#Link Wray Album

[genericamentegiuseppe]

Link Wray - Link Wray

"Link Wray" è uno dei ritorni più ispirati e genuini della storia del rock, un album che segna un passaggio, quello dall'egemonia della British Invasion alla stagione frammentata e idiosincratica degli anni settanta. Insomma: un classico.

Negli anni cinquanta Link Wray era uno dei più radicali chitarristi di una scena rock strumentale vivace e in crescita, nel 1971 invece viveva nella fattoria di famiglia e nessuna major aveva intenzione di bussare alla porta di un quarantaduenne nativo americano. Eppure “Link Wray” è uno dei ritorni più ispirati e genuini della storia del rock, un album che segna un passaggio, quello…

[krispyweiss]

Album Review: Julian Lage - Speak to Me

Acoustic or electric, esoteric or tightly composed, the 13 tracks comprising Julian Lage’s Speak to Me are good for an hour of sometimes-challenging, more-often-engaging interaction with the guitarist.

It’s an LP unlikely to satisfy either jazz or rock ‘n’ roll purists. But for those fans who straddle the blurry line between genres, Lage continues to offer a thick menu of musical offerings designed to sate.

Recording with his trio - bassist Jorge Roeder and drummer Dave King - with contributions from saxophonist Levon Henry and keyboardist Patrick Warren sprinkled throughout, Lage uses Speak to Me to wordlessly explore his many influences and tastes.

So it transpires that a plugged-in Lage surfs over a wave of rhythm section, piano and sax toward Link Wray on “Northern Shuffle;” fills in the gaps between Paul McCartney’s “That Would be Something” and the Allman Brothers Band’s “Melissa” on the glistening and wooden “Omission;” imagines how the Vince Guaraldi Trio might have sounded had the bandleader been a guitarist on “Serenade;” and takes a small nip of “Tequila” on the title cut.

While the preceding assist in mainstreaming jazz, Lage nods toward the opaque on several tracks where formlessness rules. These include such numbers as “South Mountain,” “Vanishing Points,” “Tiburon” and “Nothing Happens Here.”

Grade card: Julian Lage - Speak to Me - B-

4/30/24

[myvinylplaylist]

Link Wray: Jack The Ripper (1963)

Test Pressing of the 2007 Vinyl Reissue.

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Dolores del Río (Flying Down to Rio, Flor silvestre)—to begin with, dolores is so RADIANTLY BEAUTIFUL, even more so in action then in images, its like she emits a literal glow. marlene dietrich (a close friend and rumored lover) considered her "the most beautiful woman who ever set foot in hollywood". she was the first mexican actress to become a major success in hollywood, rising to fame in the silent era and becoming an influential icon of beauty and glamor in the art deco age, though she was not thrilled with the exoticizing parts often pushed on her. in the mid 1940s having tired of the controlling hollywood studio system she returned to mexico, saying "I wish to choose my own stories, my own director and cameraman. I can accomplish this better in mexico", and proceeded to become a pivotal figure in the golden age of mexican cinema, making a string of masterpieces with directir emilio fernández and cinematographer gabriel figueroa. i love this anecdote about the insane art deco mansion she and her then-husband cedric gibbons lived in in the 30s, as related by david niven: "Dolores had a large sunny room on the first floor containing a huge and inviting bed. Gibbons lived in comparative squalor in a small room immediately below. The only connection between these rooms was by way of a stepladder, which could be lowered only when a trapdoor in the floor of Dolores room had been raised. There was a long stick with which, we conjectured, he signaled his intention or hopes by rapping out signals on the floor of his wife’s bedchamber." heres a pinterest album with a billion hot pictures of her

