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.

White Hot Interview

A new online article by Sandra Vista about the Vexing exhibition just appeared at WhiteHotMagazine.com. You can check out the article here.

Pink Viscera—A Permanent Triumph


Here are the original interview questions and my responses:

-While looking at your website I saw a current photograph of you in Phoenix. Your face appears soft and characteristic of a time of peace. (cara lisa) How do your experiences as being part of the East LA Punk movement contribute to what you are doing today-musically, with your family life and other creative aspects?

Yes, I'm cara lisa as opposed to that scary, angry gorgon that I used to be in my punk days but you don't have to scratch the surface too hard before the gorgon reappears! I don't know if I can honestly say that I'm at peace. I think I have figured out a way to negotiate a truce which allows me to express myself in positive ways, or at the very least, to be less impulsive than I once was. I still have the capacity to rant and rave when I'm angry and I still consider myself fairly uncivilized, but with age and experience, I learned how to channel my energy in different ways. Peace is a big word, I can't isolate a few events in my life and say that I'm at peace when all around me the world is getting fucked by corporate interests and our country is waging war.

-How is East LA, as a community, responsible for the Punk movement that you were associated with in the l970's and 80's? Does the community still have a reservoir of creative energy for the current generation of musicians and artists?

My part in the ELA punk movement is really as someone who helped set the stage for what would transpire later. I was part of the Hollywood Punk Scene which was a well integrated scene that preceded the scene at the Vex. As part of that earlier scene, I, along with other Latinos was performing alongside other punk musicians in integrated bands. My band, The Bags, was one of those bands. I know that some of the younger kids who shared my gender, ethnicity or economic level were inspired and motivated by seeing a woman from a poor, working class family from East L.A. play and sell out the most popular clubs of the day. I wasn't singing about being a woman or about being poor or about being Latina: I was simply being who I was and singing about a broad range of topics.

By 1980 when the East L.A. scene at the Vex was going strong, The Bags had broken up and I was going back to school for my B.A. in Philosophy. I still attended and played shows infrequently but I didn't consider myself part of a scene at that time because my focus was elsewhere and to be part of a scene, I think you really have to be immersed in it. I played the Vex with The Castration Squad, an all female proto-goth ensemble and I also played with other groups. Although I was not immersed in the East L.A. punk scene, I was immersed in East L.A. I moved back to my parents' house in East Los and worked my way through Cal State L.A. by working at a Franco Florist in Montebello. I worked all day and practiced and played gigs at night.

I am traditionally associated with the Hollywood Scene that centered around the Masque and predates the opening of the Vex in 1980 by at least 3 years. East L.A. is where I was born, grew up and spent most of my life. My experiences there have shaped every aspect of my life. I was in my late 40's when I moved to the Westside of L.A., then to Phoenix, and now San Diego. Every community has a reservoir of creative energy. There is no ethnicity, gender or socio-economic group that has a monopoly on talent. The problem is that not everyone has the opportunity to make his/her voice heard and that the dominant culture controls the means of production, distribution and promotion and they select artists based on corporate goals rather than artistic ones. Of course, that has all changed radically thanks to punk rock's DIY ethic and the internet. There is a more level playing field today but it is by no means an equal playing field.

The Real Victory

I spoke to my 13 year-old daughter on the phone yesterday as I sat waiting for my plane at Sea-Tac airport. I had to figure out how to explain to her why our candidate was pulling out of the Presidential race and what it meant to us. Not that we hadn't been through something similar before; she still remembers voting for Al Gore in her elementary school's mock elections and learning that her candidate had lost in the real elections. It was a big disappointment (he had won at her school), but this year was different.

As with many families across the nation, this year's race for the Democratic nomination had become very personal. My husband supports Barack Obama and my daughter and I were backing Hillary, while the paternal grandparents are going for McCain. Over the past few months, we have found ourselves in many a family squabble over the qualifications and shortcomings of our respective candidates, so hearing that our candidate was out of the race hit us hard. It was not really a surprise. Although we were always hopeful, we knew we were fighting an uphill battle. Still, I had the feeling as I spoke to my daughter that she was waiting for me to say something to reassure her that this was not the end.

