X - Under the Black Sun of Beach-Punk

That poor dog who named one of the farthest reaches of the American West "The City of Angels" didn't have much of an eye; unless, for him, the "angelic" voice was actually the scream of the "devil". Los Angeles, in fact, has undoubtedly been, at least from a musical standpoint, the most violent and heavy city in the world. Hardcore was born in Los Angeles (Germs, Circle Jerks) and developed there (Black Flag, Fear, Flipper, Minutemen, Adolescents, Descendents, Bad Religion, Social Distortion, T.S.O.L., Christian Death); heavy metal was born in Los Angeles too (Metallica). A thousand variants and shades exist along an ideal line running from pure hardcore (Germs) to pure heavy metal (Metallica): dark-punk (Christian Death, T.S.O.L.), college-punk (Descendents, Adolescents), American underground (Black Flag, Fear, Flipper, Minutemen), hardrock-punk (Social Distortion), hardcore-punk (Bad Religion). Clumsily, all of these have been lumped together under the anonymous label of "beach-punk", as if the differences between them were mere nuances or arbitrary quibbles, when in fact they are distinctions that highlight the enormous gaps separating one group from another (differences so stark that, even within a span of just 4 years, from '78 to '82, and within the same city, they suggest light years of difference, as if they belonged to entirely different continents).

In reality, "beach-punk" (that is, English punk reinterpreted along the coastal California of country, blues and rockabilly roots) is a label that fits fully and properly only one of the main bands active in the "City of Angels" between 1978 and 1982: X.

X invented "beach-punk". Just as in '61 (when the future members of X were, on average, 5 years old) the Beach Boys had invented "beach-rock" (or "surf music", if you prefer). One thing unites X and the Beach Boys, and it's not so much their shared homeland (California), but rather the way (nostalgic, melancholy, folk-western) they looked at that homeland, and made others look at it too — a homeland lost, at least in its primal form. A way of looking that, starting from a similar "natural" foundation, diverged all the more sharply between the two groups the more historical and social circumstances shaped the eras in which each came to prominence.

X's era and scope is post-Sex Pistols and fully Joy Division. Faced with this “situation”, there were two options for continuing to survive (i.e. make music): a) push the Sex Pistols principles to their extreme; b) divert them and steer them toward something else. The first choice gives rise to hardcore (rarely truly “pure”, very often “unorthodox”: once Duchamp has drawn a moustache on the Mona Lisa, it's hard to carry on the work); the second gives rise to a myriad of variants, at the two extremes of which lie new wave (Joy Division) on one side and noise (Flipper) on the other. X sit right between these two extremes. They play punk-new wave-noise steeped in beach culture. And their contemporary beach culture was that of the outskirts populated by outcasts, the desperate, the degraded — yet still surviving: hence more revolutionary-vital (rock-punk) than nihilistic-suicidal (hardcore).

X's tragedy is entirely earthbound, and panicked at that, with no room for metaphysical peaks. Hardcore's tragedy will be so far beyond that it no longer even cares about life, death, or pain. New wave is the ferry teetering between the two shores, sometimes docking at the first (Television), sometimes at the second (Joy Division).

Within a medium-to-high quality body of work, few or no rock musicians could put together a greatest-hits collection without losing the meaning each song held within the larger body of work. In fact, this could even serve as a method for telling true “musicians” apart from the fakes who are good for one track and nothing else. X are the exception. From beginning to end, X always did the same thing, always hit the same note; indistinguishable from one record to the next. They invented this note (the collage of punk, rock'n'roll, country and blues that makes up “beach-punk”) in 1980 and carried it through 7 albums, until their breakup in 1993. Yet this note was, as the variety of sources feeding “beach-punk” shows, a complex one: it always left room for exquisitely refined noise jabs/distortions in the style of the Velvet Underground. This note became one of the three main influences adopted by the three respective leaders of Sonic Youth: Thurston Moore (Pere Ubu), Lee Ranaldo (Glenn Branca), Kim Gordon (X).

X formed in 1977 but have always had, and always will have, an '80s sound; they were among the first to establish that sound: it's the new-wave aura, in the Joy Division sense of the term. X (with their noise+melody formula) are among the forebears of grunge as a whole: a movement that only in hindsight came to be seen as an opposition to the “'80s (or Joy Division) sound” via a “'70s sound” (Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains): because when it was born (Mudhoney, Nirvana), it was really nothing more than a continuation and intensification of the mid-'80s noise sound (Squirrel Bait, Dinosaur Jr, Pixies), which was itself already a continuation of the early-'80s noise sound (Flipper, Mission of Burma, Sonic Youth).

