Everybody Loves Our Town_ An Oral History of Grunge - Mark Yarm [161]
MATT DRESDNER We were always really tight with 7 Year Bitch and very supportive, and when all of a sudden they started getting a lot of attention, we were absolutely thrilled for them. I felt like they felt a little bit guilty because we had sort of been their mentors. And they went out of their way for us. When the documentary Hype! came out here to film, Hype! wasn’t gonna include us, and those girls said, “You guys are blowin’ it if you don’t get the Gits on film.” So it was a very supportive, very collaborative, loving relationship between those two bands.
STEVE MORIARTY Stefanie and Mia were great friends and drinking buddies. They both had tempers. They both liked to get fucked up and cause havoc. They both were total misfits. They were both lovely people, and they were both really kind of naive and accepting, almost to a fault. Mia was often taken advantage of by people. They’d go, “Oh, it’s so cool, I’m hanging out with the lead singer of the Gits. Let’s get her wasted and see what she does.” And the same went for Stefanie.
SELENE VIGIL-WILK I remember a boyfriend of Stefanie’s started dating another girl and she just lost it. She grabbed him off of his chair at the Crocodile and punched him. Crazy stuff, throwing beers on people. Wild outbursts in public places. But she was a sincere, good friend to people.
VALERIE AGNEW Stefanie had a shitload of charisma. She could talk you out of your pants, man. When we first started playing shows, she would get guys to come up and tune her guitar. I was like, “Stefanie, you know how to tune your guitar.” She was like, “I know, I don’t care. He’s cute.” We would be out on some road trip and she’d manage to get someone to carry all her gear for her or give her a ride really far away. We were so deep into our feminist all-girls-playing-rock thing at that time that we were like, “Stefanie! You’re fucking with our image!” (Laughs.) She didn’t give a shit.
If she was missing at a show we’d find her with some boy in the back of a van. Some would say she was a little bit reckless. She referred to herself as the punk-rock Marilyn Monroe. She was a huge Marilyn Monroe fan, and she identified with her. I never asked her why. I didn’t get to know her long enough.
LORI BARBERO Everyone always said, “You need to meet Stefanie Sargent. You two are identical. Both of you look similar, both of you have dreadlocks and you both blah blah blah.” It just so happened we both had a salamander tattooed on our forearm even. We shared our energy and our passion for music. And we love people. We met in Seattle when 7 Year Bitch played, and we got along famously.
I was dating a gentleman named Chris at the time, and she was dating … what was his name? From Young Fresh Fellows, I think it was. She worked at Piecora’s, a pizza place on the Hill, and we ended up getting “married” there. She gave me a ring. I gave her a ring. I still have the ring. “Let’s get married!” I have no idea why we decided to do that. I mean, it wasn’t like any kind of lesbian love affair, it was just best friends. Our boyfriends gave us away, and it was at Piecora’s upstairs, and it was just really funny.
JAMES BURDYSHAW When I was in 64 Spiders, Stefanie and I dated for a little while. It wasn’t like we were a couple and people would see us together all the time. It was more like she had a big crush on me, and I hung out with her. This was back in the day when you didn’t really have a girlfriend. You’d go to shows, go over to somebody’s place late at night after drinking, and end up in their bed or they’d end up in your bed.
Stefanie had always been a girl who was like the groupie chick. Like she was Soul Asylum’s little groupie—not sleeping with them, just hanging on. She loved to follow bands. She was a real tomboy, but she was a real soft girl, too, and she didn’t like being called Sarge.
ROISIN DUNNE I knew Stefanie from hanging out on the Ave, goin’ to the Grey Door and the Gorilla Gardens; I maybe even met her as early as the Metropolis. Whenever we found each other at shows, we would hang out,