"What do we do now?" was the question she finally asked.

"We keep going. We make a little progress at a time and we keep going," I said to her. We were both talking about the same thing, not just the presidential election, which of course we will continue to participate in, but about our struggle to break through the glass ceiling. Hearing Hillary Clinton's speech in which she reassures her supporters that we have made "18 million cracks in the glass ceiling" was inspirational. It was just what we needed to hear. We didn't need to hear that our candidate didn't win, nor that we now need to throw our support behind the presumptive Democratic candidate, but that our candidate and millions of her supporters still recognize that women have not only "Come a long way, baby," but still have a long way to go. Thanks to this campaign, we're a little closer and that in itself is a victory.

Putting the focus on women's issues is a victory too. Hillary was much more than a women's candidate. I truly believe she was the best qualified candidate, regardless of class, race or gender. Even my husband learned to respect her tenacity and resilience. In debates, she was focused, articulate and quick-thinking. She has inspired me. I've never seen a fighter take so many punches and still keep getting up. When I told an interviewer for CBS-TV in NY that I thought Hillary and punk music went together well because Hillary is hardcore, this is what I meant. Hillary never backed down. She took her punches like a woman, as strong and as big as Sojourner Truth. Can you imagine those two in a slam pit? Look out, all those who doubt! I am reminded of a speech Sojourner Truth made so long ago, at the Women's Convention in 1851: "If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them." Now that's Hardcore!


American Sabor: Latinos in U.S. Popular Music

Hillary's concession speech was even more poignant and meaningful to me because of the history I've learned recently from participating in two museum exhibitions: "Vexing: Female Voices From East L.A. Punk" at the Claremont Museum of Art (which I've written about previously) and "American Sabor: Latinos In U.S. Popular Music," currently on display at the Experience Music Project in Seattle, WA. I was invited to fly out and view the exhibit along with my friend, Teresa Covarrubias. Teresa and I also had the privilege of facilitating a class last Friday at the University of Washington. I think it was a wonderful learning experience for all concerned. As with the Vexing show, albeit on a much larger scale, I was able to immerse myself in the history of Latino musicians and artists who have contributed to popular culture and music. Many of these artists often worked in semi-obscurity and achieved minimal mainstream recognition. Others are internationally recognized.

One of the most rewarding aspects of participating in these exhibitions and symposiums for me is hearing directly from young female artists that my own music inspired them in some way. It reminds me that the real victory is sometimes not in the "winning" or in mainstream success, but is most often in the doing and in the legacy one leaves for future generations. Progress and societal change are part of a continuum. Seeing and hearing the amazing contributions of so many Latina/o artists who came before me and in many ways, paved the way for me to take chances in my own music was truly inspiring, perhaps in the same way Hillary Clinton has now inspired my own teenage daughter.

So thank you, Hillary. Thank you for fighting the good fight.

The Road To (and From) Claremont

With the opening reception of the Vexing exhibit behind me, I'd like to say a little about the way in which this experience has changed and is continuing to change me. Colin Gunckel and Pilar Tompkins put on a very ambitious exhibition, both in scope and depth. It reached out with long arms to people whose relevance to the East LA music scene was not obvious and thus sparked controversy; it plunged deeply into virginal archives to illustrate the beauty and creativity of an under-appreciated music and art scene.


Points of Departure, an installation by Jessee V. and Colin Gunckel, currently on display at the Claremont Museum of Art.

The road to Claremont was a difficult one for me. On one side of the LA River, I was perceived by some as betraying the Hollywood scene. To quote part of a nasty email: "I think it's kind of creepy that you'd sell out the old scene just to be down with a couple of dink bands." On the other side of the LA River, there was much discussion about who should be included in the show and which participants were perceived as outsiders.


Detail from "Do The Math", a 10' x 50' paint on canvas installation by Diane Gamboa.


