L7 (band)
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L7 (band)
L7 is an American all-female rock band founded in Los Angeles, California, first active from 1985 to 2001 and re-formed in 2014. Their longest standing lineup consists of Suzi Gardner (guitars, vocals), Donita Sparks (vocals, guitars), Jennifer Finch (bass, vocals), and Dee Plakas (drums, vocals). L7 has released seven studio albums and has toured widely in the US, Europe, Japan, Australia, and South America. "Pretend We're Dead" was heavily played on US alternative radio and entered the top 10 on the ''Billboard'' Modern Rock chart in 1992. Due to their sound and image, L7 is often associated with the grunge movement of the late 1980s and early 1990s, and as an all-female band, L7 have, at times, been linked to riot grrrl; although they preceded and are outliers of both the grunge and riot grrrl movements. L7 have been supportive of political causes, and formed Rock for Choice in 1991. A documentary film about the band, ''L7: Pretend We're Dead'', premiered in 2016. Histo ...
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L-Seven
L-Seven was an American post-punk band from Detroit, Michigan, United States. The band existed during 1980–1983. Some band members had been formerly active in Detroit punk bands The Blind, Algebra Mothers, and Retro.Detroit Punk Archive: L-Seven. Available from https://detroitpunkarchive.com/bands/l-seven/ Anecdotally, they lifted their name from the Rick James album Bustin' Out of L Seven.Coombe, D. (2020 August 19). L-Seven is the Detroit post-punk band that time forgot — but Third Man Records is looking to change that with a deluxe reissue. ''Metro Times'', retrieved from https://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/l-seven-is-the-detroit-post-punk-band-that-time-forgot-but-third-man-records-is-looking-to-change-that-with-a-deluxe-reissue/Content?oid=25157958 In February 1982, they recorded a self-titled three-song EP at Multi Trac Studios in Redford, Michigan. The EP was released as a 7" titled "L-Seven" by Touch and Go Special Forces in 1982. Although Touch and Go Special Forces w ...
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Don Giovanni Records
Don Giovanni Records is an independent record label originally specializing in punk rock from the New Brunswick, New Jersey music scene but eventually working with a variety of artists from different genres. History Don Giovanni Records was founded by Joe Steinhardt and Zach Gajewski while they were living in Boston in 2004. The label is best known for developing artists like Screaming Females, Mitski, Waxahatchee, Laura Stevenson, and Moor Mother, as well as fostering a geographically diverse community of artists, including Mal Blum, Native American Music Award “Best Artist” winner Keith Secola, Holy Modal Rounders founder, Peter Stampfel, Lavender Country, Swamp Dogg, Alice Bag, and comedian Chris Gethard. Steinhardt and Gajewski started the label while playing in bands and attending college at Boston University where the two met. After graduation they moved to New Brunswick, where Steinhardt was from, in order to make the label a full-time operation. In 2016, Steinh ...
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Rock For Choice
Rock for Choice (or Rock 4 Choice) was a series of benefit concerts held over the ten-year period between 1991 and 2001. The concerts were designed to allow musicians to show their support for the abortion rights movement in the United States and Canada. Background The first Rock for Choice concert was organized by L7 and music editor Sue Cummings of the '' LA Weekly'', who brought their idea for a pro-abortion rights benefit concert modeled on Bob Geldof's Live Aid. Rock for Choice's first concert was held at the Palace on Vine Street in Hollywood, California on October 25, 1991, and featured Nirvana, Hole, L7, and Sister Double Happiness. Concert attendees were encouraged to speak out about women's issues from a politically progressive angle, especially abortion rights, and voter registration. Rock for Choice L7/Joan Jett concert footage and politics are featured on the rockumentary ''Not Bad for a Girl''. An after-party that followed the initial concert led Nirvana drummer ...
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Riot Grrrl
Riot grrrl is an underground feminist punk movement that began during the early 1990s within the United States in Olympia, Washington and the greater Pacific Northwest and has expanded to at least 26 other countries. Riot grrrl is a subcultural movement that combines feminism, punk music, and politics. It is often associated with third-wave feminism, which is sometimes seen as having grown out of the riot grrrl movement and has recently been seen in fourth-wave feminist punk music that rose in the 2010s. The genre has also been described as coming out of indie rock, with the punk scene serving as an inspiration for a movement in which women could express anger, rage, and frustration, emotions considered socially acceptable for male songwriters but less common for women. Riot grrrl songs often addressed issues such as rape, domestic abuse, sexuality, racism, patriarchy, classism, anarchism, and female empowerment. Primary bands most associated with the movement by media inclu ...
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All-female Band
An all-female band is a musical group in popular music that is exclusively composed of female musicians. This is distinct from a girl group, in which the female members are solely vocalists, though this terminology is not universally followed. While all-male bands are common in many rock and pop scenes, all-female bands are less common. 1920s–1950s In the Jazz Age and during the 1930s, "all-girl" bands such as the Blue Belles, the Parisian Redheads (later the Bricktops), Lil-Hardin's All-Girl Band, the Ingenues, the Harlem Playgirls led by the likes of Neliska Ann Briscoe and Eddie Crump, the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, Phil Spitalny's Musical Sweethearts, "Helen Lewis and Her All-Girl Jazz Syncopators" as well as "Helen Lewis and her Rhythm Queens were popular. Dozens of early sound films were made of the vaudeville style all-girl groups, especially short subject promotional films for Paramount and Vitaphone. (In 1925, Lee de Forest filmed Lewis and her band in his sho ...
