Vexing: Female Voices from East L.A. Punk

28 years ago, two women, Chicanas, were about to become an important footnote in music history. Teresa Covarruvias (from the band The Brats) and Alice Armendáriz (of The Bags) rented out the second floor of Self Help Graphics and turned it into Vex, East L.A. punk central. Vex was like a second home to many punk kids that were rejected by their family for being punk, and also rejected by the punks for being Latino.

The Claremont Museum’s present exhibition, Vexing: Female Voices from East L.A. Punk, documents this important era in Los Angeles music history.

The Vex gave a chance to punk groups that had hit a dead end, like Teresa Covarrubias states in Tu Ciudad magazine, “I guess it was 1979 it was imposible to get a show in Hollywood. You had to know somebody who ran a club or somebody in a band to get shows”.

Punk’s collective feelings of rejection and anger created an intense connection between different artists; this was magnified with Latino punks since their roots don’t completely fit with the conventional punks.

Not unlike other trailblazers, the kids that started the East L.A. punk movement were not conscious of the legacy they were creating. To them, they just felt like they didn't fit in the Hollywood punk scene and simply confined themselves to creating something with the same line of thought and lifestyle of punks but on the other hand it was something that defined it and its people.

The Claremont Museum’s exhibit offers us a small portal into this time of new musical exploration. Running until August 31, the Vexing exhibition paints a picture of that era through photographs, video, and paintings.

Vexing: Female Voices from East L.A. Punk
The Claremont Museum
536 W First St
Claremont, CA 91711
Until August 31st