Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / Reclaiming Mia Zapata's Legacy: A Conversation with Steve Moriarty of The Gits [Episode 213]

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Reclaiming Mia Zapata's Legacy: A Conversation with Steve Moriarty of The Gits [Episode 213] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

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Speaker 1: We're totally booked rock and roll. I mean, I'll leave you.
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Speaker 1: You're reading little hands this. It's time to rock and
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Speaker 1: roll rock band, roll up, I totally booked.
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Speaker 2: Welcome back to Booked on Rock, the podcast for those
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Speaker 2: about to read and rock. Find the podcast at booked
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Speaker 2: on rock dot com. Every episode there in both audio
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Speaker 2: and video. Exclusive video segments for each episode, links to
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Speaker 2: all of the social media sites and the latest rockbook releases,
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Speaker 2: all at booked on rock dot com. Our guest is
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Speaker 2: Steve Moriarty, the drummer of the band The Gits, an
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Speaker 2: author of the new book, Mia z a Patta and
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Speaker 2: the Gits, A Story of Art, rock and Revolution. The Gets,
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Speaker 2: led by their charismatic front woman Mia Zapata, formed in
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Speaker 2: Ohio before joining the burgeoning Seattle music scene of the
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Speaker 2: early nineties. They were on the brink of international stardom
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Speaker 2: when on July seventh, nineteen ninety three, just days before
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Speaker 2: their third US tour, Mia was brutally mur Her death
1:01
Speaker 2: came as a shock to the Seattle music scene and
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Speaker 2: eventually became a national story. It would be a decade
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Speaker 2: before her killer was arrested. During that time, the focus
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Speaker 2: of MIA's story shifted further and further away from her
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Speaker 2: talents and the music she created with the Gits. In
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Speaker 2: this book, Steve Moriarty is determined to shift the focus
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Speaker 2: from MIA's tragic end back to the Archie and the
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Speaker 2: Gets created. Recounting their journey from their first meeting at
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Speaker 2: Anti College in nineteen eighty five to the rise in
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Speaker 2: the Seattle music scene, Steve narrates the band's struggles, their inspirations,
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Speaker 2: and the camaraderie that fueled their music, as well as
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Speaker 2: the band's tours and performances alongside iconic acts like Nirvana
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Speaker 2: and Joan Jack. A playlist of The Gets can be
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Speaker 2: found on the show notes page. Hey Steve, welcome to
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Speaker 2: the podcast. Nice to meet you.
1:47
Speaker 1: Hi, Eric, nice to meet you.
1:49
Speaker 2: Congratulations on a book that took a long time.
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Speaker 1: It started out now about it's been about ten years actually.
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Speaker 1: But it was odd because an illustrator in Seattle, outside
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Speaker 1: of Seattle contacting me, and he's pretty well known guy.
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Speaker 1: He's done posters for everyone from you know, Nirvana and
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Speaker 1: mud Honey and Smashing Pumpkins to album art and zines,
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Speaker 1: and he's published used to be the art director at Fantagraphics.
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Speaker 1: Comics too, and his name is Pat Moriarty. Well, my
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Speaker 1: father's name was Pat Moriarty and he died in like
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Speaker 1: ninety eight. So this guy, Pat Moriarty wrote me on
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Speaker 1: Facebook goes, hey, this is Pat Moriarty, and I was
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Speaker 1: going to do a graphic novel about the band mud Honey,
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Speaker 1: but I think your band is much more interesting and
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Speaker 1: I would like to do a graphic novel about the Gits.
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Speaker 1: And I was like, well, I don't know if I can,
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Speaker 1: if I can give permission for that, but sure, what
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Speaker 1: do you want to do? He goes, well, if you
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Speaker 1: write the story, I'll is illustrate it. So I started
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Speaker 1: writing some stories, some little stories of stuff that happened
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Speaker 1: on tour, and after a while, I mean, I love
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Speaker 1: the idea to have like written by Steve Moriarty illustrated
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Speaker 1: by Pat Moriarty. I just thought it'd be like people
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Speaker 1: would think were married or something, and anyway it yeah,
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Speaker 1: I couldn't. I couldn't. I just couldn't write in the
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Speaker 1: little chunks like that. It turned out like the story
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Speaker 1: was way too much, and even picking out like five
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Speaker 1: years of my life to write a memoir about, which
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Speaker 1: is basically what it is or six years. I couldn't
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Speaker 1: condense it down into little stories and to draw, even
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Speaker 1: though he did start drawing it. So I had to
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Speaker 1: cut the cord and break loose and just do a
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Speaker 1: full on book.
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Speaker 2: Well, and you found a great publisher, Feral House. I'm
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Speaker 2: a big fan of.
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Speaker 1: Oh good, Yeah it was too. I got a lot
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Speaker 1: of rejection letters too, So they.
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Speaker 2: Take on some great stories. And this is a great
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Speaker 2: story and it's a story that's worth telling because obviously
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Speaker 2: the goal of this book is because really the shift
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Speaker 2: of the attention over the ten years since Me Is
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Speaker 2: Passing was more about the true crime, the mystery, all
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Speaker 2: this stuff, and it was like forgotten the music that
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Speaker 2: was made and the story, the great stories that you
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Speaker 2: tell in the book about getting to know her and
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Speaker 2: all that. So I would take that. When did the idea,
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Speaker 2: when did that kind of enter your mind to say,
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Speaker 2: you know what, this is important to write?
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Speaker 1: Well, I knew, I think I was. I think what
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Speaker 1: happened was I, you know, I was looking at kind
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Speaker 1: of going back and reminiscing and listening to the old
4:21
Speaker 1: records and thinking, gosh, how you know, thinking about re
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Speaker 1: releasing the records because they're out of print. And it
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Speaker 1: occurred to me when I went to Wikipedia that there
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Speaker 1: was nothing written about the music or us as band members,
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Speaker 1: or as friends, or even as a band. It was
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Speaker 1: all about the murder, right me as murder, and it
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Speaker 1: just I just was disgusted at a certain point, like
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Speaker 1: there's nothing I can find online that doesn't start out
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Speaker 1: with rape and murder in the first sentence or two
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Speaker 1: and and I just wanted to reframe that narrative so
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Speaker 1: that people would actually know what the band was about
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Speaker 1: in the music as opposed to like what the you know,
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Speaker 1: worst ten years of my life was like searching for
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Speaker 1: the killer and finding him of COVID, however, which is
5:01
Speaker 1: which was kind of a relief. So you can feel
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Speaker 1: a little bit good about covid em.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I was just telling you, Yeah, I'm recovering from it,
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Speaker 2: and so are you.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: But yeah, he was in prison when he passed, I.
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Speaker 1: Believe, Yeah, he was well. He was well seated, well
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Speaker 1: well well seated in prison there and somewhere in eastern Washington,
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Speaker 1: I don't care where, but I got I was a witness,
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Speaker 1: so I was on a witness quote witness protection project,
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Speaker 1: so they had to notify me if he ever gets
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Speaker 1: moved or released or paroled, or or dies. And I
5:33
Speaker 1: got a letter from some institutional letters in that he
5:36
Speaker 1: had died, but that I wanted to write something that
5:40
Speaker 1: didn't focus on that. And I didn't even want to
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Speaker 1: include a single word about her death. And that's why
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Speaker 1: the book ends a day before she dies, and everything
5:49
Speaker 1: is looking really great for the band and for us
5:51
Speaker 1: as people.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and we'll get to that point of the book.
5:55
Speaker 2: Let's start in the beginning. And when when you first
5:57
Speaker 2: meet her, You first meet me while attending Ohio's Antioch
6:00
Speaker 2: College nineteen eighty five, right, what was your first impression
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Speaker 2: of her when you when you saw her perform and
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Speaker 2: as a person.
