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The Bags - Survive b/w Babylonian Gorgon is another classic Dangerhouse slab of proto-hardcore. Continuing the pattern of most of the best singles on the label being female-fronted, the Bags were led by one, Alice Bag who was better than most at both screaming, as well as melodic singing. The band take a similar approach, able to make a noisy racket, or a tight tuneful sound.

Survive opens with kind of faux-pulp detective music before the main verse, which moves along at a swift nearly-hardcore clip and is led by Alice’s sneering shouts and Terry Bag’s muscular 16th beat. The guitars jangle just enough to be clear, but have a good vintage fuzz and the bass rumbles as well as any melodic punk song from ‘78. After the first chorus is the guitar solo, and lead guitar player Craig Lee (R.I.P.) isn’t afraid to let loose and make some noise filling out a couple runs of random notes, before letting the solo congeal into a rocked out variation on the main riff. When the second chorus wraps up with an ear-splitting scream by Alice, it leaves you wondering how hardcore became such a male-dominated sub-genre. Here’s someone outperforming most of her peers, male and female from the time. You think more girls would have wanted to pick up the mic and shout. I’m no sociologist though, and so onto the b-side…

Babylonian Gorgon starts off with a more mournful sounding guitar line, but once the lead guitar and drum beat get going it has plenty of energy. Alice delivers the vocal in the verse with a little more restraint and control on this side, but still sounds authoritative  tough, and good. The chorus is the most poppy moment on the single, the vocals are a tad bit crooned, and the riff is a melodic one. The song repeats each part a few times, but keeps the structure pretty standard and just lets the attitude of the band carry it, which of course they’re more than able to do.

The Bags never really managed another proper release. They had a third song from this session on the Dangerhouse compilation Yes L.A. as well as another outtake comped on one of the posthumous Dangerhouse anthologies. In-fighting and member departures led to Alice and Craig forming the Alice Bag Band who were featured prominently in the Decline Of Western Civilization documentary, performing two newer songs, one of which is found on the soundtrack album for the film, neither of which quite matches the greatness of the two on this single. After a few years of semi-legit bootlegs, a few lost songs turning up on the Live at the Masque anthologies, and other odds and ends, Artifix records finally took up the noble task of collecting most of the Bags music to an anthology lp last year - All Bagged Up. That album contains most of their known/surviving material, including the session for the Survive 7″, as well as a few other studio demos, and some decent quality live material. The overall song quality does vary, but it’s encouraging that this stuff has been preserved. Alice still pops up for interviews and retrospectives on the early punk scene and seems to have aged gracefully, so thank god for that.

One pressing on this one, some copies have the labels on the wrong sides with stickers or writing added to correct the misinfo. Something like 1200-1500 pressed in all. Actually I believe I have an extra with a damaged cover if anyone’s looking to trade.