Before it was possible to hear almost any song ever made in an instant via the internet, finding music that didn’t receive mainstream exposure could be a difficult task. You could perhaps find a “cool” record store that might mail order an underground record for you, but the process of discovering new music was what took the most work. And for die-hard music fans, it was always worth it and became a fun part of the experience of loving new and cutting edge music. Word of mouth was key, but suburban kids (or people in towns without a legit record shop) who were curious about, say, that crazy Punk Rock stuff in the late ’70s and ’80s could also devour the pages of magazines that covered the music for tips. Another less obvious method of discovering Punk and New Wave back then was the neighborhood video store. Cult-classic films with Punk themes and soundtracks, like Repo Man and Suburbia, were key in gradually spreading Punk throughout America in the ’80s. But before those movies, there was 1981’s The Decline of Western Civilization, which explored the burgeoning Los Angeles Punk scene of the late ’70s.
The film had live performances by bands like Black Flag, Germs and Fear, but the movie (which also included cringe-inducing interviews with Punk fans and musicians, many of whom came off like dumb, unapologetic misogynists) also crucially featured at least some footage of the women making waves in the male-dominated scene. The performances of X singer Exene Cervenka and The Bags (credited in the film as the Alice Bag Band) were inspired, and the fact that they weren’t separated into a “ladies of the scene!” segment and played with as much or more intensity and confidence as their male counterparts undoubtedly provided additional inspiration to many young female music adventurers. There’s no way to know how many people picked up an instrument after watching Decline, but one has to imagine many girls and women formed bands as a direct result of seeing those artists show it was possible. Watching The Bags slot now, it’s almost jarring how timeless they sound and how you can hear echoes of the band in a lot of Punk groups that have popped up over the past 35 years.
The Bags (which formed in 1977) folded in 1981, but singer/songwriter Alice Bag (born Alicia Armendariz) has continued to make music in various groups since. She has also carried some of Punk’s more positive philosophical tenets with her in other endeavors — she’s been an activist, educator (including a stint teaching in Nicaragua), a lecturer and an author. In 2011, her memoir Violence Girl – East L.A. Rage to Hollywood Stage: A Chicana Punk Story was widely praised. Last year, she self-published Pipe Bomb for the Soul (about her time in Nicaragua).
In June, Bag became a first-time solo artist with the release of her self-titled album through Don Giovanni Records. The album has been praised for its less-expected, more dynamic musical moments, as well as its intriguing socio-political lyrical content, which offers creative commentary and perspective on things like genetically modified food, date rape, the U.S. education system and immigration.
Bag’s Cincinnati show is, appropriately, also the launch party for a new Cincinnati-based music magazine, Women In Rock. An extension of the blog/website of the same name (at rocknwomen.avidnoise.com), the first edition of Women in Rock Magazine (featuring interviews with Bag, Scrawl’s Marcy Mays, Screaming Females and more) will be available at Tuesday’s event.
This article appears in Aug 10-17, 2016.