DISGRACELAND - Alice Bag | The Punk Rock Scene That Soundtracked a Serial Killer

Episode Date: August 25, 2026

In 1977, punk rock took root in Los Angeles just as a prolific serial killer began to terrorize the city. For months, the bodies of young women were being discovered on hillsides – including one woman who was a regular at an underground punk club in Hollywood where seminal L.A. bands like The Bags cut their teeth. Listen to hear how the story of the leader of that band, Alice Bag, overlaps in terrifying and unexpected ways with the story of the infamous Hillside Strangler, who had L.A. gripped with fear for over a year. To listen to Disgraceland ad free and get access to a monthly exclusive episode, weekly bonus content and more, become a Disgraceland All Access member at disgracelandpod.com/membership. Visit www.disgracelandpod.com/merch to see the latest Disgraceland merch! Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - GET THE NEWSLETTER Follow Jake and DISGRACELAND: Instagram YouTube X (formerly Twitter)  Facebook Fan GroupSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Elvis. Behind every night spent making the kids' lunches, there's a lot of suspense. Will they finally eat the veggies? Will the pastos survive the first bite? Will the lunchbox come home empty, half full, or come home at all?

And will you finish episode 8 before you're done slicing the cucumbers? Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Craved Netflix and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on Internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.com for details and to check availability. Bill, connection is everything. On August 4th, 1962, Marilyn Monroe died.

Then the rumors started, and she died again. And now, we're going to set the record straight and learn about the way Marilyn Monroe actually died. The third way. I'm Jake Brennan, and on my podcast, Hollywoodland, I revisit some of the biggest stories from Hollywood history, separating the myths people want to believe from the reality underneath them.

Hollywoodland is part of the exactly right network. Listen to new episodes every Monday on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome aboard season six of The Girlfriends, Flight or Fight, which takes place 30,000 feet in the sky. A beautiful woman smiles and hands you a scotch. But you have no idea just how messed up her job actually is. It was the most sexist job. could have. Until one day, a group of stewardesses spark a revolution that reshapes America. Listen to The Girlfriends, Flight or Fight, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

get your podcasts. This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners. Please check the show notes for more information. Disgrace Land is a production of Double Elvis. This is a story of how punk rock took root in Los Angeles, just as a prolific serial killer began to terrorize the city. It's a story of an underground punk club where seminal LA bands, like the germs and the bags, got their start. And it's also about one of the regulars at that club, a regular who turned up dead, strangled and dumped on a freeway off ramp near Griffith Park. It's a story about the murders of many young women, 10, to be exact, all of them killed within the span of four months.

The murders sent Los Angeles into a paranoid frenzy, and it fortified the community of punk rockers who found strength in numbers in the guidance of one of their protectors, Alice Bagg, of the bags. Like many in the LA punk scenes, circa 1977, Alice Bagg made great music. Unlike that, clip I played for you at the top of the show. That wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Melotron called Unpleasant Valley Sunday, MK2. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to You Light Up My Life by Debbie Boone. And why would I play you that specific slice of Pat Boone descendant cheese could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on November 23, 1977.

And that was the day that 28-year-old Jane King, a regular at L.A.'s underground punk shows, was found dead, causing the local media to finally take notice of a killing spree that had been going on for weeks. This is the story of Alice Bagg and of Los Angeles punk rock being born in the shadow of the Hillside Strangler.

I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgracel. There's a quote, often attributed to Dorothy Parker, that goes, Los Angeles is 72 suburbs in search of a city, which is kind of funny because, yes, although L.A. is defined by its sprawl, you don't typically think of the city having an identity crisis. Los Angeles has long been pitched as the glitzy, glamorous, sun-kissed flipside to New York City's gritty, mean streets. Los Angeles is home to Hollywood after. all, and if you've gone Hollywood, you've leveled up, big-time to us all, and sold out. New York had television and the talking heads, and L.A. had Fleetwood Mac and Steely Dan.

New York had the Velvet Underground, and L.A. had the fucking Eagles, man. And in the late 1970s in L.A., the Titans of the Entertainment Industry, the Big Three, that's music, movies, and pornography, cavorted, canoodled, and did tons of blow at some of the cheekiest and freakiest nightclubs in the entire country. Spots like the Paradise and the Starwood, the Seven Seas, and the Kit Cat. Most of these clubs were owned by the notorious L.A. crime dude, Eddie Nash, where one could get down to a soundtrack of disco

and what we now lovingly refer to as yacht rock. But what if you rejected the hedonist offerings that Eddie Nash and his ilk were serving up on silver platters? What if you were allergic to the dulcet tones of Captain Incheon and Al Stewart? What if your platonic ideal of Los Angeles was not a room full of herbs doing the disco duck, but instead was a collective of others, misfits, weirdos, outcasts, all of them brought together by something that wasn't plastic or artificial, but by something that was real, cultivated by real people, not by phony rock stars.

