L7’s Donita Sparks Launches Online Variety Show

In light of the COVID-19 crisis, Donita Sparks is launching an online variety show on which the L7 guitarist-vocalist will perform and feature special guests. Titled The Hi-Low Show With Donita Sparks, the series will stream every Friday through We Are Hear: On the Air on YouTube, starting April 3rd, at 3 p.m. PST.

The premiere episode on April 3rd will feature No Wave icon Lydia Lunch and Dani Miller as special guests. Donations to the artists will be encouraged throughout the show, as musicians are unable to work during the pandemic; a button leading to the MusiCares’ COVID-19 Relief Fund and PayPal will be displayed on each video.

Last year, L7 released their seventh LP, Scatter the Rats — their first album in 20 years. Sparks also rated her favorite grunge albums for Rolling Stone, citing Nirvana’s Bleach, Flipper’s Generic and others as her picks.

“It was bubbling up all over,” she said of the genre. “For instance, there was the Fluid in Colorado and us in L.A. It was just a time of punk meeting metal and a rejection of the slickness of new wave. At the beginning, it was about destroying conventions, and then it became more and more sophisticated. Some of it wanky; some of it not.”