L7

L7 was formed by Donita Sparks and Suzi Gardner on shared electric guitar and shared vocals. A year previous, Gardner had performed backing vocals on the Black Flag song "Slip It In". The punk rock duo were soon joined by Jennifer Finch on bass guitar and Roy Koutsky on drums. Koutsky left shortly after and Demetra Plakas ("Dee" for short) became their permanent drummer.

The band's name derives from a 1950s slang phrase meaning "square," but is often mistaken for a reference to the sex position, "69". The slang phrase "L7" can be heard in the classic Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs song "Wooly Bully" ("Let's not be L7, come and learn to dance..."), in the Rick James song "Bustin' Out" ("L7- just a little too damn straight..."), and in the Paul McCartney song "C Moon" ("I could be L7 and I'll never get to heaven if I fill my head with glue").

In 1991, the band formed Rock for Choice, a Pro-Choice women's rights group which was supported by other prominent bands of that era, including Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana, and Rage Against the Machine. Rock for Choice still exists and organizes concerts today.

Their 1992 third album Bricks Are Heavy, produced by Butch Vig, was featured in Rolling Stone's May 1999 list of 'Essential recordings of the 1990s', and is widely considered their classic.

L7's fourth album, Hungry for Stink, was released in the summer of 1994 during their Lollapalooza tour, where they shared the stage with The Smashing Pumpkins and The Breeders, among others.

Jennifer Finch left the band during the recording of their next album, so Sparks and Greta Brinkman played bass on their fifth album The Beauty Process: Triple Platinum, after which Gail Greenwood, (formerly of the band Belly) became the bassist.

The band's most recent album, Slap-Happy, was released in 1999 and did not chart on either side of the Atlantic. To promote the record, on July 17, 1999, a plane flew over the crowd at the Lilith Fair at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., with a banner that read, "Bored? Tired? Try L7." The following day, a second airplane flew over the crowd at the Warped Tour at the Stone Pony lot in Asbury Park, N.J. This banner declared, "Warped needs more beaver...love, L7." Greenwood later left the band and was replaced by Janis Tanaka, formerly of the San Francisco band, Stone Fox. (Janis would later go on to play bass for the singer Pink. Gail Greenwood would later play with the singer Bif Naked.)

However, by 2001 the band was no longer touring. According to the band's website, "L7 are on an indefinite hiatus. We know that's vague, but that's just the way it is. The future of the band is a bit up in the air at the moment." L7 appears to be defunct for all practical purposes, as Donita Sparks is currently pursuing her own solo career, along with drummer Dee Plakas and two other guitarists in the band Donita Sparks and The Stellar Moments. Jennifer Finch is working in a punk-rock group called The Shocker.

The band gained a certain amount of notoriety for their performance at the 1992 Reading Festival, when Donita Sparks removed her used tampon on-stage and threw it into the crowd yelling "Eat my used tampon, fuckers!" in protest against the mud being thrown by the crowd. This has been referred to as one of the "most unsanitary pieces of rock memorabilia".

Albums
1988 - L7 (Epitaph Records)
1990 - Smell the Magic (Sub Pop)
1992 - Bricks Are Heavy (Slash Records)
1994 - Hungry for Stink (Slash Records)
1997 - The Beauty Process: Triple Platinum (Slash Records)
1999 - Slap-Happy (Wax Tadpole Records)