They didn't want you to have this. And by they, I mean the ones running this town. Warner Brothers, Paramount, CBS. Eddie Nash didn't want you doing your own thing. Eddie Nash wanted you doing his thing. Eddie Nash wanted you partying in his clubs and buying his overpriced in shitty watered-down drinks and snorting his cocaine, especially on his turf.

Because the misfits, the weirdos, the outcasts, they set up camp just down Hollywood Boulevard from the Seas. Eddie Nash is super macho, super hetero hotspot. Walk past Muso and Franks, bang a riot onto North Cherokee, and then let the smell of cigarettes, stale beer, and sweat guide you down an alley and into the basement directly below the pussycat porn theater. This is where the other L.A. was happening.

A room and a scene that you had to protect at any cost. Even if it meant kicking the shit out of Tom Waits in front of the entire staff of the troubadour to prove. prove that you weren't fucking around, but I'm getting ahead of myself. My point is that the punk scene of Los Angeles in the late 1970s was different and strange and unlike anything you've been led to believe about the sprawling city. And because it was different and because it was strange, it was identified by the status quo as dangerous.

And because of that, as I said, it had to be protected at all costs. Alicia Armendaris have been preparing her whole life for this moment. She wasn't born to protect her. She was made one. The gangs of East L.A. weren't under any obligation to step in when Alicia's father beat her mother with his belt in front of the entire neighborhood and then dragged her back to their cockroach-infested house by the hair. It was Alicia who stepped in.

It was Alicia who got between her father, the abuser, and her mother the abused. protection was necessary. Protection was life or death. Protecting yourself was another matter entirely. The urge to assimilate with white culture tugged at Elysia like a magnet. The desire to be called not Elysia but Alice. These small concessions, they start to add up, stripping a person of their own identity and Elysia of her rich Chicana heritage.

But the bullies at school pushed her too far. They mocked how she looked and how she talked. She was heavier. She had darker skin. She pronounced words, funny, and whatever they could find, they attacked her with it. She had no choice but to protect herself. Words were no good. Words never want to battle.

It had to be skin on skin. It was fist on face. Protection was a contact sport. It was violent. The bully that Alicia shoved up against the wall had a pen in her teeth when it happened. and the blood splurred it fast but Alicia's hand pushed the pen into the back of the girl's throat.

From that day, Alicia even had the respect to some of the hardest, most violent gangs watching the streets of East LA. Alicia Armandaris not only had the respect to the gangs, she had self-respect. She didn't have to assimilate. Punk rock taught her that.

Punk rock gave her permission to be herself. Even if that looked and sounded different from what most everyone else in L.A. was doing. So when she began hanging out in Hollywood, gravitating to like-minded misfits, weirdos, and outcasts, it was only natural that she did so as the punk rock scene's resident protector. Only now, she wasn't Alicia anymore. She was Alice.

Alice Dushbag, that is, or more simply, Alice Bagg, protector of the punks and leader of the bags, one of the seminal bands at the heart of LA's late 70s counterculture. The bags made loud, fast, take no prisoners rock and roll, just as their song titles like We Will Burry You and Disco's Dead can attest. And though you won't find the bags on any taste-making lists like Rolling Stones' recent 100 greatest punk albums of all time, at this very brief moment in time, in this very specific scene, they were a guiding light.

Alice Baggs' on-stage charisma and energy were infectious, as was the way in which she easily morphed into an alter ego. Every L.A. punk in 1977 was becoming someone else. It was a rite of passage. Jean-Paul Beam became Bobby Pinn and then Darby Crash, co-founder of the germs, along with his friend George Rutherberg, who is now going by Pat Smear.

And there was Helen Killer, Donna Rhea, Jane Drano, And in 1977, all these newly christened punks were hanging out in the basement of a building in Hollywood at a small club that welcomed their eccentricities. The punk rock club, known as the Mask, was a former bomb shelter. It was opened in the summer of 1977 by a Scottish transplant named Brendan Mullen. There was little ventilation. No dress code. Anyone was welcome.

On any given night, it would not be unusual to see leather jacket. black gloves, blue eye shadows, spray-painted shirts, white Fruit of the Loom tank tops, polyester button downs from Sears, studded belts, dye jobs, flat tops, crew cuts, mohawks, and bags. Alice Bag and her band The Bags wore paper bags over their heads. That was their thing. They didn't have an Arturo Vega curating their image like the Ramones did back in New York, so they had to get creative with self-styling. Alice, bassist Patricia Morrison, aka Patricia Delicia, guitarist Janet Coontz, and Jiza X, and drummer Joe Nalini, used markers and scissors to decorate them.

