7 Year Bitch Perhaps one of the Northwest's most influential all female punk bands, 7 Year Bitch was formed in the early '90s by vocalist Selene Vigil, guitarist Stephanie Sargent and drummer Valerie Agnew; all of them were former members of Barbie's Dream Car. After that band split, they recruited bassist Elizabeth Davis to round out the lineup and made their first live performance with Seattle's premier femme-punk outfit, the Gits. Signing with C/Z Records the following year, they released a single and began laying down tracks for their debut album, Sick 'Em. However, the release of the album was pushed back after guitarist Stephanie Sargent died of a drug overdose. Carrying on with guitarist Roison Dunne, Sick 'Em appeared in 1992 and was followed by 1994's Viva Zapata! The album served as a tribute to the Gits' frontwoman Mia Zapata, who was murdered earlier that year. Later signing with Atlantic Records, 7 Year Bitch released Gato Negro in 1996 and replaced Dunne with guitarist Lisa Fay Beatty. The band parted ways the following year, and Davis joined the band Clone.

Sublime Sublime has its roots in the Long Beach surf/punk scene of the late '80s. Southern Californians Brad Nowell (vocals, guitars), Eric Wilson (bass) and Bud Gaugh (drums) began playing together for fun in 1988, soon amassing a rabid SoCal surf/skate fan base. In 1992, the band founded their own label, Skunk Records, and put out their debut, 40 Oz. to Freedom, for less than $1,000. The self-distributed album went on to sell thousands of copies and spent more than 50 weeks on the Billboard Alternative New Artist album chart. Two years of heavy touring later, Sublime released 1994's Robbin' the Hood, a more experimental effort, also released on Skunk. The band's intense live shows and DIY ethic earned them spots on tour with Firehose, the Melvins, the Ramones, No Doubt, Butthole Surfers and the Ziggens, to name a few. After eight years as an underground skate band, Sublime hit mainstream paydirt in 1996 with their third album, a self-titled release. The album contained the breakthrough "What I Got," a radio-friendly fusion of reggae and hip-hop. Tragically, on the eve of the album's release, Nowell died of a heroin overdose at the age of 28. In 1997 a posthumous release of demos and unreleased tracks, titled Second-Hand Smoke, came out on MCA. Bradley Nowell and Friends, a collection of demos and acoustic recordings, hit the shelves in late 1998.