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Speaker 1: I just thought she was you know, she was an
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Speaker 1: older student, She was like one or two years ahead
6:12
Speaker 1: of me, and she was one of the first people
6:16
Speaker 1: that reached out and just said hello. And I remember,
6:18
Speaker 1: I think I put in the book that we were
6:20
Speaker 1: at a bar and she invited me over to her table,
6:22
Speaker 1: and I had met her and she was with a girlfriend,
6:24
Speaker 1: and they were both super cute, and I was all
6:26
Speaker 1: nervous and sweaty and like, oh these girls, and really
6:30
Speaker 1: knew I didn't have a chance. But after a few
6:34
Speaker 1: drinks I had mentioned that I was a drummer. There.
6:37
Speaker 1: She was an artist. She did painting, and she didn't
6:41
Speaker 1: really play music except for, you know, with an acoustic
6:43
Speaker 1: guitar on a campfire kind of thing. And so I said, yeah, well,
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Speaker 1: I'm not really an artist. I'm just a drummer, and
6:52
Speaker 1: she goes, what are you talking about. You're an artist.
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Speaker 1: Drummer is an artist, And it just had never occurred
6:55
Speaker 1: to me. And that was like my first impression of
6:57
Speaker 1: her was validating what I had done my whole life
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Speaker 1: and loved doing and had never really considered an artistic endeavor,
7:04
Speaker 1: and that it just made me feel good. And so
7:06
Speaker 1: she was like that. She would point out things that
7:09
Speaker 1: made people feel good about themselves, you know, insightful things.
7:13
Speaker 1: She was very insightful, empathic person. She could tell if
7:16
Speaker 1: you were going through something or not. She could read
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Speaker 1: read your expression, people's expressions very well.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I seemed to translate on stage to first time
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Speaker 2: you saw her perform was around eighty five?
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Speaker 1: Was it shit?
7:28
Speaker 2: I don't know, on the same bill, was was it
7:30
Speaker 2: if I recall.
7:32
Speaker 1: I think the first time I I mean I saw
7:33
Speaker 1: her perform from the back right, because I was always
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Speaker 1: drumming with her. I think she would do a couple
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Speaker 1: of acoustic, little acoustic shows where she would do her
7:45
Speaker 1: songs acoustically, and maybe I don't think I ever saw
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Speaker 1: her before we before I joined the band, but they
7:52
Speaker 1: they definitely a couple of times that I saw her
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Speaker 1: play solo with acoustic guitar and singing. I was just,
7:58
Speaker 1: you know, I was blown away by her voice and
8:00
Speaker 1: like her engagement with the audience, especially because she'd be
8:03
Speaker 1: super nervous, but she would pretty much she would playing
8:06
Speaker 1: a show. There might be one hundred people out there,
8:08
Speaker 1: but every single person there would think that she was
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Speaker 1: singing to them personally, because her lyrics were very universal.
8:13
Speaker 1: But she would just had a way of connecting with
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Speaker 1: everyone there, you know, and honoring their presence, and that
8:19
Speaker 1: that was just I've never seen anyone do that before,
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Speaker 1: you know.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, there are some performances on YouTube, so I was
8:25
Speaker 2: able to check those out.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, you can see it. Yeah, there's one great when
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Speaker 1: we were playing at place on a Saint Patrick's Stay show.
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Speaker 1: We're dressed up in costumes, and that one's pretty uh
8:34
Speaker 1: pretty telling of was like the vibe, well, this is
8:36
Speaker 1: completely packed and everyone was just waiting for us to
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Speaker 1: play and Saint Patrick's Day in nineteen ninety three, and
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Speaker 1: it was you could just see you can just see
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Speaker 1: her connecting with the people out there.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, just a magnetic Yeah. Great stories of those
8:51
Speaker 2: early days just hanging out with her too, Like when
8:54
Speaker 2: you came over and she's painting and she's splashing the paint,
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Speaker 2: you know, in the canvas, and it's just it's like
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Speaker 2: somebody you wanted to be around and you never knew
9:01
Speaker 2: what to expect. Like the story, did she take it
9:03
Speaker 2: to some she took it to some yard, backyard, somebody's
9:05
Speaker 2: backyard with a cat that was buried cat. Yeah, it was,
9:13
Speaker 2: but but it was like, you know, just for you,
9:16
Speaker 2: was it? He just you wanted to be around her
9:18
Speaker 2: because you never knew what was going to happen.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, But I was also afraid of her, you know,
9:21
Speaker 1: because she was she was so unpredictable. But I yea
9:25
Speaker 1: love to be around her because she was so fun
9:27
Speaker 1: and you know, it would always be an adventure. It
9:30
Speaker 1: would be an absolute adventure if you were with her,
9:31
Speaker 1: and if you hung out with her, you were the
9:33
Speaker 1: only person in the world. It wasn't like she's gonna
9:35
Speaker 1: chat with somebody or talk to you while looking at
9:38
Speaker 1: someone else or not not sort of be present with you.
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Speaker 1: She's a very present friend to have.
9:43
Speaker 2: And she was hanging that with all the guys in
9:44
Speaker 2: the band, you said, right, each and every one of
9:46
Speaker 2: the guys in the band.
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Speaker 1: For the most part. Certain times. I'm not I can't
9:49
Speaker 1: really say what her relationship was was with the other
9:52
Speaker 1: two guys, but I know that they were that we
9:54
Speaker 1: were all close, and she was close to them. But
9:57
Speaker 1: you know, each one of us had our our squabble
10:00
Speaker 1: at times, you know, over seven years or eight years
10:02
Speaker 1: that we knew each other and longer. But I never
10:05
Speaker 1: I never knew her to squabble with any of us
10:08
Speaker 1: and she but she had a different sort of friendship
10:10
Speaker 1: with each each of us. She lived with Andy, the guitarist.
10:14
Speaker 1: They lived together in two or three different places in
10:17
Speaker 1: Seattle and were great roommates. And I never lived with
10:24
Speaker 1: I guess I lived with her at the Rat House
10:25
Speaker 1: sort of our punk house that we had for a
10:27
Speaker 1: couple of years. But you know, I we're just we're
10:34
Speaker 1: just friends. You know. She was like a sister really
10:36
Speaker 1: pretty much.
10:37
Speaker 2: You said she had an extroverted side and also an
10:40
Speaker 2: introverted side to her tremendous creative energy. But then there
10:43
Speaker 2: were her struggles with alcohol and the dyslexia, So were
10:46
Speaker 2: those are kind of things that would cause her to
10:48
Speaker 2: maybe be more isolated at times.
10:50
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think she was just a private
10:52
Speaker 1: person in many ways and very sensitive, and so she
10:54
Speaker 1: wouldn't subject herself to a lot of bullshit, you know.
10:57
Speaker 1: I think she was she was she was kind, and
11:01
Speaker 1: she was just careful. She was careful about people's feelings,
11:06
Speaker 1: you know, and that didn't that took the form of
11:09
Speaker 1: not being a social butterfly, but being a good friend.
11:13
Speaker 1: You know.
11:14
Speaker 2: What about her creative side, speaking of that, her love
11:17
Speaker 2: of the blues is that that's really what influenced her
11:22
Speaker 2: quite a bit, and she was able to channel that
11:25
Speaker 2: into her own style.
11:26
Speaker 1: I would see, yeah. I mean, if you listen to
11:28
Speaker 1: the gets music, you'll hear a lot of blues influence.
11:30
Speaker 1: And she came from the South, from Louisville, Kentucky, which
11:33
Speaker 1: is really the South and which is just an hour
11:37
Speaker 1: and a half south of where I grew up, So
11:39
Speaker 1: it was kind of had that in common, like Midwesterners
11:43
Speaker 1: I think are known for being friendly and Southerners are
11:46
Speaker 1: known for their hospitality, So I think she sort of
11:50
Speaker 1: embodied both of those things, but was also like ready
11:53
Speaker 1: to get the hell out of there when she could,
11:54
Speaker 1: just like I was for the back, you know, sort
11:58
Speaker 1: of less than aggressive thoughts and people and music scenes
12:03
Speaker 1: and stuff. But yeah, the question was about her creative
12:08
Speaker 1: side or the Blues, Well, yeahluenced her. Her father were both.
