Bags
Survive

In "Jurassic Park," to explain the chaos theory to Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum claims that the flap of a butterfly's wings can cause a hurricane on the other side of the world.

In a hypothetical "Jurassic Punk," good Jeff could have talked about the fact that in London, in 1977, the Damned released their second single featuring a cover with faces covered by bags and a few months later, in Los Angeles, the Bags appeared on the scene, perfectly mirroring the Damned on the front of "Neat Neat Neat." And that the Damned also acted as a catalyst for the punk explosion in the city of angels, with a historic concert at the Stanwood Club on April 18, 1977.

Just coincidences?

Formed around Alice "Bag" Armendariz (vocals) and Patricia "Pat Bag" Morrison (bass) and completed by Craig Lee and Rob Ritter (guitars) and Terry Graham (drums), the Bags was another of the fleeting Californian punk bands: only one official single, "Survive / Babylonian Gorgon," and a few other gems left in drawers or scattered in compilations from the era (notably, "We Don't Need The English" and "We Will Bury You").

But like many other heroes of the time, the little that did come to light was enough to reveal the group.

Meeting at an audition held by Kim Fowley in an attempt to form a band to relive the glory of the Runaways, Alice and Patricia soon realized it wasn't for them and decided to allow themselves to be swept away by the rising punk tide, after attending a concert by fellow Angelenos Germs. According to legend, the Bags stopped performing with covered faces after Darby Crash stormed into one of their gigs and tore the bag off Alice’s face... But by then, the Bags were born and were quick to contribute to setting Los Angeles on fire.

Los Angeles, therefore, and the Bags were there to shout, alongside many others, that the local scene couldn't be reduced to just the magnificent Germs; Los Angeles, which hosted an impressive series of bands, definable as punk in attitude and aesthetics, but decidedly evolved stylistically compared to the archetype of the 1977-1979 triennium; Los Angeles, stronghold of Dangerhouse, Bomp, and Flipside; Los Angeles, which more than New York and London deserved, at the time, to be crowned as the capital of punk.

And the Los Angeles bands were fully aware of this superiority and proclaimed it without hesitation in songs like the aforementioned "We Don't Need The English" or "Let's Get Rid Of New York" by the Randoms: they were from Los Angeles, and in Los Angeles in 1977, this is how they played, not caring how it sounded in New York, London, or anywhere else in the world.

So, how did the Bags sound?

Basically, like a cross between the Germs and X. From the former, they had the violence, not blindly destructive like the kind that consumed Darby but absolutely constructive like Pat Smear’s, with Craig Lee playing the same creative role; from the latter, they inherited the melodic breath, as can be easily grasped when listening to the splendid openings in "Babylonian Gorgon" or Alice’s vocals, alongside Exene as a female icon of the local punk scene. Naturally, a group from Los Angeles could only have other Los Angeles bands as a reference point, perhaps the greatest to take the stages of that metropolis.

But the Bags still had a distinctive personal talent, and some of them managed to demonstrate it even in the adventures following the band's breakup: Rob Ritter and Terry Graham, playing alongside Jeffrey Lee Pierce for the creation of that authentic masterpiece called "Miami"; Patricia Morrison, also passing through Gun Club, and then in Sisters Of Mercy and Damned (also marrying Dave Vanian, while she was at it).

Just to understand that they weren’t just coincidences.

And to also understand what kind of place Los Angeles was in '77, suffice it to say that accompanying the Bags were groups like Black Flag, Dickies, Dils, Flesh Eaters, Screamers, Weirdos, and Zeros, just to name those meritoriously passed down to history.