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Billboard Modern Rock Chart
Alternative Airplay (formerly known as Modern Rock Tracks (1988–2009) and Alternative Songs (2009–2020)) is a music chart in the United States that has appeared in ''Billboard'' magazine since September 10, 1988. It ranks the 40 most-played songs on alternative and modern rock radio stations. Introduced as Modern Rock Tracks, the chart served as a companion to the Mainstream Rock chart (then called Album Rock Tracks), and its creation was prompted by the explosion of alternative music on American radio in the late 1980s. During the first several years of the chart, it regularly featured music that did not receive commercial radio airplay anywhere but on a few modern rock and college rock radio stations. This included many electronic and post-punk artists. Gradually, as alternative rock became more mainstream (spearheaded by the grunge explosion in the early 1990s), alternative and mainstream rock radio stations began playing many of the same songs. By the late 2000s, the gen ...
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Pretend We're Dead
"Pretend We're Dead" is a 1992 song by American all-female rock band L7, from the album '' Bricks Are Heavy''. It was written by Donita Sparks. It was the first single from ''Bricks Are Heavy'' and achieved moderate international success. It spent 20 weeks on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks, peaking at #8. It also reached #21 on the UK Singles Chart and charted in Belgium and Australia. It has been featured in the video games '' Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas'' and '' Rock Band 2'', as well as numerous TV programs and films. A documentary about L7 directed by Sarah Price and titled ''L7:'' ''Pretend We're Dead'' was released in 2016. The film covers the band discussing challenges associate with producing the video for "Pretend We're Dead" including a crane failure that injured Suzi Gardner and heavy handed video producers that stifled the creative vision of Sparks. Conception Donita Sparks was in her apartment in Echo Park trying to write lyrics to a cassette she had made. She ...
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Rock Music
Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States and United Kingdom.W. E. Studwell and D. F. Lonergan, ''The Classic Rock and Roll Reader: Rock Music from its Beginnings to the mid-1970s'' (Abingdon: Routledge, 1999), p.xi It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, a style that drew directly from the blues and rhythm and blues genres of African-American music and from country music. Rock also drew strongly from a number of other genres such as electric blues and folk, and incorporated influences from jazz, classical, and other musical styles. For instrumentation, rock has centered on the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar, drums, and one or more singers. Usually, rock is song-based music with a time signature using a verse–chorus form, ...
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Janis Tanaka
Janis Tanaka (born January 9, 1963) is an American bassist who has worked as a session musician and on tour with a number of well-known artists including Pink, Fireball Ministry, Hammers of Misfortune, Stone Fox, and L7. She was also a member of the Pagan Babies, a band started by Courtney Love, Kat Bjelland, and Deirdre Schletter in the 1980s. Career Tanaka grew up in Long Beach, California, in a family with several sisters. She took courses at UCLA for one year followed by Long Beach City College. Tanaka began playing guitar, violin, and piano in elementary school. Music Early bands Tanaka played with include The Jackson Saints and Sugar Baby Doll. She left Hammers of Misfortune to play with Pink. In 2001, Tanaka appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno supporting Pink. She has also played in the band Winterthrall. As of 2017, Tanaka was reportedly playing in The Big Meat Combo and in the all female version of Los Angeles-based Femme Fatale. Film Tanaka has appe ...
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Gail Greenwood
Gail Greenwood (born March 10, 1960) is an American musician and illustrator most notable for performing bass guitar and guitar with the bands Belly and L7. Career Greenwood grew up in Rhode Island. She became a vegetarian at age fourteen and has been a lifelong adherent of straight edge, refraining from substance use. Having originally learned to play the baritone horn, Greenwood switched to guitar following high school. She earned a degree in illustration from the Rhode Island School of Design. Her first band, the Dames, won the ''WBRU Rock Hunt'' in 1986. Later, Greenwood was a member of the Providence, Rhode Island-based band known as Boneyard, who opened for the Goo Goo Dolls, Social Distortion, and the Circle Jerks. In 1993, Throwing Muses alumna Tanya Donelly recruited Greenwood to join Belly as a bass guitarist. She played on that band's second album ''King'' and appeared on the cover of ''Rolling Stone''. Donelly disbanded Belly in 1996 and Greenwood joined L7 as a ...
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Demetra Plakas
Demetra Plakas (born November 9, 1960) is an American musician, best known for being the drummer in the rock band L7. Early life Plakas was born November 9, 1960 in Chicago, Illinois. Her parents immigrated independently from Greece and later met in Chicago. Plakas has a younger sister. She learned to play the drums while in high school. Career Early bands In the late 1970s, Plakas joined a punk band called Problem Dogs. Although she had never played drums before, she purchased a set and learned to play as the band practiced in the basement of bass player Algis Kizys's house. In the thriving Chicago punk scene, the band played sporadic gigs at places like Space Place and O'Banion's, opening for The Bangles at The Metro. They also released a single, "City Hall/ You Are The Knife", following the departure of Kizys in 1982. Plakas moved to the greater Los Angeles metro area in 1985. The band went through several personnel changes, with original bandmates Plakas, Rick Radt ...
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Jennifer Finch
Jennifer Finch (born August 5, 1966) is an American musician, designer, and photographer most notable for being the primary bass player of the punk rock band L7. Active in L7 from 1986 to 1996, Finch also wrote music and performed with her bands OtherStarPeople and The Shocker in the interim before joining the reunited L7 in 2014. Early life Finch was born August 5, 1966 and grew up in West Los Angeles. She was adopted in 1967 by Robert Edward Finch, an aeronautics engineer, and his wife Sandra Jacobson; they later divorced in 1974. Finch credits the support of her adoptive father, who was also an amateur photographer, as being instrumental to her creative development. Finch took an interest in photography at an early age and attended a summer art session at Otis Parsons in 1980. Career Music Finch began her musical career in the mid 1980s. She played bass in the San Francisco-based band Sugar Babydoll (or Sugar Babylon) from 1984 - 1986. The band featured Courtney Love, fut ...
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