Their lore commences in Chicago’s western suburbs. In 1977, Carolyn Master and Diane Wlezien were juniors at Proviso West High and rock ‘n rollers, with a particular taste for English rock – The Who, The Stones, The Kinks, Bowie, T. Rex – they were wild for it. One day in World History class, Diane recalls Carolyn asking her if, a) she wanted to buy some drugs, and b) she wanted to start a band. The answer to both questions was YES.
They put an ad out for a guitarist, Gaylene Goudreau answered, and they clicked right away – but after a year or so trying to make it in LA as the Runaways-like girl group Lois Lain, they were back in Chicago, disillusioned. Gaylene joined DA!, when, opening for DNA at Tut’s one night, her life was changed. DNA’s noise-rock energy was clearly the way forward! She got back with Carolyn and Diane and they started over again, this time as Bag People.
Algis Kizys saw them one night in early ‘82 at Chicago’s infamous Space Place, then beat out some kid named Albini in a try-out for the bass spot. Pete Elwyn, working for the weekend at Poppin' Fresh Pies while drumming in a two-piece band called The Pedestrians, saw DA! and Bag People shows before joining.
Their line-up set, they played on the Chicago scene for awhile, with bands like The Cadavers and The Functionally Illiterate. In late 1982, they decamped to Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuy neighbourhood. Deep within NYC’s atomized urban interior, with deserted and destroyed shit everywhere, dudes selling drugs on every corner… it was a zone of lawlessness and neglect that’s honestly unimaginable today. In this hellscape, as they tried to live and play music, their raw and freezing practice space was broken into repeatedly while, out in the streets, every member of the band was mugged. “If you were on the streets after dark, you were either a criminal or insane,” recalls Algis. Or you were in Bag People!
The amorphous horror of this scene echoes distortedly through these recordings, an onslaught converging Carolyn and Gaylene’s scabrous guitar interplay, Algis and Pete’s free-roaming rhythm and Diane’s nihilistic gutter-siren vocal projections. It’s absolutely SICK – its own kind of music.
Once they’d relocated to Manhattan, sharing time at Swans’ practice space at 6th and Avenue B, they’d collectively evolved a set of songs that stood up well with the varied brutalities of all their neighbours – Sonic Youth, Rat at Rat R, Live Skull, Swans, False Prophets et al. They played out all around New York – at CBGB’s, A7, SIN Club, the Peppermint Lounge – and somehow made it to in Philly, DC, Pittsburgh, Chicago and St. Louis too.
A few songs were recorded at Hi Five Studio in the Gramercy Park neighbourhood. They taped more at the practice space, and a set at CB's but, constantly fucked up on booze and the drugs being hawked around the Lower East Side, the chaos of the times was wearing them thin. By the end of ‘83, it was apparent that things were falling apart. Pete literally disappeared after Christmas, taking a large part of their recordings with him. They got other drummers, but in July of 1984, they dissolved.
It would be nearly forty years before their lost recordings were heard again. After Carolyn finally found Pete (on social media, no less!), Algis drove up to Massachusetts to get them so they could be heard at last. “Holy crap!” Diane thought – the stuff sounded really powerful. As we can now hear, it was a glorious noise. The Bag People had their own insane way of doing things that wasn’t like anybody else – not for very long, anyway.
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