To top it all off, there was an undercurrent of denial of the racist and sexist landscape against which punk played out. My statement to the LA Times that by 1979, some Eastside musicians felt that the Hollywood punk scene was closed and unwelcoming was seen as an attack on the integrity of that scene, despite the fact that some of the individuals interviewed in the Women in Punk section of my website mentioned that they themselves had difficulty breaking into the LA punk scene in the late seventies. The fact that Eastsiders were making the same assertion was interpreted as an accusation of racism and I was accused of "playing the race card."

I found this very insulting, so I deliberately set out to get some answers by questioning some of my friends who had frequented the Vex. I wanted to find out who had and who hadn't experienced racism in the LA Punk scene. Not surprisingly, the results were mixed: some people had racism to report while others did not, which only seems to prove that racism was not more concentrated in the punk scene than it was in the general population; neither was it completely absent. Some people felt it and some didn't. Unfortunately, that was a bit of a myth buster for some, who wanted to believe the Hollywood scene was a utopia. Even though I frequently say that I didn't feel discriminated against, my experiences are my own. I will not deny anyone the right to point out discrimination by belittling their experiences with a dismissive phrase like "playing the race card." This response is insulting and only discourages people from shedding light on discrimination. Racism is not a game to be played, nor is there any real victory to be won by bringing it into an argument. If whatever argument you are trying to make is predicated on perceived racial favoritism or discrimination, it's legitimacy will be called into question, so most people I know will avoid bringing race into the discussion at all. Many Latinos I know would rather deal with racism in quieter ways, precisely because they don't want to be accused of playing the race card. And that is how accusing people of playing the race card effectively silences anyone from bringing up issues of racism and supports the status quo.

The fact that the Vexing show ignited this discussion is a great thing. That is what art is supposed to do: challenge people, provoke, and raise uncomfortable questions. A week after the show opened, there is a new article in the LA Times where the question of racism in the LA punk scene is still being explored. This Vexing show has been like a much needed enema, so let's get all the shit out of our systems and see what happens.


Lysa Flores, Alice Bag and Gaby Godhead live at Vexing opening show, 5/17/08, photo by fauxtografer.

Being involved with the show has made me realize that even though I wasn't a regular at the Vex, the East LA scene did not exist in a vacuum. Hollywood's punk scene preceded it and other music scenes preceded that one. Like Tenochtitlan, where each culture is built upon a previous one, each artist, whether or not he or she knows it, builds upon a foundation that stood before them. Thank you to the young artists who helped me understand that. Thank you to the curators, who believed in the validity of my place in East LA punk history before I did. Thank you to my friends, who shared their previously untold experiences of racism with me. Thank you to all of those who continue to challenge me, disagree and/or agree with me; you make the road to and from Claremont a fruitful one.

Vexit, Stage Left

The opening reception for the Vexing show at the Claremont Museum of Art took place last night and there was a terrific turnout. Over 600 people were in attendance and the room got really hot, really fast. The gallery show was amazing, with more to look at than I can describe here. If you didn't make it last night, it is well worth a drive out to Claremont to experience it. If you are considering going, you might want to time your visit to coincide with one of their panel discussions or live performances, so check out their website.

A special thank you to my bandmates: Lysa Flores, Gaby Godhead, David Jones and Judy Cocuzza. It was an honor to be included in this show with so many talented artists. Another thank you to all of my old friends who made the long drive to one or both of the shows (we had a warm-up show the night before in Boyle Heights at Eastside Luv). It was great seeing you and even though I can't name you all, I'm sorry about the sweaty hugs and garlic and tequila kisses. Thank you to the Claremont Museum of Art team, who went out of their way to make us feel welcome and fed us garlicky hummus just before the show. And one more very important thank you to Diane Gamboa, who picked me up at the train station, drove me all over town and saved my ass on the air during a live interview at KPFK.

I read through the exhibit catalog today and there are lots of big words in there. It helped me to better understand the history of the East LA scene, though I still have lots of questions. I definitely have a greater appreciation for everything that went into it, came out of it and is still happening in relation to it. Maybe it's not such a bad thing that not all of my questions were answered, because this is a story that's still being written and my curiosity has been piqued.

Here's a clip from last night's performance, courtesy of MikaMakeout. Thank you to MikaMakeout for posting this on YouTube.

Vexing Questions

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.