Alice Bag "Violence Girl" Book (2011)

Details: Alice Bag: Violence Girl (East L.A. Rage to Hollywood Stage...A Chicana Punk Story) This is the outrageous, phenomenal, and courageous memoir of Los Angeles-based punk rock writer and musician, Alice Bag; ex-member of The Bags, The Afro Sisters, and Cholita! to name a few. Alice continues to break barriers and performs currently with her full band under her name, "Alice Bag."

Short Description: "Alice Bag...paved the way for an entire generation of female musicians inspired by her ferocious performance style, her confrontational, provocative attitude, and of course, her great and powerful music." - Network Awesome

Grade: M (new stock)

Full Description: "The proximity of the East L.A. barrio to Hollywood is as close as a short drive on the 101 Freeway, but the cultural divide is enormous.

Alicia Armendariz migrated a few miles west to participate in the free-range birth of the 1970s punk rock movement and adopted the punk name Alice Bag to become lead singer for the Bags, visionaries who starred in the documentary The Decline of Western Civilization. Alice is also known for her work in the notorious early goth band Castration Squad. 

Violence Girl is the hard-charging, illustrated story of a daring cultural innovator."

Author: 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 bands to form during the initial wave of punk in Los Angeles. The Alice Bag Band was featured in the seminal documentary on punk rock, The Decline of Western Civilization. Alice went on to perform in other groundbreaking bands, including Castration Squad, Cholita, and Las Tres. She is the author of the critically acclaimed books, "Violence Girl" and "Pipe Bomb For The Soul." Her self-titled 2016 debut album received critical acclaim and was named one of the Best Albums of 2016 by AllMusic. Her second album, Blueprint, was named one of the Best Albums of 2018 by NPR and the Los Angeles Times. Bag's 3rd album, Sister Dynamite, was released in April 2020.

Quotes: 

"After decades of dudes telling their stories of punk's formative years in memoir, we finally get one of L.A. punk's most crucial figures--Alice Bag, frontwoman of the Bags--telling her tale. Unsentimental and tough, she gets out from under her patriarchal family and finds her place among a crew of motley, misfit kids as they accidentally invented the American West Coast punk in bands like X, Black Flag, Germs, and her own band, the Bags." - Jessica Hopper for Rookie