Alice Bag

Last updated

Alice Bag
Alice Bag 1.jpg
Bag at the Women Who Rock 2012 Conference in Seattle, March 2012
Background information
Birth nameAlicia Armendariz
Born (1958-11-07) November 7, 1958 (age 66)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Genres Punk rock, Chicano punk
Occupation(s)Singer, author, educator, feminist activist
Member of Bags
Website alicebag.com

Alicia "Alice" Armendariz (born 7th November 1958), also known as Alice Bag, is an American punk rock singer and author. She is the lead vocalist and co-founder of the Bags, one of the earliest punk bands to form in Los Angeles in the mid-1970s.

Contents

Bag has remained active in music since the late 1970s. She released her first book, Violence Girl: From East LA Rage to Hollywood Stage, in 2011 and her second book was published in 2015. [1] She released Alice Bag , her debut solo album on Don Giovanni Records in June 2016. [2] [3] A second solo album, Blueprint , was released in 2018, [4] followed by 2020's Sister Dynamite .

In 2024, her work is being shown in Xican-a.o.x. Body a comprehensive group exhibition on the experiences and contributions by Chicano artists to art narratives from 1960s to the present time. The show was on view at the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture of the Riverside Art Museum, California, and the Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida. [5] [6]

Early life and education

Bag was born and raised in East Los Angeles, California. [7] [8] Her father, Manuel Armendariz, was a self-employed carpenter who worked in the Bracero program, and her mother, Candelaria "Candy" Armendariz, was a homemaker. Both of her parents were from Mexico. Candy had five children from her first marriage, which ended after the death of her first husband. [9] She had an older half-sister, Yolanda. [1]

As a child, Bag was influenced by the music played by her family, including her father's ranchera music and her sister's soul music collections. [10]

Bag was a victim of bullying throughout her adolescence. During her middle and high school years, she was picked on for her weight, teeth, and physical appearance. As a result, she was often alone, which influenced her taste in favor of music such as Queen, David Bowie and Elton John. After transferring high schools, she was often called "Ziggy" after David Bowie's persona. [11] [12]

After receiving her bachelor's degree in philosophy from California State University, Los Angeles, Bag began working as an English teacher in inner-city L.A. schools. [13]

Career

Bag in the 1980s New Romantic photo shoot.jpg
Bag in the 1980s
Bag spoken word 'Violence Girl', acoustic performance in San Diego, March 2014 ALICE BAG @ Whistle Stop Bar.JPG
Bag spoken word 'Violence Girl', acoustic performance in San Diego, March 2014

Bag is best known for being a member of the Bags, one of the first bands on the L.A. punk scene. The Bags were notable for having two female lead musicians (the group was co-founded by Bag and school friend Patricia Morrison) and for pioneering an aggressive sound and style that has been cited as an early influence on what would become the hardcore punk sound. The band's aggressive sound was later noted to have a Mexican/Chicano influence, which Bag unintentionally incorporated from her childhood. [14] Members of the Bags appeared as the Alice Bag Band in director Penelope Spheeris's landmark 1981 documentary on the Southern California punk scene, The Decline of Western Civilization . As a lead singer of the Bags, she pioneered the first wave of California punk alongside Black Flag, X, the Germs, Phranc (then in Catholic Discipline), and the five musicians who would go on to form the Go-Go's. [12] Bag went on to appear and perform in other Los Angeles–based rock bands including Castration Squad, The Boneheads, Alarma, Cambridge Apostles, Swing Set, Cholita – the Female Menudo (with her friend and collaborator, performance artist Vaginal Davis), Las Tres, Goddess 13 (the subject of a KCET/PBS produced documentary, "Chicanas in Tune"), and Stay at Home Bomb. [15]

Later in Bag's career, she founded the "punk-chera" genre, fusing aspects of punk and ranchera performances. [16]

Music

Alice Bag began singing professionally at the age of 8, recording theme songs for cartoons in both English and Spanish. [17] She did not gain exposure until forming the Bags. [13] Alice collaborated with Patricia Morrison and Margo Reyes in what they first called Mascara, then Femme Fatale, and then finally the Bags. [18] The Bags were active from years 1977–1981. They released a single "Survive" along with "Babylonian Gorgon".

