Agony Shorthand Interview

Jay Hinman writes an extremely informative and well-read music blog called "Agony Shorthand," which specializes in overlooked bands, records and genres from the past. He's been a big supporter of the Bags and early L.A. punk over the years and he recently got in touch with me for an interview. He took the time to research his questions and the resulting interview was thought provoking (for me).

AGONY SHORTHAND BLOG

Jay posts new entries on a regular basis, so you might want to scroll down his page if you don't see the interview right away, but do take the time to read his other entries and go back often. He also allows his readers to post comments, which can lead to some "spirited" exchanges...I learned that from my own blog a few posts ago!

I've taken the liberty of posting an excerpt from the interview below (hoping Jay doesn't mind). This also saves me from writing a new blog entry! I'm rehearsing with a couple of bands this week and hope to have some exciting shows to announce very soon...

Agony Shorthand: You're now, through your web site, one of the true keepers of the original LA punk flame. Did you feel that it wasn't being portrayed correctly in books & in articles, or did you just have a lot of cool ephemera to share?

Alice Bag: Both. Everyone has their perspective and their own reasons for trying to document the early L.A. scene. I certainly have my own agenda, one of the items being to shed light on the overlooked contributions of women. I once heard history described as "the distillation of rumor," and I saw that happening with some of the accounts of the early L.A. punk scene, many written by people who weren't even there at the time. The L.A. punk scene did not begin and end with Darby Crash, though one might think so by reading some of the accounts out there - not to take anything away from Darby and the Germs; they inspired me to get onstage and I considered Darby a friend. I still think the Weirdos have not been given their due - the scene really coalesced around that particular band. More than anything, I'm hoping that the website will spark people's imagination and inspire them to start their own movements. That would make me very happy.

If it had been left entirely up to me, the website would not exist. It was my husband's insistence that we build a web archive and make available to punk fans the considerable collection of photos, flyers and newspaper clippings that my mother had secretly kept after I had tossed them in the trash twenty five years ago. After my mother passed away, we discovered boxes and boxes of things she had squirreled away in a shed and in the garage. She was a pack rat and never threw anything away. I'm very grateful for that, now.