ALICE BAG plays The Echo Apr. 7; photo Greg Velasquez
Alice Bag heads over to The Echo Apr. 7 in support of her latest solo album Blueprint. Based in Los Angeles, Bag is a punk rock singer, musician, author, educator and feminist archivist.
She was lead singer and co-founder of The Bags-who were among the first wave of punk bands to emerge from that city during in the mid-1970’s-and also performed in Castration Squad, Cholita, and Las Tres. In 2016, she released her self-titled debut solo album on Don Giovanni Records.
Recorded at Echo Park’s Station House Studios, Blueprint collects 11 songs that Bag wrote and arranged over the last year. They are performed by members of her current backing band, as well as long-time collaborators like drummers Rikki Watson (The Two Tens) Joe Berardi (Deadbeats), Eva Gardner (Pink, Mars Volta, Cher), Kristian Hoffman (The Mumps) and Danny McGough (Social Distortion).
The album also features an all-star roster of guest vocalists, including Kathleen Hanna (Bikini Kill, The Julie Ruin), Allison Wolfe (Bratmobile, Sex Stains), Francisca Valenzuela, Teri Gender Bender, and Martin Sorrondeguy (Los Crudos, Limp Wrist).
You can hear them on the record, but also feel their presence in Bag’s vocals. For example, listening to Wolfe and Hanna’s vocal takes for the song “77” inspired the singer to take another, more savage crack at her own performance.
“For me it’s really good to surround myself with singers that I admire,” Bag explains. “It forces me to step up my game and not just sing the song like I’m singing in my living room.”
The title Blueprint is a nod to the process of construction – of a home, a life, the world – and the problems that pop up mid-build.
“I was having work done on my house and I was thinking about all the things that come up when you’re looking at a blueprint,” says Bag. “Maybe they say, ‘We can’t do that because your plumbing is rotting.’
“Things come up as you’re building a structure and force you in different directions, but you still have to make sure that it turns out the way you envisioned – you have to allow for setbacks and obstacles.”
The songs often find their inspiration in real-life moments that caused Bag to take stock and assess her own blueprint- to take a stand or fix a problem- personal, political, or both.
“We’re all constantly building structures of many different kinds,” explains Bag. “So, it’s up to us to keep things on track and moving in the direction we want to see them go. Otherwise, we end up with an idiot in charge.”