L7 “L7″ 1988. Epitaph records. Today, August 1st, is L7 co-founder, guitarist and vocalist Suzi Gardner’s birthday (b. Suzanne Gardner 1960). L7 will be playing in Milwaukee this weekend and a lot of my cool kid friends (some bringing their actual kids) are going, but we will be outta town so will rely on hearing about the show from them.

L7 is the band’s debut album: gritty grunge-punk full of heavy riot grrrl swagger. I’m partial to a few of their later releases but there are some great ass-kicking tracks on this record. “Bite the Wax Tadpole” is crazy frenzied energy (bite the wax tadpole = Chinese translation of Coca Cola, thanks internet!), “Let’s Rock Tonight” and “Runnin’ From the Law” are a bad girl’s call to party, “Uncle Bob” is ton-of-bricks heavy and “Snake Handler” is probably my favorite track, asking all dangerously sexy “Are you a snake? Are you a man?”