This coming weekend, the Claremont Museum of Art will be holding an opening reception for a new exhibition called Vexing: Female Voices from East L.A. Punk. I am excited about having been invited to participate in the show because I'll have the honor of being in the company of some very talented artists, but that's not why I'm writing this entry. In the process of promoting this show, doing interviews and talking to people, I have encountered some confusion not only about the show, but about the East L.A. (ELA) punk scene itself and its relationship to the early L.A. punk scene, which I was a part of. I get asked all the time about the ELA punk scene and all I can say is, "Sorry, I wasn't part of that." So it's valid to ask why someone who only played the Vex once (as part of Castration Squad, not the Bags) is a featured artist in this exhibition. And yet, I have had young Chicanas tell me that just by being Latina and doing what I did, I am a part of the ELA punk scene. I understand that, but just as a disclaimer I want to say that I still do not consider myself part of the early 80's Vex scene.
Because of this confusion, I set about on my own to interview several people who were, in fact, part of the ELA scene to get their take on several of the assumptions that have arisen around the Vex and the ELA scene in general. I also spoke with one of the Vexing organizers to try to understand the aim of the show. I myself was interviewed for the LA Times and because that interview has now raised some questions about my own perspective, I feel compelled to explain my quotes. The interview in question ran for almost one and a half hours. From that, a few sentences were culled and used in a piece which condensed a three to four year timeline in the LA music scene into a short article. As I will discuss below, having accurate chronology is critical to any real understanding of the LA punk scene. It's important to note that I spoke at length with the interviewer and told him that my own experience in the early scene (1976-1979) was not one of exclusion or racism, but that other people who were part of the later scene (1980 and beyond) may have encountered racism and closed doors (and let's be honest in saying that there was a growing skinhead contingent in the early 1980's punk scene) and if that perception forced them to create their own scene to overcome this obstacle, then that was a blessing.
According to Colin Gunckel, who is curating the Vexing show along with Pilar Tompkins, the exhibition is meant to show the ELA punk scene as it intersects race, time, gender and location. "I didn't want the show to be based on ethnicity, because it didn't happen in a bubble" says Gunckel. He's right about that. Most of the people whom I've spoken to who were actually part of the ELA scene were going to Hollywood to see punk bands even before the Vex existed.
In order to understand the ELA scene in a broader sense, we have to have some sort of timeline to sharpen our perspective. In the Fall of 1977, The Masque opened its doors in Hollywood as a alternative cabaret. Although it was not the first venue for punks, it became the epicenter of the budding Hollywood scene. It was a place where creativity was nurtured and differences were accepted. Years later, in the Spring of 1980, The Vex would open its doors to a similar group of young artists. Like the Masque, it was not the first place to feature punk talent but it fulfilled a very special role. Like The Masque, it was a place that nurtured its artists and the ELA punk scene coalesced around it.
Here's a quote from an interview I completed in 2007:
"When punk came along, it was just the perfect vehicle for me to express who I was an individual. It was new enough and open enough to allow itself to be defined by people like me. Just a couple of years later, that would change and people would have to fit into preconceived notions of what punk rock was or wasn’t. The early scene had no such limitations because we were the ones creating and defining it. If you had been at the Masque in 1977, you would have seen very eclectic shows, ranging from the Screamers to Arthur J. and the Goldcups, from Geza X and the Mommymen to The Controllers. There was no clearly defined punk sound, no dress code and all you had to do was show up and make your presence known. The movement was one of individuals and individual expression, each of us bringing our heritage and formative experiences with us in an organic and in my case, unplanned way."
What happened between the Fall of 1977 and the Spring of 1980 is perhaps at the heart of some of the confusion about the points of intersection of these two scenes. My band, The Bags, played the Masque in September of 1977. As I have repeatedly written and said in interviews countless times over the years, my own experience of the original Hollywood scene was that it was open, egalitarian, limitless and creative. As the years passed, the scene changed. As the scene expanded, new members brought in new value systems. A scene that had once valued diversity and originality became a place where white males in uniform-like jeans, boots and leather jackets became the norm. It's no surprise to me then, that in late 1979 and early 1980, just months prior to The Vex's opening, some Latinos were feeling unwelcome in the Hollywood scene. Of course, the perception of racism differs, depending on who you ask. We all perceive these things differently and react to them differently. When I asked Tracy Lee of Thee Undertakers if he'd ever experienced any racism in Hollywood, he replied that he hadn't except for someone once throwing a screwdriver at him at The Whisky A Go-Go.
It's also true that not all Eastside bands felt unwelcome or closed off from the Westside, and even if they did, many of them played there before, during and after the existence of the Vex. Teresa Covarrubias recalls that it was very difficult for her band, The Brat, to get shows on the Westside until the Vex opened and they had established a measure of popularity, although as Brendan Mullen points out, "Bookers back then and to the present day are generally concerned with assessing whether the band mean any bodies in their club space.' Ironically, the club which Brendan is most associated with, The Masque, did not follow this commercial policy and thus helped to foster a vibrant and creative scene, perhaps in much the same way the Vex did in East L.A.
When the Vex finally did open, it welcomed bands and artists from all over. It wasn't unusual to see the likes of X, The Blasters and Social Distortion on the east side of the L.A. River. I think that maybe this was one of the intersections Gunckel refers to. I'm sure there were many intersections, but it takes some work to find them. One could easily go back to the Gronk/Dreva Art Meets Punk show in 1978 to find an early example of a Hollywood punk band crossing over to the ELA art audience. The Chicano art collective ASCO pre-dated punk, but could certainly be considered kindred spirits of the early punks. I also know that I am not speaking about the many other artists who were involved in creating poetry as well visual and performance art which coincided and collided with the punk scene. I don't really know how those scenes intersected or if they did, but perhaps this exhibition will help shed some light on those questions.
Perhaps most importantly, the Vexing exhibition will also showcase younger artists alongside the OG punks. The connections between our generations may not be obvious at first glance. It could be that those of us who time travel through our music, art or poetry and defy boundaries touch the younger generation in subtle ways that even we are unaware of, just as so many women before paved the way for us.
