Friday, December 5th, 2025, Sub Pop will release a new physical version of The Gits’ Enter: The Conquering Chicken, the group’s second, and final studio album. The newly remastered album, which has been available digitally, is now available to preorder on CD and LP from megamart.subpop.com in North America, Mega Mart Europe, The Gits’ official website, and select independent retailers worldwide. LP orders of the vinyl will receive the limited Loser edition on Clear with Black + Red Hi Melt (North America) and Pearl / Sunrise (UK/EU) vinyl (All vinyl colors while supplies last!)
This new physical reissue of the ferocious Seattle punk band’s second album is remastered by legendary producer Jack Endino and features new album cover art and packaging by Sub Pop’s VP of Creative, Jeff Kleinsmith. Also included are expanded liner notes by journalist and former Atlantic Records A&R Tim Sommer who heralds, ‘The Gits were an angry, inflamed slinky fully in tune with and tuned by the Bessie Patti Smith of her time, truly the only singer who could summon Joplin, Poly Styrene, Sam Cooke, Iggy Pop, and Ian MacKaye all in the same goddamn song.’
Watch the official video for “Sign of the Crab” directed by Chris Kraft.
“‘Sign of the Crab’ was the last song we created together as a band” says Gits’ bassist Matt Dresdner. “Based on Andy’s diabolical composition and Mia’s brilliant creepy lyrics, the music was punchy, complex, and full of a fun, twisted rage. The songs on …Chicken provide just a glimpse of what we were onto.”
Enter: The Conquering Chicken is The Gits’ final, full-length studio album. The Gits’ vocalist, lyricist, and frontwoman, Mia Zapata, was murdered in Seattle during the few weeks they spent recording the album that summer of 1993. Produced by the band and longtime friend Scott Benson, Enter: The Conquering Chicken was released posthumously on C/Z Records in 1994.
Guitarist Andy Kessler shares, “The Gits are pleased to finally present listeners with the definitive edition of this recording to celebrate a taste of where Mia and their band might have gone.”
Formed in 1986 at Antioch College in Ohio, The Gits moved together to Seattle in 1989 as the world was taking notice of the local scene. Although their raucous, blues-infused punk, powered by Mia’s indelible vocals, didn’t quite fit the mold being cast by their Pacific Northwest peers, the band immediately found a tight foothold and strong following.
Enter: The Conquering Chicken showcases The Gits at the peak of their powers. Captured at the end of a packed west coast tour, they were on fire. Creative, inspired, and driven by the promise of a new musical chapter, you can it hear in these recordings.
Remixed by Jack Endino in 2003, ‘Songs like Bob (Cousin O.),’ ‘Guilt Within Your Head,’ ‘Seaweed,’ ‘Sign of the Crab,’ ‘The Drinking Song,’ and Mia’s jaw-dropping rendition of Sam Cooke’s ‘A Change is Gonna Come’ reveal a distinct evolution in direction following their successful 1992 debut album, Frenching The Bully.
Late last week, The Gits announced the rerelease of the 2005 independent documentary The Gits’ 20th Anniversary Edition directed by Kerri O’Kane. The film is distributed by Factory 25 and will stream online through Veeps starting on December 16th, with theatrical screenings to come in November, December, and January. The Gits’ 20th Anniversary Edition features footage of Mia and the band, along with Kathleen Hanna, Selene Vigil and Valerie Agnew of 7 Year Bitch, Joan Jett, and more (see Brooklyn Vegan news story September 25th).
The Gits’ Frenching the Bully is also available now from Sub Pop Mega Mart in North America, MegaMart2 in the EU/UK, The Gits website, and independent retailers worldwide. Enter: The Conquering Chicken and Frenching the Bully, along with the rest of the Gits’ entire discography, Kings & Queens, Seafish Louisville, and Live at The X-Ray – are also available digitally on all DSPs from Sub Pop.
Revisit Evelyn McDonnell’s interview with The Gits’ band members Andy Kessler and Matt Dresdner in The New York Times (see November 12th story “A New Set of Gits Releases Gives Mia Zapata Her Voice Back”). You can also read Tim Sommer’s extensive liner notes on The Gits reissues here.
