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X the Band at Bowery Ballroom
Legendary Los Angeles punk band is back by popular request
X the Band (Photo: Frank Gargani)
Fate brought Los Angeles punk band X together in 1977, and love for their fans has kept them on stage more than 30 years later. While not the most successful band to emerge from the 70s punk scene, X has been one of the most enduring and legendary. Due to honest, biting lyrics, harsh harmonies and intense banging backgrounds, X was initially determined “too hard, too wild, too insane, too dirty,” even for punk. But Ray Manzarek of the Doors saw more in the band and produced their early albums. The extra something was due to poet turned vocalist Exene Cervenka, bassist John Doe, Bill Zoom on guitar and sax, and drummer D.J. Bonebrake’s penchant for experimentation and artistic eagerness to integrate rock, country and folk into their soul-scratching, danceable, punk rock beats. Fans riveted by songs like “We’re Desperate,” vented along with its simple lyrics, shouting, “I play too hard when I ought to go to sleep/They pick on me cause I really have the beat/Some people give me the creeps.” Sometimes simple, more often deep, X songs were widely regarded as poetry, honest and unyielding. Collaborations with Manzarek produced their dark debut Los Angeles, the critically acclaimed Wild Gift and More Fun in the New World, and the mournful rather than moody album Under the Big Black Sun.
After their last release, however, frustrations fueled the departure of Zoom, and the band’s commercial acceptance drew resistance from fans, resentful of absent classic X punk sounds. Solo projects, side projects and other artistic endeavors began to overshadow X, which continued to tour with alternate members on a less-receptive level, until the band reunited in 2000.
No longer focused on aesthetics, fans flocked to see the original line up perform live, reviving their punk pasts with some vintage X energy. Due to the success of 2006’s As the World Burns and 2008’s 13×31 tours, X is doing it again with the X-TRL tour. To show their gratitude to their punk patrons, X has dubbed this their total-request-live tour, allowing fans to vote online for their favorite songs, thus determining the set list. A bit older, but certainly much tighter, the band still satisfies crowds with the classics that secured their place in punk history so many years ago.
Money from the tour profits Sweet Relief Musicians Fund, providing for struggling musicians in the Los Angeles community “who will never be rich or famous, but who play essential roles in the transcendent connection between fans and music.”