The Bags Songs included:

The Bags broke up by the year 1981, leading Alice Bag to join the band Cholita in the late 1980s. The Bags were renamed the Alice Bag Band for the release of The Decline of Western Civilization, after Alice Bag and partner Patricia Morrison had a dispute about who had the right to use the band name. Following the birth of her daughter in the mid-1990s, Alice Bag chose to take a break from the music industry and become a stay-at-home mother. Soon after, she started her current project, Stay at Home Bomb.[ citation needed ] Stay at Home Bomb is an all-female community centered around punk rock that exists to address social constraints that are put on women domestically and musically. [17] The band features Alice Bag as Mothra Stewart on vocals, guitar and washboard, Judy Cocuzza as Judy Polish on drums, pots and pans, Lysa Flores as Lady Licuadora on vocals, guitar and blenders and Sharon Needles on vocals and bass guitar.

In 2016, Alice Bag released her debut solo album, Alice Bag , on the punk label Don Giovanni Records. A second album, Blueprint , followed in early 2018, and featured numerous guest musicians including Allison Wolfe and Kathleen Hanna. Wolfe and Hanna were featured on the track "77", which refers to the unequal pay that women receive for the same work as men. [4] [8] Another song on Blueprint, "Se Cree Joven", features backing vocals from Teri Gender Bender and Francisca Valenzuela. [8]

Another album, Sister Dynamite was released by In the Red Records on April 24, 2020. [19]

Bag has performed at events that celebrate women in punk rock, such as Women Who Rock in 2014. [20]

She has also produced records such as Fatty Cakes and the Puff Pastries 2018 Self-Titled release and Fea's 2019 record No Novelties. [21]

Writing

Bag's memoir, Violence Girl, From East LA Rage to Hollywood Stage – A Chicana Punk Story, was published by Feral House in fall 2011. [22] Bag was inspired to write Violence Girl after attending a comic-con with her daughter in 2008. [23] Her memoir is a compilation of short stories exploring her desire to be a punk artist. Her book contains stories of entering the punk rock scene at a more inviting time for women musicians. Violence Girl also reveals how domestic abuse fueled her desire for female empowerment and sheds a new perspective on the origin of hardcore, a style most often associated with white suburban males. [24] [25] Alice Bag's confrontational performance style is influenced by witnessing domestic abuse as a child. Bag channeled deeply rooted personal trauma into power on stage, refusing to be victimized or oppressed by men. [26] Through punk music, Alice realized the extent to which she had internalized witnessing violence as a child, and she worked to overcome using violence as a mode of releasing rage. Music became both a process of healing her wounds and a way to extend power and support to her community. [27]

Since 2004, Bag has also maintained a digital archive of interviews with women who were involved in the first wave of the Southern California punk scene in the 1970s, including musicians, writers, and photographers. The archive includes newspaper and magazine clippings, photos, and postcards relating to LA punk.

Activism

Bag and Michelle Habell-Pallan at the Women Who Rock 2011 conference at Seattle University Pigott Building, February 2011 Alice Bag and Michelle Habell-Pallan.jpg
Bag and Michelle Habell-Pallan at the Women Who Rock 2011 conference at Seattle University Pigott Building, February 2011

Bag was the keynote speaker at the 2012 Women Who Rock: Making Scenes Building Communities (un)Conference in Seattle, Washington. [28] The event's speakers and activities aimed to empower and inspire not only Latina women but women of every ethnicity. Alice Bag discussed her rough childhood and touched on points from her biography, Violence Girl. She sang alongside both The Januariez, a local band, and Medusa, a well-known emcee and hip-hop artist. Bag explained at the conference that the place for punk in the feminist movement is to continue to challenge; punk is meant to draw attention to things that are wrong in society: "We don't live in a post-racism, post-feminism, post anything; punk allows us to speak our minds."[ citation needed ]