The limited Loser US LP & CD editions of Enter: The Conquering Chicken
The Gits Enter: The Conquering Chicken
1. Bob (Cousin O.) 2. Guilt Within Your Head 3. Seaweed 4. A Change is Gonna Come 5. Precious Blood 6. Beauty of the Rose 7. Drunks 8. Italian Song 9. Social Love I 10. Social Love II 11. Daily Bread 12. Drinking Song 13. Sign of the Crab
Today, Friday, January 31st, 2025, marks the release of the 2024 physical edition of The Gits’ Frenching the Bully on CD and vinyl worldwide from Sub Pop. The reissue of the ferocious Seattle punk band’s debut features new album cover art and packaging by Sub Pop’s VP of Creative Jeff Kleinsmith and has been remastered by legendary producer Jack Endino.
Also today, King County Supervisor Dow Constantine proclaimed that Saturday, February 1st, 2025 shall be known for now and eternity as The Gits Day in King County, Washington!
Band members Matt Dresdner, Andy Kessler, and Steve Moriarity had this to say of the acknowledgment: “We’re beyond honored (and a little freaked out) by King County’s proclamation that January 31st is The Gits Day! And we’re delighted that all County employees are getting a much-deserved day off to acknowledge the rerelease of our debut album, Frenching the Bully.”
In further celebration of Frenching the Bully’s release on Saturday, February 1st, there will be two free album release events – Seattle’s The Vera Project (All Ages; 4-6 pm, Doors 3:30) and at KEXP Gathering Space (21+; 8-10 pm, Doors 7pm) at the Seattle Center.
Both The Vera Project and KEXP Gathering Space will screen the world premiere of the new short film documentary, “The Gits Live at RKCNDY,” featuring unreleased footage of The Gits’ February 1993 performance originally filmed for the movie HYPE! - a documentary film by Doug Pray. There will also be a merch signing with The Gits bands members at both the early and late events.
The Vera Project will also have a special exhibition of paintings by Mia Zapata. Attendees are also encouraged to bring their items for a special Bring It! Screen It! Gits Edition! Featuring three new designs. At the 21+ and over event at the KEXP Gathering Space there will also be an unveiling of SubPop’s Gits Art Exhibition!
Full information for both events, including RSVP links, is below.
The Gits Seattle Record Release Parties
THE VERA PROJECT 305 Harrison St, Seattle, WA 98109 4p-6p (3:30pm doors) ALL AGES
Premiere of the short film “The Gits Live at RKCNDY” featuring never-before seen footage from Doug Pray’s documentary, “HYPE!” Exhibition of Paintings by Mia Zapata BRING IT! SCREEN IT! Live Silk Screening workshop Vinyl Signing & Merch Pop-Up RSVP
KEXP GATHERING SPACE 472 1st Ave N, Seattle, WA 98109 8p-10p (7 pm doors) 21+
Screening of “The Gits Live at RKCNDY” Unveiling of SubPop’s Gits Art Exhibition Vinyl Signing & Merch Pop-Up
Frenching the Bully along with the rest of the Gits’ entire discography – Enter: The Conquering Chicken, Kings & Queens, and Seafish Louisville, and Live at The X-Ray – is also available digitally on all DSPs from Sub Pop.
The Gits Live at The X-Ray is a new live album featuring recordings from the band’s June 1993 set featuring 14 tracks recorded at the famed Portland, Oregon nightclub that is out today worldwide Friday, December 13th on all DSPs from Sub Pop. Listen to a new live recording of the song “Whirlwind” now!
On a related note, you can watch a fully restored and remastered live performance of “Wingo Lamo,” filmed live at Seattle’s RKCNDY. The live visual features original film footage courtesy of DC9 and Douglas Pray from his 1993 documentary, Hype!.
Sub Pop recently shared the news that we are the new home of The Gits, the ferocious Seattle punk band fronted by the late Mia Zapata. Their entire discography – Frenching the Bully (1992), Enter: The Conquering Chicken (1994), Kings & Queens (1996), and Seafish Louisville (2000) – features newly designed album cover art by Sub Pop’s VP of Creative Jeff Kleinsmith, and have all been remastered by legendary producer Jack Endino. They are available to hear NOW on all DSPs from Sub Pop.
