Gits Get Things Going With A Punk Show At The OK Hotel

The Gits, with IMIJ at the OK Hotel, 219 Alaskan Way S., 9 p.m. tonight. $6. You may remember reading last summer that punk-rock shows weren't supposed to happen at the OK Hotel anymore.

At first glance, tonight's Gits show might seem like a violation of that self-imposed rule. The Gits consider themselves a punk- rock band and have volume, spite-makes-right vocals and a steady four-four beat to back up that claim.

After a hiatus from punk shows that new OK Hotel booking agent Dave Crellin called a "pulling way back," the club is featuring an occasional punk show, as long as the crowd adheres to rules against stage-diving and mosh pits.

Even so, there's more to the Gits than attitude and loud guitars, as is demonstrated on their recently released album, "Frenching the Bully." On the album's 12 songs, singer Mia Zapata sets an agenda of social togetherness and righteous indignation to sometimes harsh, sometimes beautiful melodies. The music, though rooted in fairly straightforward rhythms, twists and shifts at will through some songs. Guitarist Joe Spleen's playing veers from brash and fast to warbly and introspective.

The Gits' punk rock ethic is best exemplified by their do-it-yourself spirit. The band, which formed at Ohio's Antioch College, moved to Seattle in 1989. They looked at all the cities they could successfully move the band to and settled on the smallest one on the list. Then they started marketing.

"When we first got to town, we gave a dollar to each booking agent that would listen to our demo tape," said drummer Steve Moriarty. "That seemed to help."

Sub Pop co-executive Jonathan Poneman helped place them on the bill of a now-legendary Nirvana and Tad show in January 1990 at the University of Washington's HUB Ballroom. The Gits played an impressive, energetic set that included a cover of the Stooges "Loose" and kept the crowd interested. (The show, which ended with an early version of Nirvana Destructo Theater, was an entertainment value at $4.)

Yet the band eventually came to see themselves as an alternative to Sub Pop's trademark grunge. The Gits released two singles on small local labels ("Big Flaming Ego" and "Empty") and formed a collective with several other musicians called Rathouse. In late 1990, Rathouse released "Bobbing For Pavement: A Seattle Compilation," which featured Hammerbox, Gas Huffer and the Rathouse stable of bands.

"Showing that there was something else besides Sub Pop going on in Seattle was the movitation for putting that record out," said bassist Matt Dresdner. "We sought out bands that we thought weren't as interested in major label success."

One song on the new album, "Slaughter of Bruce," encapsulates that philosophy. Zapata sings, "Some fool came up to me and said/`You'd make a star with that band,'/I said, `That's not why we're doing this/Why can't you . . . get it?' "

Although the Bruce in the song's title doesn't refer to Sub Pop's Bruce Pavitt, they laughingly suggest that they should start saying that in interviews.

The band signed with C/Z last summer after negotiating with several alternative labels. At that point, the Gits had set up their own European tour and recorded the album with their own money.

"They were the most enthusiastic of everyone we talked to," Moriarty said.

"We were a bit hesitant at first," Dresdner said, "because we weren't sure that we fit in. Some of the bands on the label were punk and some were eclectic. But now that they've signed 7 Year Bitch and Alcohol Funnycar," which both have a member of Rathouse in the lineup, "they're going in more of a punk direction. It's actually more of a Rathouse direction."

At some places in "Frenching the Bully," the Gits sound like another former C/Z band, Hammerbox, who have since jumped to A & M Records. Zapata's voice has a harsher burr than Hammerbox singer Carrie Akre, but both singers flow swiftly and strongly through several emotional extremes in the course of a song. Some of the careening guitar lines and tempo changes the bands use are also similar.

The Gits don't quite see it that way. "The similarities end with three males and one female in each band," Dresdner says.

This is the first all-ages show the band will play since the release of their album, which they consider very important.

"We believe in all-ages shows," Dresdner said. "It's great to play places like the Off Ramp and RKCNDY, but we want to be accessible to younger audiences."

"I try to make my lyrics a universal thing that relate to people," Zapata said. "I've had 15-year-olds come up to me relating to what I'm saying in the songs, and I've had 40-year-olds do the same thing. When people almost twice my age and half my age can relate to us, we must be doing something right."