The bags, both the band and the cheap image they brought to the mass tiny stage, were a statement. A middle finger thrust in the face of the Hollywood establishment, the bullies, the Eddie Nash's, the big business of Hollywood, they're all put on notice. Alice Bag and her band were the first line of protection. against corporate rock and disco cheese. But the real threat that Alice Bag was up against was not, in fact, Captain Inteneo or Al Stewart or even Sean Cassidy or the fucking Eagles. It was the darkness and the danger

that the mask and the L.A. punk scene's open-door policy led in right under all of their noses. A darkness and danger capable of just about anything. Even murder. Jane King was a 28-year-old aspiring actress doing what she did every Wednesday night after her acting class. She was sitting on a bench at the corner of Franklin Avenue in North Bronson, waiting for the bus to take her back to her apartment in West Hollywood. It was just after 11 p.m.

The lateness of the hour did not face her. Neither did the footsteps that she could now hear approaching where she sat all alone. She hadn't heard about the sex workers whose bodies have been discreet. discovered in different locations over the last month. No one had heard about it. And the papers didn't run stories on dead sex workers. So Jane King didn't tense up when those footsteps approaching from afar became louder. Until the owner of those footsteps, a man around Jane's age was standing right next to her.

Another night, another pair of feet belonging to another random dude heading in her general direction. It wasn't weird. It was usual, actually. It was the norm. Jane was beautiful. She was tall, blonde. She got this sort of attention all the time. Even at the mask, the punk rock club just a mile and a half away, which she was known to frequent, sometimes with her ex Rick Wilder, the singer in the Berlin Brats. Some would say that Jane, with her classic good looks, seemed out of place in a punk venue hanging out without guests.

But then, that was the point. Everyone was out of place in LA's punk underground. The man was handsome. He struck up a conversation. And moments later, a Cadillac pulled up and stopped, and behind the wheel was the man's cousin. They asked Jane if she wanted a ride home. She hesitated. That's when the handsome man flashed a badge, L-A-P-D. Jane had nothing to worry about, they said. Jane reconsidered. It was late, and she was tired. And these two seemed normal, and they were cops. or so they said. So she thanked them and accepted their offer climbing into the caddy's backseat.

Jane King would never make it back to West Hollywood. Instead, she would wind up in Glendale at a bungalow belonging to the handsome man, a man named Kenneth Bianchi. But soon, when the papers finally did start reporting on the seemingly connected murders of young women around Los Angeles, the public would know Bianchi by another name. the hillside strangling.

And every night spent making the kids' lunches, there's a lot of suspense. Will they finally eat the veggies? Will the pastos survive the first bite? Will the lunchbox come home empty, half full, or come home at all? And will you finish episode 8 before you're done slicing the cucumbers? Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Craved Netflix and Disney Plus

from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.com for details and to check availability. Bell. Connection is everything. I'm Jake Brennan, and on my podcast, Hollywoodland, I revisit some of the biggest stories from Hollywood history, separating the myths people want to believe

from the reality underneath them. Like how the story of Marilyn Monroe isn't just the story of a Hollywood icon. Marilyn Monroe has become so iconic that her death can only be explained through conspiracy theories. And for some fans who can't let go, These stories have metastasized from conjecture to accepted fact.

So on August 4, 1962, Marilyn Monroe died. Then the rumors started and she died again. And now we're going to set the record straight and learn about the way Marilyn Monroe actually died, the third way. Learn more about what happens when fame, media obsession, and conspiracy collide. Listen to Hollywoodland on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome aboard season six of The Girlfriends,

flight or fight, which takes place 30,000 feet in the sky. There's great food, comfortable chairs, and attentive stewardesses. The stewardesses were so beautiful. But in reality, the stewardess job is far less glamorous than it appears. It was the most sexist job I think you could have. In this era, the airlines told these stewardesses, they have to be single. They had no good excuse for why they wouldn't let women be married.

They have to be skinny. We were starving ourselves. And they have to be young. You would retire at age 32. But one day, a group of stewardesses said, This has got to stop. They risked it all, turning a fight for fairness into a revolution. Listen to The Girlfriends, Flight or Fight, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

In the fall of 1977, months after the arrest of David Berkowitz, aka New York City's son of Sam, fear hitched a ride out west. Los Angeles now had its own serial killer to contend with. Down in Los Felas, investigators were pulling Jane King's body from the bushes near an off-ramp on the gold. and State Freeway. The manner of death, the strangulation, the ligature marks, the sexual assault. It was the same thing the cops had seen in the recent murders of 19-year-old Yolanda Washington, 15-year-old Judith Miller, and 21-year-old Lisa Kaston, murders, which had all occurred within the span of the last few weeks.

