Jennifer Precious Finch » Diaries

Subj: Bio-Degrading-part 2 Date: 94-07-18 18:49:07 EDT From: L7s

Jennifer Precious Finch — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 05:07:14 +0000

(Bio-Degrading part 2)
The L7 story began when Donita Sparks, a Chicago suburbs transplant met former Sacramento resident Suzi Gardner in Los Angeles in 1985. Both had played in various, local bands and the instant chemistry between the two had convinced them to form a new group. Jennifer Finch, who had been playing and living in San Francisco at the time, moved back down to her native Los Angeles to join the two in 1986. Together with their original drummer, Roy Koutsky, they began playing the local club circuit. This line up recorded the band’s once hard to find, self-titled first album that was produced by Brett Guretwitz (of Bad Religion and owner of Epitaph Records) and released on the Epitaph Records in 1988.

After a period of drum vacancies had occurred, the band solidified it’s line up in 1988 when Dee Plakas, also from the Chicago area, was enlisted to play drums. For the next two years the group tightened and hardened their sound in the dank, dark night clubs of Hollywood before ever-increasing legions of fans. 1990 saw the release of the band’s Sub Pop E.p.Smell The Magic, which was proceeded by theShove b/w Packin’ A Rod, 7 inch, vinyl, single. The later’s A side became an instant indie classic anthem which endeared them to college radio stations across the country. Eventually their track record of consistently sold out local shows, two U.S. tours (’88 and ’89), headlining tour of Europe (’90) and British tour (’89 supporting Nirvana) and various U.S. regional tours came to the attention of Slash Records. In 1991 the band signed on to their roster which includes, Violent Femmes, X, the Germs and Faith No More.

The band’s major label debut Bricks Are Heavy was co-produced by Butch Vig and released in mid 1992. A diverse collection of pop, punk, and heavy rock, it earned a spot on Billboard’s new artist and pop album chart and yielded a radio hit with “Pretend That Were Dead”.

1992-93 were busy years for the band. The group spent their time doing a couple of U.S. tours, performing “Pretend..” on the United State’s David Letterman show and Britain’s the Word, tours of Japan, Australia and Europe, the Reading Festival, an additional freezing, winter, European support slot for Faith No More, and two Brazilian festival dates.

In addition to their promotional tour, L7 played and organized a number of stateside benefits for Rock For Choice, an organization they founded to raise awareness in the rock community of the growing threat to our civil liberties, women’s rights and a woman’s right to a safe, legal abortion. Bands that have participated in Rock For Choice concerts have included Nirvana, X, Bikini Kill, Joan Jett, Pearl Jam, Hole, Mudhoney, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and many others. One of L7′s goals was to set up Rock for Choice as an in house project of the Feminist Majority Foundation (who are the beneficiary organization) Since the onset of Rock For Choice, L7 have been slowly stepping back from their active roles, allowing other co-ordinators to take over. Rock for Choice is now a full time project and L7 act as consultants when needed. More info on Rock For Choice and the Feminist Majority Foundation can be obtained by calling: 213 651-0495

1994 looks to be another busy year which has already seen L7 performing a song called Gas Chamber for the soundtrack to the John Water’s movie Serial Mom and a Japanese tour. Their new release, Hungry For Stink features twelve songs co-produced with Garth Richardson and is probably their heaviest to date. The albums first video, Andres, was co-directed by Donita Sparks and Steve Hanft (who’s credits include Beck’s Loser). These songs will undoubtedly get a decent workout as L7 joins the Beastie Boys, Smashing Pumpkins and etc. at Lollapalooza this summer. See ya’ there! -Bob

Subj: Buy Low Sell High #9 Date: 94-07-18 22:40:34 EDT From: L7s

Buy Low Sell High #9

Hey I just thought I would print our discography too (being the hard sell kind of person I am. LOL). All the non-compilation stuff is still available and a few of the compilations are still around but most of them have “bought the ranch”.

Subj: Donuts for All My Friends #25 Date: 94-08-12 01:31:46 EDT From: L7s

Jennifer Precious Finch — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 04:53:37 +0000

We love Philly. We first came here in 1988. We were on a national tour supporting Bad Religion and although those guys are the coolest, the tour was an ass dragger. We would be lucky if 50 people showed up to any given show, promoters would attempt to rip us off and just the general you gotta “laugh to keep from crying” situations. But Philly, well that was a different story all together. We had decided to break away from the Bad Religion fiasco for two days to play a few shows at the persuasion of our good friend Paul Bearer. I had met Paul a year earlier when I booked his legendary band the Serial Killers in L.A. and they crashed at my house for the duration of those shows. In turn he and his manager Larry Kay hooked us up in Philly and we stayed with them. The shows were at J.C. Dobbs on South Street and at (get this) an old age recreation room during the evening when all the seniors had left. We made a bunch of friends, ate a bunch of cheese steaks and had such a BLAST. We have always had good shows in Philly since.

Today was no exception. All of our Philly friends showed up (with the exception of those who have moved LA). Paul Bearer was in full form (he is one of those people I will LOVE FOREVER). It was Suzi’s birthday and we got the whole audience to serenade her while the crew (who are still wearing those pesky chef hats) passed out birthday donuts to the audience. I also stood for part of the set (I AM HEALED!!almost).

Later that evening we all went to a club called the Coppa on South Street where Paul knows the bartenders (always a plus). Various Breeders, Bad Seeds, Luscious Jacksons, Smashing Pumpkins and the Verve were all players in tonight episode of “Rock and Roll Damnation, Inc.”.