Fay Wray (King Kong)— the original scream queen!! she started acting in silent comedies as a teenager and got her first big break when erich von stroheim cast her as the lead in the wedding march. her career started to take off starring in silent movies at paramount, and she survived the transition to sound smoothly - josef von sternberg’s weird proto-noir thunderbolt was one of her first sound films. she began to make horror movies in the early 1930s, such as doctor x and mystery of the wax museum, both filmed in beautiful two-strip technicolor (which looked like this if you're curious. i just think it's neat!), as well as the vampire bat, the most dangerous game, and of course the boy himself, king kong. a little on how she worked with her most famous costar: “Although Kong appeared huge, the full figure was a model covered with rabbit hair, standing only 18 inches tall, that was filmed one frame at a time by stop-motion photography artist Willis O'Brien and his crew. The 5ft 3in Wray only knew one part of the ape's body when she was grasped in an articulated 8ft long hand. Hence the title of her 1989 autobiography, On The Other Hand. ‘I would stand on the floor,’ she recalled, ‘and they would bring this arm down and cinch it around my waist, then pull me up in the air. Every time I moved, one of the fingers would loosen, so it would look like I was trying to get away. Actually, I was trying not to slip through his hand.’” (link)

This is round 2 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Dolores del Rio:

There's so much! She started in Silent films and successfully transitioned to sound, She is the first woman to wear a two piece swimsuit on screen & popularized the bikini!, She transitioned back to Mexican Cinema in the late 1940s and was a leading lady of the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema including staring in Maria Candelaria--the first Mexican film to win the palm d'Or at Cannes. She was literally studied for her beauty & was considered a beauty ideal in both the USA & Mexico--there's a whole section on her Wikipedia page about how beautiful everyone thinks she was. She never actually had a feud with any of the female stars she was rumored to feud with despite the fact that press & Hollywood culture attempted to pain them in competition... She remained a leader in Mexican theater & Cinema through her own production company. Mexican painter Diego Rivera: "The most beautiful, the most gorgeous of the west, east, north and south. I'm in love with her as 40 million Mexicans and 120 million Americans who can't be wrong" (quote source: Wikipedia)

*fan self* Leading actress in silents and early Hollywood. Lover of Orson Welles until she got fed up with him, friend of Diego Rivera and Frieda Kahlo. When she got tired of Hollywood executives typecasting her as a stereotypical spitfire (and trying to force her to feud with Lupe Velez as a publicity stunt), she ditched Hollywood and became a major star of Mexican cinema, where she got to play rounded characters

Had a career in American cinema in the 20s and 30s and considered one of the most important figures in the Golden Age of Mexican cinema (30s to 50s).

Marlene Dietrich said Dolores was the most beautiful woman to set foot in Hollywood

Joan Crawford: "Dolores became, and remains, as one of the most beautiful stars in the world."

One of the few Latin American women working in the Hollywood industry to make it big not just in hre home country but internationally. In 1931, Photoplay magazine declared that Mexican film actress Dolores del Rio had the "best figure in Hollywood." (which I know not necessarily a good barometer) but! it shows that many people looked at her for her beauty and sought to emulate her. Famous for her years-long love affair with actor and director Orson Welles, who was 10 years her junior if that's anything.

We need more hispanic representation in this!! Del Río is one of the most important actresses of her time as she was one of the first Mexican movie stars to break through to Hollywood! She’s unbelievably sexy and an absolute icon. Thank you :)

Fay Wray:

Actress prominently known for starring in horror, she was one of cinema's original "scream queens". She knocks it out of the park whenever she's with the horror genre, bringing a depth and likability to characters that would other be flat and boring characters.

An early scream queen, name me another woman who could look so beautiful while so disheveled and scared for her life

She was name-dropped not once but TWICE in the Rocky Horror Picture Show. She's arguably the original Scream Queen.