12:12
Speaker 1: We're both in the in the entertainment industry. Her mother
12:17
Speaker 1: was one of the first and foremost executives at Fox
12:23
Speaker 1: Television in the eighties. She was according to her to
12:28
Speaker 1: MIA's brother Eric, she was the highest paid female executive
12:32
Speaker 1: at Fox for some time, and I think she was
12:37
Speaker 1: a producer or I don't know exactly what she did there.
12:40
Speaker 1: Her father was also in radio and television, although he
12:45
Speaker 1: disappeared from her life early on and came back later
12:49
Speaker 1: once we were hanging out, once I knew her, he
12:51
Speaker 1: came back and was trying to become part of her
12:53
Speaker 1: life again. I believe she had that influence.
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Speaker 2: The night that you the story where you're not on
13:00
Speaker 2: the door and she's in there and painting, and she
13:02
Speaker 2: she was playing some pretty pretty eclectic music on the turntable, right,
13:08
Speaker 2: all kinds of stuff.
13:10
Speaker 1: What was she? What did I say in the book?
13:11
Speaker 2: Was it lou Reed? Maybe was on the.
13:15
Speaker 1: Stuff like a lot of New York stuff like Lou Reid.
13:17
Speaker 1: And she loved iggy pop and she loved but she
13:22
Speaker 1: also lived hardcore bands like the Bad Brains and Poison
13:26
Speaker 1: Idea and obscure stuff that she just would hear. She
13:31
Speaker 1: didn't like pop very well, but she would. She'd be
13:34
Speaker 1: listening to like Billie Holiday Record or Seravon or someone
13:40
Speaker 1: like blues like Taj Mahal or even older like Ma Rainey,
13:45
Speaker 1: like old seventy eighths that she would find.
13:47
Speaker 2: And yeah, the pretenders too, that was the other one.
13:49
Speaker 1: Tenders right right, yeah, yeah, you know women singers, but
13:52
Speaker 1: she wasn't like a fanatic for women's music or women's singing.
13:56
Speaker 1: She she just appreciated good rock, yeah, and roll in
14:00
Speaker 1: punkin whatever had whatever had soul. You know, she really
14:03
Speaker 1: dug it.
14:04
Speaker 2: And a really good painter your pictures in the book
14:07
Speaker 2: this is.
14:07
Speaker 1: What yeah you see that was that was about a
14:12
Speaker 1: life size paint that was about eight by six feet,
14:15
Speaker 1: that one there, Yeah, the painting of her relative.
14:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, the story of the band name the Gits was
14:22
Speaker 2: much longer. It started out much longer than that. What's
14:25
Speaker 2: the origin of that name?
14:27
Speaker 1: The original name, which carried on all the way to
14:29
Speaker 1: Seattle probably three years of the band. The full name
14:33
Speaker 1: was thus snibbling little rat faced Gits, and that was
14:37
Speaker 1: lifted from a Monty Python episode from nineteen seventy one
14:40
Speaker 1: or something where it's a cock it's a vignat at
14:45
Speaker 1: a cocktail party and one of the troop is introducing
14:48
Speaker 1: his family, and his wife is stupid, fat, ugly, boring Git,
14:52
Speaker 1: and he has insipid, stupid little Git, and his son
14:57
Speaker 1: sibling a little rat face Git, something like that. So
14:59
Speaker 1: he introduced him and that's the end of the story.
15:01
Speaker 1: And we just thought it was ridiculous fans of Monty
15:03
Speaker 1: Python because of its crazy, you know, it's ridiculous sort
15:05
Speaker 1: of humor and slapstick and silliness. And so we wrote
15:09
Speaker 1: to them to ask if we could use the name
15:12
Speaker 1: the Gets, and and we didn't think they would write back.
15:16
Speaker 1: But back then you could write a letter to someone
15:17
Speaker 1: and they might write back, you know, you could send it.
15:19
Speaker 1: And so we sent a got an address from somewhere
15:23
Speaker 1: maybe at the end of a DVD or something. I
15:26
Speaker 1: guess that was one of the VHS Cassetts and wrote
15:29
Speaker 1: to the to the true for the production company, and
15:31
Speaker 1: someone wrote back saying, oh, yeah, no problem, go ahead
15:33
Speaker 1: and use it. Call yourself to get We don't care.
15:37
Speaker 2: So you did write a song under the full name? Yeah, yeah.
15:44
Speaker 1: Our first demo, we had a song called something in
15:46
Speaker 1: a rat Face Get. It was going to be the
15:48
Speaker 1: theme song, kind of like descended us had a theme song,
15:51
Speaker 1: and like, you know, bands of that era would have
15:54
Speaker 1: theme songs. Minor threat. You know, we're not. We're just
15:58
Speaker 1: a minor threat, you know.
15:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a great story about your move to Seattle.
16:02
Speaker 2: I say that because it's not like I'm sure people
16:04
Speaker 2: were with all. They must have moved to Seattle because
16:06
Speaker 2: that's you know, that was like the hotbed of music
16:08
Speaker 2: at the time. But that wasn't the case. I mean,
16:10
Speaker 2: the year was nineteen eighty nine and you decided to
16:12
Speaker 2: go to Seattle. Seattle wasn't on anyone's radar yet. So
16:16
Speaker 2: what led to you moving there instead of La or
16:20
Speaker 2: San fran or New York or Chicago.
16:22
Speaker 1: We took we took like a compass, you know, one
16:25
Speaker 1: of those compasses that you make with the circles with
16:28
Speaker 1: and tried to find it point to point this, and
16:32
Speaker 1: the further furthest away from Ohio as we could get.
16:35
Speaker 1: And that was Seattle.
16:36
Speaker 2: How crazy? How And you were like right on the
16:39
Speaker 2: verge of this huge music scene.
16:43
Speaker 1: San Francisco seemed to be too expensive, and they had
16:46
Speaker 1: lived there for a while. It seemed too crazy, and
16:47
Speaker 1: Seattle just seemed more manageable. I don't know why we
16:50
Speaker 1: ended up there, really, what we did, and it happened
16:52
Speaker 1: to be. I think the first show I went to
16:54
Speaker 1: see there, we had a place called the More. Theater
16:57
Speaker 1: holds about two thousand people and it was half full
17:00
Speaker 1: or barely And I think the bill was sound Guard,
17:03
Speaker 1: Nirvana and Tad, and I don't think it sold out,
17:06
Speaker 1: and it was a good show. I thought Tad was
17:09
Speaker 1: really good. The other two bandside I wasn't too into
17:12
Speaker 1: at that point.
17:13
Speaker 2: Well, well, those early days in Seattle, if you could
17:16
Speaker 2: talk about those days, because they you guys felt like
17:19
Speaker 2: outsiders because most of the bands there had grown up
17:21
Speaker 2: in Seattle. So how much of a challenge was that
17:24
Speaker 2: and how long before you finally felt like you belonged?
17:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you just look at Tad, Nirvana, and Soundgarden,
17:30
Speaker 1: they were all from the area they were, they were
17:32
Speaker 1: all knew each other. They all rehearsed like in the
17:34
Speaker 1: same rehearsal area, so they kind of grew up. They
17:37
Speaker 1: kind of grew up together. Basically, their parents lived there.
17:41
Speaker 1: Their parents were also musicians in some cases, and one
17:45
Speaker 1: was an entertainment lawyer, so they kind of had they
17:47
Speaker 1: kind of had an end, you know, and that had
17:51
Speaker 1: been in band since high school. So when we got there,
17:53
Speaker 1: we played it sort of a different. We looked a
17:55
Speaker 1: little different because we were more had more of a like,
17:58
Speaker 1: I don't know, a punk look we had. We dressed
18:02
Speaker 1: more punk rock. We weren't like in North Wet. We
18:04
Speaker 1: didn't wear flannel, for example. We were more little leather
18:07
Speaker 1: and combat boots and spiky hair and stuff. And we
18:11
Speaker 1: weren't We weren't didn't have long hair and like they did.
