#bonebrake

[album-imagery]

X

photo by M. Hyatt, 1983

[ridingwithmary]

X photographed by Michal Hyatt in 1981

[bitter69uk]

“Stage left was John Doe. Everybody had a crush on John. Tall and lean, jet-black hair, a sweet, open face and voluptuous mouth, he was classic dreamboat material. Equal parts Woody Guthrie and Elvis Presley, John was the glue who held the entire operation together.”

/ From Kristine McKenna’s liner notes to X’s debut album Los Angeles (1980) /

Happy 71st birthday to brooding frontman of definitive Los Angeles punk band X, poet, musician and actor John Doe (born John Nommensen Duchac, 25 February 1953). Gee – what did Exene Cervenka, Lydia Lunch and Texacala Jones of Tex and The Horseheads ever see in him? As hardcore X fan John Waters has pointed-out, “He’s still beautiful – the last gunslinger in town.” And no man wore a mesh t-shirt better! Pictured: Doe in foreground, with X bandmates DJ Bonebrake, Exene Cervenka and Billy Zoom. Photo by Michael Hyatt, 1981.

[spilladabalia]

X - Sweet Till The Bitter End

[oldpunksgoodstyle]

Holy shit what a lineup!

[kdo-three]

https://archive.org/download/post-punk_82/05%20-%20Under%20The%20Big%20Black%20Sun.mp3

X - Under the Big Black Sun (1982) John Doe / Exene Cervenka from: "Under the Big Black Sun" (LP)

Punk | West Coast Punk | Post Punk

@𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐯𝐞 (left click = play) (320kbps)

Personnel: Exene Cervenka: Lead Vocals Billy Zoom: Guitar John Doe: Bass / Backing Vocals D.J. Bonebrake: Drums

Produced by Ray Manzarek

Recorded: @ The Cherokee Studios in Hollywood, California USA 1982

Released: July 1982 Elektra Records

Reissue: Rhino Records 2001

[theaskew]

Lyrics

She had to leave… Los Angeles All her toys wore out in black and her boys had too She started to hate every nigger and Jew Every Mexican that gave her lotta shit Every homosexual and the idle rich She had to get out She gets confused Flying over the dateline her hands turn red Cause the days change at night change in an instant the days Change at night change in an instant She had to leave Los Angeles She found it hard to say goodbye to her own best friend She bought a clock on Hollywood blvd the day she left It felt sad she had to get out

Songwriters: Charles Thompson

[dinosaursr66]

No band ever appealed to me on such a visceral level as immediately as X. The moment I heard Los Angeles and this song they owned me for life.

SONG OF THE DAY - Monday, September 30, 2024

[myvinylplaylist]

X : Ain't Love Grand (1985)

Elektra Records

[album-imagery]

X : Los Angeles

format: vinyl

[ridingwithmary]

Exene Cervenka, 1979

Photo by Jim Jocoy

[bitter69uk]

Now that 2024 is circling the drain, I’ll start regaling you with my “Favourites of the Year!” “Maybe one reason I like female-fronted punk bands is my mother was a yeller. Gives me a homey feeling,” Nate Lippens muses in Ripcord (my favourite book of 2024 – well, tied for top spot with Candy Darling: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar by Cynthia Carr). “The anger of my old punk albums is still fresh. This fearful rage sung in wild harmonies with sped-up rockabilly guitar riffs is about careening drunk through disappointment and sadness as time slips away, leaving something half-healed and half-wounded. The singer keens, “A life of intermission, a life of intermission …””. Even if you don’t recognize the lyrics to “Beyond and Back” from their 1981 album Wild Gift, you’ll instantly identify the unnamed band Lippens cites as X. The definitive and most enduring of original Los Angeles punk bands released their ninth and final studio recording Smoke & Fiction in August 2024, and it’s my album of the year. All the essential components that make X unique are present and correct. Brevity (the album is 28-minutes long). Despairing low-life beatnik poetry. The fiery zap of Billy Zoom’s punkabilly guitar. Exene Cervenka and John Doe’s signature dissonant, spine-tingling harmonies. And they wail and shred like their lives depend on it. (X still sounds reassuringly desperate!). But Smoke & Fiction is also rueful, with reflections on ageing and the passage of time. Its messages are bittersweet and unconsoling. “There is no upside / Only your flipside / That's where the dark side resides” they conclude on “Flipside”, while on the title track Exene laments “Wrapped up tight in twilight / In a bed I am borrowing / My face turns to sorrowing / When I'm dreaming about tomorrowing / I still hurt a little bit / But there's no cure for this.” If this is indeed X’s swansong (and let’s face it, considering their ages and Zoom’s health travails it probably is), they are ending on a dignified creative high. Pic of Exene via.

[spilladabalia]

X - Big Black X

[ruleof3]

X

[noufuturevision]

[oldpunksgoodstyle]

Some old LA heads