[lovemkx]

mileskane ANNOUNCEMENT 📣 new project baby 🏄‍♂️

Guys I'm so buzzing to tell you about my new side project - Miles Kane and The Evils 💀🌊

It's an all instrumental EP that I wrote and recorded with my bovs @.davidbardon and @.sholtomusic that'll be exclusively released on @.recordstoreday (20th April) as a limited run in GREEN vinyl 🐢 🦖 🦎 🐊

Surf guitar has been a passion of mine since day one. Hearing Dick Dale in Pulp Fiction for the first time as a kid blew my mind. I connected with the sound immediately. Even going back further as a kid hearing the Batman theme, the Pink Panther theme and James Bond, I was obsessed - I would listen over and over to those theme songs! When I was a teenager, I heard Link Wray for the first time, and it changed my life. I thought, 'that is the guitarist I wanna be-twang-whammy bar-reverb-tremolo!' That has been my guitar sound on every album l've made from The Little Flames to The Rascals to The Puppets and my solo albums! This surf mini album is me having my guitar front and centre imagining I'm in a cool badass Tarantino film.

I can't wait for you guys to hear it, go and grab a copy from your local record store on 20th April, you can find your nearest one from the @.recordstoreday website, surf's up babyyyyy 🏄‍♂️ #rds24

Artwork @.scribblercreative

Photo @.ogden.ewan

[cleolinda]

Weekend links, April 14, 2024

My posts

Honestly, I spent much of the week coping with storm migraines. You can tell, because I was reblogging a lot from under a cold compress rather than doing anything useful with life. 

Reblogs of interest

The Hot Vintage Lady Polls are rough out there, y’all. Round three started closing yesterday (see what’s still open here), and as of this writing, we have lost Bette Davis, Alla Nazimova, Theda Bara, Myrna Loy, Barbra Streisand, Fay Wray, Lucille Ball, Ginger Rogers, and Olivia de Havilland--and it looks like Catherine Deneuve, Clara Bow, Lana Turner, and Mary Pickford are on their way out. Meanwhile, I learned about a ton of actresses I’d never heard of before, only to shriek when Sharmila Tagore, Nadira, and Waheeda Rehman lost this round. (Edwige, I will never forget you.) 

Let me remind you (and me sometimes, too): Not everyone has the same taste or childhood attachments or cinema experiences as you. And everybody in this bracket loses. Everybody but one. 

(I can tell I’m not cut out for brawling because I’m like, “I will be very sad to see Norma Shearer go, but Hazel Scott seems nice!”)

--

“Actually, Mr. Musk, I am an attorney. Do you know that?” Here’s the highlights of Mark Bankston, the man who brought down Alex Jones, coping with Elon Musk and Elon Musk’s Lawyer, who is not even licensed in Texas, for 100 pages of deposition. 

Hozier Watch 2024: “Too Sweet” has now charted higher in the UK than “Take Me to Church,” and it’s getting real close on the US charts. This is a song that didn’t even make last year’s album. I am endlessly fascinated. 

Happy Leland Melvin Day!

Happy Neil Banging Out the Tunes Day!

“Posting endless DNIs because we can’t (or don’t know we can) make spaces just for the people we do want to interact with” actually makes a lot of sense in this centralized social media hellscape. 

There is a 20k mg weed gummy and nobody needs that. “Forget meeting the Hat Man this is what turns you into the Hat Man. This is worse than that torture drug that makes you experience 600 billion years in a second. This is the secret to honest to god shifting.” 

One of the best uses of the Kate Beaton Poe comic I’ve ever seen

“Americanisms that tell you to check on your American” (they are all correct)

“Tuxedo Mask is the first example of being ‘Kenough’”

Just this once, I will allow this AI rendition of a “traditional Polish family” and their traditional Polish woodchuck. 

I am absolutely not saying there is anything wrong with being into tentacles; I’m just saying that Pyramid Head doesn’t even have them and thus is a pretty tame choice to complain about. 

Little Guy, a game

A cursèd chair called “Oops!”

Sparrow Tarot: Honestly, this is one of my favorite takes on the Hanged Man.

This dog is a biscuit and she is precious

Video

One of the things that’s so great about this Ilia Malinin free-skate program is, he makes it look so effortless that I would have never figured out on my own, without Tumblr’s commentary, that there’s a couple moves in here that no one in the world can do but him. Like, the very first jump and the announcers start screaming. 