But it was the discovery of Jane King's body on November 23rd, 1977, coming just days after three more female victims have been found, including a 12 and 14-year-old that caused the press to finally take notice. The news of the Hillside Strangler's growing murder spree sent Los Angeles into full panic mode. Sales of firearms skyrocketed, self-defense classes sold out. Not since the Manson murders some eight years prior had the city been so on edge. In LA's punk underground, quite literally underground at the mask, the latest music reflected the state of affairs happening in the city at large. It was as loud as the headlines that announced the next hillside strangler's victim. It was as relentless as the fear and paranoia that was gripping L.A. in its constrictive hands.

And it was violent, not out of malice or hate, but because violence as a reaction was just another word for protection. On stage, Alice Bagg was in her element. hand, paper bag over her head. Something came over her at this moment, as it always did. She was being controlled by something outside of herself. Some antiquated force deep in the bones of human history, a force that she couldn't see or even explain, but which no one here in the space beneath North Cherokee and Brendan Mullins' punk rock club, The Mask, could ever possibly deny. Alice Bagg was chaos. Alice bag was defiance. Alice bag was safety in a red t-shirt, bright green stockings and heels. Get behind her. Follow her. She'll protect you. The memories were top of mind. Her father violently lashing out at her

mother, the kids at school who tried to keep her quiet and afraid with their own violence. White fence, Vario Nuevo Estrada, Little Valley, the Chicano gangs who saw a kindred spirit in her the same gangs who claimed another innocent victim caught in that day's explosive crossfire. L.A. was a violent place, and punk rock was the child of violence. Rock and roll was Link Ray, writing an instrumental that sounded so much like a bloody teenage brawl that it was banned from the radio. It was Dave Davies, taking a switchblade to his guitar amplifier and slashing it from end to end. It was Jerry Lee Lewis lighting his piano on fire, daring Chuck Berry to step onto the smoldering stage.

Tonight's stage was barely a stage, standing just a few inches off the ground. It was merely a suggestion of the dividing line between performer and audience and defining characteristic of the communal aspect of the punk and hardcore scenes. The lack of separation was underscored when Bobby Pinn of the germs drunkenly surged forward

and grabbed at Alice's face. He wanted that. paper bag, he wanted to rip it off her head to shred it. The music, the speed and the volume of it, the ferocity of it, it did things to a person. Not least of all, to Alice Bagg. Alice welcomed Bobby Pins' attack. It made her feel like a little girl again, clinging to her mother's leg, inserting herself between her two parents, staving off a fatal blow to the head. Bobby Pins' shock of violence reminded Alice that she was a protector. It was a subjector. It was a subject. September 10, 1977, the bag's first gig at the mask. Members of the germs and the weirdos were there in attendance. Perhaps alongside members of X, or the plimsels, the motels, or the alleycats, maybe the zeros, or the screamers, or the Tupperwears, or even the nuns from up north in San Francisco, or the Dills from down in Carlsbad. Alice's then boyfriend, Weirdo's drummer, Jeffrey Vissovich, aka Mickey B, for once not having to fill in.

for the bags rotating roster of players, looked on as Alice did battle with Bobby. And before long, Belinda Carlisle, aka Doddy Danger, one-time drummer for the churms, will be watching from the wings wearing nothing but a giant black trash bag decorated with pins. The next year, when Belinda ditched the Doddy Danger alter ego to co-found the go-goes, Alice couldn't help but feel like she'd missed an opportunity. She'd always wanted the bags to be an all-female group, something like the runaways. In fact, before the bags were the bags, Alice, Patricia, and their friend Marlene had auditioned for the runaway's infamous manager, Kim Folly.

The notorious Svengali was assembling another female rock band, more young, impressionable minds that he could manipulate and exploit. But Alice was not exploitable. She was not just another piece of clay from Kim Folly to mold. Nor was she Sheree Curry or Joan Jett. And I'm not saying that she was better than those two runaways. I'm just saying that she couldn't even figure out all the chords to a single runaway song. Alice was built different.

