Operation Screenshot (Films of the Eighties) W.T. Morgan's X: THE UNHEARD MUSIC (1986)

 

For more on one of America's greatest bands please visit X's official site. 

Death is Not the End: Karen Elson's The Ghost Who Walks

A dazzling musical collision between The Bad Seeds, Marlene Dietrich and Hank Williams, Karen Elson's wonderfully hypnotic The Ghost Who Walks is one of the first truly great albums of this very young decade. Far from being a vanity project from a beautiful model, Elson's album is a truly bewitching and absolutely compelling work that shows her as an artist of massive talent who should have a very long career in music ahead of her.
Born in the early part of 1979 in Oldham, England, the striking red-headed Elson began her career as a model, while she was a teenager, and immediately became a favorite of many top designers ranging from Marc Jacobs to Jean-Paul Gaultier. As far from the stereotypical air-headed super-model as possible, Elson has been dabbling in music, film and art since she first began to really make a name for herself in the early parts of the last decade.
A gifted vocalist and songwriter, Elson really began paving her way in the muisc industry with her acclaimed time in the ambitious New York Cabaret troupe The Citizens Band. Wowing audiences and critics with her delicious vocal renditions of songs from the catalogues of everyone from The Velvet Underground to Elvis Presley, Elson caught the attention of artists like Robert Plant and Cat Power (both of whom she lent her unforgettable vocal chops to).



While her skills as a great song interrupter weren't in question, few knew just how solid a songwriter Elson was becoming during this time. Not even husband Jack White, who Elson met when she appeared in The White Stripes stunning Floria Sigismondi "Blue Orchid" video, until he heard her one day singing one of her songs in private in their Nashville home. Urged on by his excitement at her material, Elson took the major step of preparing an album and, with White and several other top musicians on board, The Ghost Who Walks began to come together last year.
Taking a cue from nickname she had in her school days, Elson's The Ghost Who Walks is a really wonderful debut work that features beautifully inventive (and yet wisely understated) production from White, a dozen beautifully designed songs, a top of the line band and Elson firing on all cylinders as creative leader. The Ghost Who Walks is one of the first albums of this decade (along with The Sleigh Bells debut) that feels like it has a legitimate shot at becoming a classic. Its freewheeling spirit is absolutely refreshing among the deliberately plastic and robotic pop that is currently controlling the summer's releases.

While the album is remarkably consistent as a whole there are some definite highlights, including the stunning opening set of songs that recall the Murder Ballads of Cave and Cash, as well as the poetic collaborations between Exene Cervenka and Lydia Lunch. The album's title track and first single, "The Ghost Who Walks" opens with a bit that sounds like Donald Rubinstein's Martin score before coming out blazing with Dean Fertita's commanding guitar and organ work and Elson's beautiful vocal that is both seductive and menacing. Equally as powerful are the follow-up tracks, the bruising "The Truth is in the Ground" and the swampy "Pretty Babies". Elson is a commanding lead throughout but White never lets the band get lost in the mix, especially Carl Broemel whose gorgeous sounding pedal steel guitar is present on over half the album's tracks.

While the album has a definite country and rockabilly sound throughout, a couple of the most remarkable tracks show the influence of German composer Kurt Weill and obvious Elson influence Marlene Dietrich, such as "A Hundred Years From Now" which would have been right at home in a Von Sternberg film as re-imagined by David Lynch. The Velvet Underground and Nico's influence can also be felt, but what is more remarkable than the wide variety of influences on the album is Elson's ability to mix them up and make them her own. The Ghost Who Walks is the kind of truly great Americana record that only someone from outside the country could deliver.



Elson's debut only slightly slips on a couple of tracks that are more straightforward country than anything else, such as "Lunasa" and "The Last Laugh". They are far from bad songs though, they just feel slightly limp when placed beside such powerfully strange and adventurous songs like "The Birds They Circle" and the powerhouse closer, "Mouths to Feed." Elson offers a quote by Anais Nin in The Ghost Who Walks' liner notes and, like Nin's best works, Karen's debut is a wildly seductive and original vision from a clearly talented artist. I really can't wait to hear and see what she comes up with next.