18:14
Speaker 1: And we thought, I guess I'll speak for myself. I
18:16
Speaker 1: thought the bands it sounded very derivative. I thought like
18:21
Speaker 1: they either sounded like Black Sabbath or Iggy and the
18:24
Speaker 1: Stooges and if Your Mud Honey, and there was that
18:27
Speaker 1: garage rock thing and they all kind of sounded like
18:29
Speaker 1: the Stooges to me, or like a seventies garage or
18:32
Speaker 1: sixties garage rock band. And then you got into Soundgarden
18:35
Speaker 1: and even Nirvana and some of those bands that were
18:37
Speaker 1: like slow and drudgy and kind of melodic and sounded
18:41
Speaker 1: like Black Sabbath for the most part, tuned down to
18:44
Speaker 1: d oftentimes. Yeah, was actually of those bands, the least
18:51
Speaker 1: known and probably the most talented, and probably the guy
18:54
Speaker 1: that brought the quote grunge sound really to light in
18:59
Speaker 1: that air and settle.
19:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, Steve Turner was on this podcast because he put
19:06
Speaker 2: a great book out on the mud Honey Story. Who
19:10
Speaker 2: was that Steve Turner, the guitarist from Steve Yeah, Yeah, Yeah,
19:14
Speaker 2: I know Steve for a long time. Okay, I figured
19:17
Speaker 2: as much, and yeah, to check it out.
19:19
Speaker 1: I'll trade him.
19:20
Speaker 2: It's a great book. Yeah, garage rock was the thing
19:22
Speaker 2: that was his thing, you know that that was the
19:25
Speaker 2: talk about.
19:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, the influencer later, you know, I appreciated those bands more.
19:28
Speaker 1: But when you come into a scene, there's always that
19:30
Speaker 1: like everyone's about the same age, everyone's trying to get
19:33
Speaker 1: the same gigs at the same two clubs that were
19:36
Speaker 1: had live music and uh, and they were competitions, so
19:40
Speaker 1: like they would they would get signed or go on
19:42
Speaker 1: a tour or something, and that would make us want
19:45
Speaker 1: to achieve that or do better. So when Nirvana and
19:49
Speaker 1: Mud Honey and Tad got back from Europe touring Europe
19:52
Speaker 1: right around the fall when the Berlin Wall fell, I
19:55
Speaker 1: was jealous. I was like, I want to be in
19:57
Speaker 1: Berlin during the fall of the Berlin Wall playing at
19:59
Speaker 1: a party for it. So I'm going to book a
20:01
Speaker 1: tour of Europe. So six months later we got our
20:04
Speaker 1: asses to Europe and toured there. So it's always like
20:06
Speaker 1: a game of cat catch up or cat and mouse,
20:09
Speaker 1: just kind of like who's who's doing this? Then we
20:11
Speaker 1: want to do that, or if we did this, other
20:12
Speaker 1: bands would want to do that, And it kind of
20:15
Speaker 1: was a healthy competition in essence.
20:17
Speaker 2: Booked on rock podcasts, we'll be back after this.
20:20
Speaker 1: I listen now, don't go away, ladies, and then we'll
20:27
Speaker 1: soon be with you.
20:31
Speaker 2: Steve Moriarty, drummer of the Gets, author of Me is
20:33
Speaker 2: a pod and he gets the story of Art Rock
20:35
Speaker 2: and Revolution comes out tomorrow Today's August twelfth. We're recording
20:39
Speaker 2: this so it's out tomorrow.
20:41
Speaker 1: That's great. Yeah, so I'm going to at your local bookstore.
20:44
Speaker 1: Hopefully people will order it from bookstores or record stores
20:47
Speaker 1: and maybe they'll get a second copy and stores for
20:50
Speaker 1: people that way.
20:51
Speaker 2: Well worth the read. And with the success of Pearl
20:54
Speaker 2: Jam and Ravan and Soundgarden, the Seattle bands they're getting
20:57
Speaker 2: signed left and right, but the gits didn't get signed.
21:00
Speaker 2: And a big part of that was, you say, simply
21:02
Speaker 2: because fronted by a female, the labels didn't think that
21:06
Speaker 2: was a viable thing. Was that now or what was
21:10
Speaker 2: the reason you felt?
21:11
Speaker 1: There were very few bands with females in that In Seattle,
21:15
Speaker 1: there were very few bands with females at all. And
21:17
Speaker 1: it wasn't until like the Riot Girl scene and Olympia
21:20
Speaker 1: and Bikini Kill and Bratmobile and those bands began began
21:23
Speaker 1: to really become loud and out out front and playing
21:28
Speaker 1: gigs and talking about it a lot. And with the
21:31
Speaker 1: more feminist push around music that I think women started
21:36
Speaker 1: feel more comfortable playing and stepping up as starting bands.
21:39
Speaker 1: They allowed that, and I think Mia did that too.
21:41
Speaker 1: It's like people saw me up there playing and she
21:43
Speaker 1: was so genuine and real and honest that they oh,
21:46
Speaker 1: I can do that too, if she can do it. Now,
21:48
Speaker 1: you ever see a performer, like a musician or anyone
21:51
Speaker 1: doing anything in the arsenal and it looks so easy
21:54
Speaker 1: and it looks like they just it just comes out
21:56
Speaker 1: of them, and you're like, they make it seem like
21:58
Speaker 1: you can do it too. And to me, that's what
22:00
Speaker 1: punk rock was about. It's like anyone can do it.
22:02
Speaker 1: Anyone with something to say should and can can form
22:08
Speaker 1: a band and have something to say loud, you know,
22:11
Speaker 1: and do it in front of people that will listen.
22:13
Speaker 1: So I think Mia allowed other women to step up
22:16
Speaker 1: in front bands or start bands or playing bands. So
22:19
Speaker 1: by the time we ended that band ended in ninety three,
22:22
Speaker 1: I think I think a significant shift had taken place.
22:26
Speaker 2: You guys want some pistol because the music kicked out
22:29
Speaker 2: and he should have been signed along with the other.
22:31
Speaker 1: Bands like well signed. We were signed to a couple
22:35
Speaker 1: of independent record labels.
22:36
Speaker 2: Was some Pop.
22:37
Speaker 1: One of the labels that Fat Mic from Fat Records.
22:42
Speaker 1: He wanted to sign us as his first band on
22:44
Speaker 1: his label, but we turned him down and signed to
22:47
Speaker 1: CZ Records. Had been like a guy that had worked
22:50
Speaker 1: at slupop and started his own label and had pretty
22:52
Speaker 1: good track record. I think we were negotiating with Atlantic Records,
22:57
Speaker 1: which would be considered a major, one of the three
22:59
Speaker 1: majors are for and they apparently we were signed, we
23:05
Speaker 1: were about to be signed if had we signed the contract,
23:08
Speaker 1: because it was in the mail. We had just finished
23:10
Speaker 1: meetings with them on the day before she was murdered,
23:12
Speaker 1: and that's that was kind of in the works. We
23:14
Speaker 1: had talked to our lawyer who was negotiating a contract
23:17
Speaker 1: with Atlantic Records, and we would have had a career
23:19
Speaker 1: sort of set up for the next I don't know,
23:21
Speaker 1: eleven records or whatever. Yeah, yeah, it would have been
23:24
Speaker 1: It would have been a really great interesting living.
23:28
Speaker 2: Yeah. You met with Tim Summer of Atlantic Records, right,
23:32
Speaker 2: he had a meeting with you. Yeah, what was discussed
23:34
Speaker 2: in that meeting and.
