#286: Los Angeles- X

Listened to: MP3

Now, I’ll come right off the bat. I’m not sure why “Your Phone’s Off The Hook But You’re Not” is supposed to be so special. I made it on The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll, but to me, it’s standard punk fair. The second track, “Johnny Hit And Run Paulene”, however, has a much more unique sound. It blends it’s punk beat with Chuck Berry style guitar riffs, and Morrissey type vocals. I would almost cringe at the punk cover of “Soul Kitchen”, the Doors classic. But knowing Ray Manzarek was sitting behind the board, while Jim may still be spinning in his grave, is a little more comforting.

It’s this third track that makes me realize why this doesn’t impress me as much as it should. I’m a big fan of Bikini Kill, and have been on a kick of them the past few weeks. This sounds like a more instrumental version of them, but ten years prior. By track four, “Nausea”, and it’s incorporation of an organ, it becomes abundantly clear this was a punk band who still understood music. X brings a musicianship to punk, with organs and glockenspiels, proving that punk can be more than thrashing guitars and thumping drums. And to those who say that well composed instrumentals isn’t punk rock, I say…well…

So, the next track “Sugarlight” brings in, yes, a cowbell. But the track is really held together by guitarist Billy Zoom, whose instrumentalism far exceeds anybody else in the band, as much as I adore Exene Cervenka. “Los Angeles” is a fun punk duet between the band’s two singers. Choosing to change the, is it the key, I don’t know, but by not using the same two chords, the song takes on a musicality that may or may not lose it it’s punk rock street cred. “Sex And Dying In High Society” has Exene and John Doe doing a harmony that feels more like a B-52’s song than a punk jam. “The Unheard Music” has a bass line that feels deeply Doors influenced, with deep, low harmonics from the two singers, and a prominent organ, all of which seem to suggest Ray Manzarek had some effect on X before they ever came to a studio.

The album ends on a song worthy of Elvis Presley, but with Patti Smith and Kathleen Hannah’s love-child on vocals (I know Kathleen is younger, but the image of Patti and Kathleen making a love child…yeah). This is anything but what I’ve grown up believing punk rock is.

It’s a real shame about X. It seems like from their debut in 1980 with this album, they were out to take punk to a new place, the next step in the evolutionary chain. Instead, it basically floundered through the 80’s, and found a slight return in grunge, and later with Green Day and Blink-182. The organs, the guitar riffs, everything seems to be from another world. This is a terrific album, but not a great punk album, at least not by the standards of what punk is. Most albums are on this list because they show where music went. X’s Los Angeles shows where music should have gone. I would have loved if more bands turned out like X, but no, we got cheesy pop-punk later instead. This is some great stuff, and definitely worth the listen.

-Mike

See you guys tomorrow for #338: Cheap Thrills by Big Brother And The Holding Company. We go from a highly underrated woman of rock (Exene Cervenka), to a woman who is, to me, the first lady of rock and roll, Janis Joplin.