We Were There: Voices from L.A. Punk's First Wave—An Oral History hosted by Alice Bag

“It wasn’t just about music or clothes. It was about not blindly accepting society’s norms. We challenged the status quo with everything at our disposal—race, class, gender—but we did it by just being ourselves.” –Alice Bag

Alice Bag is a singer/songwriter, musician, author, artist, educator and feminist. Alice was the lead singer and co-founder of The Bags, one of the first punk bands to form during the first wave of punk rock in Los Angeles. The Bags are considered one of the key bands of the early Hollywood punk scene that centered around the Masque in 1977-78. Alice went on to perform in other groundbreaking bands, including Castration Squad, Cholita, and Las Tres. She has published two books, including the critically acclaimed memoir Violence Girl in 2011 and the 2015 self-published Pipe Bomb For the Soul, based on her teaching experiences in post-revolutionary 1980’s Nicaragua.

Photography by Louis Jacinto, Lynda Burdick, Dawn Wirth, Pete Landswick
Cover artwork by Jessee Zeroxed
Original article layout by Todd Taylor
Zine design by Marcos Siref

Originally appeared in Razorcake #79 April / May 2014

5.5” x 8.5”
40 pp