A journey from fearing moths to raising them

A dude puts on a dress For the Meme and then discovers that he loves it (and then he styles it as a full outfit and it looks SO GOOD)

Watching this cat ride around on a roomba on a sped-up surveillance camera is self-care.

So is this (although it’s a bit strobe-y)

Bat type: hi doggy

Was the jello for the tuna salad lamb supposed to be lime?

The sacred texts

Holy Shit, Two Cakes

The origin of “Me, an intellectual”

#AllMyLifeIHadToFight

Personal tag of the week

Designer Roberto Cavalli, who passed away this week at age 83. I reblogged several fashion posts--I hadn’t even realized myself that he had designed Beyoncé’s famous yellow dress in Lemonade.

[musicandotherstuff]

mileskane ANNOUNCEMENT 📣 new project baby 🏄‍♂️

Guys I'm so buzzing to tell you about my new side project - Miles Kane and The Evils💀 🌊

It's an all instrumental EP that I wrote and recorded with my boys @/david_bardon and @/sholtomusic that'll be exclusively released on @/recordstoreday (20th April) as a limited run in GREEN vinyl 🐢🦖🦎🐊

Surf guitar has been a passion of mine since day one. Hearing Dick Dale in Pulp Fiction for the first time as a kid blew my mind. I connected with the sound immediately. Even going back further as a kid hearing the Batman theme, the Pink Panther theme and James Bond, I was obsessed - I would listen over and over to those theme songs! When I was a teenager, I heard Link Wray for the first time, and it changed my life. I thought, 'that is the guitarist I wanna be-twang-whammy bar-reverb-tremolo!' That has been my guitar sound on every album I've made from The Little Flames to The Rascals to The Puppets and my solo albums! This surf mini album is me having my guitar front and centre imagining I'm in a cool badass Tarantino film.

I can't wait for you guys to hear it, go and grab a copy from your local record store on 20th April, you can find your nearest one from the @recordstoreday website, surf's up babyyyyy 🏄‍♂️ #rsd24

Artwork: @/scribblercreative

Photo: @/ogden.ewan

[randomvarious]

Today’s compilation:

James Dean: Tribute to a Rebel 1991 Rock & Roll / Pop-Rock / Hot Rod / Instrumental Rock / Teen Tragedies

Well, this album definitely felt a bit weird and ham-fisted. Normally, tribute albums are made in order to celebrate and honor the legacy of a certain artist or band, but in this case, Capitol-EMI sublabel CEMA Special Markets thought it a good idea to celebrate and honor the legacy of someone who *was not* a musician: the posterchild for mid-50s male youth rebellion himself, James Dean.

But only a few of the songs on this album actually seem to make any reference to the guy at all: the opening classic bit of minimalist 1974 brilliance, David Essex's "Rock On," mentions Dean's name directly; the closing somber a cappella done by The Beach Boys, "A Young Man Is Gone," is a lyrically revised version of The Four Freshmen's rendition of a song called "Their Hearts Were Full of Spring," and is a clear ode to Dean himself; and an obscure, sweltering, mid-60s hot rod instrumental in the middle that feels like it was made for the open road, by Davie Allan & The Arrows, shares the same name as the film that Dean was most famous for starring in: "The Rebel (Without a Cause)."

And before that Arrows one made its way onto this comp, the only other place you could've found it was on an Arrows LP called Apache '65, which was released in, you guessed it, 1965. It wasn't a hit, wasn't released as a single, and it wasn't on any other V/A comp either, so props to whoever was ultimately responsible for compiling this thing for including it, because although it shares the same name as Dean's most famous film, it's also probably the most obscure song on this album. Go figure!

But the rest of these songs don't really seem to have anything to do with James Dean, besides carrying the same themes that wound up defining his persona and story: cars, racing those cars, ungrounded rebelliousness, and tragic motor accidents.

And there are a whole lot of songs out there that are about all of those subjects, so I guess I really just find it kinda odd and crass to try to cash in on this dude's legacy by retrofitting a bunch of songs onto a compilation and then claiming that they somehow specifically represent his very own essence. Can't say that I'm particularly a huge fan of this strange angle.

