Latest / DISGRACELAND / Mia Zapata: Missed Connections, the Dark End of the Street, and an Uncompromising Voice with No Fear

Transcript

Mia Zapata: Missed Connections, the Dark End of the Street, and an Uncompromising Voice with No Fear · DISGRACELAND

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: This is a story about someone who mattered.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: It's about choosing the long way around and about getting
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: outside your comfort zone. It's a story about basements and
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: rehearsal spaces, and about the real scene that beats like
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: a tired heart just out of sight of the manufactured
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: scene playing out on national television. It's about rat houses,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: anarchist compounds in the dark end of the street. This
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: is a story about misconnections as well, about David Bowie
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: peeling off in his gold Jaguar and miaz Apata left behind,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: watching the star Man slip away and wondering what her
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: next move was and what she'd have to sacrifice to
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: get there. And speaking of miaz Apata, this is a
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: story about the Gits, one of the most underrated bands
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: from the so called grunge scene of the nineteen nineties.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: An artist in a band that made great music. Unlike
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: that clip I played for you at the top of
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: the show that wasn't great music. That was a preset
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: loop from my mellotron called Star buckingham Nicks MK.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Two.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: I played you that loop because I can't afford the
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: rights to That's the Way Love Goes by Janet Jackson,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: And why would I play you that specific slice of
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: pre Nipplegate cheese?
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: Could I afford it?
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Because that was the number one song in America on
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: July seventh, nineteen ninety three, And that was the day
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: that Mia Zapata was found brutally murdered on the streets
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: of Seattle in the early hours of the morning. On
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: this episode The Long Way Around, Comfort Songs, rat Houses, misconnections,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: so called grunge, the Dark End of the Street, and
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Mia Zapata. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland. July seventh,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three, Seattle. It was late, around three in
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: the morning, but for Charity, the workday was only half over.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: This was her time, the nighttime, the right time, the
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: time when inhibitions dropped to the floor as quickly as
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: a pair of loose jeans, the time when the darkness
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: and shadows obscured the most primal and ilicit of human interactions.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: And a girl like Charity could use all these things
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: to her advantage and make that money hand over fist.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: She just left one John in a haze of stone satisfaction,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: relieving him of his cash on her way out, which
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: now lined the soft inside of her lace bra, and
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: she walked confidently down twenty fourth Avenue, her heels echoing
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: as she anticipated the next customer. Charity was street smart, unshakable, unflappable,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: unfuck withable. She'd seen it all before, and she didn't
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: scare easily. However, there was one thing that gave her pause.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: The Boogeyman, a serial killer who remained at large. The
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Green River Killer had racked up a terrifying body count
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: around Seattle and Tacoma. He seemed to focus on blue
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: collar sex workers.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Like Charity.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: He'd been plying his deadly trade for years, always one
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: step ahead of the police. Casting this dark cloud the
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Pacific Northwest. People said it rained all the time in Seattle,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: and that was bullshit peddled by the same East Coast
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: intellectuals who said the Chicago was windy. It didn't rain
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: all the time in Seattle, but it was cloudy, and
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: those clouds belonged to the Green River Killer. Charity kept walking,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: keeping her guard up while simultaneously trying not to think
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: about the Boogeyman or killers, and that all changed when
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: she got to the intersection of twenty fourth in Yesler Way,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: her self assured, Struck began to slow, and then she
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: came to.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: A complete stop.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Up ahead, near the curb before twenty fourth dead ended
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: and gave way to an empty field. There was a
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: body lying flat on the pavement. A street light overhead
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: shone down the dirty glow of the yellow fluorescent like
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: spoiled food. The yellow hue gave shape to the body below,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: arms outstretched in either direction her tea or a cross.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Charity immediately thought of the Green River Killer and how
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: it was said that he posed.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: His victim's dead bodies.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: And suddenly she felt the skin on the back of
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: her neck tingle, and despite the mild overnight July temperature,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: she scanned the area, looking for someone hiding in seattle shadows,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: the same shadows she knew inside and out.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: Like the back of her hand.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: But there was nothing, nobody, just her and this body
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: in the middle of the road. She called out, her voice,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: breaking the silence of the early morning. There was no response,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: so she began to walk again, more cautiously this time,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: and as she got closer, she saw that this was
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: a woman's body. Charity had never seen someone dead before,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: not like this, not up close and personal in the flesh.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Well, she thought, I guess you haven't seen it all before.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: She then shifted her from the dead.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Woman to her bleak surroundings. Think where could she go
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: for help? There were no signs of life in this
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: deserted part of town, especially after three in the morning.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Quickly she got her bearings, and she remembered a fire
