Punk Pioneers Alice Bag and Dawn Wirth double book signing party

October 15, 2011, 7pm – 10pm
La Luz de Jesus Gallery
4633 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles CA 90027

323-666-7667
www.laluzdejesus.com
info@laluzdejesus.com

La Luz de Jesus Gallery presents Los Angeles punk rock pioneers Alice Bag’s “Violence Girl” and Dawn Wirth’s The Bags – Hollywood Forever” double book release and signing party.

Alice Bag will be reading from her new book and performing two songs on acoustic guitar, accompanied by Lee Joseph on acoustic bass. Dawn Wirth’s delicious home cooked Alice Bag Peanut Butter Brownies (packaged in brown paper Bags) will be given to the first 25 people who buy both books at the event.

Alice Bag “Violence Girl”
Alice Bag was there at the origins of L.A. punk, at the famed Masque and Whisky-a-Go-Go, hanging out with Darby Crash and the Go-Gos. But she started as Alicia Armendariz and English was her second language. She knew Mariachis better than rock music. A certain violence was passed on to her from her Mexican-American father. 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. Born to Mexican-born and American-naturalized parents, Alicia Armendariz migrated a few miles west to participate in the free-range birth of the 1970s punk  movement. Alicia adopted the punk name Alice Bag, and became lead singer for early punk visionaries The Bags, and her Alice Bag Band was featured in Penelope Spheeris’  documentary The Decline of Western Civilization.

Here is a life of many crossed boundaries, from East L.A.’s musica ranchera  to Hollywood’s punk rock; from a violent male-dominated family to female-dominated transgressive rock bands.

Violence Girl takes us from a violent upbringing to an aggressive punk  sensibility; this time a difficult coming-of-age memoir culminates with a  satisfying conclusion, complete with a happy marriage and children. Nearly a hundred never before published photographs energize the text in remarkable  ways.

Alice Bag’s work and influence can be seen this year in the traveling  Smithsonian exhibition “American Sabor: Latinos in U.S. Popular Music.” “Violence Girl is published by Feral House  www.feralhouse.com www.alicebag.com/violencegirl.html

Dawn Wirth “The Bags – Hollywood Forever”
Dawn Wirth is one of the few to document the “first wave” of the Los Angeles Punk Rock scene. Her initial work for various fanzines such as Flipside, Sniffin’ Glue, Gen X and White Stuff as well as the fliers she created for unsigned local bands and fanclubs helped establish the visual esthetic of American Punk.  The first book in the L.A. punk series, The Bags-Hollywood Forever unearths never before seen photos of The Bags early line-up, with only 36 exposures, Dawn makes every shot count – intimate shots of a band that would change the sound of rock for generations to come. “The Bags – Hollywood Forever” – self published