Alice Bag's got a book out!!!!

[the_future_modernes]

Violence Girl: East L.A. Rage to Hollywood Stage, a Chicana Punk Story [Paperback]. Get it now!


Q&A: L.A. Punk Rocker Alice Bag on Life as a Chicana Rebel and Violence Girl, her new book.

Punk literature is often given to tiresome romanticizing and rehashed clichés, but Alice Bag's recent autobiography, Violence Girl, offers a poignant, personal story from the unique perspective of a poor Hispanic woman raised in East LA. The book focuses on Bag grappling with her Chicana identity and feminist politics while fronting her seminal 1970's punk band, The Bags. In the radical punk scene of late-70's Hollywood, she found the strength to reconcile a tumultuous relationship with her abusive father and acquired skills that propelled her pursuit of political activism and teaching later in life. In this interview, Alice reflects on her early experience with punk and glam rock and analyzes the role of her book and persona in the larger feminist and Chicano movement. In the Bay Area this week, Bag will be reading and performing short acoustic sets: Jan. 11, San Francisco Public Library, Main Branch; Jan. 12: Amoeba Music, Berkeley; Jan. 13: 1-2-3-4 Go! Records, Oakland.

How has the book tour been going?
It's been great. My publisher is very small, so I book all my readings, do the networking and even have to buy my own books and then resell them to stores where I'm reading. The feedback I receive is really what keeps me going. It encourages me to book another show and drive across the country to some place I've never been before and sleep on somebody's couch so that I can read in front of strangers.

Violence Girl Trailer Survive - The Bags

What do you think of the progress that female musicians have made in the past 30 years?
It's phenomenal. It's really impressive how many young women have taken the time to hone their craft. The ones who haven't honed their craft and pick up whatever they use to express themselves and start to create are inspiring and impressive too.

Do you ever wish that female musicians were more political?
No, everybody has their own place that they're coming from. Some people are overtly political and some people will come into it at a different point in their life. A lot of what we experience in our personal life will eventually come out in our politics. I wasn't very political when I was young. That didn't happen until later. Even now, I've changed again. I'm not very involved in mainstream politics. I'm interested in social change but not necessarily supporting political candidates, or trying to get a particular bill passed. I'm much more into changing the system completely.

I wouldn't want to put any kind of pressure on someone to be anything more than they are. If they have political, social, or artistic issues they want to discuss, that's great. Even if it's personal, a women's art becomes political simply because their voices have been quiet for so long.

The phrase, "Cultivating my own isolation," was used repeatedly in the book, and it seemed a particularly interesting notion to me. Would you like to expand on that idea?
It was a struggle between feeling that I was different, wanting stick to my guns and be true to myself, but at the same time craving human interaction. There were two things pulling at me. The need to be accepted and relate to others and the worry that if I'm true to myself, I'm not going to receive that acceptance.

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Interview w/ Alice Bag

On November 27th 2011, Alicia Velasquez "Alice Bag" of first wave L.A. punk band, The Bags gave an in store performance/reading at Dr. Strange Records as one of many stops on tour for her recently published book, Violence Girl. Afterwards, she was kind enough to answer a few questions for the Punk Globe readers.


The Bags - Survive

The Bags - We will bury you (1978)

The Bags are not the only musical group she's fronted:

Alice Bag on Signs of The Time

Brief interview and profile of Alice Bag aka Alicia Armendariz on a local Los Angeles TV show. Alice talks about Las Tres, music, bilingual education and stargazing.


Alice Bag's Blog: Diary of a Bad Housewife: Wherein Ms. Bag gets to babble, babble on

Interesting posts include: Work that ho, tilling the soil of punk feminism

Beginning the world over


Women In LA Punk - Killer


Alice Bag's website. The Bags website. Wikipedia