Rick Nelson: Rocks Past and Future Prince

Despite selling millions of albums and being well known all over the world, I don't think music lovers in general realize just how good and important the late Eric Hilliard Nelson was.
Many thoughts go through my head when I think of Ricky Nelson these days. I often remember hearing his music for the first time when I was in growing up courtesy of my father's record collection. I had never before, or since, heard a rock voice so brilliantly subtle and relaxed. I remember staring at the covers of those albums at this impossibly beautiful young man, and feeling like I was looking at someone very real. The honesty reflected in the eyes on any photograph of Rick is inherent in his music. As much as his unaffected vocals or scorching James Burton guitar licks, the records of Ricky Nelson are all the products of a very sincere and very serious dreamer.
Ricky was of course known to millions of people before he could have even fully grasped what fame was. First on the legendary OZZIE AND HARRIET radio show as the scene stealing precocious 'Little Ricky' and then later on the even more famous and influential television show. America grew to know and love Ricky Nelson perhaps before he even had a chance to really know who Ricky Nelson was.
The story of how he got into music is often repeated. Like every other teenager in 1956 Ricky was entranced by Elvis Presley and the freedom his records offered. Always the consummate searcher Ricky discovered Elvis' legendary Sun sides, which in turn led him to the searing rockabilly of Carl Perkins. In Elvis and Perkins he found a sanctuary from the fame and the 'Little Ricky' that everyone in the country thought they knew.
I think about the 16 year old Ricky sitting in his bedroom, like a million other teenagers, listening to those astonishing Sun and early RCA sides over and over again. Only Ricky already had the fame that most teenagers dreamed of, for Ricky the thing he must have wanted was the authenticity of those recordings.
So the story goes that Ricky was rejected by a girl who was obsessed by Elvis, and in a moment of rare bravado he said he was going to cut a record. A quick little thought out ploy to get a girl would soon turn into one of the most important careers in rock history.

The moment that Ricky Nelson comes on the screen at the end of the OZZIE AND HARRIET episode RICKY THE DRUMMER and sings Fats Dominoes I'M WALKIN is one of the great and seminal moments in rock history. Ricky looks nervous and self conscious but there is already something in his eye and voice, that authenticity that he so longed for seemed somehow inherent in him. Ricky Nelson singing I'M WALKIN that fateful evening brought rock and roll into a uncountable number of households that would have never let it in otherwise.
The key to Ricky's entire career is rebellion. Long mistaken for being a safe performer, we can see now that Nelson almost immediately went against Ozzie's musical tastes to form his own very distinct sound. Key to this was the band that he put together shortly after the I'M WALKING single. Headed by a teenage guitar player named James Burton, Ricky and his band cut a prolific and astonishingly great number of singles and albums in the next few years that would, for a period, outsell even Elvis.
With tracks like POOR LITTLE FOOL, STOOD UP and especially BELIEVE WHAT YOU SAY the team of Ricky Nelson and James Burton was an unstoppable force. Burton's shimmering and always inventive guitar work matched with Ricky's unmatchable laid back vocal style will still send chills up even the most jaded music fans necks. The albums during this period are also incredible in that even the lesser more dated tracks still stand out due to this pair's inventive and exhaustive work. Add on the uncredited Jordanaires and you have some of the greatest records of the rock era.
BELIEVE WHAT YOU SAY especially sounds like a revolution all on its own, with Burton's amazing solo laying a virtual blueprint for thousands of players to follow.
Ricky Nelson always seems to be a man haunted by some inner fear that he wasn't as authentic as he wanted to be. He wasn't black, he wasn't poor, he wasn't from the South. All of these things seemingly against him only added to a hard work ethic that would run through him till the day he died.
One story that I love, and that I think says a lot about Rick was the first time he met Elvis. He had been invited to a party Elvis was at and spent most of the night alone in a corner, terrified of meeting his idol. When Elvis found out that Rick was at the party he searched him down and immediately started quoting OZZIE AND HARRIET lines to show that he never missed an episode. Rick was said to be almost moved to tears, and he quickly became close to Elvis and the two would play football together throughout the sixties while Elvis was in Hollywood.
After cutting the incredibly moving TRAVELLIN MAN and playing opposite Dean Martin in RIO BRAVO Rick's career hit a down point. With the arrival of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and the rest of the British Invasion, Rick's records suddenly began to sound a little too safe and quaint. Ironically, and probably unknown to Rick, he had been one of McCartney and Lennon's biggest influences. McCartney still rhapsodizes about him when the occasion arrives and often covers his haunting LONESOME TOWN.
Throughout the mid sixties Rick tried a lot of things, all with mixed results. A failed film with his wife called LOVE AND KISSES, a tv musical with Burt Bacharach and a somewhat psychedelic album called PERSPECTIVE. Everything seemed to fall slightly short, and then even the long running OZZIE AND HARRIET ran out of steam and was cancelled. The world was changing and it seemed like 'Little Ricky' would fade quietly from view.
The origins of the genre known as country rock have always been a bit confused. Many people seem to put ground zero at The Byrd's incredible SWEETHEARTS OF THE RODEO, but often overlooked is a little selling album from 1966 by Ricky entitled BRIGHT LIGHTS COUNTRY MUSIC.
Ricky Nelson's sudden jump into country music surprised the few people who noticed but it shouldn't have. He was that same teenage boy who had always dreamed of that Southern authenticity he had heard in those Sun sides.