She was wired different. She was where she was supposed to be. Part of a counterculture that she'd been protecting since even before she played her first show. A counterculture that wanted to be seen. Even if they spent their nights hidden underground. A counterculture that welcomed anyone. even dudes as members of the bags. Dudes like Bobby Pitt,

who eventually got what he wanted when he ripped the paper bag from Alice's head while she performed on stage. The bags show has became increasingly violent. Fights amongst the crowd were commonplace. Noses broken and mouths bloodied and all of that. And sure, a lot of it was kids, punks, disenfranchised youth working out deep-seated issues of anger and frustration

with their particular lot in life. But this was Los Angeles in 1977, and there was a deranged killer on the loose, a killer who had taken the lives of seven women already, including Jane King, who'd been irregular at the mask. But what else could one do besides seek refuge deep underground, where Alice Bag and her small yet mighty army had your back? By the time the 10th body was found, it was beginning to look like there was more than one hillside strangler. A witness had reported seeing two men drag 18-year-old college student Lauren Wagner from her car on the evening of November 28, 1977. The same witness also said that the men appeared to be police officers. That last detail ramped up the already heightened sense of paranoia in the city.

Because of it, women in Los Angeles were told they no longer had to pull over their vehicles for a police cruiser. Instead, they were instructed to drive themselves home, where they could come. call the police and verify that the crews were trying to pull them over was, in fact, an actual cop. I swear to God, this actually happened. The following morning, November 29th, as this new rule for female drivers was put into place, Lauren Wagner's body was found dumped on the west side of Mount Washington. Tension was at a fever pitch. The city's sex workers, in particular, they were on high alert.

It wasn't safe to walk the streets anymore. escort work was much safer. And so it was through an escort service that 17-year-old Kimberly Martin was connected with her latest client. She left her sunset Boulevard apartment and made her way to the address in Hollywood that she'd been given. When she arrived, she was a bit taken aback. First, by the fact that the place left empty, as though no one actually lived there.

And second, that there was not one man waiting for her as she had expected, but two men. The blood-curdling screams that followed fell on deaf ears. The next morning, December 14th, Kimberly Martin's nude and strangled body was found on a hillside in Silver Lake. We're on a clear, smogless day to see all the way to Los Angeles City Hall. We'll be right back after this word, word, word. Behind every night spent making the kids' lunches, there's a lot of suspense. Will they finally eat the veggies? Will the pasto survive the first bite?

Will the lunchbox come home empty, half full, or come home at all? And will you finish episode 8 before you're done slicing the cucumbers? Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Craved Netflix and Disney Plus from $94 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.orgia for details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. I'm Jake Brennan, and on my podcast, Hollywoodland, I revisit some of the biggest stories from Hollywood history. separating the myths people want to believe from the reality underneath them.

Like how the story of Marilyn Monroe isn't just the story of a Hollywood icon. Marilyn Monroe has become so iconic that her death can only be explained through conspiracy theories. And for some fans who can't let go, these stories have metastasized from conjecture to accepted fact. So on August 4, 1962, Marilyn Monroe died. Then the rumors started, and she died again. And now, we're going to set the record straight and learn about the way Marilyn Monroe actually died the third way. Learn more about what happens when fame, media obsession, and conspiracy collide.

Listen to Hollywoodland on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome aboard Season 6 of The Girlfriends, Flight or Fight, which takes place 30,000 feet in the guy. There's great food, comfortable chairs, and attentive stewardesses. The stewardesses were so beautiful. But in reality, the stewardess job is far less glamorous than it appears. It was the most sexist job I think you could have. In this era, the airlines told these stewardesses they have to be single. They had no good excuse for why they wouldn't let women be married. They have to be skinny. We were starving ourselves.

And they have to be young. You would retire at age 32. But one day, a group of stewardesses said, This has got to stop. They risked it all, turning a fight for fairness into a revolution. Listen to The Girlfriends, Flight or Fight, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brendan Mullen had been thinking a lot about Jane King

in the week since her murder back in November of 1977. The fact that she frequented his club made all this hillside strangler boogeyman bullshit strike way closer to home than it would have otherwise. It was also impossible not to think about the killer's latest victim, Kimberly Martin, about how the neighbors had heard her scream in that empty Hollywood apartment,

but didn't do anything about it at the time. Mullins' club, the mask, was not empty like that Hollywood apartment, but it would be all too easy for someone to overwhelm a woman down here in the shadows away from the throng and for the women's subsequent shrieks to be drowned out by an ear-splitting performance by the germs or the bags. And so, Brendan Mullen came to think about the protection of the community that gathered nightly at his punk rock club. Yes, Alice Bagg was formidable. Yes, Alice Bagg was formidable. Yes, Alice. Alice Bagg was loyal. And yes, Alice Bagg standing in the pair of heels she bought at Fredericks of