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: station just a few blocks away. She peeled the heels
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: off her feet and took off in a sprint. Within minutes,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: she was the last thing a couple of firefighters on
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: the lace shift ever expected to see stumble onto their doorstep,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: and the first responders descended on the intersection of twenty
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: fourth Avenue in Yesler Way.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: At a local hospital, the.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Young woman was tagged as a Jane Doe, and there
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: was no identification on the body. She had been so
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: badly beaten that it was hard to know where to
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: even begin when it came to identification. She had been
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: sexually assaulted and strangled with the draw strings from the
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: hoodie she was wearing. And there was something else too,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: a chicken tattoo on her right leg. It was an identifying,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: something unique that the cops could use to figure out
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: exactly who she was. But the cops didn't even have
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: to go public with that particular detail, because the medical
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: examiner on duty took one look at that chicken tattoo
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: and instantly knew the woman's identity. Like many people in town,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: the medical examiner was a big fan of Seattle bands.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: The so called grunge scene had only recently turned the
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: city on its head, and Seattle was still the coolest
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: town in the country, but the medical Examiner's musical interest
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: was hyper local. The world could have their Nirvanas and
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: their pearl jams and all that. This guy was into
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: the bands and had yet to be co opted and
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: corrupted by any major label. The ones who had been
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: battling in the trenches for years, making a name for
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: themselves and building up a loyal fan base. And so
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: when the medical Examiner saw the chicken tattoo on Jane
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Doe here, he knew he'd seen it before, maybe at
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: a show at the Crocodile Cafe over on First or
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: the ok Hotel and Pioneer Square. The owner of this
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: tattoo fronted one of his favorite bands, the Gits. He
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: loved that name, He loved the word get ever since
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: he heard Beatle John use it to curse Sir Walter
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Raleigh on that one song on the White album. British
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Slang for Americans was a real if you know, you
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: know kind of thing, just like the band The Gts.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: If you knew, you knew, and this guy knew. So
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: his heart sank. His moment of joyful recognition shifted painfully
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: into one of unknowable sadness and incredible loss. He felt
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: his eyes well up. He was looking at the body
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: of one of Seattle's most singular and inspiring voices, one
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: for whom commercial success had been just about ready to
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: meet her on her own terms. Twenty seven year old
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Mia Zapata. To those who knew her, Mia Zapata was
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: many things. She was a fearless artist and a vulnerable
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: human being. She was incredibly funny and intelligent beyond her years.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: She was so approachable and honest that there were many
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: people who called her their best friend, and who still
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: believed that to be.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: True to this day.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: She could be the shyest person in the room, but
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: give her a microphone at a stage, and suddenly she
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: was explosive and magnetic. An instant point of focus for
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: the hundreds or thousands of people watching from the crowd.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: The first time one of her future bandmates and the
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: Gets ever heard her perform, she was singing a cover
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: of Eggy Pops The Passenger, accompanied only by an acoustic guitar,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: and the sound of her voice alone reduced this future bandmate,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Matt Dresder, to tears. Born in Chicago in nineteen sixty
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: five and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, from a very early age,
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Mia Zapota made her mind up. She was thankful for
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: the life of privilege and security that her parents had
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: provided her, but she didn't need it. She didn't need
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: the prestige of the all girls' prep school where she
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: was educated. She didn't need money. She didn't need a
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: high powered, early morning button down gig like her mother,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: one of the highest paid TV executives in the country,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: a woman who had had an apartment overlooking Central Park
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: now New York City, had its allure. But for Mia,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: the allura wasn't a penthouse in the sky. Her platonic
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: ideal was rougher around the edges, less Sinatra and more
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: Billie Holiday. It was Warhol basquiet, down on the dirty streets.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: It was the Ramones, Jim Carol, Patti Smith, Louie like
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Graham Parsons, and Towns van Zant, fellow singers from wealthy
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: families who'd made their mark years before her. Miyaz Apata
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: wasn't interested in the charmed life she was born into.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: She heard the call of.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: Discomfort and risk, and she answered him. But let me
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: be clear, miyaz Apata was not escaping something. She was
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: pursuing something, and that's something fell far beyond the cozy confines.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: Of Louisville or New York.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: First, it was in the Midwest, at Antioch College in Ohio,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: a place that had no sports teams and no letter grades,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: a place where defiance of an otherwise typical higher education
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: experience was undeniably seductive for someone like Mia. At Antioch,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Mia had her mind blown not so much by her classes,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: but by witnessing performances by bands like The Dead Kennedys,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: who played the college as part of a US tour.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Watching Jellybyafras stalk around stage like a madman was liberating