In 1968 Ricky would do a total makeover, no longer called Ricky the new Rick would re-surface with long hair and the the incredible LIVE AT THE TROUBADOUR album, and a powerful single of Bob Dylan's SHE BELONGS TO ME.
The period of 68-73 is my favorite in Rick's career. Along with The Stone Canyon Band he would cut a series of incredible folk-rock albums mixing his own compositions with his current favorites (by the likes of Dylan, Tim Hardin, The Stones and more). The albums RICK SINGS NELSON, RUDY THE FIFTH, GARDEN PARTY and WINDFALL are among the finest in the country rock genre and would influence everyone from Linda Ronstadt to The Eagles. Rick's work in this period stands along with Graham Parson's as one of the purest ever meetings between rock and country.
RUDY THE FIFTH in particular is probably, along with the TROUBADOUR album, the greatest unknown record in Rick's canon. With strong songwriting, including a chillingly prophetic GYPSY PILOT that ends the album with the sound of a plane crash, to some of the best Bob Dylan covers ever, RUDY THE FIFTH is a bold work by Rick at his most confident.

After the famed GARDEN PARTY, perhaps Rick's finest and most well known triumpth, personal and career worries began to take hold. Rick toured constantly for the next few years trying to push his incredible new music onto audiences that were often puzzingly unreceptive.
The death of Elvis Presley in August of 77 shook Rick and reminded him of the music of his youth. After the disappointing failure of the overly slick INTAKES album, as well as the unreleased BACK IN VIENNA unreleased LP, Rick would spend much of 78 devising a record that would combine the early James Burton fueled rockabilly sides of his youth with his more grown up flavored folk rock.
ROCKABILLY RENAISSANCE is one of the great unreleased records in rock history, Rick's winter of 78 masterpiece would foreshadow the emergence of an entirely new genre called cow-punk. You can hear the birth of bands like X, Lone Justice and The Stray Cats in these remarkable sides from that incredibly bitter winter after Elvis had died. Appearing on Saturday Night Live to promote the upcoming album, Rick delivered a haunting DREAM LOVER that should have become a huge hit. What happens next has still never been fully explained.
His record company made the odd decision to hold back the release of DREAM LOVER by several weeks killing the strong SNL word of mouth. Even more damaging then was the news that the company was going to shelve ROCKABILLY RENAISSANCE after Rick refused to make it more commercial. Released in its place was a four track ep that only scratched at the surface of its greatness. The album was finally released in a glossy over produced version entitled THE MEMPHIS SESSIONS after Rick died. It remains the biggest missed opportunity in Rick Nelson's career.

