hypersongs

The Bags

The Los Angeles punk band fronted by Alice Bag, whose single "Survive" for Dangerhouse sold about 1,200 copies at the time and is now a classic of the scene.

The Masque

The Bags were a Los Angeles punk band active from 1977 to 1981, also billed as the Alice Bag Band, and started by Alice Bag (Alicia Armendariz) and Pat Bag (Patricia Morrison), who met waiting in line to see Elton John guest on Cher. They first planned a band called Femme Fatale. Both had been turned away by Kim Fowley's Venus and the Razorblades. The name and the stage names came from a gimmick of playing with paper bags over their heads; Darby Crash, then Bobby Pyn, pulled the bag off Alice's head at the first show, at the Masque on September 10, 1977, and the practice was dropped.

Members over the years included Craig Lee on guitar, Rob Ritter on lead guitar and later bass, and Terry Graham on drums, plus Janet Koontz, Joe Nanini, Geza X, Nicky Beat, Don Bolles and DJ Bonebrake at various times. They played the Masque, the Hong Kong Cafe, the Deaf Club in San Francisco and the Mabuhay Gardens, toured the West Coast from San Diego to Seattle and were banned from some clubs. Penelope Spheeris filmed them in 1980, billed as the Alice Bag Band, for The Decline of Western Civilization, released in 1981 after the band had broken up.

Afterward

No other studio recording was released. "We Don't Need the English" (written by Craig Lee, 1:13) is on the Dangerhouse compilation Yes L.A. (August 1979, 2,000 copies on clear vinyl), and "Gluttony" is on the Decline soundtrack (Slash, 1980). Compilations include Me Want Breakfast: The Dangerhouse Collection (1987), We're Desperate: The L.A. Scene 1976 to 1979 (Rhino, 1993), All Bagged Up: The Collected Works 1977 to 1980 (Artifix, 2007, 21 tracks) and a 2013 Spanish Dangerhouse singles set. Live From the Masque appeared on Dionysus in 2003.

Alice Bag went on to Castration Squad, Cholita!, Las Tres and Stay at Home Bomb, and wrote the memoir Violence Girl (Feral House, 2011). Craig Lee, a writer and critic, formed Catholic Discipline and co-wrote Hardcore California. Terry Graham and Rob Ritter joined the Gun Club, and Ritter formed 45 Grave; Pat Morrison went on to the Gun Club, the Sisters of Mercy and the Damned. Alice Bag has refused to perform Bags songs in public, though in 2008 she performed some as mariachi punk at the Claremont Museum of Art.

Albums

  • Survive / Babylonian Gorgon 1978 · single · Dangerhouse

    The band's only single of their own, from a session at which four songs were recorded.

Songs

  • Survive Survive / Babylonian Gorgon · 1978

    The A-side of the 1978 Dangerhouse single, written in Janet Koontz's garage.

Sources

  1. Bags (Los Angeles band), Wikipedia
  2. Dangerhouse Records, Wikipedia
  3. Yes L.A., Wikipedia
  4. The Bags, Punk 77