Stay Fly, -finch

Lollapalooza Diaries- Words- Jon Stewart Show Date

Jennifer Precious Finch — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 21:17:12 +0000

Hey Ya’ll, I just wanted to remind everyone that we will be on the Jon Stewart show on Tue. Oct.4th. I am in NYC right now (we flew in from Mpls. this morning) and boy am I excited, I dig this town big time! BTW, for all the NYC locals in the house, if you were at the Luckoftheloozers poet tent you might have caught a preformance by our good friend Torment. Torment is throwing us a party after the filming of the JS show at around 12:30am. It is open to the public and is at Ben Hills 511 Greenwich St. at the cornor of Spring. The other night in Mpls. after our show, I went out to dinner with our booking agent, Peter Davis, his girl friend Cindy, and the gals in Babes in Toyland. We ate a kickass family style Itailian dinner. While I was stuffing meatballs into my mouth, Peter leaned over the table and started giving me a world of shit for not completing the tour diary yet! I haven’t even realized time has slipped by so frigging fast it’s like living in a wirlwind!!! Well anyway I guess I am just leading up to yet another apology for still not finishing the damn thing!!! I still may try (I actually have notes written down somewhere) but I would guess if it’s around Jan or Feb. of next year the chances are good I may just have to move on!! Take it Sleezy, jennifer

Introducing Jennifer Finch’s Lollapalooza Diaries

Jennifer Precious Finch — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 20:34:10 +0000

Lollapalooza Diaries: Subj: Introduce the Band”SUe meet DEe” Date: 94-07-13 14:43:46 EDT From: L7s

Jennifer Precious Finch — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 18:45:41 +0000

Let Me Introduce the Band..”SUzi meet DEe…”#3 (non-dated material)#3 This injection is designed to give you an idea about who we are, the names, the sights, the smells, the sounds, if you will… Suzi Gardner (L7 guitarist and vocalist), Dave Ratt (soundperson), Joe Double-O’Neil (SnowRangler, HinkleyTech and stageminder), Donita Sparks (L7 vocalist and guitarist), John Brubaker ( guitar techie), Demetra Plakas (L7 goddess of thunder-drummer), Rod Doak (tour manager, distributor of the meal tickets), Lenny Douglas (drum tech and quite the dancer), Jennifer Finch (that would be me and I play bass and sing), Dean Menta (bass tech for the first few shows), Dav Michael (assistant creator of the snow scene and on the road for the first few shows) and Craig All our bus driver who we are stealing from Pearl Jam.

Lollapalooza Diaries: Subj: Pre-show FLAKING Date: 94-07-11 04:51:59 EDT From: L7s

Jennifer Precious Finch — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 18:44:49 +0000

STINKY LOG STARDATE July 4th – 6th We said goodbye to our friends, dads, lovers and dogs on, Monday July 4th and headed east on the 10 freeway. The first show and the pre-show rehearsals are in Las Vegas and you know what that means!! Ka-ching! Ka-ching! One armed bandits til’ the sun comes up! Suzi won big time. I lost it all. We saw Don Rickles one night and Phillis Dillar the next. The rehearsals are at 9:30am (ouch!) the morning of the 5th and will be our only chance to practice and get our sounds right. It is also our first oppertunity to see our stage set up and running (this is our first attempt at dressing our stage and Vegas makes it seem all so natural!). The set is hard to describe. It is sorta a snow/ice drift fantasy. It was designed by a guy who puts these types of things together for the Santa section in malls at christmas. It looks cool, suspended icicles, snow drifts on our amps and a ten foot snowman with carrot nose and black stovepipe hat. There is one tiny problem though, this guy has never had to make one of his sets portable or have to withstand weather or be taken apart, put into boxes, then put back together again. All that could go wrong went wrong. The opaline coating that gives the flakes their snow-like glimmer started to come off when touched, all the boxes the sets came in where the wrong sizes, and to top it off, a warm, desert, wind kicked up and one of the snowflakes went renegade, flying off it’s pole and landing in the arms of one of the union guys (ooops). Live and learn. Hopefully this will all work out. I will keep you posted. finch

Lollapalooza Diaries:Subj: Stinky Log Date: 94-07-09 00:21:48 EDT From: L7s

Jennifer Precious Finch — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 18:43:54 +0000

Subj: Stinky Log Date: 94-07-09 00:21:48 EDT From: L7s

Hey, So here I am in Denver with an evening off with every good intention of writting out a tour diary ( a “log” if you will) but wouldn’t you know it, Star Trek is on, oh well, I’ll try again after tomarro’s shows. finch-

Intro to the Lollapalooza Tour Diary- Words

Jennifer Precious Finch — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 18:41:58 +0000

Sometime in the 90′s I was aksed by AOL to be a tour correspondent for Lollapalooza, a big-ass out-door concert event that toured the US. I am pretty sure no one used the word “blog” back then, but that was basically the low down. I have a bunch of official enteries that I copied from AOL and a bunch of notes and a tour book I made with pictures (see my post “Lollapaloza Diaries Pictures“). I am kinda using this category to really motivate me to find all the materials in all my old journals and all the photos I must have taken. As I find stuff, I’ll post. If you have anything related let me know.

Introducing Jennifer Finch’s Lollapalooza Diaries.

Jennifer Precious Finch — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 21:27:54 +0000

In 1993 when I was playing with L7, I kept a diary of our Lollapalooza tour. Pictures of people and year book style notes written to me fill the pages along with photos of our adventures, people on the tour and other generally weird shit.. Think Nick Cave drinking Slimfast. Or the alienation in the eyes of every member of The Smashing Pumpkins. Except Billy, his eyes were just filled. I haven’t been able to get it together enough to put this stuff into a book, but I’m glad I can share it through here. Maybe some day… Maybe never..

- Precious