X were among the first and foremost punk-rock bands to feature a dark, rebellious femme fatale: her name was Exene Cervenka, she had the prototypical spleen-voice (alienation/harmony/seduction/tragedy/apathy), and at the time she kept company with Siouxsie Sioux, Kat Arthur of Californian punk-metal outfit Legal Weapon, Lydia Lunch, and Wendy Williams of the Plasmatics (the first female metal voice in history). The band's mastermind (who turned the suburban dimension — alternative-bourgeois, post-modern, degraded, self-mocking, ragged, fetishistic, debunking — into his own existential pot-pourri) was bassist and male vocalist John Doe. The guitar (which, through him and a handful of others, traveled all the way from Chuck Berry to noise, straight into Sonic Youth and Pixies) belonged to veteran Billy Zoom (classically trained in rock'n'roll, his exquisitely refined distortions are a key part of X's overall effect). D.J. Bonebrake's drums delivered a booming, lightning-fast garage-rock sound, bending now toward country, now toward punk.

Los Angeles (Slash/Rhino, 1980) is technically on a par with Under The Big Black Sun (Elektra, 1982). After that, still within the beach-punk framework, X's sound drifts further and further toward country, and no longer deserves much consideration. In the first 3 years and the first 3 albums (which are the “real” ones), however, one must distinguish what holds up — not just technically but above all compositionally — from what doesn't. Los Angeles isn't a strong album from a compositional standpoint: it lacks “pretty” songs. Its sole merit is founding a brand new genre from scratch: beach-punk.

Wild Gift (Slash/Rhino, 1981) contains 13 tracks (2 of them masterpieces) and runs 33 minutes. “The Once Over Twice” is an old-school rockabilly number, tormented by what should have been Joy Division's female voice, had they ever had one.

“We're Desperate” is the opening track: a dragging, bluesy punk number that keeps building and building until it folds in on itself: Doe sometimes channels Joe Strummer, while Exene Cervenka makes every detail unique with her unmatched dark-punk tone. “Adult Book” opens on a country-blues bed followed by surf riffs, then rises into an irresistible wail, with Doe and Cervenka united in apathetic anguish. “Universal Corner” returns to punk territory (though still at a mid-level rock pitch: Clash, not Sex Pistols): the noise+melody formula here bends to the classic song structure (which is why X's songs could be taken more as singles than as pieces within a larger album). In terms of message (urban alienation offloaded onto the suburbs/countryside) and form (driven but not overly so; more backdrop than anthem), the track is perfect. “I'm Coming Over” speeds the tempo up further into a sort of droning, experimental cha-cha, confined to the background rather than placed up front. “It's Who You Know” plays on contrast (but X are all about contrast: playful music against infinitely tragic vocals/lyrics; day/night; darkness in full summer and blazing sun) between a mocking boogie and an irremediably (melodically) mournful wail. “In This House That I Call Home” reveals X's cunning trick of first weaving instrumental phrases that are underwhelming in terms of content/interest, then unleashing flashes of pure existential/evocative lyricism (thanks to two of the most fitting voices imaginable for this kind of dirge/enchantment).

“Some Other Time” is the androgynous one, playing the game of death: resignation reigns, where irony is only macabre and happiness only surface-level and plasticized. Chuck Berry-style guitar frenzy and hammering drums seem to distract into a sort of familiar, dazzling trash aesthetic (trash: conceptually, it's X who founded it); the “absolute” voice, melodious in the end, leaves you mourning an authenticity lost forever. “White Girl” is the second masterpiece in order of appearance: a punk ballad marked by visible rock/folk touches, but held together, as usual, by two vocal and existential tones that — through passion, charm, delicate refinement — simply demand compassion. “Beyond And The Back” is a swing number where, as the world seems to march relentlessly forward, it ignores Cervenka's inexhaustibly afflicted, downcast lament at all costs. Laughing at death is laughing with silicone lips: it's choking in a tragically comic way, say, while eating a cherry. “Back 2 The Base” is a syncopated, medium-tension drive: always walking the razor's edge, never quite on one side or the other. “When Our Love Passed Out On The Couch” feels like it wants to swallow, in a wave of snarling, visceral anguish, all the pop ditties it's otherwise parodying. “Year 1” carries on the tragic antinomy between farce and death; the party and the funeral; because the party, first and foremost, is a funeral.

Under The Big Black Sun (Elektra/Rhino, 1982) contiene 11 brani e dura 34′.