More and more exhausting touring followed, and the beginnings of a messy divorce, until the release of the underrated PLAYING TO WIN album in 1981. This album would show Rick still at the top of his songwriting and performing game but no one seemed to notice.
The final few years of Rick's life have him touring at an impossible rate in order to pay off his mounting legal bills and take care of his sons. Disheartening and re-assuring was having an album back in the charts by 84 ALL MY BEST, which featured re-recordings of some of his biggest hits.
The final days of Rick Nelson are often looked upon as tragic, with him touring in one of those sad oldies package shows. But he still delivered performances every night that were worthy of his fine legacy.
Shortly before his death Rick participated in the MEMPHIS CLASS OF 55 record which reunited Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins back at Sun studios. At one point Carl Perkins came up to Rick and wrapped his arm around him and told him that they were two of the last 'originals' left. Rick would often recount this story to his sons, and it can be looked upon as the moment where "little Ricky" finally realized that he had possessed that authenticity, that he had so yearned for, all along.
Rick Nelson was killed on December 31st, 1985 in a plane crash along with the members of his band and some friends. The media quickly reported that it was drug related, although this was later proven unfounded and a complete falsehood.
Rick's music and life continues to captivate people all over the world, and a recent best of collection surprised everyone by jumping into the top forty in it's first week of sales. I still remember holding my father's albums and hearing Rick's amazing voice for the first time, and each time I play his music that same sincerity still shines through.
Bob Dylan would began to perform LONESOME TOWN in concert after Rick died. He would also write of how much he loved Rick's voice in his CHRONICLES book. Typically he would introduce LONESOME TOWN by saying that Rick had covered many of his songs so he wanted to pay him back and then add, "I had a lot of respect for that guy". It is a respect that I believe will continue to grow as Rick's music becomes more and more available again.

Essential to newcomers is the four cd box set LEGACY that covers Rick's entire career. All of his early albums with James Burton are essential for any serious rock fan and LIVE AT THE TROUBADOUR and RUDY THE FIFTH are still astonishing, although much harder to find.
To go along with the respect that Dylan mentioned, I would just like to add...that I really admire and love this guy. Seek out some of his music if you don't have any in your collection, you might be surprised by how great and transcendent it is.

Dust Off Those Grooves (Chapter Eight)

