The Bags
Encyclopedia
The Bags were an American
rock
band formed in 1977. They were one of the first generation of punk rock
bands to emerge out of Los Angeles
, California
.
, who had met at an audition for Venus and the Razorblades
, Kim Fowley
's next attempt at creating a band after The Runaways
had left him. Armandariz and Morrison decided to form their own band and from this The Bags were born. They took the band's name and their stage name
s "Alice Bag" and "Pat Bag" from a gimmick that the band used during early performances where they would perform with grocery bags over their heads (the practice did not last, in part due to an incident where Darby Crash
of The Germs
ran up on stage and ripped the bag off Alice's head). Alice Bag
was the vocalist and Pat Bag
played bass. The band was rounded out by guitar
players Craig Lee and Rob Ritter, and Terry Graham played drum
s.
The Bags played their first concert
at The Masque
on September 10, 1977. Their concerts were riotous affairs including altercations with celebrities, such as one between singer Tom Waits
and drummer Nicky Beat at The Troubadour.
By 1979, they had released their first 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. In 1980 the group, minus Pat Bag, was filmed by Penelope Spheeris
for the seminal punk rock
documentary film
, The Decline of Western Civilization
, which also featured The Germs
, Black Flag
, The Go-Go's
, Catholic Discipline
, X and other prominent L.A. punk bands. However, at the release of the film in 1981 the producers billed the group as Alice Bag Band to avoid any conflict with ex-member Pat. By then, however, the band had broken up.
Craig Lee also played with Catholic Discipline
, and he and co-member Phranc
would perform together occasionally when she embarked on her subsequent solo career. However, Lee is best known as a writer and critic for publications such as Flipside
fanzine
, among many 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.
Terry Graham went on to play drums for The Gun Club. Pat, now known as Patricia Morrison
, also joined The Gun Club soon after. Once she left The Gun Club she joined The Sisters of Mercy
and then The Damned, one of the original British punk bands (and the one that was often credited with sparking the L.A. scene), for which she plays bass. She would also go on to marry
the Damned's lead singer, Dave Vanian.
Rob Ritter also joined The Gun Club, and appears on their first LP Fire Of Love, but left to change his name to Rob Graves
and form the seminal death rock band 45 Grave
, with Dinah Cancer
, Don Bolles, previously of The Germs
and Nervous Gender
, Paul Roessler
of The Screamers
and Nervous Gender and Paul Cutler. 45 Grave was influential in the creation of goth rock. Graves died in 1991 of a heroin overdose.
Alice Bag went on to join Castration Squad, which included Phranc and Dinah Cancer among its many members. In the 1990s she would form Cholita! with punk rock drag queen
Vaginal 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 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).
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
band formed in 1977. They were one of the first generation of punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
bands to emerge out of Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
.
Career
The Bags was formed by Alice Armandariz and Patricia MorrisonPatricia Morrison
Patricia Morrison is an American bass guitarist, singer and songwriter. She worked with The Bags, The Gun Club, The Sisters of Mercy, and The Damned.-Biography:...
, who had met at an audition for Venus and the Razorblades
Venus and the Razorblades
Venus and the Razorblades were a short-lived New Wave rock band from Los Angeles, puttogether by Kim Fowley after he severed professional relations with The Runaways. Fowley...
, Kim Fowley
Kim Fowley
Kim Vincent Fowley is an American record producer, impresario, songwriter, musician, film maker, and radio actor. He is best known for his role behind a string of novelty and cult rock pop singles in the 1960s, and for managing The Runaways in the 1970s...
's next attempt at creating a band after The Runaways
The Runaways
The Runaways were an American all-girl rock band that recorded and performed in the second half of the 1970s. The band released four studio albums and one live set during its run. Among its best known songs: "Cherry Bomb", "Queens of Noise", "Neon Angels On the Road to Ruin", "California Paradise"...
had left him. Armandariz and Morrison decided to form their own band and from this The Bags were born. They took the band's name and their stage name
Stage name
A stage name, also called a showbiz name or screen name, is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers such as actors, wrestlers, comedians, and musicians.-Motivation to use a stage name:...
s "Alice Bag" and "Pat Bag" from a gimmick that the band used during early performances where they would perform with grocery bags over their heads (the practice did not last, in part due to an incident where Darby Crash
Darby Crash
Darby Crash was an American punk musician who, along with long time friend Pat Smear , co-founded The Germs...
of The Germs
The Germs
The Germs are an American punk rock band from Los Angeles, California, originally active from 1977 to 1980. The band's early lineup consisted of singer Darby Crash, guitarist Pat Smear, bassist Lorna Doom, and their most consistent drummer Don Bolles. Germs have since reformed in 2005 with Shane...