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: who was also accessible.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: She could do that.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: It didn't matter that her creative inspiration came less from
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: punk and more from the likes of blues singer Bessie Smith.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: She could be both at the same time. This was
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: the brilliance of Miyazapata. As a journalist, Martin Douglas once wrote,
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: to hear Mia sing was to hear her puking the
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: blues at Antioch. She puked the blues as the lead
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: singer for a loud and fast band called the Sniveling
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Little rat Face Gits. They took their name from Ammani
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Python Sketch, but soon shortened it simply to the Gits
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: since Sniveling Little rat Face Gits was just too long
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: to fit on the spine of their demo tape. Along
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: with Matt Dresner on bass, Steve Moriarty on drums, and
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Andrew Kessler aka Joe Spleen on guitar, Mia and the
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Gits caught wind of an exciting music scene brewing out
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: in Seattle in nineteen eighty nine. They pulled up Stakes
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: in Ohio and headed west. But when they arrived and
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: the guys discovered that the Seattle scene, while exciting as advertised,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: was closed off to outsiders. Bands such as Mud Hunt,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: Mother Lovebone, and Soundgarden had all known each other for years,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: and they had developed a brotherhood that was not only
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: suspicious of others, it was an actual brotherhood, meaning it
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: was comprised entirely of dudes. Women were rarely in a band,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: and if they were, they definitely weren't.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: The lead singer.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: So the Gits, Down and Out and low on cash,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: rented a four bedroom house in the Capitol Hill neighborhood,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: which at the time was cheap but dangerous. The place
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: was crawling with junkies, dealers, thieves. Not unlike the clientele.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Mia served at her day job waiting cables at a
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: dive bar called the Frontier Room. The band kept their
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: heads down, blocked up the CD bullshit passing them by,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: and focused on their songs. Joe Spleen wrote the music
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: and Mia wrote the lyrics. They worked tirelessly and soon
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: they found their people. Not the band with long beards
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: and longer hair, those already entrenched on the scene, but
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: upstarts like the Gits themselves, bands like DC Beggars and
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Seven Year Bitch, who shared the rehearsal space that gets
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: it carved out in the basement of their rental house,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: and they called the place the rat House, and for
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: good reason. It was a dilapidated abode owned by an
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: odd man, and the neighbors swore he was either a
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: warlock or a demon. He said he once rid the
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: place of cockroaches by capturing a bunch of them, making
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: a stew from their carcasses, and then ceremoniously eating that stew.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: The rat House was a shithole with a gnarly backstory
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: and a super whose own sanity was in question. In
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: other words, it was punk as fuck. The Gits perform
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: marathon rehearsals in the basement, becoming thicke as these with
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: DC Beggars and Seven Year Bitch. In particular, Seven Year
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Bitch's lead guitar as Stephanie Sargent, became one of me
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: as close as confidants. Stephanie was trying to stay dope
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: and goes straight. Emiya, being a few years older, took
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Stephanie under her wing, just as Kurt Cobaine and Nirvana
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: soon took the Gits under their wing. Kurt knew a
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: good thing when he saw it. To Kurt, the Gits
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: were everything he loved about music.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: They had vigor for days, They.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: Had punk energy, pop hooks, just like his band did,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: and watching them perform was like running headfirst into an
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: oncoming locomotive. And at the center of it all was
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Mia and now Seattle's most enigmatic and charismatic lead singer,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: her trademark Dread swirling around her head.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: As she puked the blues.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: Kurt handpicked the Gits to open a now legendary show
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: in January nineteen ninety where the two bands, along with Tad,
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: the third band on the bill, were permanently banned from
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: the University of Washington her trashing a makeshift dressing room
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: which happened to be one of the university professors classrooms.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: And then everything changed. In nineteen ninety one, Nirvana signed
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: to Geffen Records. They released their major label debut, never Mind.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: It was as if tectonic plates had shifted. The musical
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: landscape not only of Seattle, but of the world was
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: completely rearranged. Nirvana, Pearl Jams, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains. They
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: all strapped in for an upwards trajectory of G four's strength,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: while the Gits stayed put as one of Seattle's best
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: kept secrets, and as never Mind was on its way
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: to the first of thirteen platinum certifications. The Gids were
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: getting on a plane en route to Amsterdam. Kurt's face
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: was all over MTV while Me and the boys embarked
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: on their little European tour. The tour had been booked
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: for them not by an agent or a manager, neither
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: of which they had, but by a couple of Dutch
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: squatters who happened to be big fans. And so while
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: Nirvana played Axis in Boston, Tower Records in New York,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: the nine thirty Club in DC, and First Avenue in Minneapolis,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: the Guts were playing barely attended shows at European youth centers,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: government buildings, and even in an anarchist compound.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: Whatever the hell that was?
