Originally posted by thirsty moore:
Does someone have the link to the X review?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63067-2003Jun15.html X
From their beginnings as punks spouting seamy Los Angeles poetry and ending with a bohemian shakedown of Americana, X's heyday from 1978 to 1983 is one of the more vital times in the past quarter-century of this country's music. The original quartet -- John Doe, Exene Cervenka, Billy Zoom and D.J. Bonebrake -- had begun to fall apart by the time 1985's "Ain't Love Grand" was released, but they began playing together again in 1998, and recent expanded CD reissues of the first four albums have kindled cross-generational X interest. Currently on one of the longest treks since its reformation, the band received rapturous attention and adoration at the packed 9:30 club Saturday night, and its confident, careening 75-minute performance was entirely deserving of it.
Appearing just a bit longer in the tooth (except for the 55-year-old Zoom, who has always looked strangely ageless), the elements that equaled X were gloriously in place from the opening bars of "Your Phone's off the Hook, but You're Not": Doe and Cervenka's raw harmonies, Zoom's Chuck Berry-cum-Johnny Ramone guitar, Bonebrake's popping drums. And from the the stinging gutter swipe of "Johnny Hit and Run Paulene" to the haunting "White Girl" to the surging twang of "The New World," X hurled the music as though it was more than just a revival trip. Of course it was, but when confronted by the mash of raw poetry and punk in songs like "The World's a Mess; It's in My Kiss" and "We're Desperate," Saturday's show could only seem like a distinct pleasure that made X's art a little more palpable.
-- Patrick Foster