She was also a part of the panel in the 2014 Women Who Rock (un)Conference. [29]

Personal life

Bag maintains part-time residency in Los Angeles, California, and Mexico City. She remains musically active and collaborates with artists including Teresa Covarrubias, Lysa Flores,Martin Sorrondeguy, Allison Wolfe, and others. She has recently begun exhibiting her oil paintings in gallery showings. [23]

Bag began filming and sharing workout videos on Instagram, [19] YouTube, and Facebook during the COVID-19 pandemic. [30]

Bag is bisexual. [31] [32]

Discography

Solo albums

Alice Bag and the Sissybears

Bags

Singles
Collections

Works and publications

Books
Journals

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chicano rock</span> Rock music performed by Chicano groups

Chicano rock, also called chicano fusion, is rock music performed by Mexican American (Chicano) groups or music with themes derived from Chicano culture. Chicano Rock, to a great extent, does not refer to any single style or approach. Some of these groups do not sing in Spanish at all, or use many specific Latin instruments or sounds. The subgenre is defined by the ethnicity of its performers, and as a result covers a wide range of approaches.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vaginal Davis</span> Musical artist

Vaginal Davis is an American performing artist, painter, independent curator, composer, filmmaker and writer. Born intersex and raised in South Central, Los Angeles, Davis gained notoriety in New York during the 1980s, where she inspired the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn's prevalent drag scene as a genderqueer artist. She currently resides in Berlin, Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patricia Morrison</span> American musician (born 1961)

Patricia Anne Rainone, better known by her stage name Patricia Morrison, is an American bass guitarist, singer and songwriter. She has worked with Bags, the Gun Club, Fur Bible, the Sisters of Mercy, and the Damned.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bags (Los Angeles band)</span> American punk rock band

Bags were an American punk rock band formed in 1977, one of the first generation of punk rock bands to emerge from Los Angeles, California.

Nickey Alexander is an American drummer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chicana feminism</span> Sociopolitical movement

Chicana feminism is a sociopolitical movement, theory, and praxis that scrutinizes the historical, cultural, spiritual, educational, and economic intersections impacting Chicanas and the Chicana/o community in the United States. Chicana feminism empowers women to challenge institutionalized social norms and regards anyone a feminist who fights for the end of women's oppression in the community.

Ester Hernández is a California Bay Area Chicana visual artist recognized for her prints and pastels focusing on farm worker rights, cultural, political, and Chicana feminist issues. Hernández' was an activist in the Chicano Arts Movement in the 1960's and also made art pieces that focus on issues of social justice, civil rights, women's rights, and the Farm Worker Movement.

Diane Gamboa has been producing, exhibiting and curating visual art in Southern California since the 1980s. She has also been involved art education, ranging from after-school programs to college and university teaching. Gamboa has been "one of the most active cultural producers in the Chicana art movement in Los Angeles." She actively developed the Chicano School of Painting.

Since the mid-1970s, California has had thriving regional punk rock movements. It primarily consists of bands from the Los Angeles, Orange County, Ventura County, San Diego, San Fernando Valley, San Francisco, Fresno, Bakersfield, Alameda County, Sacramento, Lake Tahoe, Oakland and Berkeley areas.

<i>Razorcake</i> Los Angeles nonprofit and punk fanzine

Razorcake is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that publishes the Razorcake fanzine, a DIY punk rock fanzine published bi-monthly out of Los Angeles, California. It was co-founded by Todd Taylor and Sean Carswell in 2001.

Patssi Valdez is an American Chicana artist. She is a founding member of the art collective Asco. Valdez's work represents some of the finest Chicana avant-garde expressionism, working with an array of mediums, such as painting, sculpture, and fashion design. She lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

Willie F. Herrón III is an American Chicano muralist, performance artist and commercial artist. Herrón was also one of the founding members of ASCO, the East Los Angeles based Chicano artists collective . 