It would be interesting to take a poll of music lovers and critics and ask the question, 'What was the high water mark lyrically on an album in the rock era?'
There have been a lot of best of lists but I don't recall ever seeing that and yet what specific album would most music lovers point to as being the lyrically, the greatest? Dylan's Blood On The Tracks, how about Tom Waits Blue Valentine? Paul Simon's first album, what about Lou Reed's New York? Wouldn't want to leave the ladies out, Patti Smith's Horses anyone, Rickie Lee Jones Pirates? Springsteen, Townes Van Zant, don't forget Paul Westerberg. Tough question and I don't have the answer but the first one that comes to my mind and the one I would nominate is Under The Big Black Sun by X.
John Doe and Exene's Cervenka's lyrical masterpiece chronically the struggles of a working-class couple going through loss, a broken marriage, alcoholism and boredom is to my eyes and ears one of the great literary achievements in rock history. As good as any novel and the fact that the words are on top of one of the great rock bands in their prime only sweetens the deal.
Under The Big Black Sun should have been a disappointment, and God knows everyone was expecting one. It was the first major label album by X who had just signed with Elektra from the indie label Slash. Major label debuts are notorious for presenting watered down versions of once great acts. Even a great album like The Replacement's Tim suffers from a bit too much production, and the battle between the indie and corporate idea of what constitutes a great album continues to this day.
X were never a typical band though and with Under The Big Black Sun they delivered their finest work. It's a work that synthesises their harder earlier punk origins with their interest in more classic American traditions like country and folk. Americana 15 years before everyone was throwing that word around, it was called Cow-punk at the time and groups like X and Lone Justice would pioneer the sound that a future generation would reap the benefits of. Much like the country-rock sound Rick Nelson, Michael Nesmith and Graham Parson's would revolutinalize in the late 60s. It was a new spin to something very old.
Under The Big Black Sun would, like their first three albums, be produced by former Doors mastermind Ray Manzarek and I'm not totally sure if he has ever gotten enough credit for these recordings. First of all the idea that a musician so associated with L.A. rock from the sixties producing a young punk band in the eighties was incredible, but Ray managed, like John Cale with The Stooges and Patti Smith, to produce X with just enough control. He never compromised their sound, but he roped it in just enough to allow its inherit subtleties to come out. Ray Manzaerk is an uncredited hero to the 2nd wave American punk movement.
X's third album kicks off with the thunderous The Hungry Wolf, and we are immediately presented with something much more complex than the average rock lyric. Recalling Exene's native American ancestory we are presented with a, 'hungry wolf' running 'endlessly with my mate'. The song, ending with the haunting refrain of 'I Roam' is dedicated to The Santee Sioux Indians and JL 'Funny Papers' Smith.
The album continues chronicling the couple's doomed relationship with Motel Room In My Bed, it's lead character going to sleep, "Soggy and forgetful, hopefully not waking up so fitfully". Exene have John have an incredible way of presenting a concrete situation, like alcoholism, in such a subtle way. The music might be in your face but the words rarely are, these are clearly two authentic poets who happen to be part of one of the great American rock bands.
The single Riding With Mary continues and it's one of X's greatest songs and gives us the first clues that Exene is going through much more than just a disintegrating relationship with John. Her beloved sister had been killed just prior to recording this, she would remember her so tenderly in the film The Unheard Music just a year after this album, and it's that death that is sparking many of Exene's most poignant lines. The song, detailing an adulterous affair, ends with this image, "on the dashboard rides a figurine. A powerless, sweet forgotten thing, so the next time you see a statue of Mary, remember my sister was in a car".
Exene's Come Back To Me follows and is dedicated to her sister Mary. If anyone has ever written a more heartbreaking and real description of a funeral and dealing with death I have never heard it. Lines like, "Flies and relations make an annoying sound" and "I built a shrine for you on the kitchen wall with flowers and Florida souvenirs. You were walking through the house last night, I knew it was you from the space in your steps" are so perfectly rendered and detailed. Notice how they aren't just souvenirs, but Florida souvenirs, and it's not just her steps but the space in between them. Anyone who has ever questioned how good rock lyrics can be should listen to this song.