“The Hungry Wolf” is a punk/blues number for Doe; the drums hold a brisk pace, then get torn open by Doe's vocal desperation (echoed with as much refinement as emotion by Cervenka). The chorus is so fresh out of the '80s that it passes unscathed into the next decade and right up to the dawn of the grunge era. “Motel Room In My Bed” is a punk/country number rendered, as always, “existential” thanks to two voices that bring everything back to the existential (rather than the ironic — irony belongs to the music, creating an even more piercing effect in contrast with the vocal despair) tale of marginalization, boredom and dismay, whether rural or urban and alienated. “Riding With Mary” is a sly dialogue (conceived, however, as if the two voices, female and male, belonged to a single self: therefore more a monologue) between Cervenka and Doe (the two were husband and wife, but each had such a strong personality that the condition never felt stifling — instead it fueled their respective artistic/existential sensibilities, as it would later for Sonic Youth's Gordon and Moore), both singing about a third protagonist with whom they inevitably both identify: like two tones describing a single personality. An ordinary, unknown, hidden, unnamed personality, yet one charged with enormous existential weight. “Come Back To Me” is a raga/blues number that recalls the earliest proto-punk/new wave: Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane (on whom everyone from Siouxsie Sioux to Kim Gordon would draw). “Under The Big Black Sun” is a punk ballad where Cervenka's bewitching quality reaches its peak: for the first time she seems to focus purely on aesthetics, on surface, on atmosphere, on a sliver of light: she sets aside her existentially ingrained misery and, for one fleeting, fractured moment, shines golden.

“Because I Do” is the album's first masterpiece. The first grunge song in history. X's most violent track. Everyone pushes to the limit. The drums deliver an absolute, devastating intro (then proceed in uncontainable sobs); the guitar is cranked toward rock/metal; Cervenka wails herself raw, pushed to the edge by Doe's furious, faint echoes (filling out the end of each verse). “Blue Spark” is a constant fade-back that finds its momentum thanks to Doe's near-singer-songwriter turn (on this album, X's “heaviest”, he gets more space than Cervenka). “Dancing With Tears In My Eyes” is a '50s swing number dragged into the “pessimistic”, dark dimension of the '80s. “Real Child Of Hell” is the album's other masterpiece. A devastating track. A grunge track. Dry hard-rock riffs, obsessive drumming, scale after scale, building and building: and finally the longed-for, moving melody — and at that climactic point, right at the peak of the chorus's frenzy, few other throats can “pull” it off like Cervenka's and Doe's. “How I (Learned My Lesson)” is a rockabilly number with vague Doors overtones: Zoom, sounding like some bleached-blond German rocker or a '50s variety-show host, plays it up as rock'n'roll to poke fun at the music of his day — and that's his way of being serious. “The Have Nots” recalls (by association of ideas more than musical likeness) the Clash's “Lost In The Supermarket”. Through rockabilly, country and blues, X were hardcore's answer to the Clash: just as the Clash, from “London Calling” onward, stopped making punk and moved on to something else, adapted at most to punk volumes and tempos, X — right from the start — never made hardcore or punk, but rather a revisiting of the era that preceded them, and in particular the golden age of rock'n'roll, of which Zoom was an old-fashioned reviver: the '50s of Jerry Lee. On top of that, they had the “pain of living” to convey, and on that front too they had to learn plenty of lessons (more in content than in form) from its quintessential “bards”: the hardcore bands. In fairness, across their entire career X never played a note that was purely punk or purely hardcore: instead, you'll easily find them steeped in plenty of rock'n'roll, mixed with country and an undercurrent of blues.

More Fun In The New World came out in 1983: and the masters of beautiful damnation remained just that — masters; Ain't Love Grand followed in 1985, See How We Are in '87, Hey Zeus in '93.

Exene Cervenka, having set aside her punk fury in favor of para-new-age ambitions, went on to pursue a solo career, with albums such as Old Wives Tales (1989) and Running Scared (1990). After two poetry records, she released Surface To Air Serpents (1996), an experiment in studio-manipulated sounds and words.

Cervenka then formed Auntie Christ with bassist Matt Freeman (ex-Rancid) and drummer DJ Bonebrake (also of X), releasing Life Could Be A Dream (1997), which at times revives X's most intense moments.

