The Unlikely Connection Between Meredith Brooks' 'Bitch' And Dead Kennedys' "Holiday In Cambodia"!

If you were within earshot of a radio in 1997 then you are no doubt familiar with Meredith Brooks' sole Top 5 smash hit "Bitch", which spent literally half the year on the Billboard singles charts and even longer in heavy rotation on every Top 40 station in the country.

For Brooks, who was just shy of turning 40 at the time, it was the culmination of over a decades of hard work spent navigating the music industry in search of that illusive hit after her first taste of major label success in 1989 had proven to be short-lived.

As one-third of the Graces, a band that featured former Go-Go's guitarist Charlotte Caffey and vocalist Gia Cambiotti, Brooks saw the release of one album (Perfect View) for A&M Records, and a minor hit with "Lay Down Your Arms".

When subsequent singles failed to generate any heat at radio, A&M quickly lost interest in the band and the members soon went their own ways, leaving Brooks to start from square one all over again.

Of course, Brooks' association with the short-lived band made her a seemingly known quantity to record labels that were always quick to find any reason they could not to sign the singer/songwriter on her own merits.

In 1995, Brooks met producer/City Lab Studio co-owner Geza X, whose production resume reads like a proverbial Who's Who of SoCal punk (The Germs, Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, the Screamers, and so on). With Brooks still trying to shop songs she'd been demoing since the Graces days, Geza felt the songs were a bit dated and challenged Brooks to come up with something fresh and modern.

Brooks returned a few months later with a song called "Bitch" that, even in its raw acoustic state, left Geza's jaw on the floor. They immediately recorded a demo of the song which was instrumental in landing Brooks a deal with Capitol Records.

Geza X behind the desk.

While Geza X's version of "Bitch" made it onto Brook's debut album, the rest of the project fell into the lap of producer David Ricketts (one half of the duo David + David), leaving a bad taste in Geza's mouth that lingers to this day.

After Rickett's production work resulted in exactly ZERO hit singles, did Capitol, realizing their mistake, give Geza X a shot at producing album #2, you ask?

Nope.

As a result, Brooks' next album was a slick and admittedly forgettable slice of pop that met with little chart success and led to her exit from Capitol Records.

Brooks has since gone on to place one of her other songs ("Shine") as the theme to the "Dr. Phil" show while Geza X is now part of The Vortex, a multimedia center in downtown L.A.