But still, every song on here, on its own, is nothing short of great. Had CEMA tried to market this collection as something more vague, with a title that's more clever, but basically means the same thing as Songs for and About Cool Dudes😎, this album definitely wouldn't have left as sour of a taste in my mouth as it did.

Great collection of pop and rock oldies that span the 50s through 70s, but an awkward theme to unite them all under, I think. There’s gotta be a classier and more authentic way of celebrating and honoring James Dean than this.

Highlights:

David Essex - "Rock On" Duane Eddy - "Rebel Rouser" The Shangri-Las - "Leader of the Pack" Eddie Cochran - "My Way" Chuck Berry - "No Particular Place to Go" Dion - "The Wanderer" The Arrows - "The Rebel (Without a Cause)" The Allman Brothers Band - "Ramblin' Man" The Beach Boys - "Shut Down" Link Wray - "Rumble" The Rip Chords - "Hey Little Cobra" Gene Vincent - "Race With the Devil" Jan & Dean - "Dead Man's Curve" The Beach Boys - "A Young Man Is Gone"

[dustedmagazine]

The Ar-Kaics — See the World on Fire (Feel It/Dig/Bachelor)

Photo by Shane Brown

See the World on Fire just came out this week, but it feels like a long-lost artifact, a Nuggets gem inexplicably left off the box set, a rough-housing snatch of Strum and Thrum that narrowly escaped revival. There’s a patina of mod-rocking, blues-blustering 1960s rubbed into this album. You’d to find it in the cheap bin at the Salvation Army store, but this band instead exists squarely in the digital age, with a bandcamp page and a deal with punk label of the moment Feel It Records.

But though it’s not a reissue, this album locks into the past, with the slow violent Link Wray-ish-ness of its opening cut “Chains,” the Neil Young channeling blues boogie of “Cornerstone” (which owes more than a little to “Southern Man”), the Seeds-y jangle of “Dawning.” The songs swell in broken crescendo, full of hopeless drama and ragged romance. They flicker in tremulous eighth note cadences. They rear up in blistering fuzz guitar solos. The call and response in “Land of the Blind” is a desperate, desolate thing, as if the leader Johnny isn’t sure there’s anyone out there, if maybe the band got lost wandering through smoldering dystopias.  

Every minute of it matters, though. There’s no let-up in the intensity, the dogged insistence on persevering, the struggle through to thrilling, climactic resolution. Even the longest cut, aptly named “Never Ending” at over nine minutes, has a grooving, sidewinding tension to it in the steady plunk of bass, the chink of closed cymbal, the flowery, rock-star vocals, part Rob Tyner, part Morrison, part Eric Burdon. It saunters slowly, but with purpose, gathering heft and significance as it goes.  And then, just past halfway, it gathers into a churning, headlong maelstrom, psychedelic and untethered. It must be a monster live, you think, and, for a minute you’re sad that you missed it. Then you remember this is not a 1960s relic. It’s still going on, and if you made the trip to Richmond, you might still be able to catch it.  

Jennifer Kelly

[bitter69uk]

“Question: What do Ann-Margret, BB King, Megadeth, Duane Eddy, Dean Martin, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Johnny Cash, Little Peggy March, Steve Allen, Bert Kaempfert, Ry Cooder, Dino, Desi and Billy, Boyd Rice, The Ventures, Einstürzende Neubauten, Petula Clark, Lydia Lunch, Waylon Jennings, the BBC Concert Orchestra, Vanilla Fudge, Billy Ray Cyrus, Dusty Springfield, Link Wray, Amanda Lear, The Surfaris, Destroy All Monsters and Elvis Presley have in common? Answer: All have recorded the music of Lee Hazlewood, the producer / singer / songwriter of classics like “Jackson”, “Sugar Town” and that sixties anthem of defiance and liberation, “These Boots are Made for Walkin’.”  “Boots” was originally recorded by Nancy Sinatra, for whom Lee wrote many of his best songs, and was a number one hit in 1966. Nancy and Lee were the anti-matter Sonny and Cher, oddly arranged fleurs du mal in the flower children’s pot. In the seventies, after a string of hits, Lee left America – and the music industry – for a reclusive, quiet life in Sweden, and all but disappeared.”