Laura Aguilar was an American photographer. She was born with auditory dyslexia and attributed her start in photography to her brother, who showed her how to develop in dark rooms. She was mostly self-taught, although she took some photography courses at East Los Angeles College, where her second solo exhibition, Laura Aguilar: Show and Tell, was held. Aguilar used visual art to bring forth marginalized identities, especially within the LA Queer scene and Latinx communities. Before the term Intersectionality was used commonly, Aguilar captured the largely invisible identities of large bodied, queer, working-class, brown people in the form of portraits. Often using her naked body as a subject, she used photography to empower herself and her inner struggles to reclaim her own identity as "Laura" – a lesbian, fat, disabled, and brown person. Although work on Chicana/os is limited, Aguilar has become an essential figure in Chicano art history and is often regarded as an early "pioneer of intersectional feminism" for her outright and uncensored work. Some of her most well-known works are Three Eagles Flying, The Plush Pony Series, and Nature Self Portraits. Aguilar has been noted for her collaboration with cultural scholars such as Yvonne Yarbo-Berjano and receiving inspiration from other artists like Judy Dater. She was well known for her portraits, mostly of herself, and also focused upon people in marginalized communities, including LGBT and Latino subjects, self-love, and social stigma of obesity.

Yreina Cervantez is an American artist and Chicana activist who is known for her multimedia painting, murals, and printmaking. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, and her work is in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Mexican Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum, and the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art.

Barbara Carrasco is a Chicana artist, activist, painter and muralist. She lives and works in Los Angeles. Her work critiques dominant cultural stereotypes involving socioeconomics, race, gender and sexuality, and she is considered to be a radical feminist. Her art has been exhibited nationally and internationally.

Celia Álvarez Muñoz is a Chicana mixed-media conceptual Chicana artist and photographer based in Arlington, Texas.

Isabel Castro, also known as Isabel Castro-Melendez, is a Mexican American artist born in Mexico City. She was raised and still resides in Los Angeles, California. Aside from being an artist, Castro's career includes curatorial work, education, journalism and photography.

Celia Herrera Rodriguez is an American educator, painter, and performance and installation artist.

Ariana Brown is an American spoken word poet. In 2014, she was part of a winning team at the national collegiate poetry slam. Ariana Brown has won the “Best Poet” award twice at the same event.

Women in the early East Los Angeles punk scene were part of a subcultural movement associated with a brand of feminism that combined the ethics and politics of the Chicano movement, Second-wave feminism, the LGBT community, and punk rock music during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

