The Bags
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- This article is about the punk rock band. For other meanings, see The Bags (disambiguation).
The Bags were one of the first generation of punk rock bands to emerge out of Los Angeles.
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. Alice and Pat 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 didn't last, in part due to an incident where Darby Crash of The Germs ran up on stage and ripped the bag off of 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 show at The Masque on September 10, 1977. The band's live shows soon became legendary. The 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 released by the same label.
After this, Pat left the band. In 1980 the group, minus Pat, 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, Craig 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 Pat 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 LA 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. Rob 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.