23:36
Speaker 1: He wanted to sign us. He said, you know, what
23:39
Speaker 1: do you need? And we're like, well, we're all going
23:40
Speaker 1: to get lawyer to ask to find out. But he said, oh,
23:43
Speaker 1: you know, with with you know, you'll have money, you
23:45
Speaker 1: won't have to work, you will be able to you know,
23:47
Speaker 1: travel and do shows and tour and make records and
23:51
Speaker 1: will basically be an employee. Of Atlantic Records for as
23:54
Speaker 1: long as as things work out, and you know, we
23:58
Speaker 1: had the vibe at the time was like in Indie
24:00
Speaker 1: good major bad, right, So a major record company, it
24:04
Speaker 1: was almost like selling out. That was the pinnacles selling
24:07
Speaker 1: out was going to a major label. Even Cobain talked
24:10
Speaker 1: about it a lot. So eventually the record company saw
24:14
Speaker 1: that doing it their way was not selling record was
24:16
Speaker 1: not productive anymore, and that if bands wanted to, they
24:20
Speaker 1: could do it themselves just as well and make more
24:23
Speaker 1: money or be just as successful without a major record label.
24:26
Speaker 1: So major record label really had to step up. They're
24:28
Speaker 1: promoting and just supporting bands that they signed, as opposed
24:32
Speaker 1: to just seeing which ones had to hit right off
24:34
Speaker 1: the bat and then dropping the rest right or putting
24:36
Speaker 1: all their money into one or two artists like Bruce
24:38
Speaker 1: Springstein or Madonna and forgetting about the other bands that
24:41
Speaker 1: are there, letting them flop. So that shift had happened,
24:46
Speaker 1: and we were really trying to decide do we want
24:48
Speaker 1: to go with the major because we would have had
24:49
Speaker 1: a lot of opportunities at that point because our records
24:51
Speaker 1: were well received critically, you know, all over the world,
24:55
Speaker 1: and it was it was probably a matter of time
24:58
Speaker 1: before you would have heard the Gets on you know,
25:01
Speaker 1: the radio everywhere.
25:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, funny story with Mia. Didn't she call her dad
25:05
Speaker 2: or something? I don't know that you're willing to pay
25:08
Speaker 2: for my meal? Should?
25:09
Speaker 1: I think she ordered lunch when we got taken out
25:13
Speaker 1: to lunch by this record company, and she was afraid
25:15
Speaker 1: she didn't have enough money to pay for it, so
25:17
Speaker 1: she called her dad to try to get him to
25:19
Speaker 1: send her money, like off his credit card in the moment,
25:21
Speaker 1: and like, I think they're going to pay for it.
25:23
Speaker 2: Yeah. His response was great, He's like, don't worry, they're
25:26
Speaker 2: going to take care of it. Yeah. You guys played
25:31
Speaker 2: on bills with Beck, Nirvana, Mud Honey, Joan Jet, Bikini,
25:35
Speaker 2: Kill All Seven, among others. There's a great story in
25:38
Speaker 2: the book about he played. It was Nirvana, the Gets,
25:43
Speaker 2: Tad and crunch Bird, a band I never heard of. Yeah,
25:48
Speaker 2: your ban for life from the University of Washington campus.
25:52
Speaker 2: Do you remember why? Yeah? What happened?
25:55
Speaker 1: I think we just destroyed the dressing room, which was
25:58
Speaker 1: the classroom. We didn't know, you know it was actually, well,
26:02
Speaker 1: I'm gonna throw Nirvana under the bus because they were
26:04
Speaker 1: the ones that were everything. We were just sitting there.
26:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, the eraser fight, wasn't it. Kurt throwing an eraser
26:10
Speaker 2: at Kurt.
26:11
Speaker 1: And throwing chasing each other around the room and throwing
26:14
Speaker 1: like one time he took a whole bus hub and
26:17
Speaker 1: like full of ice and soda cans and just like
26:20
Speaker 1: Chuck did it at at Kurt who ducked and missed it,
26:24
Speaker 1: and like, I think it hit us partially, but it
26:28
Speaker 1: was just like they were just showing off and being silly.
26:31
Speaker 2: What year would this be? Would had they already come
26:33
Speaker 2: out with uh put him.
26:34
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety fourteen spirit?
26:37
Speaker 2: I think got it. Yeah, he was sitting next to me,
26:40
Speaker 2: I think, and he was chatting with us, saying, you
26:41
Speaker 2: guys are going for a bit.
26:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, got to know them a little bit. And then
26:45
Speaker 1: later on, after we had died, they actually stepped up
26:48
Speaker 1: and volunteered and did a benefit show which has just
26:53
Speaker 1: been really it's just on YouTube now for the first time,
26:55
Speaker 1: and I remember it was an amazing little show that they.
26:59
Speaker 1: Kurt called me at home and said, you know, well,
27:01
Speaker 1: you know, we heard what happened. We're really sorry, and
27:03
Speaker 1: could we you know, do anything to help, like play
27:06
Speaker 1: because I had organized another show and with some other bands,
27:10
Speaker 1: smaller bands, and they asked if they could jump on
27:12
Speaker 1: that bill, and I was like, sure, if you want to,
27:16
Speaker 1: you know, if you're on time. No, I didn't say that,
27:18
Speaker 1: but I was like sure, and Courtney got on the
27:21
Speaker 1: line at the same time, I was like, who are
27:24
Speaker 1: you going to started making some demands about who, you know,
27:27
Speaker 1: how the show should go and what time they should
27:29
Speaker 1: go on and when we could announce it to press.
27:31
Speaker 1: So I just was like sure, whatever, and they showed
27:33
Speaker 1: up and set up and just played like it was
27:36
Speaker 1: a regular They were a regular band playing a regular
27:38
Speaker 1: little show. But they kicked ass. They were really good.
27:42
Speaker 1: At that point, I was like, man, everything, you know,
27:44
Speaker 1: I was just I was a fan and devotee at
27:47
Speaker 1: that point.
27:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, Kurt was a cool, cool dude. Huh.
27:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a really quiet guy. You know, he's really
27:54
Speaker 1: quiet and private and I think he you know, he
27:58
Speaker 1: could be a lot of different people. He could be,
28:02
Speaker 1: he could be a sweet guy. He could also not
28:05
Speaker 1: be depending on who you were and his state of mind.
28:09
Speaker 1: And depression does a lot of things to people, and
28:11
Speaker 1: I think it didn't always have the best effect on Kurt.
28:15
Speaker 2: What about me? As lyrics. Where did she get inspiration from?
28:19
Speaker 2: You say she kept journals, So did she look for
28:21
Speaker 2: inspiration or did it just come to her?
28:24
Speaker 1: She just inspiration from her friends, going through stuff around her,
28:27
Speaker 1: things that she went through, things that she had overcome.
28:29
Speaker 1: But it wasn't like poor pitiful me lyrics. The lyrics
28:32
Speaker 1: would her lyrics would talk about a situation abstractly, and
28:35
Speaker 1: then the bridge of the song might might be some solution,
28:42
Speaker 1: and then the final verse might be how it was
28:46
Speaker 1: the total resolution of the problem. So she would write
28:51
Speaker 1: stories and like small like little stories and chunks that
28:55
Speaker 1: that you could kind of apply to stuff you're going
28:57
Speaker 1: through in your own life. And she had a way
28:59
Speaker 1: with the doing that, like making it universal that way.
29:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, she had a unique voice and a style just
29:05
Speaker 2: the way that she would the phrasing over the beat,
29:08
Speaker 2: just an emotionally raw you know, just kind of singing
29:11
Speaker 2: from deep down.
29:13
Speaker 1: It seemed easy for her. It was amazing. It would
29:15
Speaker 1: actually work for weeks on the words and the phrasing,
29:19
Speaker 1: and she'd take a little cassette recorder and record a
29:22
Speaker 1: song that we would play instrumentally and just listen to
29:25
Speaker 1: it over and over and over and like write lyrics
29:27
Speaker 1: right lyrics, tear them up, write and start over. And
29:29
Speaker 1: she would pull from her journals bits and because she
29:33
Speaker 1: was writing all the time, and she would pull songs
29:36
Speaker 1: out of her journal entries or use the words from
29:39
Speaker 1: her journal to tell the story that she wanted to tell.
