Interview Questions Part 2

Here are some more excerpts from a very recent interview Alice did for a doctoral candidate who is preparing her dissertation on American punk rock...no shit!

9) What drew you to the music? Politics? Energy? Lyrics? The fact that friends were into it?

A: I was drawn to punk music because it was original, creative, exciting. It made me believe that I could tear down all kinds of barriers. It (punk) also seemed very egalitarian to me, it seemed that anyone who wanted to could go out and form a band. I never felt inferior for being a woman, or for being Mexican American. In 1977 nobody seemed to care about that, except maybe Farrah Fawcett Minor, the subject of X's Los Angeles. The only ones who suffered from this egalitarian attitude were the bands that were too slick, because they were not considered punk. It used to piss off some of these seasoned musicians to see punk musicians, many who were playing instruments for the first time, play to packed houses.

23) Please talk about the role of women (as fans and/or musicians) in the LA punk scene.

A: There were more women involved in the LA punk scene than most people can imagine. The scene could not have existed and blossomed like it did without the women who were involved from the very beginning. There were women guitarists, drummers, bassists, singers, artists, journalists, photographers, managers, roadies: everything that had been done almost exclusively by men in the past was being done by women in the LA punk scene.