters, however, the lobsters win. The leftovers return lovingly encased in tinfoil critters of dubious identity.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI just insulted the aluminum-foil artist by calling his whale a turkey,\u201d says Plakas.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI wonder if he\u2019s actually a foil artist and answered an ad for foil artists,\u201d says Finch, \u201cand if his foil art is suffering at home because he has to do it at work.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tL7 are probably going to eat<\/em> their leftovers. Rock stars or not, their finances haven\u2019t changed much. Gardner speaks wistfully of her \u201973 Cadillac, which requires $2,500 worth of work. Plakas drives a bumper-sticker-bedecked clunker.<\/p>\n\n\t\u201cMy dad still drives us to the airport,\u201d says Finch. \u201cHe\u2019s the band dad in a way, because he\u2019s from here. But when we go to these guys\u2019 towns, Suzi\u2019s mom takes us to a buffet, and Dee\u2019s mom cooks for us. Donita\u2019s mom cooks for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tL7 got a glimpse of their future, however, when they toured Brazil and Japan in support of Bricks Are Heavy<\/em>: They were lovingly mobbed, per local custom. \u201cAt first, it\u2019s novel, and then it\u2019s a pain in the ass,\u201d says Gardner. \u201cBrazilian fans are way more aggressive. In Japan, they\u2019ll sit in front of your hotel for hours, and when you walk out, they\u2019ll smile to see if you want to be approached.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t\u201cIn Brazil, they\u2019ll rip your hair out,\u201d says Plakas.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cYou just tell them to calm down, and they usually listen,\u201d says Finch.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cNot in Brazil,\u201d says Sparks.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThey didn\u2019t speak English,\u201d says Finch.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThey were chasing our bus down the street,\u201d says Gardner.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThey wanted our cigarette butts,\u201d says Finch.<\/p>\n
\n\tTheir new star status almost intact, L7 feel more confident about talking to celebrities. Seems Finch recently ran into Angelyne, the Jayne Mansfield wannabe whose ballistic cleavage and platinum bouffant has graced L.A. billboards for years. Finch asked Angelyne to write \u201cGood luck on Lollapalooza,\u201d along with her autograph.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cShe said [Finch goes into an Angelyne impression<\/em>], \u2018I just did an interview for a Lollapalooza.\u2019 I said, \u2018Really, \u2019cause you know, it\u2019s a concert series.\u2019 And she said, \u2018Are you in a band?\u2019 Then she goes, \u2018If you need video work, here\u2019s my card.\u2019 It was really weird.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n
\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n
\n\tFinch considers this and laughs. \u201cI liked her. I saw a lot of us in her, in 20 years, with her pink Corvette.\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story was originally published in the August 11, 1994 issue of\u00a0\u201cRolling Stone.\u201d We\u2019re talking big food at Gladstone\u2019s, on the Santa Monica, California,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":68913,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pop","article","has-excerpt","has-avatar","has-author","has-date","has-comment-count","has-category-meta","has-read-more","thumbnail-"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}