Typically an album will have a very specific break between side A and B. Different sounds or themes will be approached but here X again shows that they were never typical as Under The Big Black Sun and Because I Do both share an alcoholic haze of confusion and regret. The last lign on side one, "Mary's dead, Good morning Midnight" lends intself perfectly to the opening, "I am a black and white ghost in a black and invisible dress", of side 2.
Throughout the album, even though they are exceptional, the lyrics never over shadow the music. This is, after all, a rock record and it's a great one. Bonebrake and Doe were really coming into their own as a rhythm section. Bonebrake is a huge jazz, and specifically Lionel Hampton, fan and his drumming is uncommonly controlled for a punk group. It is also savage and loud, just tribal enough for Hungry Wolf and tender enough for Please Come Back To Me, exceptional work. Billy Zoom was astonishing in all of his work with X, early Rockabilly was and is his biggest influence and he continually gives the band some of the most incendiary fret work imaginable. He makes it seem effortless also, you never feel like he is pushing it or trying to impress. His riffs are deceptively simple and always powerful.
The album's themes of adultery and loss continue with Blue Spark and the only cover on the album, Dancing With Tears In My Eyes. The Leadbelly quote on the inner sleeve is particularly chilling, ending with a thought that will resonate with any music lover filled with something dark, "that's to show how music can bring you back.....if you ain't too far gone".
The album closes with three of X's most legendary songs. Three songs that would take the band to a spiritual place that few have ventured to. These are that Darkness on The Edge of Town that Springsteen sang of and that Badlands that Malick filmed.
First up is Real Child Of Hell, an exhausting rehearsal was filmed for The Unheard Music, and its idea of possession being the cause of a relationship breaking down is an astonishing one for rock. The real child of hell that the song presents is not only inside John Doe and Exene Cervenka but ultimately the fan wanting Exene's dress and much more. It's an indictment not only of themselves but the people they are confessing to, and if you haven't figured it out by now Under The Big Black Sun is a confession.
The ferocious two minute How I Learned My Lesson is what lyric sheets were made for with lines like, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder, so I never want to see you again", becoming a blur underneath the incredibly fast and frantic music.
The album ends with the finest song John Doe and Exene Cervenka ever wrote, and musically the finest song X ever performed. I don't say that lightly either, The Have Nots is one of the great songs in American music and I would hold it up against anything that Guthrie, Dylan, Springsteen or Reed ever wrote. Our sage ends with the couple separated and they are both at bars, just after work, drinking themselves into a much needed oblivion. It's a sympathetic chronicle and indictment of the American dream gone wrong, The Replacements would later cover similar ground in Here Comes A Regular as well as Th Manic Street Preachers in the astonishing Design For Life. It's a subject many authors and filmmakers have covered but it's not something you see in Rock music a lot. Correlating the life of a rock band with a dead end job with "the game that moves as you play" is one of X's most chilling moments. It's fitting that the original lyric sheet goes on longer than the song with a listing of bars to visit, hide and ultimately fade away completely in.
Under The Big Black Sun was awarded five stars by Rolling Stone and was near the top of nearly every critics poll in 1982. It was a defining moment for X and one which they would never top. They would record one more album with Manzarek, the brilliantly scattered More Fun In The New World. The remainder of their catalogue all suffers from over-production but still feature some of the most sublimely brilliant American music ever recorded. They would never scale the despairing heights of Under The Big Black Sun again but would provide a lovely sequel of sorts in 1987's See How We Are, in which the by now divorced John Doe and Exene Cervenka would lament, "the bars we keep between us".
25 years later Under The Big Black Sun is still relevant, still without peer and I'm pleased to report still available. Rhino had a wonderful re-release of it out, remastered with bonus tracks and in depth notes. Even though that will never sound as good as much worn and loved vinyl copy, I urge anyone who might be reading to get this currently available cd. It might make you re-think those best of lists that are released each year, it might make you remember a lost love or at the very least it will remind you that we all have something inside that needs exorcising.....if we're not too far gone.

