Archive for May, 2008
Thursday, May 29th, 2008
John Doe is still burnt, imperfect and miserable. Freedom Is, Doe’s second release first with X-mate DJ Bonebrake on drums and with The John Doe Thing, is as usual brilliantly messy Doe business. It’s full of songs about making your life better, messing it up, and always losing and gaining faith as you crawl back home on your knees and hands, searching for redemption in a decent kiss or a bedside telephone. In his been-there-drank-that voice, Doe always lets you hear it too, in the way he can sing with a cracked, angelic grace over waves of fuzzed-out guitar electricity, then slide into the kind of life-torn howl that’s as close to freedom as a beat-up punk heart can ever expect to get.
FREEDOM IS… moving from acoustic introspection to powerful electricity which has great dynamics. Doe specializes in romantic anguish. You perhaps won’t appreciate what he’s doing if you haven’t ever experienced that. For the rest of us, he’s tapped into it in a way that reminds you your pain is definitely not yours alone. If he turns up at a club in your town, don’t miss John Doe, he is one of the best.
Album tracklists:
1. Catch Me
2. Someday/No Day
3. Beat-Up World
4. A Picture of This
5. Telephone by the Bed
6. Ever After
7. Ultimately Yrs.
8. When No One Cares
9. Smile & Wave
10. Too Many Goddamn Bands
11. Drift Away
12. Glass-Phalt
13. Totally Yours
14. Sueltame
(more…)
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Sunday, May 25th, 2008
This is definitely one you need to add to the collection, if you are a fan of the Meet John Doe album. There are a few tracks in here with John’s voice give such texture to the story that really are great lyrically. On this album two of my favorites are the tracks Field of Dirt and Going Down Fast. To my eyes, these two songs almost bring tears. It seems like I see John Doe perform accousticly in a small venue in San Diego, ten years ago. The man sings with his soul.
It’s a good album for sure, but it seems like he hasn’t quite found the sound that we like him so well for. On the other hand, if your a big X fan, maybe this is a better one for you.
Album Track:
1. Fallen Tears
2. Safety
3. Love Knows
4. Mo Goodness
5. Tragedy by Definition
6. Kissing
7. Hits the Ground
8. Going Down Fast
9. TV Set
10. Beer, Gas, Ride Forever - John Doe, Doe, John
11. Field of Dirt - John Doe, Doe, John
12. Williamette
13. Liar’s Market
(more…)
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Wednesday, May 21st, 2008
John Doe is also a television and film actor. In the Roswell television series, He has played Jeff Parker and appeared in such films as Roadside Prophets, Road House, Vanishing Point, Great Balls of Fire!, Salvador, The Specials, Boogie Nights, Gypsy 83, The Good Girl and Pure Country. With the other members of X, he was also in music videos for The Ramones’ “Something To Believe In” and The Doors’ “L.A. Woman”.
Filmography:
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Saturday, May 17th, 2008
John Nommensen Duchac or famously John Doe born on February 25, 1954 in Decatur, Illinois. He is an American songwriter, singer, actor, poet and bass player who was the founder of the L.A. punk band X. His musical performances and compositions also include folk and country music. Doe performs with the country-folk-punk band The Knitters. In the early 1980s, Doe performed on two albums by The Flesh Eaters.
Discography:
* 1990 Meet John Doe
* 1995 Kissingsohard
* 2000 Freedom Is…
* 2002 Dim Stars, Bright Sky
* 2005 Forever Hasn’t Happened Yet
* 2006 For the Best of Us
* 2007 A Year in the Wilderness
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Tuesday, May 13th, 2008
When it comes to rock music of any stripe, “honest” and “raw” tend to be vastly overused words, but they may just apply to John Doe’s solo debut on the DGC label (spun off from Geffen).
This was always something of a trademark with Doe’s former band, X, in some respects but there was always the whirlwind of Exene Cervenka carrying most of the weight of the vocals, and the frontline immediate image, while Doe was seemingly as anonymous as his name, always just slightly back in the shadows. Now he’s out front, and the impact is quite immediate, with a blaze of Texas-styled rhythm guitar Meet John Doe roars into action, and a gorgeously weathered voice that’s a sheer delight to listen to, even though the thrust of the song is, essentially, love and anger: “Let’s Be Mad.”
Between in the performance and in the song, there’s a quite deliberate irony, and one can sometimes hear an undercurrent of bitter laughter in it all. It is unpretentious while the band backing Doe up, to say the least, two guitarists, bass, and drums, with visits from organ and piano here and there, and scatterings of backing vocals. To deliberately go after a certain style, there’s no effort though; this all has the way the best albums often do, the feeling of falling together naturally. Get a bunch of guys into the studio and let the music find its own direction.
