Alice Bag

The official website of Alice Bag: musician, author, punk feminist, master troublemaker. Alice Bag (born Alicia Armendariz) is a singer-songwriter, author, educator, and feminist activist widely regarded as one of the founding voices of Los Angeles punk. She co-founded the Bags in 1977 with Patricia Morrison after meeting in line at a concert, one of the first wave of punk bands to emerge from LA, and the group took its name and members' stage personas from grocery bags they wore over their heads during early shows. The band's aggressive sound and style, later noted for a Mexican/Chicano influence Bag drew from her upbringing, has been cited as an early influence on hardcore punk, and the group appeared in Penelope Spheeris's landmark 1981 documentary The Decline of Western Civilization, standing alongside acts like Black Flag, X, and the Germs. In the decades since, Bag has moved fluidly between music, writing, and education. She went on to perform with the death rock band Castration Squad, formed Cholita! with drag performer Vaginal Davis in the 1990s, and later played with Las Tres and Stay at Home Bomb. Between music projects, she worked as a bilingual elementary school teacher and became known as an outspoken activist and self-described "troublemaker." Bag is also an accomplished author. Her memoir, Violence Girl: From East LA Rage to Hollywood Stage, chronicles her childhood in East LA, her move to Hollywood, and the rise and aftermath of the first punk wave, and a second book, Pipe Bomb for the Soul, followed. Since 2004 she has also maintained a digital archive documenting women in the first wave of Southern California punk. As a solo artist, Bag released her self-titled debut album on Don Giovanni Records in 2016, which was named one of the best albums of that year by AllMusic. A follow-up, Blueprint, arrived in 2018 with guest turns from Kathleen Hanna and Allison Wolfe, and was named one of the best albums of 2018 by both NPR and the Los Angeles Times. Her third album, Sister Dynamite, followed in 2020 on In the Red Records. More recently, she teamed up with Kid Congo Powers on a lounge-inspired project called Juanita and Juan, releasing an EP on In the Red Records and touring behind it. In 2024, her work was included in Xican-a.o.x. Body, a major group exhibition on Chicano artists shown at the Cheech Marin Center in Riverside and the Pérez Art Museum Miami. A second collection by Juanita and Juan, ‘Freak Out’ will be released in September 2026 on In The Red Records.