ran up on stage and ripped the bag off Alice's head). Alice Bag
Alice Bag
Alice Bag is a punk rock singer. She is famous for being a member of The Bags, one of the first and most popular bands on the L.A. punk scene. She is also a member of Stay at Home Bomb and teaches at inner city schools. She was also in the band Castration Squad with Phranc.-External links:*...
was the vocalist and Pat Bag
Patricia Morrison
Patricia Morrison is an American bass guitarist, singer and songwriter. She worked with The Bags, The Gun Club, The Sisters of Mercy, and The Damned.-Biography:...
played bass. The band was rounded out by guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
players Craig Lee and Rob Ritter, and Terry Graham played drum
Drum
The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...
s.
The Bags played their first concert
Concert
A concert is a live performance before an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, a choir, or a musical band...
at The Masque
The Masque
The Masque was a small punk rock club in central Hollywood, California which existed intermittently from 1977 to 1979. It is remembered as a key part of the early L.A. punk scene.-History:...
on September 10, 1977. Their concerts were riotous affairs including altercations with celebrities, such as one between singer Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
and drummer Nicky Beat at The Troubadour.
By 1979, they had released their first record, a single
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
called "Survive", backed with "Babylonian Gorgon", released by independent record label
Independent record label
An independent record label is a record label operating without the funding of or outside the organizations of the major record labels. A great number of bands and musical acts begin on independent labels.-Overview:...
Dangerhouse Records
Dangerhouse Records
Dangerhouse Records was a punk music record label in Los Angeles, California.Started in 1977 and collapsing by the end of 1980, Dangerhouse was a short-lived enterprise, which nonetheless left its mark on the punk scene....
. "We Don't Need The English" was included on the Yes L.A.
Yes L.A.
Yes L.A. was a one-sided silkscreened picture album released in 1979 on Dangerhouse Records featuring Los Angeles based punk rock bands Black Randy & The Metrosquad, Eyes, Bags, Alley Cats, X and The Germs...
punk compilation album
Compilation album
A compilation album is an album featuring tracks from one or more performers, often culled from a variety of sources The tracks are usually collected according to a common characteristic, such as popularity, genre, source or subject matter...
released by the same label.
After this, Pat Bag left the band. In 1980 the group, minus Pat Bag, was filmed by Penelope Spheeris
Penelope Spheeris
Penelope Spheeris is an American director, producer and screenwriter. She is best known as a documentary film director whose works include the trilogy titled The Decline of Western Civilization...
for the seminal punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
, The Decline of Western Civilization
The Decline of Western Civilization
The soundtrack was released in December 1980 by Slash Records on LP. In the late 1990s it was released on CD as well. It is currently out of print. Germs singer Darby Crash appears on the soundtrack album cover. He died shortly before the film was released, though the promotional images for the...
, which also featured The Germs
The Germs
The Germs are an American punk rock band from Los Angeles, California, originally active from 1977 to 1980. The band's early lineup consisted of singer Darby Crash, guitarist Pat Smear, bassist Lorna Doom, and their most consistent drummer Don Bolles. Germs have since reformed in 2005 with Shane...
, Black Flag
Black Flag (band)
Black Flag was an American punk rock band formed in 1976 in Hermosa Beach, California. The band was established by Greg Ginn, the guitarist, primary songwriter and sole continuous member through multiple personnel changes in the band...
, The Go-Go's
The Go-Go's
The Go-Go’s are an all-female American rock band formed in 1978. They made history as the first all-female band that both wrote their own songs and played their own instruments to top the Billboard album charts....
, Catholic Discipline
Catholic Discipline
Catholic Discipline was a short lived Los Angeles punk rock band headed by Slash Fanzine editor Claude Bessy, nicknamed "Kickboy Face", on vocals. The band was started in 1979 and played a series of shows around the Los Angeles area before ultimately breaking up in 1980...
, X and other prominent L.A. punk bands. However, at the release of the film in 1981 the producers billed the group as Alice Bag Band to avoid any conflict with ex-member Pat. By then, however, the band had broken up.
Craig Lee also played with Catholic Discipline
Catholic Discipline
Catholic Discipline was a short lived Los Angeles punk rock band headed by Slash Fanzine editor Claude Bessy, nicknamed "Kickboy Face", on vocals. The band was started in 1979 and played a series of shows around the Los Angeles area before ultimately breaking up in 1980...