The Great Gigs of my Life: X in Nashville

The first time I saw X was on the Jerry Lewis Labor Day telethon sometime in the mid 80s. Now that might seem an odd place to be introduced to punk rock but I'll never forget how my 11 year old mind reacted to seeing Exene Cervenka for the first time. I don't remember what song they were playing but the sight of Exene looking like some sort of crazed homeless goddess screaming into the microphone and a very perplexed Jerry Lewis offering half-hearted applause left an indelible impression on me.
A few years later I saw a show on cable called Women In Rock which would introduce me to several people that would go on affect me profoundly including Maria Mckee and Patti Smith. The show was most memorable though for re-introducing this strange creature known as Exene to me. Being interviewed she came across as so intelligent and you could detect the poet inside her in these short clips, the brief on stage shots showed the crazed woman I remembered from the telethon though and I was hooked. This strange Sister Hyde like figure that would emerge on stage as opposed to the shy soft-spoken pretty lady would serve as a perfect symbol for the band X.
I soon bought my first X album, I was 15 or so at the time and the massive double lp Live at The Whisky collection was a perfect introduction. The songs were wild sounding slices of crazed rockabilly punctuated by some of the most poetic American lyrics ever written. Exene and John Doe's haunting harmonizing placed on top of Billy Zoom's slashing guitar work and the thundering DJ Bonebrake on drums has very few peers. X were like like group before and no one since has come close to duplicating their sound.
X soon became one of my favorite bands and I devoured their early records especially the first four (Los Angeles, Wild Gift, Under The Big Black Sun, and More Fun In The New World). The remaining records with and then without Billy Zoom would have moments of greatness but suffered from over-production. X in the 80s were, along with The Replacements, THE band that should have made it but something never clicked with the public at large. It's forgotten just how much X were critically acclaimed, they came right at the tail end of Rolling Stone's days as a quality magazine and that publication's reviews of the early records are exceptionally well written and thought out.
X had developed such a huge cult following that a film was actually made about them called The Unheard Music, one of the best music documentaries ever made. It also showcased a band desperate to sell records but not compromise. When all was said and done they didn't do either.
This is all a long winded introduction to remembering two live shows I saw. It seems important though to note just how respected X were in the 80s and how much they meant to their fans. This all had changed when X initially returned to the scene in 1993.
The album that marked their return in 1993 was titled, oddly enough, Hey Zeus. Long out of print and virtually ignored today by fans and the band itself it was actually a strong, slightly overworked, album that stands up all these years later. Their was a real excitement for me when that album was released and then it was announced that X would return to the road. I couldn't figure out why Hey Zeus was all but ignored. It wasn't that the critical reception was poor, it was non-existent. Perhaps it was too close to the 80s for their legacy to be appreciated. I always thought it was because true punk never really broke, sometime in the early 90s record companies figured out how to market something resembling punk, but it had no poetry and groups like X and The Replacements were buried.
I saw X twice on their Hey Zeus tour, once towards the beginning and once towards the end. The experience of those two nights was almost like seeing two different bands. The first show at Bogarts at Cincinnati was one of the most exciting shows I had ever seen. I was right in front of the stage on John Doe's side and the opening Burning House Of Love seemed to shake Boagart's walls and it brought tears to me eyes. The band gave a tight, confident show drawing heavily on Hey Zeus as well as their previous See How We Are album. Guitarist Tony Wilkinson provided a sharp and substantial counterpoint to the still missing in action Billy Zoom. Bonebrake is still one of the best drummers I have ever seen, bringing a jazz inspired intensity to his playing that kept the always chaotic Doe and Cervenka grounded. John Doe was beautiful, like Sam Shepard as a rock star. Doe's voice is one of the most underrated in rock history and you have to see them live to really understand how great of a singer this guy is. Exene was magnificent to see live, sexy and crazed singing like she was being possessed by some ancient Native American spirit sent for revenge. The words pouring out of her like she had no choice in the matter and then in between songs slinking back shyly becoming that withdrawn young girl again.
Hey Zeus had just been released and during this show X seemed like that same hopeful band that had been in seen in the Unheard Music. They looked excited, like they thought they were finally going to take over the world.
I met John Doe after the show and he was incredibly friendly and autographed his first solo album for me. I didn't have the nerve to speak to Exene thinking I would say something stupid like 'you changed my life'.
Later that year I heard they were coming to Nashville to play a show. Hey Zeus had already disappeared and their 'comeback' hadn't happened. The club is Nashville was smaller and grimier than Bogarts. The stage was just a few feet off the ground and there was no barricade so literally you could get within inches of the band as they played. I was next to the barely elevated stage and when X hit the stage they looked like a different band. They seemed to have aged ten years, John Doe hadn't shaved and Exene looked depressed and possibly drunk.
They changed their opening number from Burning House of Love to the savage Once Over Twice. The playing was more chaotic, Bonebrake was even playing more like he had early on in their career. Every number, even the slower ones, seemed slashed out and the band looked disgusted. The show was one of the most disastrous I have ever seen with the band looking like they could fall apart at any moment, disastrous and absolutely spellbinding. If punk rock ever actually existed then it reared its most authentic head that night in that small Nashville club.
Just before leaving their stage Exene announced, spitting sarcasm, that they were going to do their biggest hit. X then launched into a beyond brutal Back To The Base and the sight of Exene screaming "I'm the king of rock and roll, if you don't like it you can lump it' will never leave me. The house lights came up and the band looked savaged and done. Exene handed me the set list she had been standing on and they were gone.
X disappeared after that for most of the 90s. The decade that they had done so much to inspire ignored them and destroyed all of the youthful energy they had always carried with them.
Several years ago the great Rhino records began to re-issue their astonishing back catalogue, lovingly remastered with bonus tracks and doting liner notes. Their importance finally noticed and they hit the road again, this time with Billy Zoom. The show I saw in Lexington a few years ago was probably one of the best I had ever seen but it also disheartening. With no new music to promote they just smoked through their first four perfect albums and ignored the later flawed ones. It was too easy, I was no longer seeing a band getting ready to take over the world. They had become like that characters in their greatest song, The Have Nots, 'the working class' just playing 'the game that moves as you play'.
It's just a legacy now, a beautiful and important one that most would trade their lives for but they were worth more. Two of the greatest and most authentically American songwriters are all but hidden from view, in their place resides just another great band and a generation who refused to believe music had the ability to change things. I have moments I'd like to go back to, I'd like to see them again in that little Nashville club, I'd like to replay that moment right before youth began to escape not only them but me. If I could have that moment back when Exene handed me that set list I'd say something like, 'don't worry, it wasn't you who blew it. You did everything right.' Perhaps I would even tell her she changed my life, either way I wouldn't remain silent.