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Hello , My Name is Exene
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977 . In a word : Whoa . While it never occurred to me at the time , as a college freshman back in Indianapolis , just starting to cover music for my school paper , in hindsight , it ’ s 20 / 20 clear just how lucky I was . Arguably , it was the year that punk rock broke and sped past all of the relatively tortoise-slow heavy metal that was the accepted standard one day before .
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And while I could never fathom that I would somehow still be filing reports 47 crazy years later from my beloved adopted city of San Francisco . I also had no idea I would have cool companions on my journey , artists I spoke to back then , who I would continue interviewing in the interim , and who are still making great music now . Bands like seminal Los Angeles punk juggernaut X , whose four founding members – vocalist Exene Cervenka , bassist / vocalist John Doe , drummer D . J . Bonebrake , and perpetually-pompadoured guitarist extraordinaire Billy Zoom ( who never appeared to sweat onstage , no matter how frenetically he ’ d be playing ) – have just issued the power-chord-pummeling Smoke & Fiction , what they ’ re ominously billing as ‘ X ’ s final album ,’ to be accompanied a The End Is Near Farewell tour .
X ’ s 2020 comeback Alphabetland , a riveting , kinetic comeback that few expected , and — although few sets could hold a Roman candle to the definitive 1980 debut “ Los Angeles ,” which blueprinted Doe and Cervenka ’ s unique off-kilter harmonies and their yoking to jagged , propulsive rhythms , a totally inimitable style that hasn ’ t changed to this day — one of its catalog classics . So , make no mistake . You can ’ t take the longevity of X for granted . And although they sound more vital than ever on Smoke & Fiction – from the stomping opener “ Ruby Church ,” through hyper “ Flipside ,” the jarring ’ 77-reminiscent single “ Big Black X ” ( with a tandem vintage-themed video0 , and mortality-toned reflections like “ The Way It Is ,” “ Winding Up the Time ,” and “ Sweet ’ Til the Bitter End ” ( complemented by occasional Cervenka stargazing on the “ Face in the Moon ” ballad ).
Cervenka once told me that her favorite X performance of all time went down in Indianapolis back in May of 1981 ( right before I ventured West to SF in ’ 82 ), when our parallel lines / lives first intersected . I interviewed her then at a dinky 200-capacity venue called Crazy Al ’ s Pizza Parlor , where the stage was only an awkward single foot off the floor , but the band tore it up like it was Madison Square Garden . The small crowd — all of us in the town ’ s diehard punk scene — absorbed that energy and darted it right back to the members , who in turn were inspired to rock even harder until everyone was whipped into a joyous frenzy . And she still marvels over that show today . “ Oh , that Pizza Parlor I Indianapolis !” She purrs . “ There was something about the appreciation level of the audience that night , and I think it was also the idea of just being able to actually play Indianapolis . We didn ’ t have to just play Chicago , New
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