Hollywood, well, she was also tall. But with a serial killer still at large, everyone would feel a little safer if there was some added muscle and menace to keep an eye on things. This is how Brendan Mullen came to hire a six-four, 350-pound security guard. The guard was called Tiny, a nickname meant to inject a little levity into the whole situation, and it did. But Tiny's presence was a nightly reminder of the threat that continued to loom over every facet of everyday life, including nights out at the punk rock club where letting your guard down and giving yourself over to the music was never meant to be an overture to getting yourself killed. The Hillside Strangler, or Strangler, as the cops and the press now assumed, were on everyone's worried mind in Los Angeles as

1977 gave way to 1978. The punk rockers were no exception. And there was even a short-lived band on the scene at the time, F-word, which had begun performing a new song called Hillside Strangler. Protection was paramount. And there was strength in numbers, and best to stick together and ride out the crime wave as a group. So one by one, many of the mass regulars moved into the nearby Canterbury apartments,

and they did so for three reasons. One, the Canterbury was only a block from the mask. Two, the rent was dirt cheap. And three, the building's manager did not look upon punk culture with the same kind of disdain and disgust as many others did. These weren't shiftless layabouts. Alice Bagg, for one, worked a day job as a trainer at Jack La Lane's gym in Monteverla. So Alice, her boyfriend, Nikki Beatt, Belinda Carlyle,

Belinda's soon-to-be bandmate Jane Whiteland, aka Jane Drano, in all kinds of the usual suspects you'd catch at Brendan Mullins Club on any given night, were now populating every floor of the nearby Canterbury apartments. But life at the Canterbury wasn't all light. Darkness was creeping in. Just like the darkness had been creeping into the mask and into just about every neighborhood in Los Angeles proper for months. One of Alice's roommates was shooting up Dilaudid and was about to move on to heroin. Later, she would convince Alice to shoot junk with her.

But at the moment, this was as close to the drug as Alice would let herself get. If the needle itself didn't scare you, there was the specter of addiction. And then, after addiction, came the debts. Alice's other roommate owed money to dealers, who were keen to get paid by any means necessary. Every knock now elicited a high-strung response. On the other side of that door could be a friendly face. someone from one of the bands you were on the bill with later that night, or it could be one devil or another coming to get his due.

But it wasn't the devil that came for the mask. It was the city of Los Angeles. On January 14, 1978, fire marshal shut down the punk club for code violations. Something about poor ventilation and lack of egress. In other words, lack of protection. It was a time of change. Giza X and Joe and Nini were fired from the bags.

Johnny Nation and Ricky Sticks were hired as their replacements. At a bags gig in San Francisco, Sid Vicious in town with sex pistols, stumbled on stage and draped his junkie arm around Alice's neck. In doing so, he gave the L.A.F. starts the UK's ringing endorsement. But it was a story told by someone who had soon dated a different bassist in a different UK punk band that reminded Alice Bagg why she was. she felt the need to protect this little scene that was feeling more and more fragile at every turn.

In 1979, San Francisco-based Pearl E. Gates, aka Pearl Harbor would release her self-titled debut album with her band, Pearl Harbor, and the Explosions. Shortly thereafter, she would perform Wanda Jackson's Fujiamma Mama on stage with The Clash in Tokyo, and before long marry the band's bass player, Paul Simonit. But before all that, there was Pearl story, as told to Alice Bagg. And it went something like this. Pearl Harbor was leaving the whiskey on the sunset strip. And as she walked along the sidewalk, she could hear a car slowly following her from behind.

She shot a glance over her shoulder. Two men, one behind the wheel and another riding shotgun. Her pulse and her feet quickened. The car lurched forward and the brakes squeaked. The driver jumped out. He was wearing a policeman's uniform. Pearl thought of what she happened to be wearing, and then it all made sense. Her miniskirt, her fishnet stockings, total punk provocation. And no doubt this cop here had mistaken her for a sex worker. She tried to explain, but it was of no use, and she was manhandled into the back of the unmarked car. Then they were off. The driver

couldn't keep his mouth shut. He told Pearl she was a cheap whore, a slut. they would teach her a lesson. Now Pearl really began to panic. She knew they were going to kill her. She could hear it in their voices. And she begged them not to do it. She begged them to stop the car and let her out. Please, just, please, just stop.

Pearl Harbor couldn't be so sure when the unmarked car pulled over to the side of the road and the two men finally let her go. Seconds had long since turned into minutes and minutes into hours. But later, when she told this story to Alice, and then even beyond them, when it was revealed that the two men driving around Los Angeles and strangling young women often posed as police officers,

clarity came fast. Pearl Harbor was positive that she had taken a ride with the hillside stranglers and lived to talk about it. Ten other women in Los Angeles wouldn't be so lucky, including a 20-year-old waitress named Cindy Hudspeth. The orange Dotson was found some 50 feet down an embankment off the Angeles Crest Highway due north of downtown L.A.