The Los Angeles criminals made a surprise return in 2020, reinstating the original lineup after a full 35 years. ALPHABETLAND is yet another portrait of an America out of time, torn between hard-boiled metropolises riddled with lead and decaying countryside pollinated with voodoo. The fuse is lit right away with the title track, a punk-rock gallop that recalls both the frayed speed-grunge of Mudhoney and the riot animosity of Bikini Kill, the very scene they emerged from. Racing flat out through Badlands scented with fresh asphalt (more Malick's than Springsteen's), the brush they use to smear their toxic palette is razor-sharp: bristles that can turn massive (“Strange Life”), supersonic (“Delta 88 Nightmare”), or breezy (“Goodbye Year”), roughing up tradition with their usual blend of reverence (“Free” is to Bo Diddley what “Star Chambered” is to Ritchie Valens) and nerve (the hammering rockabilly of “Water & Wine”, the train beat of “Angel On The Road”). Billy Zoom's big guitars are back too, carrying that corrosive, timeworn flavor of ageless rock'n'roll, brushing against both the turbulent riffs of the Sonics and the raw pick-strokes of Neil Young.

A gift within the gift: here we find the old “Cyrano DeBerger’s Back”, written by Doe back in the days of “Los Angeles” (Slash, 1980), desecrated by Chris D. and the Flesh Eaters on “A Minute to Pray, a Second to Die” (Ruby, 1981), later turned into a closing ballad on “See How We Are” (Elektra, 1987), and brought back here from the bowels of the earth with a funk-rock groove. And since Manzarek can no longer lend a hand, for the jazzy spoken word of “All The Time In The World” – 100% Exene-esque – they call Robby Krieger back into service. From the depths of hell, Jeffrey Lee Pierce, Lux Interior and Darby Crash give their approval with a smirk.

No one has grafted the raw truth of rock'n'roll onto the brashness of punk with the same diabolical lyricism. It's an attitude that still irritates those who dream of a reassuring, inoffensive art form, as shown by the less-than-flattering words a well-known webzine devoted last year to the reissue of “Los Angeles”. As for us, we'd rather keep them just as they are: perhaps not very polite, but sensual and desperate.

While the Great Black Sun keeps looming over our bewildered heads, the overwhelming freshness of these ageless rebels sweeps away the hypocrisies of the present, inviting us once again to the most exhilarating of liberating dances. Everything gets swept clean, just as it should be. All it takes to sign is an X.

In 2024 Exene Cervenka, John Doe, Billy Zoom and DJ Bonebrake are back in action with Smoke & Fiction, but this time it feels like the moment for their final lap has arrived.

The fury is still the same, a blend of punk and rock'n'roll just lightly tinged with a splash of country tradition, the same fury that has accompanied us since their debut with “Los Angeles” in '80 all the way to “Alphabetland” in 2020, released after 27 years of silence.

The standard-bearers of the Californian punk movement rarely disappoint, and Smoke & Fiction is certainly no lesser entry in their catalogue. Fuelled by the same venom that nourishes much of indie rock, X's storytelling always shines a spotlight on the darker corners of a troubled Los Angeles, and their songs become a potion that sweetens even the bitterness of hard lives on the margins of an affluent society.

Maybe it's because the band members' age keeps relentlessly advancing, or because we've probably reached their last studio effort, but Smoke & Fiction also carries a forceful sense of nostalgia for what the city's scene was like back when the band was just starting out.

From Errol Flynn's abandoned mansion on the Hollywood hills to the roar of bikers' motorcycles on the Sunset Strip, “Big Black X” raises a loud echo of the memories from the years when the band took its first steps, just as in the measured rhythms of “The Way It Is”, one of the most compelling tracks on “Smoke & Fiction”, where John Doe's warm voice reassures us he has no regrets, because things went exactly as they were meant to.

I still pray a little bit

But there’s no saint for this

I still pray a little bit

But there’s no words for this

On the title track “Smoke & Fiction”, disillusionment takes centre stage, carried by Exene's edgy voice, which, after a lifetime spent knocking on heaven's door trying to convince the world to change course, arrives at the realisation that no one will ever come to open it.

Urban desolation doesn't fail to make its presence felt on “Sweet Til The Bitter End” and “Winding Up The Time”, as Billy Zoom's incendiary riffs tear through the night like sirens and the voices of Exene and John Doe chase each other in a mad dash from the freeways to sublet houses amid the squalid yards with their broken-down fences. The characters the band tells of always move like ghosts beneath hostile skies, fighting in a desperate search for their lost souls amid troubled relationships, absences and dark sides.

John Doe's bass held knee-high, fatal redhead Exene's tex-mex outfits, their unmistakable vocal blend, the endless creativity of Billy Zoom's guitar and DJ's drive pushing everything along at breakneck speed: if “Smoke & Fiction” really does turn out to be their last record, we'll miss all of this, and it won't be easy to replace. And so the letter X will remain a code that, for some, stands for anonymity and nothingness, and for others, an entire world not to be forgotten.

Contributions by Ossydiana Speri and Maria Teresa Soldani (“ALPHABETLAND”), Lorenzo Montefreddo (“Smoke & Fiction”)

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