The Bags were one of the first generation of punk rock bands to emerge out of Los Angeles.
The band was formed by Alice and Pat, the two Catholic school girls meeting at an audition for Venus and the Razorblades , Kim Fowley's next attempt at creating a band after The Runaways had ditched him as their manager. Alice and Pat decided to form their own band and from this The Bags were born. They took the band name as their surnames; 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. For the first few appearances all the members played with bags over their heads; however this was soon abandoned, since Darby Crash ran onstage and pulled the bag off Alice's head. The concerts were riotous affairs including altercations with celebrities, such as the one with Tom Waits at The Troubadour , between then drummer Nicky Beat and Waits.
By 1979, they had released their first record, a single called "Survive", backed with "Babylonian Gorgon", released by independent record label Dangerhouse Records .
After this, Pat left the band and in 1980 the group 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.
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 A.I.D.S , in the 1980s.
Terry Graham went on to play drums for The Gun Club, which Pat, now known as Patricia Morrison, also joined soon after. Once she left The Gun Club Patricia joined The Sisters of Mercy and then The Damned, one of the original British punk bands, for which she plays bass.
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 Paul Cutler. 45 Grave was influential in the creation of goth rock. He died in 1991 of a heroin overdose.
Alice Bag went on to join the legendary all-women band, Castration Squad , which included Phranc and Dinah Cancer among its many members. In the 1990s she would form Cholita! with infamous 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.
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