Stuffed inside the trunk, police found the body. It was February 17th, 1978. One month since the fire marshal had shut down the mask and two months since the last victim

of the hillside stranglers had been discovered. The previous afternoon, the Dotson was tooling around Glendale with Cindy Hutzbeth in the driver's seat. She'd worked her ass off to afford the Dotson. She earned the most of the Dotson.

money. She made the down payment, and for the first time in her life, she had her own vehicle, her own apartment, and a newfound sense of freedom. It was close to quitting time when she pulled into the upholstery shop in Glendale. The idea was to get a quote on some work to customize the Dotson's interior. Make the car more her own. She found the owner, a man in his 40s. He was helpful, even though it was obvious that he was annoyed that she walked in just as he was about to close up. But his mood changed when the door to the shop swung open and another man walked inside. This guy was younger, 20-something. It was obvious that the two men knew each other. Cindy had no idea that they were cousins. She also had no idea that these were the same two men who had given

Jane King a ride home when she was waiting for her bus late one night some three months prior. Furthermore, she did not know their names. Angelo Buono Jr. and Kenneth Bianchi. She was unaware that Buenos little upholstery shop was more than an upholstery shop. It was hell. It was a shop of horrors

where unspeakable crimes were being carried out against young women week after week and month after month. Sexual assault, torture, strangulation, murder.

Cindy Hudspeth would never drive her Orange Dotson again. Instead, she would take her last breath here in this appolster shop. And at that moment, Vono and Bianchi will claim their 10th victim. For 10 months, following the murder of Cindy Hudsveth in February 1978, Los Angeles held its collective breath. Ten months, waiting for the hillside stranglers to strike again. But there were no more bodies for the public to gossip about.

And there were no more clues or leads for the cops to follow. There was only fraught anticipation, endless dread, and an increasingly false sense of security. You were either on constant lookout for a new and improved way to protect yourself, or you were slowly lulled into the idea that there was nothing left to protect. Alice Bagg was going through a similar crisis of faith. The violence that had been building up at Baggs shows was now spilling into her personal life. Soon, she and Nikki Beat would break up, a split. punctuated by a metal belt buckle which Alice used to strike Nikki in the face.

Things weren't quite that extreme yet, but they were getting there. Someone was setting fires in the Canterbury. The mask was scrambling to find a new location for the small but mighty punk community to call home. And one of the newest members of the bags, either Johnny Nation or Ricky Sticks, was stealing from the rest of the group. So Johnny and Ricky were out and once again Nikki was sitting in as the bag's drummer. And it was this lineup that soon got the call up to perform at a music industry institution. No punk band had ever played Doug Weston's Trubodore, the venue on Santa Monica Boulevard that had launched the careers of Elton John, Jackson Brown, and the fucking Eagles.

In 1978, the bags were the first punk band to grace the troubador stage, and they would also be the last for some time. Alice wasn't surprised to see singer-songwriter Tom Waits in the crowd at the Troubert. Word around town was that Tom, like many a player in the Los Angeles music ecosystem, had an interest in Alice's group, the Bags. Perhaps a perverse interest, but an interest nonetheless. The attention was flattering, but it was also kind of meaningless, too, because why would it matter whether Tom Waits liked them or not? How would it help a loud, fast, and violent punk group to make nice

with a guy who was on the same record label as Linda Ronstadt, Judy Sill, and Warren Zevon. But there was Tom, straight from the corner of Heartbreak and Vine, front row pork pie hat, lung dart, four sheets to the wind, Tom Traubord style. Alice was almost impressed that he'd actually made it. But Nikki Beat was not impressed in the least. Nikki Beat had caught another word around town, this one in which Tom Waits fancied Alice for himself, and declared Nicky a dipsheet. So before the bags began their unprecedented set,

Nikki Beak grabbed the microphone, looked first row sitting Tom weights in the eye, and called them an asshole and a cunt. And then the bags started playing. The troubadour was pandemonium, people hanging from the rafters, glasses and chairs tossed wildly in the air, and the place was trashed. When the punks weren't biting the hand that fed them,

they were gnawing it off at the wrist. And after the show, it became clear what was going to happen next. Alice watched Trubodore staff hustle everyone out, everyone except for the bags, Tom Waits, and a couple of the street smart, street tough people that he was rolling with. Tom Waits and his guys surrounded Nicky B. It wasn't clear to Alice who threw the first punch. But once cooler heads prevailed,

once Tom and Nikki were pulled off of each other, Doug Weston had already come to his inevitable conclusion. The Bags would never play his club again, and neither would any other L.A. punk band for that matter. at least not for a long, long time. The grand social experiment of the bags of the troubadour reinforced Alice's reluctance to compromise her artistic values or to assimilate just for the sake of being part of a more popular club.