The Gits Live at The X-Ray is a new live album featuring recordings from the band’s June 1993 set featuring 14 tracks recorded at the famed Portland, Oregon nightclub that will be released next week, worldwide Friday, December 13th on all DSPs from Sub Pop. However, today you can secure the album one week early, along with the rest of the band’s remastered digital catalog, for Bandcamp Friday.
Of playing live and the song “Wingo Lamo,” guitarist Andy Kessler offers this, “‘Wingo…’ was always one of my favorites to play live. And then there’s the thing about how I’d misheard Mia’s lyrics to the chorus as, ‘Just like my father told me…’ The actual line is, ‘Immobilized by the torment…’ But I truly wondered what it was her father told her. And to this day I still do. I always loved it when she changed the chorus and gave me a look and a laugh.”
Proceeds from today’s Bandcamp Friday sale of Live at The X-Ray and the entire digital catalog will benefit The Vera Project, an all-ages nonprofit space dedicated to fostering personal and community transformation through collaborative, youth-driven engagement in music and art. A music venue, screen print shop, recording studio, art gallery, and safe space for radical self-expression, VERA is a home to Seattle’s creative community. VERA’s volunteer-fueled, participatory approach has garnered national and international attention, serving as a model and inspiration for many all-ages organizations in other cities across the country. VERA successfully carved out a space for youth-driven music and art in Seattle, and has become a leader in a larger national movement that defines a culture of all-ages, participatory music and art.
On a related note, you can watch a fully restored and remastered live performance of “Wingo Lamo,” filmed live at Seattle’s RKCNDY. The live visual features original film footage courtesy of DC9 and Douglas Pray from his 1993 documentary, Hype!.
Sub Pop recently shared the news that we are the new home of The Gits, the ferocious Seattle punk band fronted by the late Mia Zapata. Their entire discography – Frenching the Bully (1992), Enter: The Conquering Chicken (1994), Kings & Queens (1996), and Seafish Louisville (2000) – features newly designed album cover art by Sub Pop’s VP of Creative Jeff Kleinsmith, and have all been remastered by legendary producer Jack Endino. They are available to hear NOW on all DSPs from Sub Pop.
You can also read Tim Sommer’s extensive liner notes on The Gits reissues here.
The Gits Live at The X-Ray
1. Sign of the Crab 2. While You’re Twisting I’m Still Breathing 3. Insecurities 4. Slaughter of Bruce 5. Seaweed 6. Beauty of the Rose 7. Absynthe 8. Another Shot of Whiskey 9. Whirlwind 10. Daily Bread 11. Bob (Cousin O.) 12. Wingo Lamo 13. Here’s to Your Fuck 14. Second Skin
Sub Pop is proud to share the news that we are the new home of The Gits, the ferocious Seattle punk band fronted by the late Mia Zapata. Their entire discography – Frenching the Bully (1992), Enter: The Conquering Chicken (1994), Kings & Queens (1996), and Seafish Louisville (2000) – features newly designed album cover art by Sub Pop’s VP of Creative Jeff Kleinsmith, and have all been remastered by legendary producer Jack Endino. They are available to hear NOW on all DSPs from Sub Pop.
Right now, you can watch The Gits’ official video for Frenching the Bully single “Second Skin,” directed by Doug Pray. The live visual features original film footage courtesy of DC9 and Pray from his 1993 documentary, Hype!.
Read Evelyn McDonnell’s interview with The Gits’ band members Andy Kessler and Matt Dresdner in The New York Times (see November 12th “Critics Notebook”).
The Gits members Andy Kessler, Matt Dresdner, and Steve Moriarity offer this on the reissues:
“It’s been more than thirty-one years since The Gits played our last show. We’re rereleasing The Gits catalog now for the people who loved our music, and hopefully others who have yet to find it. And we’re doing this now for the love of our dear friend, our co-conspirator, our singer, Mia Zapata.”