Doe is to be commended for this. He could as easily have utterly cloned X, which with a solid holding pattern would have provided him but nothing more. Pervading the selection of songs, there’s a sadness though, but it’s not depressing; instead, it’s more like the earmark of some of the best country material, and the album’s theme of personal expression could as easily been seen as an act of personal therapy; a cleansing of the system.
“My Offering,” as the final track, admits to a universal truth as the narrator, exhausted in an Atlanta hotel room, admits how much turns out badly, sees how people comes to understand that he can do nothing to stop it, can be hurtful and yet still has something to offer to someone, despite it all. Many of the lyrics here carry a breathtaking force and verge on raw poetry, partly because of the way they’re delivered. Doe’s worn voice is one of his greatest assets; the expansive sound of his music fits right in with that. All told, an excellent solo debut.
by Steven McDonald
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Friday, May 9th, 2008
The band X were the quintessential Los Angeles punk rockers before they grew into a live band and a world-class rock & roll band. Yeah, enthusiasm for their intelligent, unique and humorous work never quite reached mass critical.
The X band formed in 1977 after bassist and songwriter John Doe (b. Feb. 24, 1956) met (and later married) Exene Cervenka (b. Feb. 1, 1956) at a Venice poetry workshop, with rockabilly veteran D.J. Bonebrake (b. Dec. 8, 1955) on drums and Billy Zoom (b. Feb. 20, 194?) on guitar, the band garnered an immediate following. “Discovered” by Ray Manzarek, ex-Doors keyboardist, he took the band in 1980 into the studio for the recording of Los Angeles. It was curious, at a time when punks were supposed to hate hippies, that X’s merging with an ex-Door was not only tolerated, but earned them stature as California’s preeminent punk band when the record earned across-the-board raves.
In 1981 saw the release of Wild Gift, the similarly punked-up, while their 1982 album, Under the Big Black Sun, began what would be a long career in merging country, hard rock, and folk into their fiery mix. With an eye toward matters of the heart.he band successfully began to mix in their populist politics. Both Doe and Cervenka enjoyed outside careers in the arts ss the band began to reach wider audiences, he as an actor in films like Great Balls of Fire and Roadside Prophets, and she as a poet and spoken-word artist, collaborating with Wanda Coleman and Lydia Lunch.
The rootsy songs on More Fun in the New World in 1983, lent themselves to acoustic performances live. On their side project, they took it one step furtherthe Knitters (with Dave Alvin) which yielded one Slash album in 1985, Poor Little Critter in the Road. In 1986, Ain’t Love Grand was a harder rock album and was followed by Zoom’s departure. Momentarily, he was replaced by Alvin, but the band recruited Tony Gilkyson (formerly of Lone Justice) for recording purposes, the band’s most decidedly hard-rock record in the catalog for See How We Are.
In 1988, before the band took some much-needed time off, Gilkyson stayed for the recording Live at the Whisky A Go-Go although they never broke up. In the interim, Doe and Cervenka had since divorced, and the pair continued to work as solo artists, releasing Cervenka’s Old Wives Tales (Rhino, 1989) and Running Sacred (1990) and Doe’s Meet John Doe for Geffen in 1990.
The band got together by 1993, for the recording of Hey Zeus!, a collection of new songs but the response was underwhelming, and it was back to solo work. In 1995, Doe released Kissingsohard for Rhino. Exene as well as a reading of the Unabomber Manifesto, also released Surface to Air Serpents for the 2.13.61 label, after changing her name to Cervenkova. X would occasionally appear in San Francisco and Los Angeles during their frequent hiatuses and during one stay, recorded a live album in San Francisco in 1995, Unclogged, and self-released it. Cervenkova’s latest project is with Matt Freeman of Rancid and Auntie Christ with Bonebrake. Gilkyson also works as a solo artist.
X also appeared in three films: Penelope Spheeris’ punk documentary The Decline of Western Civilization, Urgh! A Music War, and a documentary of their lives and times, The Unheard Music. Beginning in 1998, Billy Zoom as founding member returned to the fold for a series of on/off again shows and limited touring; a pair of 2004 Los Angeles concerts were recorded and videotaped for Live in Los Angeles, released both as an audio CD and video DVD in the spring of 2005.
