Wonder Women: “I Know How To Live:” The Life of Kristen Pfaff
This column is dedicated to telling and archiving the stories of women who play bass. I’ve touched on Kristen Pfaff before, mostly because a search of the No Treble archives revealed very little about her. (In fairness, No Treble launched in 2009, while Pfaff passed in 1994.) Today, we’re revisiting her story for an important reason: I was given the opportunity to share an exclusive from the long-awaited biography about Kristen Pfaff, titled “I Know How to Live:” The Life of Kristen Pfaff, written by Guy Mankowski and Jason Pfaff. Much has been speculated about Kristen, but I Know How to Live finally gives her the space to tell her story in her own voice.
Through Substack, monthly chapters of Kristen Pfaff’s biography will be released for subscribers starting December 10. The Substack, which went live on November 12, 2024, also offers subscribers exclusive media from Pfaff’s life, including never-before-seen photos, unheard recordings, and previews of interviews with the authors. For the first time, this biography draws from the archive Pfaff left behind after her tragic death at age 27, letting her recount her own story. This collection includes hours of diary recordings, personal writings, critical essays, and intimate photographs from her short but impactful life. It also features new interviews with those who knew her best—voices that shift and deepen our understanding of Pfaff.
The Substack will begin with Volume 1 of the two-part biography, tracing Pfaff’s journey up to her time with Hole and offering fresh perspectives on life events, as well as her interactions with key figures in the grunge scene like Steve Albini and J Mascis.
Excerpt from “I Know How To Live:” The Life of Kristen Pfaff:
“Kristen Pfaff’s story of learning the bass is fitting for one who would become an iconic woman bassist. As she later said in one of her diary tapes- ‘If you have a guitar round your neck, fucking play it. That’s powerful. You’re gonna inspire girls to sit in their bedrooms and play guitar.’ But before she did that Pfaff would deploy some shrewdness to get to that point.”
Her then-partner Mike Huber recalls her persuading him to come with her when she responded to an ad for a bass player in The Swap Sheet, in the hope that as a woman she wouldn’t be “ripped off.” They drove to Kenmore and negotiated the purchase. Inspired by Gordon and The Pixies’ Kim Deal, with her new bass and amp, Pfaff was soon teaching herself to play the bass for grueling sessions in which she pushed herself for three hours a day.
Huber says, “I showed Kristen how to tune it and told her two things. That the notes you don’t play on bass are as important as the notes you do play. And secondly, plucking each note is different from sliding from one note to another.” Pfaff would later tell him that Kim Deal (and him) were her biggest influences on her bass playing.
With her classical knowledge, it didn’t take Pfaff long to roam around the root notes and begin to write melodies for herself. Soon Pfaff was playing the recently released The Pixies “Surfer Rosa” “note for note.” In a further insight into the nascent sexism of the times, Huber recalls their landlord demanding that “Mike to play a little quieter.” The landlord was more than shocked when he was told by Huber that the source of the music was not him- it was Kristen Pfaff. The landlord (“Broady”) told Huber the story years later at a wedding, with visible embarrassment. Huber said, “I think Kristen would be proud of the fact she changed his thinking and that nowadays people wouldn’t make that assumption- because of pioneers like her.”
Pfaff, who had rescued her tape recorder on which she recorded Girl Scout songs from the Northridge earthquake as a little girl, was soon borrowing a four-track and laying down bass parts of her own, amongst the sweltering summer heat. She was cooled during her afternoons of newfound musical devotion by creaking fans and her favoured bottles of chocolate Yoo-Hoo. Stroking her beloved cat Syd while she rested the bass on her lap, she practiced Pixies basslines over and over, often in front of the TV as it blared Peewee Herman.
From the start of her bass playing there was a sense of experimental that was almost art-rock about her approach. Huber recalls her miking up a child’s xylophone to add melody lines on the four-track. He recalls, “those basslines were really pretty.” Pfaff’s confidence quickly swelled. Soon Pfaff was outright asking Huber if he’d like to form a band, with him on guitar and his friends Al and Abby as drummer and singer.
Years later, when asked what it was like starting out as a female musician by Pamela Des Barres Pfaff in a Hole interview, Pfaff would recall this phase of her life, saying, ‘It wasn’t very much like sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll for me in the beginning. It was really intense work, just so that people would eventually accept me as a serious bass player. Because I realized right away that since I was a woman, I’d have to be better at what I did to be treated as an equal. Like, I’d have to take the music further. I worked my ass off.’
For more on Pfaff’s story, check out these links:
Brittany Frompovich is a highly regarded educator, clinician, blogger, and bassist who currently resides in the Washington DC/NOVA region. For more content from Brittany, check out her blog, her YouTube channel, and her Bandcamp site. She also offers handmade unisex music-themed jewelry through her Etsy store. Get a Wonder Woman Tee!
