Los Angeles

Thirty years ago this month the L.A.-based band X released their debut album, which was titled after their home city. It remains as fresh and alive as it was back then, with exciting instrumentation and an incendiary sound, visualized by the burning letter on the album cover.

I didn't discover X until their third album, Under the Big Black Sun, but I quickly got myself up to date and purchased their first two records (on vinyl, of course). The band was made up of John Doe on lead vocals and bass; Exene Cervenka on vocals; Billy Zoom on guitar; and D.J. Bonebrake on drums. Their sound was a hybrid of punk and rockabilly, and they were kind of lumped in with the hard-core bands like Black Flag and The Minutemen (they would try to champion this kind of music in their songs--"The Unheard Music" contains the lyric, "No hard chords on the car radio"). The music was up-tempo and pulsating, with Zoom's guitar often sounding like a chainsaw. Cervenka, whose look was a something of goth thrift store, provided vocals that were throaty and piercing. The music was infectious and went right to the gut.

As the years went by, X would become more and more countrified, until they didn't sound much like they did at the start. Los Angeles calls to mind the heady punk days of fuschia-mohawked youths in grimy clubs, and the best song on the record, "Sex and Dying in High Society," hearkens back to the days of Bret Easton Ellis (who mentioned the song in his novel Less Than Zero). The lyric goes, "You'd do anything to stay and keep your money boys, made of silver and gold, keep your Pekingese, Turkish cigarettes, and your lighter than looks like a gun. So you married your daddy, with a different name." Today this seems quaint, kind of like shooting fish in a barrel, but back then the punk musicians really were interested in puncturing any symbols of wealth and respectability, even if they were pampered rich kids.

There are many other pleasures on this record, including the title song, as well as a little ditty called Nausea, which goes: "Today you're gonna be sick so sick, you'll prop your forehead on the sink, say oh Christ oh Jesus Christ." There are straight ahead rock numbers like "Your Phone's Off the Hook" and "The World's a Mess; It's in My Kiss," and the slightly sinister "Johnny Hit and Run Paulene," which is about two young people in love and on drugs.

The CD of the album adds bonus tracks, including a demo version of their song "Adult Books," which appeared on their second album, Wild Gift, and two songs that highlight the rockabilly sound: Delta 88 and Cyrano De Berger's Back. As I've been listening for the past few days I am pleasantly remembering how much I enjoyed this band.