Guadalajaratrippin' Pt 2. Vexing in Mexico

Angie and I slept like the dead in our room at the Hotel De Mendoza, located on the site of a former convent in Guadalajara’s Centro Historico. We made our way down to the hotel restaurant and feasted on their breakfast buffet which offered a mouthwatering spread ranging from pancakes to chilaquiles. The girls all woke up at different times (Angie and I being the early risers in the group), so we ended up eating and doing our sightseeing in shifts. This was a bit odd because although we would've preferred to go together, we had to settle for "Meet us at the Cathedral after breakfast," or "Meet us at the Museum." Eventually, we split up into small groups which worked out just fine.

My group headed over to the Parque de Agua Azul for a gigantic flea market that my new buddy Shizu Saldamando had told me about the night before. She described it as a "punk flea market" and I think the description was accurate. It wasn't like a big outdoor Hot Topic, it just seemed to have the sorts of things that we all liked: homemade silkscreened shirts, used and repurposed clothing, old comic books and records, handmade jewelry, lots of crafty items. Teresa Covarrubias and Lysa Flores bought beautiful necklaces, Colin Gunckel and I bought vintage comic books. Our friend Danny was turned away from making a purchase because his paper money looked “too thin.” "You look like a counterfeiter!" we laughed. It was such a big market that eventually we did get separated and by the time we finally reunited, it was late. The race was on to get back to the hotel and try to make it to soundcheck on time.

We drove up to the hotel where a mini bus was already waiting for us. We hadn't even paid for the cab before Judy Cocuzza started scolding us for being late (she is the most well-organized and responsible musician I've ever played with.) We ran up to get our stuff for the show, then burned rubber to the museum.

Outside the MUSA, a big stage had been set up for the Vexing performances. G, the head soundmeister, was unperturbed by our late arrival and quickly gave everyone the sound they wanted (thank you!) I was watching The Sirens soundcheck when I noticed the evening clouds had started to roll in, making the church behind the stage loom ominously like Dracula's castle.


Iphone photo by Alice Bag

Teresa, Angie, Patricia and I rushed off to the MUSA bathrooms to get gussied up for the show. I lined, shadowed and polished as best I could to try to make 50 look like 17, but I’m a musician, not a magician. I have to confess that in the restroom mirror I thought I looked pretty hot, unfortunately I couldn't see the bottom half of me and everyone was too nice to tell me that my clothes made me look lumpy. Oh well, I guess it's for the best, I couldn't very well have picked a new outfit from wardrobe.

The show started and The Sirens came out of the gates blazing! They played their hearts out and the audience ate it up. As I watched them, I knew I had to bring my "A" game because these ladies had set a very high standard for the evening’s performances.


Photo by Angie Skull

We were up next. Colin announced us and said lots of nice things. I was pleasantly surprised by the good quality of the monitor mix and pretty soon, Teresa and I were rocking out in tandem just as we had so many times before. Judy Cocuzza and Sharon Needles kept the rhythm solid and PK wailed on guitar. Lysa Flores joined us for Monedita de Oro and Angie Skull joined us for two songs: Modern Day Virgin Sacrifice (she was the sacrifice) and The Wolf. It was great being onstage with so many talented women. The audience was very warm and receptive, there were children and teens and middle aged folks all out for a night of free music and they liked us. At one point during our set, Colin Gunckel dove off the stage and started crowd surfing. It was sweet! We left the crowd wanting more, not to follow any old adage but because we didn't have any songs worked out for an encore.


Photo by Angie Skull

Lysa was up last, looking absolutely gorgeous in her little black ruffly dress. She was the perfect choice to close the evening. Lysa is a rose in full bloom; with her stage presence and musicianship at their peak, she easily made the audience swoon. At the beginning of her set, a mohawk wearing punk guy started to walk away, perhaps underestimating her edge but she won him over with her cover of Love Will Tear us Apart. He stayed next to the stage for the rest of the set, calling for an encore at the end.

The mood backstage after the show was electric. We packed up our stuff and got on the mini bus heading for Hotel De Mendoza, but we couldn't suppress our excitement and pretty soon an impromptu Vexing choir started singing and making up songs. When we ran out of invented songs, we followed up by singing Beatle songs.



Video courtesy of Danny Hound Dog.

After dinner at the hotel we cleaned up and went to the opening of 18 With A Bullet, an exhibit that Shizu Saldamando had invited us to. Shizu's work blows me away. I had seen her work in Vexing, Phantom Sightings and on the cover of the new Girl in a Coma album. Tonight, she was showing ballpoint pen ink drawings made on bed sheets and handkerchiefs. I asked her about the drawings and she made it sound easy, "Oh, I just put something firm underneath and draw while I'm watching TV" ...Genius! Really, she's a mega talent.


GrandStar, China Town, ball point pen on found bedsheet, 178x249 cm Shizu Saldamando.
Photo courtesy of Shizu Saldamando.

The cherry on top of the evening was meeting some of the young punks who had seen our show earlier in the evening. Shizu had met them at the show and invited them to her opening. They brought gifts of CDs, stickers and postcards and thanked us for giving them a taste of 70's punk. It was wonderful to feel like we'd somehow inspired these young artists and I felt truly grateful to have been part of the whole event.