/ From the intro to Billy Miller’s 1999 interview with Lee Hazlewood in Index magazine (anyone else remember Index? It was great!) /

“Hard-drinkin’, ultra-manly producer of Native American extraction who first made his name working with twangy guitar slinger Duane Eddy and went on to become the premier auteur of Rat Pack offspring kitsch, writing and producing material for Dino, Desi & Billy and, most notoriously, for Nancy Sinatra. Following a 1973 solo album candidly titled Poet, Fool or Bum, Hazlewood moved to Sweden and made lousy movies.”

/ From The Rock Snob’s Dictionary in Vanity Fair magazine, November 2000 /

Born on this day: psychedelic cowboy with the porn star mustache and inventor of “Country Exotica”, Barton Lee Hazlewood (9 July 1929 - 4 August 2007). His duets with ethereal sex kitten Nancy Sinatra give me life.

[wildwaxshows]

Fr., 24.11.2023, 21:00 Uhr: DESTROY ALL GONDOLAS (IT) + GŪTARA KYŌ (JP) Komet Musik Bar, Hamburg

GŪTARA KYŌ

For our 200th release, we found the ultimate band in Kobe, Japan: GŪTARA KYŌ, which coincidentally roughly translates to “Crazy Slovenlies”. Blaring this record brought us back to the first time we heard BAD BRAINS as teenagers, which sent blood rushing into the skull, pulsing & curdling in our adolescent disbelief & delight, the kind of sensation adults try to recreate by sniffing things into their noses. There is a youthful fury & hilarity in Matsumoto-san’s Japanese hollerings, over a piercing skree from album start to finish which is at times almost painful on the eardrums. Somehow simultaneously harnessing the staggering garage punk exuberance of TEENGENERATE and the blistering hardcore urgency of LOS CRUDOS, perfect imperfection has been achieved on this immaculate 10-inch slab of filth. Previously only available as a CD on Bakudan (JP), now on Slovenly’s Mondo Mongo imprint. (Slovenly)

DESTROY ALL GONDOLAS

Insto-surf pushed to the limit of a frantic black-thrash metal aural assault, “Laguna Di Satana” is a weird garage-punk tale evoking post-apocalyptic, exotic landscapes, often trespassing the wall of sound of hardcore with sporadic bitterly ironic shouted lyrics both in english and italian. In the twisted minds of Destroy All Gondolas references goes from LINK WRAY to BLACK SABBATH to MAYHEM to JOHNNY THUNDERS.

[renerox]

GIRL TROUBLE - Surfadelic Collection !!! (revisited)

. Garage punk band from Tacoma, Washington, formed in 1983. From 1987. to 2003. they released five albums and bunch of singles on different independent labels. Their style is heavily influenced by The Cramps and acts like Link Wray or The Sonics. This is kinda best of collection, a selection of favorite trax from their LPs and singles. If you ain’t familiar with GP this comp will be a fine…

[krispyweiss]

Album Review: Leftover Salmon - Grass Roots

Grass Roots is ostensibly a bluegrass album by Leftover Salmon.

But in reality it is not strictly bluegrass. Nor is it strictly Salmon.

What it is, is a guest-heavy covers album that draws from the likes of Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead, the Delmore Brothers, Link Wray and David Bromberg and features appearances from fiddler Darol Anger, guitarist Billy Strings and singer Oliver Wood.

While such band-only covers of Dylan’s “Simple Twist of Fate” and the Dead’s “Black Peter” are true to the group’s long-running rep, numbers like “Country Blues” (with Anger), “Blue Railroad Train” (Strings) and “Fire and Brimstone” (Wood) result in the supporting musicians becoming temporary, leading members of the main band.

