40 years after they roamed the punk-strewn urban wasteland of early-80s NYC, Bag People are here to be heard (by most of us for the first time)! Their recorded music, seemingly lost to time, has been miraculously found — and now, twelve of their songs have been packed up as a self-titled album for sweet release on March 28. The second single “Blessed Ignorance” is out today!
Recorded at their practice space, the Bags sound monstrous on “Blessed Ignorance”. Carolyn Master and Gaylene Goudreau’s clutch of guitars gnash against the track’s funky rhythm, locked down by bassist Algis Kizys (Swans) and drummer Pete Elwyn. This crusty thrash groove drives a lyric decrying the gray areas between one man’s bliss and another’s ignorance, with a siren-esque lead vocal from Diane Wlezien drawing us ever-closer to destruction.
Carolyn, Gaylene and Diane initially started out in an all-girl group called Lois Lane in L.A. before reforming in Chicago as Bag People in 1981, relocating to NYC’s atomized urban interior in late ’82. They only lasted a few years — the group dissolved in July of 1984 — but they fit right in with next-door contemporaries like Sonic Youth, Rat at Rat R, Live Skull, and False Prophets. Bag People made a righteous puke of art-punk during a time of incredible brokenness in the world — in other words, savage sounds for today! Hear Bag People, at long last, on March 28, 2025.