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: The Gits drummer Steve Moriarty later wrote in his memoir
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: that it felt as if our peers were flying by
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: us in the fast land and we were stuck in
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: first gear without gas money, and Mia tried hard to
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: push through, and she encouraged the others to do the same.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: After all, she was in pursuit of this life, she
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: was driving it, and that drive, that pursuit, it wasn't easy,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: That wasn't meant to be. What was that stupid cliche.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: If it was easy, everyone would do it the rat house.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: It wasn't in an apartment overlooking Central Park.
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: And that was the whole point, to push through the
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: hard stuff so that you could grasp what was waiting
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: on the other side, something that very few in this
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: life had access to.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: So Mia and the Gits pressed on into nineteen ninety two,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: preparing songs for what would become their.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: Debut studio album.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: But before the album was even released, tragedy struck this drive,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: this pursuit, this life. It took the life of Stephanie's Sargant,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: MIA's close friend from seven year Bitch. In June of
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: that year ninety two. Stephanie had fallen back into old habits,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: using again and drinking on top of it, and the
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: combination caused her to asphyxiate on her own vomit. Stephanie
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Sargent was dead at the age of twenty four, and
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Mia Sapata suddenly felt the pain of her chosen life,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: the pain of losing a good friend, the pain of
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: losing the Seattle rock band lottery. She began to miss
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: band rehearsals, and she fought often with her boyfriend, and
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: she began to rely a little too much on alcohol,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: and she did the things she never intended to do
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: when she first chose to pursue this life. She looked
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: for an escape.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after this. We're we're, we're.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: The voice coming from the gold Jaguar convertible parked alongside
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: the West Hollywood, Texico gas pump was very English and
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: very posh. Excuse me, Love, would you mind getting my
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: window next me as a pot to stop what she
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: was doing, which at the moment was squeegeeing the windshield
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: of the geits tor van, and turned to face the
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: owner of the condescending request get.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: His window next?
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Fuck did he think she was Just because she was
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: wearing some old gas jockey jacket didn't mean she was
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: a gas jockey. She decided to take the high road,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: so she turned around to walk away and forget all
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: about it. As she did so, however, she heard the
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: English voice call out to her again. Oh and Love,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: how about a pack fags as well?
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: That did it the balls on this guy.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: Mia spun around, Get your own damn fags, your British prick,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: and fuck you for thinking I work here. Get fucked.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Mia jumped back into the tour van, slamming the door
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: behind her in anger and frustration. There was an awkward
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: silence among the rest of her bandmates outside, the sound
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: of the Jaguar purring as the engine came to life,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: and finally one of MIA's bandmates spoke up, Mia, do
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: you know who that was?
