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.
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THE BAGS TICKETS
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Career
The Bags was formed by Alice Armandariz and Pat Morrison, 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 names "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
drums.
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,
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 the 1980s.
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.
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.
[1]
References
- Museum showcases female punk scene