, and he and co-member Phranc
Phranc
Phranc is an American singer-songwriter whose career has spanned several decades.-Biography:She began her performing career in the late 1970s and early 1980s punk scene in Los Angeles...
would perform together occasionally when she embarked on her subsequent solo career. However, Lee is best known as a writer and critic for publications such as Flipside
Flipside (fanzine)
Flipside was a punk rock fanzine published in Los Angeles, California from 1977 to 2000.As one of the first and longest running US punk rock fanzines, this publication extensively chronicled the world of independent and underground music during this era. Known for its highly opinionated cast of...
fanzine
Fanzine
A fanzine is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest...
, among many others, and as co-author of the book Hardcore California: A History Of Punk And New Wave. He died, as a result of AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
, in 1991.
Terry Graham went on to play drums for The Gun Club. Pat, now known as Patricia Morrison
Patricia Morrison
Patricia Morrison is an American bass guitarist, singer and songwriter. She worked with The Bags, The Gun Club, The Sisters of Mercy, and The Damned.-Biography:...
, also joined The Gun Club soon after. Once she left The Gun Club she joined The Sisters of Mercy
The Sisters of Mercy
The Sisters of Mercy are an English rock band that formed in 1980. After achieving early underground fame in UK, the band had their commercial breakthrough in mid-1980s and sustained it until the early 1990s, when they stopped releasing new recorded output in protest against their record company...
and then The Damned, one of the original British punk bands (and the one that was often credited with sparking the L.A. scene), for which she plays bass. She would also go on to marry
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
the Damned's lead singer, Dave Vanian.
Rob Ritter also joined The Gun Club, and appears on their first LP Fire Of Love, but left to change his name to Rob Graves
Rob Graves
Robert Douglas "Rob" Graves is an American songwriter, musician, and producer. He is most well known for his work with Grammy-nominated and Dove Award winning band Red....
and form the seminal death rock band 45 Grave
45 Grave
45 Grave are an American punk rock band from Los Angeles, California formed in 1979. The original group broke up in 1985 but vocalist Dinah Cancer subsequently revived the band. 45 Grave are noted as one of the first bands to mix punk rock with horror-themed lyrics, thereby positioning them as...
, with Dinah Cancer
Dinah Cancer
Dinah Cancer is the stage name of Mary Simms. She is a vocalist, best known for her band 45 Grave, one of the founders of the genre of music known as "deathrock".-Biography:...
, Don Bolles, previously of The Germs
The Germs
The Germs are an American punk rock band from Los Angeles, California, originally active from 1977 to 1980. The band's early lineup consisted of singer Darby Crash, guitarist Pat Smear, bassist Lorna Doom, and their most consistent drummer Don Bolles. Germs have since reformed in 2005 with Shane...
and Nervous Gender
Nervous Gender
Nervous Gender is a punk band founded in Los Angeles, California in 1978 by Gerardo Velazquez, Edward Stapleton, Phranc and Michael Ochoa.Their use of heavily distorted keyboards and synthesizers made them, along with The Screamers, one of the original innovators of what is today called...
, Paul Roessler
Paul Roessler
Paul Roessler was a prominent member of the L.A. punk scene during the late 1970s and '80s. He played keyboards in bands such as The Screamers, Twisted Roots, 45 Grave, Nervous Gender, SAUPG, Geza X and the Mommymen, Mike Watt and the Secondmen, Nina Hagen and The Deadbeats...
of The Screamers
The Screamers
The Screamers were a punk rock group active in the Los Angeles, California area in the late 1970s. The Screamers were pioneers of a genre now known as "synthpunk," and can also be classified as art punk....
and Nervous Gender and Paul Cutler. 45 Grave was influential in the creation of goth rock. Graves died in 1991 of a heroin overdose.
Alice Bag went on to join Castration Squad, which included Phranc and Dinah Cancer among its many members. In the 1990s she would form Cholita! with punk rock drag queen
Drag queen
A drag queen is a man who dresses, and usually acts, like a caricature woman often for the purpose of entertaining. There are many kinds of drag artists and they vary greatly, from professionals who have starred in films to people who just try it once. Drag queens also vary by class and culture and...
Vaginal Davis
Vaginal Davis
Vaginal Davis is an American genderqueer performing artist, painter, independent curator, composer, and writer. Davis's name is a homage to activist Angela Davis.-Life and career:Davis is often associated with the formation of the Queer-Core Zine Movement...
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 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
Claremont, California
Claremont is a small affluent college town in eastern Los Angeles County, California, United States, about east of downtown Los Angeles at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. The population as of the 2010 census is 34,926. Claremont is known for its seven higher-education institutions, its...
Museum of Art,
Armandariz performed punk versions of mariachi
Mariachi
Mariachi is a genre of music that originated in the State of Jalisco, in Mexico. It is an integration of stringed instruments highly influenced by the cultural impacts of the historical development of Western Mexico. Throughout the history of mariachi, musicians have experimented with brass, wind,...
music (and some Bags songs too).