29:41
Speaker 2: So the songwriting process would she come with lyrics. You
29:44
Speaker 2: guys would try to write something around the lyrics, or.
29:47
Speaker 1: We would usually write songs. Usually sometimes we'd write the
29:50
Speaker 1: songs without her there. Sometimes she'd be there and just
29:53
Speaker 1: sort of listen why we played and come up with
29:55
Speaker 1: a few words or that would change and morph into
29:59
Speaker 1: something else. But it depended on just sort of the
30:02
Speaker 1: mood oftentimes Andy. Sometimes Andy would work with me privately
30:07
Speaker 1: and they would do lyrics and play guitar together for
30:10
Speaker 1: hours and come up with something and then bring it
30:12
Speaker 1: to the band. Sometimes the whole band would jam for
30:14
Speaker 1: a while and then Mia would hear it, record it,
30:17
Speaker 1: take it back to a room, listen to it and
30:18
Speaker 1: work on it for a long time, and then finally
30:20
Speaker 1: bring lyrics back. Sometimes she'd have a finished song just
30:23
Speaker 1: just like that. Sometimes it would take over and practicing
30:26
Speaker 1: over and over and over again. It depends You could
30:28
Speaker 1: get into like anyone, I got into a writer's slut, slump, write,
30:32
Speaker 1: writer's block. What do you call it? Writer's block? Yeah,
30:35
Speaker 1: writer's block, several months, you know, I just couldn't write
30:38
Speaker 1: anything and then or sometimes it would take me a
30:40
Speaker 1: month and I would write one sentence and that would
30:42
Speaker 1: be I would write a whole chapter, but only one
30:46
Speaker 1: sentence would be good, so the rest I would have
30:48
Speaker 1: to throw away. And sometimes I'd sit down in five
30:50
Speaker 1: minutes and write two chapters and it would be good,
30:52
Speaker 1: you know. So it was like you can never tell.
30:54
Speaker 1: It's just like when the muse speaks, you have to
30:56
Speaker 1: listen and hope that you have a.
30:58
Speaker 2: Pen as a writer. I know, it's just it sucks
31:02
Speaker 2: just staring at the page, staring at a blanket lonely.
31:05
Speaker 1: You know, it to be just pulled up like looking
31:08
Speaker 1: at a screen or a piece of paper for hours
31:11
Speaker 1: and not producing anything.
31:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, how about the gets most important song? Second skin
31:18
Speaker 2: as someone wrote the most important song and it was
31:21
Speaker 2: written in thirty minutes during a rehearsal. But you say
31:24
Speaker 2: not true.
31:25
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think we. I mean it seemed
31:28
Speaker 1: like it because we got shut down by the cops,
31:31
Speaker 1: because we were too loud, that's groage, and we got
31:35
Speaker 1: shut down. So I think I think we knew the
31:38
Speaker 1: cops had been there or someone had called, and I
31:41
Speaker 1: think we have a certain amount of time that we had.
31:43
Speaker 1: This could be wrong, but the way I can think
31:44
Speaker 1: of it now is like we only had so much
31:46
Speaker 1: time to practice, you know, because we didn't have a space.
31:48
Speaker 1: So we're practicing mass garage and the cops are on
31:50
Speaker 1: their way, so we have to finish it up quickly,
31:52
Speaker 1: and for some reason it got put out that way.
31:55
Speaker 1: But actually, I mean that was just kind of we're
31:58
Speaker 1: at the peak of our powers pretty much when we
32:00
Speaker 1: with that song, and it was as we're all in
32:02
Speaker 1: a good mood. It was just flowing, and it was
32:05
Speaker 1: definitely written put together in one afternoon at least, you know.
32:09
Speaker 2: And what is me a singing about?
32:13
Speaker 1: I have no idea, No it was. It was a
32:17
Speaker 1: song about essentially about overcoming adversity and resilience in essence.
32:25
Speaker 1: And I've had more a lot of people who who've
32:29
Speaker 1: come up to me privately and said that that song
32:31
Speaker 1: had meant something, you know, that had been the song
32:34
Speaker 1: that changed or saved their lives or company.
32:36
Speaker 2: Yes, you talk about that in the book, right, Yeah,
32:39
Speaker 2: that was that was when you went to the screening
32:41
Speaker 2: of the documentary and a few people came up to you.
32:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, we were working on a documentary. We had about
32:46
Speaker 1: a thirty minute long black and white documentary and we
32:48
Speaker 1: screened it at a music the music museum in Seattle.
32:52
Speaker 1: It's called the Pop Museum, I think or something. But yeah,
32:56
Speaker 1: someone stood up during the Q and a and said
32:58
Speaker 1: that that song had saved their life and they were
33:01
Speaker 1: going to commit suicide, and that they had that song
33:04
Speaker 1: was cute up and they it came up when they
33:07
Speaker 1: were just about to do it, and they listened to
33:09
Speaker 1: it for a second and then they decided not to. So,
33:12
Speaker 1: just in that really direct way, it's like an example
33:15
Speaker 1: of how her song was met a lot of people
33:18
Speaker 1: that didn't know her, you know, which is a powerful thing. Yeah,
33:21
Speaker 1: what a story worth writing? Made it worth That alone
33:25
Speaker 1: wasn't the only reason, but that certainly made me feel
33:29
Speaker 1: like what I was doing needed to be done, that
33:31
Speaker 1: she needed to be recognized as as as the great
33:36
Speaker 1: that she was.
33:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I want to ask about the dream that
33:40
Speaker 2: you had to because this was on the morning that
33:44
Speaker 2: you heard the news. This is July seventh of ninety three,
33:47
Speaker 2: and you had awoken from a dream and she was
33:51
Speaker 2: in that dream.
33:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was on dream I had. It was it
33:58
Speaker 1: was after I was actually ten years after she had
34:02
Speaker 1: been killed, and this was I was at home pretty much,
34:09
Speaker 1: had been trying to keep the investigation going, even though
34:13
Speaker 1: it'd been so long. We needed to raise money because
34:15
Speaker 1: we had a private investigator hired that we needed to pay,
34:17
Speaker 1: and we had run out of money at that point.
34:20
Speaker 1: And I woke up one morning and I was feeling happy,
34:22
Speaker 1: and I decided to burn some CDs and send them
34:25
Speaker 1: to my friends because records were out of print. And
34:27
Speaker 1: I thought, gosh, this music is still good, you know,
34:29
Speaker 1: people should hear it. And I was burning the CDs
34:33
Speaker 1: when that dream I remembered. My dream had been that
34:39
Speaker 1: we had met on a park bench somewhere and she
34:41
Speaker 1: had said not to worry, that she was fine, that
34:43
Speaker 1: she was playing jazz music, singing jazz in like underground
34:47
Speaker 1: clubs in New York or something, and I was like, oh,
34:49
Speaker 1: that's great and nice to see you, and we said goodbye.
34:51
Speaker 1: She said not to worry. It was a very vivid dream,
34:53
Speaker 1: and I hadn't dreamt about her much at all. So
34:56
Speaker 1: she appeared in my dream. And then that day the
34:58
Speaker 1: phone rang that very afternoon and someone said, you don't
35:03
Speaker 1: know me, but I worked for the Miami Herald and
35:04
Speaker 1: I have on good authority that they have someone in
35:07
Speaker 1: custody who killed your friend. And I'm like, who is this?
35:11
Speaker 1: You know this can't be true, and it was true,
35:13
Speaker 1: and she sent proof and then the phone started a
35:16
Speaker 1: ring and the press was calling, and they extradited this
35:19
Speaker 1: guy from Miami, from the Florida Keys, actually as far
35:23
Speaker 1: away from Seattle as he could get, and brought him back.
35:25
Speaker 1: And the weird thing is that I was doing my
35:28
Speaker 1: internship for graduate school at the Public Defender's Office, who
35:33
Speaker 1: was going to defend him? I was working there. Wow,
35:36
Speaker 1: I had a pass to go into the jail to
35:38
Speaker 1: see people. And that really sent me spinning about what,
35:42
Speaker 1: you know, what I could, what I could do, you know,
35:45
Speaker 1: how I could approach this, what I would say to
35:46
Speaker 1: this person, or what I could do to this person.