Guadalajaratrippin' Pt. 1 - Vexing in Mexico

I just returned from Guadalajara where I participated in the opening of Vexing: Female Voices from East LA, an exhibition tracing the history of Chicanas from East LA who have been defining punk from the late seventies to the present. The exhibit, which opened at The Claremont Museum about a year ago, is now residing at the MUSA (Museo de las Artes de la Universidad de Guadalajara).

I'm not going to tell you all about the International Book Fair, or about Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa coughing up a politically correct answer when asked whether or not he liked punk rock (he likes all kinds of music)...seemed sort of odd that he would deliver a speech in a museum surrounded by punk mujeres if he doesn't really like punk but I guess he likes mujeres well enough.

Hmmm, I guess I'm feeling a little mean spirited today. I'm still irritated. My ego took its own little trip when I walked into the rotunda at the MUSA and noticed that there were histories of my two Las Tres bandmates and none of me. This area appeared to be the historical epicenter of the exhibit and although there were pictures of me and other female artists in different rooms, the absence of any written history of my contributions as an OG ELA punkera who was playing punk rock earlier than any of the women in that exhibit pissed me off.

"Did you fly me out to Guadalajara just to write me out of history?" I hissed at curator Pilar Tompkins.

"No, of course not. There are pictures of you in other rooms."

"At Claremont, you at least mentioned The Bags and showed where we fit into this history, but here - there's nothing." Pilar looked upset. I felt like a mean ole bully so I decided to walk away and wait until I could ambush co-curator Colin Gunckel and see if I could get an answer from him. I pulled him aside and asked him the same question. Colin apologized and said it had been an oversight because setting up the exhibit had been extremely difficult. I continued to press the issue. “I think there has been some confusion all along about what this show is trying to be. Is it about female punks from East LA? Is it about The Vex? Is it about the evolution of Chicana music?” My questions and accusations upset Colin. This was supposed to be a fun night. Although I was angry, I consider Colin a friend so I gave him a few choice words, accepted his apology and decided to move on.

Colin and I are remarkably elastic and we had no trouble jumping back into party mode after our little heart to heart. The crowd at the opening was a strange mix of suits and punks; highbrows sipping champagne from flutes eyed the teen punks suspiciously. It was a little tense. My bandmates and I had to run after the waiters to snag flutes off the trays as they tried to avoid us. When I walked back to where the flutes were being filled, the waiter pointed to a nicely dressed woman with perfectly flat-ironed hair and said, "She is telling us who we can give champagne to." I knew the woman. She was one of my fluffers who only a little while earlier had been telling me how happy she was that I was here and how much she respected my work. I had wondered then if she was a friend or faux, now I had my answer.

I showed him my lanyard and pointed to the words "Invitada de Honor" but he blew me off. Grrr... so much bullshit. This time I ran after the waiter and caught up to him just as he approached a group standing near the woman. He started handing out the champagne, deliberately avoiding me. A gentleman in the group handed me his flute and I thanked him with my best smile as the waiter huffed off to bring the approved guest a glass of champagne. Daggers from Miss Flat-Ironed cheered my heart.

Artist and musician Angie Garcia had designed furry panocha patches for us to pin onto our clothes. "Panocha" is slang for pussy in Mexico, and we wanted to put our pussy in their faces so my bandmates and I pinned the faux fur creations onto different parts our clothes. Bassist Sharon Needles pinned her triangular patch on her pants right over her real panocha, causing a few passersby to do a double take. I walked around the room using my panocha as a conversation starter.



"What do you think of my panocha?" I asked one man in a suit.

"What?" he asked nervously.

"My panocha pin, do you like it? He laughed warmly and stopped to talk to me and I was reminded not to judge people by their suits (my own hubby wears one everyday).

A breath of fresh air blew in with the Sirens who were just the right mix of cute, loud and irreverent. They stood in front of the screen where footage of one of their concerts was being projected and rocked out while the paparazzi (me included) snapped away. LOVE THEM!



It's funny but the whole us vs. them atmosphere made me enjoy the opening even more. It reminded me of what we were all riled up about in the early days of punk, this whole gentrification of what had once been an anti-establishment rebellion movement. It made me wish Jessee Zeroxed had been there to throw beer at his own artwork!

Later, The Sirens, our band (Teresa, Judy, Sharon, PK, Angie and I) and our other droogies all followed pie-eyed piper Colin Gunckle over to the Pulp Bar where the smoothest tequila and coldest buckets of beer awaited us. It wasn't long before we were all shouting "Panocha! Panocha! Panocha!" and the barkeep had to come over to our table. Instead of shushing us, she handed us Sharpies and asked us to go autograph her bathroom walls, which we did happily. Halfway through the second bottle of tequila, jet lag hit us so we said our goodbyes and went back to our hotel rooms to get some sleep.

Stayed tuned for Part 2 tomorrow.


Playing Pet The Panocha in Guadalajara. Video courtesy of Danny Hound Dog.