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: The guy you just told to get fucked? That was
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: David Bowie.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: It was like the weight of MIA's jaw dropping to
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: the floor pulled her eyes wide open, and she looked
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: out the van's window, really looked this time, and there
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: he was, the Starman, sitting behind the wheel of the Jags, slowly.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: Pulling away from the pump.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Fuck. Mia grabbed a handful of to get seven inch
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: records from a box on the floor, through the door
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: of the.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: Van and wide open, and jumped out.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: She chased after Bowie, but it was too late. He
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: was now peeling off onto the main road, far away
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: from the crazy American woman who refused to wash his
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: windshield or get him a pack of smokes. But as
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: they say, well, one door closes and all that soon.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: The missed opportunity with David Bowie was something to look
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: back at and laugh about, because Just months later, in
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: the summer of nineteen ninety three, the Gits were at
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: long last picking up speed. After a period in which
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: she spiraled in the alcohol addiction in self destruction, Mia
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: had gotten her shit together and was back to her
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: original goal to pursue a life unlike any other. She
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: didn't quit drinking altogether, but enough so that she was
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: no longer dropping her pants in the middle of the
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: street to moon passing cops who were harassing her. She
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: cut her dread short to signify a moment of real change.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: The Gits DEBUTLP Frenching the Bully, released by Cia indie
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: label CZ Records, was getting good reviews and they were
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: already working on album number two. And they were doing
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: so while talking not with David Bowie but the next
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: best thing. I guess, Atlantic Records and the iconic label
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: was keen to sign the Gits, as they were told
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: at a launch in La where they were wined and
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: dined by an Atlantic exec. Next up was a meeting
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: with the legal team that represented not only Nirvana, but
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: some of MIA's heroes, such as lou Reed. Mia was
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: on cloud nine, but she remained grounded when Atlantic asked
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: her what she wanted out of the deal. She said
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: all she needed was a cabin in the woods, an
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: English sheepdog, a jeep, and the freedom to write and
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: record music. Days later, after the band wrapped up their
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: West Coast tour to show in Washington State, Mia didn't
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: let these latest developments go to her head. She didn't
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: book a fancy room at a five star hotel. She
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: crashed on a couch the house of some kid right
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: there in the Tri Cities. Next day, July fourth, she
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: was back in Seattle. She had a few days to
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: lay down some vocals for the Getz second album, and
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: then it was off to the East Coast, where the
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: band's tour would resume. The tour and the new album,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: the overtures by Atlantic the Ace legal team. It was
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: almost too much. It was happening fast, all at once,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: but Mia being Mia, she didn't allow herself to get
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: swept up by it, because there are other things on
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: her mind, keeping her tethered to planet Earth, to the
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: here and the now. And one of those things was
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: the memory of Stephanie's sargent, who had passed away just
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: one year ago around this time, and it only seemed
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: right to memorialize the occasion to commit to never forgetting
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: the sacrifices of this life. So on the evening of
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: July sixth, the night before she was set to hit
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: the road again, Mia Zapata headed over to the Comet
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Tavern in Capitol Hill.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: To do just that.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: Her boots hit the pavement directly above them. Her jeans
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: were rolled up at the ankle. Her black hoodie with
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: Gits printed on the back was pulled up over her head,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: obscuring the pair of headphones strapped around her ears. The
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: walkman bobbed in her pocket each time her foot came
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: down on the sidewalk, and the cassette tape playing inside
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: warbled every single time.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: She enjoyed the music.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Nonetheless, he propelled her forward and kept her moving.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Gave her purpose.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: Mia didn't have a driver's license. Often she took taxis,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: but tonight it felt good to walk all over the
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: streets of her adopted home and take it all in
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: before leaving again in the morning. The sights and smells
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: of East Pike Street washed over her until at last
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: she reached number nine two too the Comet. Mia stepped inside,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: pulling the hoodie from her head and the soft headphones.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: From her ears, she could see the girls from Seven
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Year Bitch waiting for her at the bar. It was
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: loud and smoky, exactly the way a bar should be.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: Mia bellied up all around, and they ordered a round
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: of drinks that held them high in the air. To Stephanie,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: they said, may her memory be a blessing. Then the
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: clinking of glasses and the knocking back of ice cold pints.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: They told stories.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: They laughed and cried, and drank some more. It was
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: around midnight when Mia stumbled out the Comet's front door
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: and back onto East Pike Street. She put her headphones
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: on once again and hit play on the Walkman. She
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: pulled the hoodie over her head and began to walk.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: This time, she went to a three story building about
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: a block away called Winston Apartments, where her boyfriend's band,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: hell Smells, had a rehearsal space. She found the space empty,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: so instead she ascended the central staircase to the second
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: floor and knocked on the apartment door of another friend.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: The singer in her boyfriend's band, a woman named Tracy
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Victoria Kenley. Everyone called Tracy TV and the door opened,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: and TV was happy to see her. Pulled the headphones
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: off as TV welcomed her inside. In TV's apartment, the
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: actual television played, and nearly two hours later, an old
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: rerun of Get Smart was about to start. When Mia
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: decided it was time to push on. She said good
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: night to TV, threw her headphones back on, and made
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: her way back down the central staircase and outside. Seattle slept,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: Seattle breathed, Seattle tossed and turned, and Mia kept walking,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: tired but wired, thinking about the impending tour, thinking about
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: the new record, thinking about Atlantic Records, and thinking about Stephanie.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: She reached into her pocket and put.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Her thumb on the Walkman's volume wheel and turned it up.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: The music made the long walk worth it. The music
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: made the night. The music was the night. The music
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: was the life. She kept walking. She thought about the
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: name of the device. Was listening to the Walkman as
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: an walk man. It made her laugh. She was aimless,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: She had a purpose, which was it? Did it matter?
