alice bag Archives - Vinyl From The Vault

The Bags “All Bagged Up”

sfilzen — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 19:49:56 +0000

The Bags “All Bagged Up” the collected works 1977-1980. Artifix Records. Last night we had the immense pleasure of seeing the Alice Bag Band at Anodyne Coffee here in Milwaukee – omg she is still so fantastic: vibrant, intelligent, a great storyteller, lovely but still a pissed off punk at heart. A US punk pioneer, Alice Bag led The Bags, a first-wave L.A. punk band that didn’t really receive the national (underground) attention as they’re LA contemporaries like the Germs and Black Flag. All Bagged Up is a compilation of original Bags that Artifix says is “After years (Literally) of hunting, researching, tracking down and finageling, Artifix is proud to present ALL BAGGED UP…the collected works 1977-1980. This 12″ LP represents everything we could dig up by L.A.’s infamous BAGS.” (from Artifix’s website). On it are The Bags first single “Survive” and “Babylonian Gorgon” which, along with “We Don’t Need the English” and “We Will Bury You” were recorded in 1978 at the Dangerhouse recording studio. Last night “Survive” was the encore (video Joe recorded below) and Alice told a delightful story to introduce “We Don’t Need the English” – former Bags bassist Patricia Rainone (Pat Bag) had married The Damned’s Dave Vanian and while the song was not written about him, the band decided it would be funnier to introduce the song saying it was definitely about him. Four tracks were recorded live at The Masque on February 24th, 1978 – this show just 2 weeks after their debut performance at the Masque (at which The Germs Darby Crash – then going by Bobby Pyn – was there and rushed the stage yanking off the bags from The Bags’ heads). Recorded live in 1979 in Oregon are the songs “7 and 7 is” – a Love cover, “1, 2, 3,” “Gluttony” (which Alice played last night, introducing it as a song written by an original Bags member who suffered from an eating disorder – can’t remember if she said which one but it was one of the guys; this song also appears in The Bags appearance in the 1981 Penelope Spheeris directed concert/documentary film Decline of Western Civilization) plus “In Love with Romance” and “Survive.” There’s also a few studio rehearsal recordings and their first demo “Bag Bondage.” Finding any Bags on vinyl has always been a challenge so having some of their classic tracks compiled in one place has been a long time in coming.

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Alice Bag Band “No Gifts for Nazis”

sfilzen — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 20:01:37 +0000

Alice Bag Band “No Gifts for Nazis” 2019. Get Better Records, 7″ red flexidisc. A two-minute, catchy-as-hell punk holiday single. This was a gift from Santa stuck in my stocking this year (and by Santa, I mean me) and no way could I wait an entire year to listen to/write about it. It’s simple, snotty, hooky and straight to the point: “You were warned, there is a list / You have made St. Nick truly pissed / All you white supremacists / Kris Kringle has no time for fascists.” I love Alice Bag!

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Alice Bag “Sister Dynamite”

sfilzen — Wed, 22 Jun 2022 18:17:31 +0000

Alice Bag “Sister Dynamite” 2020. In The Red Records. New punk from an OG, Sister Dynamite is Alice Bag’s third solo record. 40+ years after fronting the legendary 1st generation west coast punk band The Bags (1977-81), she’s still rocking hard with power vocals – she also plays keyboards on the record as well as the glockenspiel (!!), marking a serious evolution in punk sound. One of my top tracks is the power pop/pop punk (with a bit of Alice growl) lead single from the record: “Breadcrumbs.” According to the Bandcamp notes, the song is “Laced with dreamy glockenspiel tones and brilliantly bratty backup vocals from riot grrrl frontliner Allison Wolfe. The video for lead single “Breadcrumbs” depicts a Hansel and Gretel flavored cautionary tale about not treating your partner like a witch. It features Bob Baker Marionette Theater as well as a colorful cast of familiar faces including Allison Wolfe, Nina Diaz, Seth Bogart as well as members of The Linda Lindas, Death Valley Girls and Fresno grrrl gang Fatty Cakes & the Puff Pastries. “‘Breadcrumbs’ is actually inspired by working with Allison,” notes Bag, who previously played alongside Wolfe and Seth Bogart in a band called Cliquey Bitches. “She’s got tons of attitude, and the intonation on that song is totally me imagining Allison singing it.” My other favorites on Sister Dynamite are “Sender is Blocked” which has a killer hook and “Súbele” sung entirely in Spanish, its chorus translates to “Turn it up, turn it up! Enough of complaining and grumbling.”