Sub Pop founder and president Jonathan Poneman says of the signing, “The Gits first knocked me out with their very unadorned, unmacho abandon. Their songs and spirit still kick, inspiring a triumphal racket.”
Frenching the Bully; Enter: The Conquering Chicken Kings & Queens; Seafish Louisville
About The Gits by Tim Sommer:
“Mia Zapata of the Gits was the greatest rock singer of her time. This is not hyperbole; if you ever saw her, you know it’s true. She was likely the greatest singer in punk rock history, the woman who married the 78 and the ’78. Tragedy did not make this true. Mia Zapata made this true, and the ferocious, spring-loaded shrapnel frame built around her by Andy Kessler, Matt Dresdner, and Steve Moriarty made it true.
Mia Zapata (1965 – 1993), the vocalist and front person for The Gits (1986 – 1993), was not the type of voice one usually associates with a punk rock band. She had the sizzle, sass, shriek, grace, rasp, and fury of a classic blues shouter (what if Janis Joplin had fronted Fugazi, we ask?). There was a purity and accuracy to her voice. She could simultaneously point it at the stars and scoop cigarette butts off of the venue floor. It sounded like a voice on fire, desperate and angry, pleading and commanding, all at the same time (what if Amy Winehouse had fronted Fugazi, we ask?). And her onstage persona was utterly devoid of bullshit: Mia Zapata was a rag doll, a stick figure, a sock puppet, alternately bent with sadness and arched with rage. Sometimes, she looked like she was in pain, clawing at an ulcer; other times, like a holy woman on a soapbox, testifying the joy of truth; and still other times, like someone draped in a bedtime t-shirt reading from the margins of her notebooks. The voice and the presence were extraordinary, and there was nothing like it anywhere in punk – it was like finding the missing link between Nina Simone and Johnny Rotten (what if Joss Stone had fronted Fugazi, we ask?).
Much of this story takes place in Seattle during the strange night fog of the early 1990s, but did that matter? No. The Gits were beyond era or place. Maybe that’s why they were one of the most important acts to emerge from Seattle during that time. The Gits defied any categorizations – were they ferocious post-hardcore sideways-metal screw-propellor punk rockers? Some cross between Iron Maiden and an SST band? And although Mia Zapata was undoubtedly a once-in-a-generation talent – a wrapped-tight urchin/ingenue/artist applying a shredded Bonnie Raitt blues-rasp perfect-pitched alto to tight punk rock – the band matched her and inspired her to double down. Andy Kessler (guitar – metronomic and furious), Steve Moriarty (drums – martial and explosive), and Matt Dresdner (bass – fluid, punching, beat-addicted and melodic) wrote and performed with a jaw-tightened fury, a clenched soul that shrieked and stomped with precision. The Gits were an angry, inflamed slinky fully in tune with the Bessie Patti Smith of her time, truly the only singer who could summon Joplin, Poly Styrene, Sam Cooke, Iggy Pop, and Ian MacKaye all in the same goddamn song.
The Gits were formed at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio in mid-1986. Matt, Mia, Andy, and Steve moved to Seattle in middish 1989, landing in a house on Capitol Hill where they (and fellow travelers) woodshedded and rehearsed for the next few years. The Gits put out three EPs in 1990 and ’91 before signing with C/Z Records and releasing their first full-length album, Frenching The Bully. Soon, Seattle, North America, and the world felt the kind of awe the Gits inspired when peak emotion meets peak grindage. Now, Sub Pop is re-releasing the entirety of the Gits’ catalog, including all four extant albums (three of which, sadly, were released posthumously): Frenching The Bully (1992), Enter: The Conquering Chicken (1994), Kings & Queens (1996), and Seafish Louisville (2000). All have been remastered by Jack Endino, one of Seattle’s most respected producers and engineers and the band’s closest studio associate.
On July 7, 1993, Mia Zapata died. We leave it at that, not only because you can read the sad details elsewhere but because this is not about death but an extraordinary life. So, friends, please listen to one of the greatest punk rock bands of all time, fronted by the greatest woman rock vocalist of the last half-century (see expanded liner notes here).