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: Her heart rate was getting higher, her own breathing getting louder,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: now nearly as loud as the music in her headphones.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: Each breath louder now than the last. And then the
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: breathing was suddenly rhythmic. It was offbeat, off rhythm, not
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: in sync with how she was inhaling and exhiling, and
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: by the time she realized that the heavy breathing was
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: coming from behind her, it was too late.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: Hey guys.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: Earlier in this episode, I mentioned a wacky European tour
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: in which the Gets played a lot of unorthodox venues.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: I guess that's what you could call them. This is
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: the tour they embarked on, still unknown outside of Seattle,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: while a bunch of their contemporaries like Nirvana were blowing up.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: I don't get into much detail about the tour because
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: we just didn't have the time here in the full episode,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: but there is a crazy story from this tour about
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: how a late, late, late night meal at a Swiss
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: restaurant nearly got the band busted and the tour canceled.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: And you can hear this wild story in a brand
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: new mini episode of Disgraceland available right now. Become a
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: member at disgracelandpod dot com. All right, back to this
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: story now about Miya Zapata and the Gifts Rock rolla
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: from two am on the morning of July seventh, nineteen
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: ninety three, when she left the Eastpike Street apartment of
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: her friend Tracy Victoria Kenley AKATV to three twenty am,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: when her body was discovered a little over a mile
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: and a half away at the intersection of twenty fourth
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: in Yesler. Miya Zapada's whereabouts were unknown For eighty minutes
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: no one saw. It was like she was a ghost
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: wandering the city. Had she been walking that entire time?
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Did she hail a cab? How long was she on
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: her own before her killer got hold of her? And
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: just who could have sexually assaulted her, strangled her and
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: then taken her life in cold blood? The suspect list
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: was endless. In fact, there was an entire music scene
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: of suspects, not only me A's boyfriend, the one she
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: had tried to see earlier in the evening, and not
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: only every single guy in MIA's band, but every single
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: guy in every band in Seattle. There was potential motive too.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Just one year prior, one of me As coworkers at
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: the Frontier Room bar had privately confided to Mia that
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: a guy from a local band had sexually assaulted her
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: in an alley. It turned out that the gits were
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: supposed to record a split seven inch with this guy
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: in his band, and so Mia immediately wrote a new
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: song specifically for this single, called Spear and Magic Helmet.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: In the song, he described the assault and then laid
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: out very clearly how she was. Her friend's rage filled
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: retribution a song, and MIA's take no shit approach to
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: defending her people scared the guy off. His band dropped
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: from the seven inch project, and he skipped down. But
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: for Seattle PD, the motive didn't have to be so complicated.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: The killer could be hiding in plain sight, someone who
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: maybe didn't hold a grudge against Mia. They could be
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: playing a gig that very night in town. So the
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: cops hauled every man from every band that had shared
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: a stage with the gits into the station. Musicians, roadies, promoters.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: Paranoia was high, a subtext of suspicion undercut every sound check.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Some bands stopped rehearsing, others broke up entirely. But after
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: the police had collected an abundance of interviews, fingerprints, and
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: DNA samples, they were no closer to finding me as
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: a pot as killer than they bent on day one.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: All they had to go on was some saliva found
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: on MIA's bossy, but the sample was tiny, too small
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: for the DNA testing methods available to law enforcement in
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three, so the King County Medical Examiner filed
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: the saliva sample in storage as was protocol, and hopes
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: that it could be used in the future when the
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: technology caught up. The remaining members of the Gits, meanwhile,
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: were getting frustrated with the cops sit around in wait strategy.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: Mia was all anyone was talking about. Posters of her
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: face were plastered all over town, but the case was
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: quickly growing cold. So just weeks after her murder, MIA's
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: bandmates hired a private investigator on their own, and they
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: organized a benefit concert in early August at the King
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: Performance Center to pay the PIS fee, a show headlined
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: at the last minute by none other than one of
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: MIA's earliest advocates in town and one of the biggest
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: bands on the planet, Nirvana. Future benefit shows and compilation
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: albums featuring Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and Joan Jett helped fund
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: the private investigator for three years. Despite all this, there
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: were few leads to go on, and there were no
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: easy answers, and soon there was no money left either. Still,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: Mia was remembered every single day by the thousands who
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: loved her, from her family and her closest friends and
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: bandmates to the diehard fans of the Gets. But as
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: the years dragged on, the deaths of more famous Seattle
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: artists like Kurt Cobain and Lane Staley, they seized control
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: of the global narrative, while MIA's still unsolved story threatened
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: to shrink to a footnote in the annals of history.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: But Steve Moriarty, Matt Dresder, Joe Spleen, seven Year Bitch,
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: d C. Beggars, they all refused to allow Mia to
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: be reduced in that way. They kept her memory and
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: their mission alive.