35:51
Speaker 1: And that was difficult, to say the least. So that
35:56
Speaker 1: was that was tough. I just went straight over to
35:58
Speaker 1: Andy's house and we waited until we had proof, and
36:01
Speaker 1: then we were just sort of in disbelief and I thought,
36:04
Speaker 1: maybe this will make things change things for the better.
36:06
Speaker 1: Everything will be better, and it it changed things, but
36:12
Speaker 1: it made things really rough for a while too, just
36:15
Speaker 1: the acceptance of like, well, there was a trial and
36:19
Speaker 1: there was the whole idea that he might not be convicted.
36:22
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, because he was convicted on the smallest amount
36:26
Speaker 1: of DNA evidence ever used to convict someone. The evidence
36:31
Speaker 1: was so was oj had gotten off on buckets of
36:35
Speaker 1: DNA's blood, right blood DNA from blood buckets of it.
36:38
Speaker 1: This sample was so small that had never been used
36:42
Speaker 1: in court before, and it was from it was from
36:46
Speaker 1: saliva from someone's teeth that they took the DNA that
36:49
Speaker 1: convicted him.
36:51
Speaker 2: It was a recent development too, a DNA. It was
36:54
Speaker 2: a development that a lot of.
36:55
Speaker 1: Money to analyze DNA, and they thought they had pretty
36:59
Speaker 1: much no evidence from the scene of the crime. But
37:02
Speaker 1: in that case, the medical EXAMRA had saved this DNA
37:08
Speaker 1: ten years prior to DNA ever, even being before the
37:12
Speaker 1: genome was was analyzed like the human genome, and it
37:17
Speaker 1: was so he had the foresight to save this DNA
37:20
Speaker 1: evidence that had never been used in court before, ten
37:24
Speaker 1: years prior to it being used in court and then
37:26
Speaker 1: it was like right in that during that year that
37:29
Speaker 1: DNA was was was able to be analyzed in such
37:36
Speaker 1: a small amount to make a match with somebody and
37:38
Speaker 1: they did well.
37:40
Speaker 2: But I don't think that dream was a coincidence.
37:43
Speaker 1: You think about that stuff, I really think about that.
37:46
Speaker 1: I mean, there was a lot of I can go
37:48
Speaker 1: into my my theories on it, but yeah, yeah, sound crazy.
37:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. The uh you know, like my dad passed
37:55
Speaker 2: a few years ago, and there are things that have happened,
37:58
Speaker 2: like the two year university of his past, you know
38:00
Speaker 2: a few things. I was like, I don't think that's
38:02
Speaker 2: a quest. Seem that you just you could try to
38:06
Speaker 2: ignore those things, but if they keep happening, you're like, yeah,
38:08
Speaker 2: maybe there is something to it.
38:09
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, you can't explain if some things can't be
38:12
Speaker 1: m Yeah, I just might explain the book. I try
38:14
Speaker 1: to explain what was so good about me is as
38:18
Speaker 1: a singer and as an artist and as a performer.
38:21
Speaker 1: Was what why she was such an amazing friend to
38:24
Speaker 1: the people that knew her, and basically what the world
38:28
Speaker 1: lost when she died, and that that that was the
38:33
Speaker 1: main flux of the book.
38:34
Speaker 2: Well, fortunately Spotify has the music on there, sure, you know,
38:38
Speaker 2: so it's there. People can go and listen to YouTube.
38:41
Speaker 2: It's there, So that's that's the good thing. It's not
38:44
Speaker 2: like you have to search hard.
38:45
Speaker 1: No, it wasn't so long ago. It wasn't so long
38:47
Speaker 1: ago that you would have to go to a brick
38:50
Speaker 1: and mortar store and find a used record and take
38:52
Speaker 1: it home and get a returntable and listen to it.
38:55
Speaker 1: You know, wasn't that long ago. But that really kept
39:00
Speaker 1: it kept us going. I think after me it was
39:02
Speaker 1: killed cycle it just personally. I think it having the
39:08
Speaker 1: music and trying to get the music out there and
39:10
Speaker 1: re releasing the records was kind of a part of
39:12
Speaker 1: the mission that kept us. Gave us something to think
39:15
Speaker 1: about and do that was positive. Those pro music, those
39:19
Speaker 1: pro life if you will, and like we wanted to
39:24
Speaker 1: keep the name alive I did.
39:25
Speaker 2: Anyway, Well, there are four altogether now people can get
39:28
Speaker 2: there's the first two studio albums, Kings and Queens would
39:31
Speaker 2: have been for music recorded before the first.
39:36
Speaker 1: We did it in a studio, but it was considered
39:37
Speaker 1: a demo when it came out as a seventeen song.
39:40
Speaker 1: I thought it was a complete album. I think it
39:41
Speaker 1: was a great album, works together. It just recorded live
39:44
Speaker 1: to two tracks, and then the two other studio records
39:48
Speaker 1: came out in ninety two and or ninety three and
39:51
Speaker 1: ninety four posthumously.
39:53
Speaker 2: The second one Seafish Louisvil.
39:57
Speaker 1: That was a colpilation of besides and singles and a
40:00
Speaker 1: couple live stuff, maybe one or two unreleased songs. But
40:05
Speaker 1: the the Wrection is getting re released on sub pop
40:10
Speaker 1: records very soon.
40:13
Speaker 2: That's good. Got a favorite favorite song, favorite moment musical
40:18
Speaker 2: from I.
40:19
Speaker 1: Have different songs I enjoy, but I think the first
40:22
Speaker 1: song on the first record, on on our second record
40:27
Speaker 1: actually Freshing the Bully, the first song on there is
40:31
Speaker 1: my favorite. It's called Absinthe and just has so many
40:34
Speaker 1: twists and turns, and it's a complete with a drum solo,
40:38
Speaker 1: bass solo. It's kind of like three minutes of insanity.
40:41
Speaker 1: That that I think exemplifies everything we were capable of musically.
40:46
Speaker 1: The first song on the first side, Yeah, what was
40:51
Speaker 1: it hard?
40:52
Speaker 2: How long did it take for you to get to
40:54
Speaker 2: because there's that what if you know we were so
40:56
Speaker 2: close to come to terms with that?
41:00
Speaker 1: What do you mean?
41:01
Speaker 2: Well, you know if she was still with us, you
41:04
Speaker 2: know what could have been. It's hard to think about
41:06
Speaker 2: that right.
41:07
Speaker 1: On NPR Wednesday, like where would they be now? And
41:12
Speaker 1: I think we'd be still playing, you know. I think
41:14
Speaker 1: we probably had made quite a few records. And I
41:17
Speaker 1: saw the band X the other month at playing they
41:22
Speaker 1: do like an annual Christmas show or a couple of
41:25
Speaker 1: shows around Christmas time in the Bay Area, and they
41:27
Speaker 1: were so good, you know, and they just showed up
41:29
Speaker 1: in whatever they were wearing that day and just threw
41:30
Speaker 1: down and played their set. And I was dancing that
41:33
Speaker 1: has a great time, And I thought about it, gosh,
41:35
Speaker 1: you know, and they were there. They're ten fifteen years
41:38
Speaker 1: older than we are, and I thought, damn, man, that
41:41
Speaker 1: could be us. That could be us doing like an
41:43
Speaker 1: annual Christmas show we when we're low on money at
41:45
Speaker 1: the end of the year, you know, we could be
41:47
Speaker 1: doing this and having, you know, it be packed at
41:50
Speaker 1: a two thousand and four thousand seat venue for the
41:53
Speaker 1: rest of our lives. Man, And I admire and I
41:56
Speaker 1: envy bands they can do that, they can get together
41:59
Speaker 1: still in play, you know, even if they they haven't
42:02
Speaker 1: been functional, you know, a touring band for years and years.