This is Grass Roots’ strength and weakness. Title notwithstanding, the LP doesn’t have a unifying musical theme, giving it a mixtape feel during front-to-back listens and making it better suited for playlist pickings.

Grade card: Leftover Salmon - Grass Roots - C+

6/22/23

[nitebloom]

okay too 5 moments from link wray 1971 chicken shack album????

fire and brimstone DUH!

la de da that song is so satisfying lol <333

juke box mama aka my theme song 😇

fire and brimstone again x2 cuz that song deserves it

fallin rain wistfully looking out an amtrak window vibes

tyyyy!!! <333 luv dis question <333

[odk-2]

Robert Gordon w/ Link Wray - Sea Cruise (1978) Huey "Piano" Smith from: "Fresh Fish Special" (LP) "Sea Cruise" / "The Way I Walk" (Single)

Rock and Roll | Rockabilly Revival | Roots Rock and Roll

JukeHostUK (left click = play) (320kbps)

Personnel: Robert Gordon: Vocals Link Wray: Lead Guitar The Wild Cats: Billy Cross: Rhythm Guitar Rob Stoner: Bass Howie Wyeth: Drums

Richard Gottehrer: Piano

Produced by Richard Gottehrer / Robert Gordon

Recorded: @ Plaza Sound Studios in New York City, New York USA December, 1977

Album Released: on June 15, 1978

Single Released: on June 17, 1978

Private Stock Records

+++ Huey "Piano" Smith 1934 - 2023 +++

[greensparty]

Concert Review: X

Sat. September 2, 2023 @ Wilbur Theatre (Boston, MA)

marquee at The Wilbur

L.A. legends X are having quite a moment this Summer. When Elon Musk decided to re-brand Twitter as X last month, the band X had the perfect response! The band is notable for being a part of the L.A. punk scene in the late 70s / early 80s, but in many ways it is kind of reductive to call them just a punk band as they incorporated so many different styles than just punk. They are a band that are bigger than the sum of their parts: D.J. Bonebrake on drums, Billy Zoom on guitar, John Doe on bass and vocals, and of course singer Exene Cervenka. Earlier this Summer I got to interview Cervenka via phone and discuss the current tour and how they have been able to perform songs off their most recent album Alphabetland, released during the Pandemic in 2020, which was also their first album in 27 years! Going into this concert, I was by no means an expert on X, but I have the utmost respect for their contribution to the L.A. music scene at the time. I have their debut album Los Angeles on vinyl in my collection and I've dug them ever since I saw Penelope Spheeris' doc The Decline of Western Civilization, which features X among a ton of their peers like The Germs and Black Flag. The band's song "Los Angeles" has also accompanied me on my trips to L.A.

X onstage

The opening act was Squirrel Nut Zippers, who I hadn't thought of in a long time. They kind of pre-dated the swing phenomenon of 1998, but had some solid songs. They were fun and got the party started. Then Billy Zoom came out and began playing his guitar and he played along with a recording of Link Wray's "Rumble" as the band came out. The Los Angeles album got the most representation of any of their albums and were among my personal faves. They slipped in a few covers including The Doors' "Soul Kitchen" (The Doors' Ray Manzarek famously produced them and they performed with Robby Krieger) and they played some brand news songs they are planning to record after this tour. This concert is the case for aging gracefully in rock: all of the members are in their 60s and 70s and could mop the floor with bands less than half their age. I mean WOW - Serious punk and rockabilly energy you don't see that often! The co-singing between Doe and Cervenka has always been such a strong part of the band's personality and they didn't miss a beat. Doe is also known for his acting and my favorite role of his was as Julianne Moore's ex-husband in Boogie Nights! But I digress. The entire band is tight!

X with Exene in the spotlight

After the show, I got to go backstage. My interview I did with Cervenka was via phone, so it was really nice to get to meet her in person and she couldn't have been any cooler!

Exene Cervenka and I backstage after the show

For info on X: http://www.xtheband.com/