Bag is best known for being a member of the Bags, one of the first bands on the L.A. punk scene. The Bags were notable for having two female lead musicians (the group was co-founded by Bag and school friend
Patricia Morrison) and for pioneering an aggressive sound and style that has been cited as an early influence on what would become the
hardcore punk sound. The band's aggressive sound was later noted to have a Mexican/
Chicano influence, which Bag unintentionally incorporated from her childhood. Members of the Bags appeared as the Alice Bag Band in director
Penelope Spheeris's landmark 1981 documentary on the Southern California punk scene,
The Decline of Western Civilization. As a lead singer of the Bags, she pioneered the first wave of California punk alongside
Black Flag,
X,
the Germs,
Phranc (then in
Catholic Discipline), and the five musicians who would go on to form
the Go-Go's. Bag went on to appear and perform in other Los Angeles–based rock bands including Castration Squad, The Boneheads,
Alarma, Cambridge Apostles, Swing Set, Cholita – the Female Menudo (with her friend and collaborator, performance artist
Vaginal Davis), Las Tres, Goddess 13 (the subject of a KCET/PBS-produced documentary,
Chicanas in Tune), and Stay at Home Bomb. Later in Bag's career, she founded the "punk-chera" genre, fusing aspects of punk and ranchera performances.
Music Alice Bag began singing professionally at the age of eight, recording theme songs for cartoons in both English and Spanish. She did not gain exposure until forming the Bags. The Bags were active from 1977 to 1981. They released a single "Survive" along with "Babylonian Gorgon". The Bags songs included: • Survive (single) • Babylonian Gorgon (single) • Gluttony • TV Dinner • Why Tomorrow? • We Don't Need the English • Animal Call • Chainsaw • We Will Bury You • Violent Girl • Disco's Dead • Sanyo Theme The Bags broke up by 1981, leading Alice Bag to join the band Cholita in the late 1980s. The Bags were renamed the Alice Bag Band for the release of
The Decline of Western Civilization, after Alice Bag and partner Patricia Morrison had a dispute about who had the right to use the band name. Following the birth of her daughter in the mid-1990s, Alice Bag took a break from the music industry and become a stay-at-home mother. Soon after, she started her current project, Stay at Home Bomb. Stay at Home Bomb is an all-female community centered on punk rock that exists to address social constraints that are put on women domestically and musically. Bag has performed at events that celebrate women in punk rock, such as
Women Who Rock in 2014. She has also produced records such as
Fatty Cakes and the Puff Pastries' 2018 self-titled release and Fea's 2019 record
No Novelties.
Writing Bag's memoir,
Violence Girl, From East LA Rage to Hollywood Stage – A Chicana Punk Story, was published by
Feral House in fall 2011. She was inspired to write
Violence Girl after attending a
comic-con with her daughter in 2008. Bag's confrontational performance style was shaped by her experiences witnessing domestic abuse as a child. Bag channeled personal trauma into her stage presence, using punk music as a means of resisting victimization and oppression. Through music, Bag recognized how deeply she had internalized violence and sought to overcome it as a form of emotional release. Music became both a process of personal and a platform for empowering her community. Since 2004, Bag has maintained a digital archive documenting the experiences of women involved in the first wave of the Southern California punk scene in the 1970s. The archive includes interviews with musicians, writers, and photographers, as well as newspaper and magazine clippings, photographs, and postcards related to the Los Angeles punk scene.
Activism Bag was the keynote speaker at the 2012
Women Who Rock: Making Scenes Building Communities (un)Conference in Seattle, Washington. The event's speakers and activities aimed to empower and inspire not only Latina women but women of every ethnicity. Alice Bag discussed her rough childhood and touched on points from her biography,
Violence Girl. She sang alongside both The Januariez, a local band, and Medusa, a well-known emcee and hip-hop artist. Bag explained at the conference that the place for punk in the feminist movement is to continue to challenge; punk is meant to draw attention to things that are wrong in society: "We don't live in a post-racism, post-feminism, post anything; punk allows us to speak our minds." Bag's contributions to punk have been particularly impactful for women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ individuals. By embracing her identity as a queer brown feminist body in the music industry, she has projected herself into spaces that have traditionally ignored or excluded people like her. She was also a part of the panel in the 2014 Women Who Rock (un)Conference. == Personal life ==