Albums: Frenching the Bully, Enter: The Conquering Chicken, Kings & Queens

There are 2 bands called The Gits. The original and most prominent is a defunct grunge-era Seattle, WA bluesy hardcore punk band. The other is an active Polish Skinhead Oi!band.

Both profiled below. -------------------------- The Seattle Washington based band was fronted by the late Mia Zapata, a powerful vocalist who originally joined the band in Yellow Springs, Ohio in 1986 while attending Antioch College. Three years after their formation they headed to the northwest just as grunge was beginning to break into the mainstream.

The Gits were active from 1986 to 1993 until Zapata's horrific rape and murder, but the band's larger than life legacy lives on. They were known for their fiery live performances and retained a dedicated following both during and after their existence. They've released four full length albums and appeared on several singles & compilations.

Their distinct high energy punk rock sound injected influences from blues and hardcore, with a passionate, street-level attack from singer Mia Zapata, who sang of inner struggle, alcohol, death, survival, and determination despite feeling betrayed and hopeless. A popular underground act throughout the Pacific coastal regions, after a few singles & compilations, they released their debut album "Frenching the Bully" and were one of a few dozen filmed for Doug Pray’s grunge-era film “Hype”. They were working on their 2nd full length album at the time of Zapata’s rape & murder.

The band released the posthumous album "Enter The Conquering Chicken" after the rape and murder of Zapata occurred in July 1993. The Zapata murder galvanized the Seattle punk community, and lead to several high profile benefit concerts and albums. In response, friends created a self-defense group called Home Alive which exists to this day.

Home Alive produced fundraising concerts and CDs with the participation of many of Seattle’s grunge scene & rock elite such as Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Heart, and the Presidents of the United States of America. The surviving members toured and recorded as Evil Stig with Joan Jett who also recorded an album released on her Blackheart imprint with the surviving members of The Gits. “Evil Stig” was “Gits Live” backwards.

Despite national media attention on the case, the murder remained unsolved until DNA enabled the arrest and conviction of her murderer in 2004. Aside from the Evil Stig project, after the death of Zapata, the surviving band members continued on for awhile as The Dancing French Liberals of '48 releasing a full length CD and single on Mike Millet’s Broken Rekids indie label. The drummer Steve Moriarty continued recording music with bands like Shotwell and The Pinkos and is currently in The American Professionals with Klaus Flouride of The Dead Kennedys.

The Gits story was documented in an the film documentary entitled "The Gits Movie" released in July 2008 on DVD via Danny Goldberg's Liberation Entertainment group. In 2008, The Gits released a greatest hits collection entitled The Best Of The Gits on Adrenalin.Their back catalog was originally released mainly through Broken Rekids and Daniel House’s C/Z, but also many tracks can be heard via several compilations and singles through labels like RatHouse, Sub Pop, and EmPtee. ———————————— Members *Mia Zapata - vocals *Joe Spleen - guitar *Steve Moriarty - drums *Matt Dresdner - bass guitar album discography: Frenching the Bully ( C/Z records) 1992 CD/Cass/LP Enter: The Conquering Chicken (C/Z - Broken) 1993 CD/LP Kings & Queens ( Broken ) 1995 (recorded 1988) LP/CD Seafish Louisville ( Broken ) 2000 (recorded 1993 ) LP/CD Best Of The Gits (Adrenalin) 2008 (various dates) CD ———————————- Another group called The Gits are a Skinhead Rock\Oi!band from Lublin, Poland who insist on using the name despite objection from the original Seattle WA based group's surviving members.

They are not related to the Seattle band. Most songs were originally done in their native Polish but they subsequently released two albums, one in English and one in Polish of the same songs (the English version called 'As Pure As Polish Vodka' and the Polish version called 'Holiday In Majdanek') in the year 2003. The band has been working on lots of split albums with Western Oi and RAC bands as well, thus also releasing a lot in English these days.

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