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“Punk 45: Chaos in the City of Angels and Devils”

sfilzen — Thu, 29 Jul 2021 18:32:17 +0000

“Punk 45: Chaos in the City of Angels and Devils” 2016. Soul Jazz Records. Two-LP comp of L.A. area punk bands from ‘77-’81. It’s a fairly comprehensive overview of the scene with some classic tracks and bands I’m quite familiar with and have in the collection like The Germs “Forming,” X “We’re Desperate,” Circle Jerks “What’s Your Problem” and Adolescents “Amoeba.” I am particularly excited about having The Bags’ “Survive” on vinyl now – that single was the only thing they released and finding any Bags is kinda next to impossible and it absolutely rips. There’s also a few less well-known but still familiar (at least to me/stuff I didn’t really listen to back in the day) songs like The Flesh Eaters “Disintegration Nation,” The Weirdos “A Life of Crime,” The Dils “Class War” and T.S.O.L. “World War III.” One curious inclusion is very familiar but a head-scratcher: Iggy and the Stooges “I Got a Right.” While Iggy and the band did spend time in L.A., they are most associated with Detroit and wrote this track back in ‘72 (though it wasn’t widely available until much later). Then there’s stuff that I’ve never heard of before, or have only read about like The Urinals (“Ack Ack Ack Ack” and “I’m White and Middle Class”), Simpletones’ “I Like Drugs,” Eyes’ “TAQN” and The Hollywood Squares’ “Hollywood Square.”

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“The Decline of Western Civilization”

sfilzen — Thu, 07 Nov 2019 19:49:26 +0000

“The Decline of Western Civilization” 1980. Slash Records. Today, November 7th, is Alice Bag’s birthday (b. Alicia Armendariz, 1958) and the only recording we have of her and her band, The Bags/Alice Bag Band, is on this soundtrack from the film directed by Penelope Spheeris which documented the ‘79-’80 LA punk scene. Quite recently I read Alice Bag’s autobiography Violence Girl (from Feral House publishing) and it was a can’t-put-it-down read. She was an integral part of the LA music scene, starting off as a super-fan of David Bowie, Freddie Mercury and Elton John before starting her own band and hanging out with members of the Germs, The Weirdos, etc. She spends a short chapter describing her experience with the recording of the track (“Gluttony”) for Decline of Western Civilization: “The filming of the performance was an ordeal. It was supposed to be a live show, but because several bands were being filmed and there were five bands on the bill, it became a marathon. Fights broke out backstage as people tried to change the order of performance. In a small backstage overflowing with testosterone, I was the only woman and nobody was fucking with me…We were nearly out of steam even before we went on. The show had gone on far too long. The film crew was packing up equipment, members of the audience looked spent and it was hard to get excited about playing, but we went out and tried to revive the night. I knew it wasn’t our best show, but it wasn’t our worst, either.”

The soundtrack features several other prominent LA punk bands (all filmed at various locations and dates from December 1979 through May 1980). There’s a great version of “White Minority” by Black Flag, a messy version of “Manimal” by the Germs (are there any versions of any Germs live songs that aren’t messy?) and X play a really excellent set that includes “Beyond and Back,” “Johny Hit and Run Paulene” and “We’re Desperate.” Circle Jerks have four songs (the best “Back Against the Wall”) and Fear have three including “I Don’t Care About You,” “I Love Livin’ In the City” and “Fear Anthem.” There’s also a song by Catholic Discipline (“Underground Babylon”) but I never really heard much by them beyond this record and don’t care for that track.

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