The X Band
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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