7 Year Bitch

7 Year Bitch formed in 1990, their first live show was opening for The Gits. The original line-up included Selene Vigil on vocals, Stefanie Sargent on guitar, Elizabeth Davis on bass and Valerie Agnew on drums. Sadly Stefanie died of an overdose June 27, 1992 just after the band's first album "Sick 'Em" came out on C/Z Records. This photo is of the band playing at The Weathered Wall just after her death in September of 1992, with a friend stepping in on guitar. Roisin Dunne eventually took over on guitar (she left the band in 1996). In 1993 their good friend Mia Zapata was killed, their 1994 album "Viva Zapata" was a tribute to her life and music. The band eventually signed to a major and released their third album on Atlantic, "Gato Negro," in 1996. The next year Atlantic dropped them and the ride seemed over, so the band broke up. In their prime 7 Year Bitch were exciting, fun and powerful. I saw them at least a dozen times between 1990 and 1995 and they always put on a great live show, Selene was a fantastic frontwoman. Unfortunately though, the band seemed plagued with tragedy, which coupled with their problems with Atlantic seemed to hold them back, when many times they seemed on the verge of busting out huge. In 2005 Selene married Brad Wilk of Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave.

Albums to pick up:
Sick 'Em, C/Z Records, it's a raw fun primer to 7YB
Viva Zapata, C/Z Records, their best album!
I'd probably skip the Atlantic album

There's a MySpace page up for the band, but unfortunately it only has music from their final album on it: http://www.myspace.com/sevenyearbitch