References

  1. 1 2 Bag, Alice; Pearson, Tanya (July 18, 2015). "Alice Bag" (Video interview – oral history). Women of Rock Oral History Project . Northampton, MA: Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College.
  2. ↑ "Alice Bag's Punk Odyssey". MTV. Archived from the original on June 9, 2016. Retrieved August 21, 2016.
  3. ↑ ""No Means No" by Alice Bag Review". Pitchfork. May 2, 2016. Retrieved August 21, 2016.
  4. 1 2 Rettig, James (January 30, 2018). "Alice Bag – "Turn It Up" ft. Kathleen Hanna and Allison Wolfe". Spin . Retrieved January 10, 2019.
  5. ↑ "Xican-a.o.x. Body • Pérez Art Museum Miami". Pérez Art Museum Miami. Retrieved September 17, 2024.
  6. ↑ Fajardo-Hill, Cecilia; Del Toro, Marissa; Vicario, Gilbert; Chavez, Mike; Chavoya, C. Ondine; Salseda, Rose; Valencia, Joseph Daniel; Villaseñor Black, Charlene; Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture of the Riverside Art Museum, eds. (2024). Xican-a.o.x. body. New York, NY : Munich, Germany: American Federation of Arts ; Hirmer Publishers. ISBN   978-3-7774-4168-9. OCLC   1373831827.
  7. ↑ Bag, Alice. "Biography". Alice Bag Official Website. Archived from the original on February 25, 2014. Retrieved June 2, 2014.
  8. 1 2 3 Mejia, Paula (March 15, 2018). "Review: Alice Bag, 'Blueprint'". NPR. Retrieved October 11, 2019.
  9. ↑ Bag, Alice (2011). Violence Girl: East L.A. Rage to Hollywood Stage: A Chicana Punk Story. Port Townsend, WA: Feral House. ISBN   978-1-936239-13-9. OCLC   756484532.
  10. ↑ Vielma, Cory. "An Interview with Alice Bag". Network Awesome. Retrieved June 2, 2014.
  11. ↑ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on June 5, 2014. Retrieved June 2, 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  12. 1 2 Seggel H. Violence Girl: East L.A. Rage to Hollywood Stage, A Chicana Punk Story. Bitch Magazine: Feminist Response To Pop Culture [serial online]. Spring 2012;(54):65. Available from: Academic Search Complete, Ipswich, MA. Retrieved June 1, 2014
  13. 1 2 "Bio". Archived from the original on February 25, 2014. Retrieved June 6, 2014.
  14. ↑ "East L.A. Punk". americansabor.org. Archived from the original on June 24, 2015. Retrieved June 23, 2015.
  15. ↑ Ziegler, Chris (August 14, 2003). "Alice's Got a Brand New Bag". OC Weekly. Archived from the original on January 30, 2013. Retrieved April 27, 2008.
  16. ↑ Habell-Pallán, Michelle (2012) "Death to Racism and Punk Revisionism"
  17. 1 2 Bag, Alice. "Alice Bag Blog". Archived from the original on February 25, 2014. Retrieved June 6, 2014.
  18. ↑ "Bags Biography". artifixrecords.com. Retrieved June 23, 2015.
  19. 1 2 Ehrlich, Brenna (April 16, 2020). "Alice Bag's Punk Rock 'Spark' Will Not Let You Mope". Rolling Stone . Retrieved April 20, 2020.
  20. ↑ bublitz, Dana (April 17, 2014). "Women Who Rock 2014 Poster" . Retrieved June 4, 2014.
  21. ↑ Kaplan, Ilana (December 20, 2019). "Chicana Punk Band Fea Talks 'No Novelties' LP, Winning Iggy Pop's Praise". Rolling Stone. Retrieved December 22, 2023.
  22. ↑ "Survive: Alice Bag's "Violence Girl"". The Los Angeles Review of Books. Archived from the original on April 19, 2013. Retrieved June 23, 2015.
  23. 1 2 "Razorcake Punk Music Magazine – Punk Band Interviews – – Alice Bag Interview – Photos by Kat Jetson, Originally ran in Razorcake #24". razorcake.org. Archived from the original on June 24, 2015. Retrieved June 23, 2015.
  24. ↑ Women Who Rock Archive
  25. ↑ "Women Who Rock Oral History Archive :: Alice Bag". washington.edu. Retrieved June 23, 2015.
  26. ↑ Alice Bag and Chola Con Cello, Interview, 2011
  27. ↑ Q & A With Alice Bag and Elona Jones, Interview, 2012
  28. ↑ "Women of Color For Systemic Change to facilitate the WWR 2015 (un)Conference Intergenerational Roundtable!". Women Who Rock. March 8, 2015. Retrieved June 23, 2015.
  29. ↑ "2014 Spiking the Honey – Saturday April 26". Women Who Rock. Archived from the original on June 24, 2015. Retrieved June 23, 2015.
  30. ↑ "Our Daily Breather: Alice Bag Gets Fit For The Apocalypse". NPR . April 20, 2020. Retrieved April 20, 2020.
  31. ↑ "Chicana Feminist Icon Alice Bag on the Music of Her Life". Pitchfork. July 11, 2016. Retrieved January 26, 2023.
  32. ↑ "We Were There: Voices from L.A. Punk's First Wave - An Oral History hosted by Alice Bag - Razorcake" . Retrieved January 26, 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.