Eastside Punks, Episode 2: The Brat

The Brat
In our second installment of Eastside Punks, we focus on East L.A. legends The Brat. Formed in the late 1970s, vocalist Teresa Covarrubias, guitarists Rudy Medina and Sidney Medina, bassist Lou Soto, and drummer Robert Soto quickly cornered the market on smart, taut pop delivered with righteous punk fury by one of the tightest bands in the area. Often associated with the scene centered around Joe Suquette, Sister Karen Boccalero, and Willie Herrón’s legendary early-’80s eastside punk club The Vex, a memorable meeting with members of X led to an opening slot at the Whisky A Go Go and their introduction to the greater Los Angeles underground music scene. Their Fatima Records debut EP, Attitudes, is a prized item among collectors and, along with two tracks on the Los Angelinos compilation, was their sole released output before disbanding in the mid-’80s. Still active musicians, assorted members went on to play in Las Tres, Knucklebone, La Bestia, and Los Vex Pistols, among others, and the Brat’s legacy continues via their inclusion in a number of books and exhibitions chronicling the history of Los Angeles punk rock. As demonstrated by the recently released Straight Outta East L.A., a collection of their assorted recordings, The Brat remains one of eastside punk rock’s best, unique groups.

Eastside Punks is a film series about Los Angeles’s other punk scene, one whose existence has developed parallel to, and occasionally intersected with, but remains largely marginalized from L.A.’s greater musical underground. Blending live footage and interviews with multiple generations of musicians, artists, writers and scenesters, Eastside Punks taps into stories from the scene’s history: from its beginnings in East L.A.’s art and music underground of the 1970s to the rise and fall of its premier club, The Vex, and the bands that called it home; how its 1980s rebirth as a wholly underground scene based in backyards and advertised on flyers and traded cassette tapes led to the celebrated Chicano Groove music scene of the late 1990s; and how it remains a vibrant subculture where Chicano rasquachismo meets punk DIY to create one of the few remaining corners of punk’s true underground.

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