Besides, there are all these people in the punk scene, people just like her, the misfits, the weirdos, the outcasts, and they needed her. Tom Waits did not need her. But as the months wore on, it became obvious that Alice needed to protect her. above all else. There were more bands from more clubs, like Madame Wong's, which blacklisted the bags for causing a riot. There was more follow, like when filmmaker Penelope Sphiris

captured the L.A. punk scene in the excellent documentary, the decline of Western civilization, a doc which preceded the breakup of the bags when former band member Patricia Morrison tried to block its release by claiming she owned the copyright to the bag's name. This is why the bags are accredited in the documentary as the Alice Bag Band, but I digress. And of course, there were more drugs. Specifically, the aforementioned heroin, which was creeping back into Alice's life when she joined a new band called the Castration Squad along with her roommate, that roommate being the one who finally convinced Alice to shoot up.

So in order to save herself from self-destruction, and any collateral damage is sustained by the oncoming implosion of the LA punk scene, a scene which splintered into the emerging genres of New Wave in 80s pop, Alice Bagg left the Canterbury, left the punks, and went home to her parents' place in East L.A. In 1984, Alice Bagg earned her bachelor's degree in philosophy and began teaching kindergarten. That was the same year that one of the two hillside stranglers, Kenneth Bianchi, was sentenced to life and prison. Five years earlier in January in January 1979, Bianchi had finally been caught and placed under arrest for the murders of two young women in Bellingham, Washington. At the time, it had been nearly a year since the Strangler's last victim was discovered.

Bianchi confessed to the Washington murders as well as some of the L.A. murders. But his confession came with the admission that he'd done so with the help of his adoptive cousin, Angelo Bono Jr. Buono was also eventually sentenced to life just months before Bianchi. and then it seemed L.A.'s long nightmare was over. However, a new nightmare was just beginning. Because as the hillside stranglers were being walked out of the courtroom and into a prison where they live out the rest of their days, another force of evil took to the streets of the city of angels.

A six-foot tall man with eyes as black as his hair ambled through the streets of L.A. with the devil's business on his brain. Soon the city would realize that it was once again being, held in the grip of a homicidal maniac. Because evil, just like punk rock and just like rock and roll, is repetitive by nature. There is a cycle. L.A. takes in these people and they are recycled out for the next coming wave.

And there go the bags, and here comes black flag. And there go the hillside stranglers. And here comes Richard Ramirez, the nightstocker. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. All right, guys, thanks for checking out this Disgraceland episode on Alice Bagg. Hit me up and let me know what other foundational artists from Seminole Underground scenes. Should we know about? Alice Bag, obviously.

Not a household name by any stretch, but super important to the scene that she came from. Give us other examples. 617-906-6638 voicemail. on text, you might hear your answer on the next afterparty. Or you can hit me up on the socialist at Disgracelandpod or email me, disgracelandpod at gmail.com. Here comes some credits. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis,

The Exactly Right Network, and IHeart Podcasts. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelampod.com. If you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can be able to be. Become a member right now by going to disgracellandpod.com slash membership.

Members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland ad free. Rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook at DisgracelandPod, and on YouTube at YouTube.com slash at Disgraceland Pod. Rockerola. On August 4th, 1962, Marilyn Monroe died. Then the rumors started, and she died again. And now we're going to set the record straight. and learn about the way Marilyn Monroe actually died, the third way.

I'm Jake Brennan, and on my podcast, Hollywoodland, I revisit some of the biggest stories from Hollywood history, separating the myths people want to believe from the reality underneath them. Hollywoodland is part of the Exactly Right Network. Listen to new episodes every Monday on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome aboard Season 6 of The Girlfriends, Flight or Fight, which takes place 30,000 feet in the sky.

A beautiful woman smiles and hands you a scotch. But you have no idea just how messed up her job actually is. It was the most sexist job I think you could have. Until one day, a group of stewardesses spark a revolution that reshapes America. Listen to The Girlfriends, Flight or Fight, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. This season, we've got some awesome guests ready to dole out advice.

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Sherry O'Terry, Anna Farris, Dave Franco. Madeline Klein, Adam Scott, T.S. Madison, and more. Listen to Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.