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: All the while.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: The laborious processes of law enforcement continued to evolve, however slowly,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: and so, eight long years after her murder, with advance
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: this is in forensic science, now making the once impossible possible,
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: SEATTLEBD was finally able to send that salava sample they
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: kept to the Washington State Crime Lab for analysis. The
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: results were two DNA profiles, One was MIA's and the
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: other was an unidentified man. In two thousand and two,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: the male profile was added to the FBI's database of
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: two million DNA profiles, and just six months later, in
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: January of two thousand and three, they got a hit.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: But the suspect at the end of that hit came
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: as a complete shock. MIA's killer, it turns out, wasn't
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: someone she knew. It wasn't a member of a Seattle band,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: someone embedded in the so called grunge scene, as the
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: cops had been so sure about it first. In fact,
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: it was the exact opposite. It was a transient who
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: had been in town at the time, temporarily shocked up
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: a mile and a half from where MIA's body was found,
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: and since it's been living thousands of miles.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: Away in Florida.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: Forty eight year old Hay sus Mesquilla was arrested in
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: Miami Dade County, where he was out on probation for
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: a recent felony conviction. One of his parole conditions involved
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: routine cheek swab samples which had been checked against the
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: FBI's database and that yielded the match. This career criminal
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: had a long rap sheet across multiple states, aggravated battery, kidnapping,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: false imprisonment, robbery, indecent exposure, battery, and now first degree murder.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: Which he was found guilty of the following year two
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: thousand and four and sentenced to thirty six years in prison.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: Hayesus Mesquilla could run from justice no longer. Mia Zapata,
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: on the other hand, was never running from anything, not Louisville,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: not privilege, not comfort, and certainly not from fear. Instead,
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: she was running towards something, a life lived loudly, honestly,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: and on her own terms. And that walk through the
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: dark streets of Seattle in the early morning hours of
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: July seventh wasn't an escape, It was another step forward.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: Her killer was eventually named, cataloged and filed away by
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: the system, where he spent the rest of his days
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: in a cell. But MIA's story doesn't end, not in
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three, and not in twenty twenty one, when
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: Jesus Misquia died behind bars. MIA's story rings out every
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: time someone chooses risk over safety or truth over comfort.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: It's there in every voice that refuses to be silent,
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: and every artist who isn't going to wait their turn.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: Mia Zapota kept walking, kept pursuing, and that motion carries on,
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: carrying everyone who falls it towards something that feels like grace.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: I'm Jay Brennan in this this Disgraceland.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: All right, guys, thanks for listening to another episode of Disgraceland.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: This one on Me as a Potter and the gets
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: appreciate you all. Question of the week this week? Which
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: artists are you aware of? Which musicians who died before
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: they got their due, died before their time, died before
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: their career really took off? There are tons of examples.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Six one, seven, nine oh six sixty sixty three eight.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: Leave me a voicemail, send me a text, Hit me
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: up at Disgrace lampod on thesocials, Disgrace Lampod at gmail
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: dot com. Make sure you guys got auto downloads turned on.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: If you're an Apple podcast listener, leave a review for
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and you might
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: win some free merch.
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: Here comes some credits.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly and is produced in
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: found on the show notes page at disgracelampod dot com.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: Rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter,
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: and Facebook at disgracelampod and on YouTube at YouTube dot com,
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: slash at disgracelampod, Rock a Roller.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: He's a bad don man.