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Monday, May 5th, 2008
Here is John Doe the musician, singer, songwriter, actor, poet and bass player. He is famous as the one of the founding members of the punk band X from Los Angeles, John Doe was one of the most influential figures during the early ’80s in American alternative rock, but when he launched a solo career in the early ’90s he decided to pursue a rootsy, country-rock direction instead of continuing with punk. X’s latter-day albums exhibited a country influence and rockabilly, but it wasn’t until Doe’s recorded a pure country album 1990 debut, Meet John Doe.
During a hiatus in X’s career, Meet John Doe was recorded. The band temporarily parted ways following the release of the 1988 live album Live at the Whisky a Go-Go. Doe concentrated on the acting career initially, he began in 1986 with Oliver Stone’s Salvador, appearing in the Jerry Lee Lewis biopic Great Balls of Fire and Road House in 1989. Meet John Doe was released on DGC in the following year to positive reviews, yet it didn’t appeal to an audience outside of X’s cult, peaking at 193 on the pop charts. X began playing live again later in 1992, and he continued to act in movies like Liquid Dreams, Pure Country, Wyatt Earp, Roadside Prophets, and Georgia, while Doe’s solo musical career went on hiatus.
Doe signed a solo contract with Rhino/Forward by Following X’s 1993 reunion album, Hey Zeus!. Then in summer 1995, he released Kissingsohard, a punkier and harder album than his debut. After its released a few months, X released the live semi-acoustic set Unclogged, which would turn out to be their final album. A year later, The band split up but in 1998 their original lineup with Billy Zoom on guitar, reunited for a series of toured and live shows periodically.
When not occupied with X or his acting career, Doe continued to focus on his solo career. Freedom Is… was released in 2000 by the SpinArt label, the semi-acoustic Dim Stars, Bright Sky appeared in 2002 on Artists Direct, and the subtle but aggressive Forever Hasn’t Happened Yet arrived via Yep Roc in 2005. It was the same label that reissued Doe’s 1998 KRS EP For the Rest of Us under the name For the Best of Us, the new version had been recorded during the same sessions that containing five additional songs. For his next album as well, 2007’s A Year in the Wilderness, Doe stayed with Yep Roc.
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Thursday, May 1st, 2008
Synopsis:
“Who am I?…I didn’t know who I was…how I got there. I woke up in an island off the coast of Seattle. But I did seem to know everything else. And about me, there were things that I didn’t understand… the brand, extreme claustrophobia, being colorblind. And I still search for my own while my gifts provided answers for others. I guess, my name is John Doe.”
On an island off the coast of Seattle, Washington, a mysterious man wakes up naked, with absolutely no memory of how he got there and who he is. However, as he comes to call himself, apart from the details of his own past, “John Doe” seems to have access to the sum total of all human knowledge: he knows the population of Uruguay, how many dimples are on a golf ball and other such obscure and not so obscure facts. Also, on everything from the stock market to computers, he has expert knowledge. Over the course of the series, by using his unusual ability while also helping people in need, John attempts to find clues about his past. It becomes clear in the process that there is an international conspiracy is watching John’s every move, known as the Phoenix Organization.
Who is John Doe?
One of its producers revealed the secret of the main character’s true identity, after the show was cancelled, in an interview with TV Guide: the Phoenix Organization. He said, there was a group conducting research into near-death experiences. They believed that the sum total of knowledge in the universe would be conferred upon them at the moment of death, in order to gain access to that knowledge, so they killed John and brought him back to life.
The show’s final episode revealed that Digger, one of John’s closest friends, was in fact the true leader of the Phoenix Organization. An explanation of Doe’s identity was eventually put forward by the show’s producers in the pages of Entertainment Weekly. The article read, in part:
Where We Left Off: Doe was helping the police solve crimes and being tracked by a seemingly nefarious group called the Phoenix Organization. He finally unmasked the big bad, a villain nicknamed Stocking Cap — his friend, Digger (played by William Forsythe)!
What Would Have Happened: Make that someone who looked like Digger. The villain unmasked in the finale was actually just a Phoenix member with some fancy facial reconstruction. Turns out, the Phoenix believed Doe was the Messiah and its members were actually protecting Doe from a second group, which wanted him dead. The truth: Doe was injured in a boating accident. That mark on his chest? A scar left by a piece of shrapnel from the explosion. His Überbrain? A by-product of transcending his body during a near-death experience, traveling to a spiritual plane where all the universe’s questions are answered.
So Who is John Doe?! “You’d think we actually would have come up with his name,” the show’s producer revealed. “We have no idea,” he finally admitted, before adding “Fred.”
John Doe is an American television series, during the 2002–2003 TV season that aired on The Fox Network.
source: wikipedia.org
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