42:06
Speaker 1: I always love to see band said I love you
42:08
Speaker 1: know get together years later, and oftentimes there are best
42:10
Speaker 1: musicians and you know from playing for so many years.
42:14
Speaker 2: I want to ask you about the letters that Mia
42:15
Speaker 2: wrote to you, and you put them in the book,
42:18
Speaker 2: and I love it because it's an old school typewriter.
42:21
Speaker 2: She used.
42:23
Speaker 1: Eric's letters to people on an old school type.
42:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, this goes back to eighty nine. Yeah, writer, yeah, yeah, yeah.
42:31
Speaker 2: I just thought to read very quickly read. The first
42:34
Speaker 2: letter begins with quote, Dear Steve, I very much did
42:37
Speaker 2: get your letter, and on a day I needed it
42:39
Speaker 2: very badly, I told myself I needed to get some
42:42
Speaker 2: heartful soul from someone personal to me today. I was
42:45
Speaker 2: trying to seek my own strength, but I wanted to
42:47
Speaker 2: hear someone not just talking at me, but telling me
42:50
Speaker 2: they're on my side. Could you share what a little
42:52
Speaker 2: bit of what's behind that letter and why you included
42:55
Speaker 2: that and the other letter in the book. I love
42:57
Speaker 2: We were in college, we were That was hard.
43:00
Speaker 1: It's a hard decision to put that in or out,
43:02
Speaker 1: but I decided to do it because it just showed
43:04
Speaker 1: her the the closeness of our friendship as opposed to
43:08
Speaker 1: like us being lovers or something, which we weren't, so
43:10
Speaker 1: it was and just how she how personable she was,
43:15
Speaker 1: and where her mind was at, and how she communicated.
43:19
Speaker 1: That's why I think we a lot of times. We
43:22
Speaker 1: were started the band, and then we were at a
43:25
Speaker 1: college that you'd spend six months on campus a year
43:28
Speaker 1: and then six months off campus. So the only way
43:31
Speaker 1: we had of communicating back in the day in those
43:34
Speaker 1: days was through letters and phone calls, which were very
43:37
Speaker 1: expensive to call long distance, you know. So we wrote.
43:40
Speaker 1: We wrote letters back and forth. And I love to write,
43:42
Speaker 1: and she liked to write, so we would write letters back.
43:45
Speaker 1: And I would write with the other guys as well,
43:47
Speaker 1: but she would she would be spending time doing an
43:51
Speaker 1: internship or co op they called it, away from the campus,
43:54
Speaker 1: and I might be on campus, and so we'd write
43:56
Speaker 1: back and forth. Remember she yeah it one year I
44:01
Speaker 1: worked in Florida. I went to Florida and worked as
44:03
Speaker 1: a social worker for six months as one of my internships.
44:07
Speaker 1: And she was back in Ohio, and so we wrote.
44:09
Speaker 1: I think I think that letter was written. I don't know.
44:13
Speaker 1: Maybe I was in Europe. I think I was in
44:14
Speaker 1: Europe at the time, studying in Europe and she was
44:17
Speaker 1: back in the state somewhere, and so we were right
44:19
Speaker 1: back and forth the campus, the campus of Antioch being
44:22
Speaker 1: like the hub for our po boxes and letters that
44:25
Speaker 1: we were traveling to pick up stuff there. So, yeah,
44:29
Speaker 1: we're apart a lot of times. The first three years
44:31
Speaker 1: of the band, we were probably only together in the
44:33
Speaker 1: same town for a year and a half of it
44:35
Speaker 1: or a year total.
44:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's I'm glad you put those letters in.
44:39
Speaker 2: It just shows that it's a personal touch to it,
44:41
Speaker 2: and it just shows the side of her that you
44:44
Speaker 2: know that nobody knows, and you know it's it's you
44:49
Speaker 2: can tell, did you. It's a little a little beat.
44:53
Speaker 2: You know, it's got the fold marks.
44:54
Speaker 1: In it, and you yeah, that's just out of my pocket.
44:57
Speaker 1: I think.
44:59
Speaker 2: Nine July twenty second of eating nine, and then the
45:02
Speaker 2: other one is January twenty third of eighty nine.
45:05
Speaker 1: Once she gave me right upon when I was graduating
45:09
Speaker 1: as a graduation present, sort of just a letters. She
45:12
Speaker 1: rushed into town and handed that to me and then
45:14
Speaker 1: took off again. I don't know, yeah, remember exactly what happened.
45:17
Speaker 1: And then six months later we'd meet in Seattle and
45:19
Speaker 1: started going as a band.
45:22
Speaker 2: Well, it's the book. It took many years, it's out
45:25
Speaker 2: and what's cool about a book. Somebody could discover the
45:28
Speaker 2: band a year from now, a day from now, ten
45:32
Speaker 2: years from now. You know, these books are out there,
45:34
Speaker 2: they never go away.
45:35
Speaker 1: Hopefully they'll be in a library too.
45:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, so people should go out and get it. It is,
45:41
Speaker 2: it's out depending on when you're listening to this August thirteen,
45:44
Speaker 2: so it's tomorrow as far as when we're recording me
45:48
Speaker 2: as a pot and it gets a story of art,
45:49
Speaker 2: rock and revolution out through fear of books. And can
45:54
Speaker 2: people find you online if they want to reach out
45:55
Speaker 2: to you?
45:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's some We haven't set up my social media,
46:02
Speaker 1: but there's a website. It's just Steve Moriarty dot org.
46:06
Speaker 1: They can reach me at Steve Moriarty dot org. Yeah.
46:10
Speaker 2: Now, and musically, what are you up to do? You do?
46:12
Speaker 2: You still right?
46:14
Speaker 1: Record music now than ever? Actually, and two or three bands.
46:18
Speaker 1: I play in a in a Cumbia band, which is
46:21
Speaker 1: a kind of a form of it's a Colombian dance music.
46:25
Speaker 1: Strangely so it's like a Latin Latin rock psychedelic rock
46:31
Speaker 1: sort of thing. The band's called Mala Grena, which means
46:35
Speaker 1: really bad hair and playing a duet like a play
46:39
Speaker 1: synthesizer and drums in a in a sort of a
46:43
Speaker 1: fusion duet, kind of a noise fusion rock duet called
46:46
Speaker 1: TV nineteen eighty four. And I should send you some music.
46:51
Speaker 2: I would love to. Yeah, TV nineteen eighty four. What
46:53
Speaker 2: a cool name. Thanks love that name.
46:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just TV nineteen eighty I don't know why,
46:59
Speaker 1: but it is. This was a good year for TV,
47:01
Speaker 1: I guess so.
47:02
Speaker 2: And then what is the third band?
47:04
Speaker 1: Right?
47:04
Speaker 2: You said? Three bands?
47:05
Speaker 1: Here? Three bands. I was in a band called shot Well,
47:07
Speaker 1: which is like a sort of a a punk kind
47:15
Speaker 1: of a punk, political oriented punk band out of San Francisco.
47:20
Speaker 1: They've been around since ninety three or so. I toured
47:23
Speaker 1: with them in the nineties and they asked me to
47:25
Speaker 1: come back and do it. So I came back and
47:27
Speaker 1: produced a record of theirs. I've been producing albums too,
47:30
Speaker 1: And I produced a band called Cosmic Kitten, which is
47:34
Speaker 1: a Los Angeles band, young band, and produce various records
47:41
Speaker 1: for people and help people with drum tracks and recording
47:45
Speaker 1: and stuff too.
47:46
Speaker 2: That's awesome.
47:47
Speaker 1: Every weekend rehearse all the time and cool.
47:51
Speaker 2: I'm happy to hear that. Man, it was great to
47:53
Speaker 2: talk to you. And congratulations on the book and people
47:56
Speaker 2: should go out and get the book, and people should
47:58
Speaker 2: go out and listen to the music of the gets.
48:00
Speaker 1: Yeah. Thanks, Eric, I really appreciate it. That's it. It's
48:11
Speaker 1: in the books.