Bags (also known as the Bags or Alice Bag Band) were an American punk rock band formed in 1977, one of the first generation of punk rock bands to emerge from Los Angeles, California.
Biography
The Bags were formed by Alicia Armendariz and Patricia Morrison, who had met while waiting in line to see Elton John guest on Cher.[1] The two became fast friends and eventually decided to form a band called Femme Fatale.[2]
Femme Fatale eventually morphed into a new band, which became Bags. They took the band's name and their stage names "Alice Bag" and "Pat Bag" from a gimmick that the band used during early performances where they performed with grocery bags over their heads (the practice did not last, in part due to an incident where Darby Crash of the Germs got on stage and ripped the bag off Alice's head). Alice Bag was the vocalist and Pat Bag played bass, and the rest of the band comprised guitar players Craig Lee and Rob Ritter, and Terry Graham on drums.
The Bags played their first concert at The Masque on September 10, 1977.[4] Their concerts were often accompanied by disorderly scenes, including altercations with celebrities, such as one between singer Tom Waits and drummer Nicky Beat at The Troubadour.[5]
In 1978, they released their only record, a single called "Survive", backed with "Babylonian Gorgon", released by independent record label Dangerhouse Records. "We Don't Need The English" was included on the Yes L.A. punk compilation album released by the same label.
After this, Pat Bag left the band and Ritter switched to bass. In 1980 the group, was filmed by Penelope Spheeris for the documentary filmThe Decline of Western Civilization, which also featured the Germs, Black Flag, Catholic Discipline, X and other Los Angeles punk bands. At the release of the film in 1981 the producers billed the group as "Alice Bag Band" to avoid any conflict with Morrison, but the band had already broken up by then.
Post break-up
Craig Lee also played with Catholic Discipline, and he and co-member Phranc performed together occasionally when she embarked on her subsequent solo career. However, Lee is best known as a writer and critic for publications such as Flipsidefanzine, among others, and as co-author of the book Hardcore California: A History Of Punk and New Wave. He died as a result of AIDS in 1991.[6]
Alice Bag joined the death rock band Castration Squad, which included Phranc and Dinah Cancer among its many members. In the 1990s, she formed Cholita! with punk rock drag queenVaginal Davis and the band released several videos. After this, she performed with Las Tres and then formed Stay at Home Bomb, her most recent musical project. According to her official website, since the deaths of Lee and Ritter and her estrangement from Morrison, she considers the Bags to be permanently disbanded, and has refused to perform Bags songs in public.
A collection of recordings from the group has been released on Artifix Records[9] as well as a reissue of the original Dangerhouse single.
At the 2008 exhibit "Vexing: Female Voices From East L.A. Punk" at the Claremont Museum of Art, Armandariz performed punk versions of mariachi music (and some Bags songs too).[10]
In 2011 Alice Bag published her memoir, Violence Girl: East L.A. Rage to Hollywood Stage, A Chicana Punk Story[11] and embarked on a reading and performance tour across the United States.[12]
