under the rock

FOREVER HASN'T HAPPENED YET: X was a punk-oldies act even before the Pixies reunited.

Beyond and Back

by Michael Pelusi

In punk rock, there are the bands you admire and the ones you love. X is for lovers. Their sound was as unlikely as their lineup. Put together a poet, an aspiring songsmith, a rockabilly cat and a classically trained percussionist, and you could get anything, without necessarily getting anything good. True, the noises that Exene Cervenka, John Doe, Billy Zoom and D.J. Bonebrake made were born of punk's energy and fuck-it attitude. What made the Los Angeles band really stand out was the simmering restraint (guitarist Zoom and drummer Bonebrake were musical polymaths willingly subservient to X's modus operandi) and the lyrical evocations of societies and romances facing ruin (courtesy the singing-songwriting, once-married tandem of Cervenka and bassist Doe).

X has been a punk-oldies act of late, since well before the Pixies were even back to speaking to each other. The new DVD and CD Live in Los Angeles (Shout! Factory) captured the band in November in feisty form, if just a bit long in the tooth. "Beyond and Back," "Motel Room in My Bed," "It's Who You Know" and others still retain their lean, rough-hewn sense of danger.

More significant, though, is the recent DVD release of the 1986 documentary X: The Unheard Music (Image Entertainment), long consigned to eBay and dusty used-VHS racks. Directed by W.T. Morgan, the film eschews a conventional narrative, instead weaving together performance clips and interviews with a survey of early '80s underground and mainstream cultures in L.A. Thus, viewers get a glimpse of the structures that both helped and hampered the band during their heyday, with everyone from producer (and Doors keyboardist) Ray Manzarek and legendary DJ Rodney Bingenheimer to befuddled record and radio men getting face time.

As for the band itself: Zoom is revealed as an accomplished clarinetist with a kick-ass scooter. Doe details the band's country and blues roots, while Bonebrake waxes enthusiastic about Lionel Hampton and Captain Beefheart. And Cervenka opens up about her older sister's sad death in 1981, an event which figures prominently, and heartbreakingly, in the X canon.

The film drags a bit (though never when the band is onstage) and sometimes overreaches (some of the commentaries on commercialism are both relevant and a bit much). And the DVD is woefully extra-less. But X: The Unheard Music remains as significant a rock-doc as The Kids Are Alright and Some Kind of Monster by imaginatively examining the hard slog that now-worshipped cult acts faced in their time. As the opening credits say, "Play this movie loud."

Though X's days as a contemporary act are in the past, flickers of their legacy continue to emerge. Doe's solo album of this year, Forever Hasn't Happened Yet (Yep Roc) contains "Hwy. 5," a Cervenka co-write. Instead of a blistering punk tempo, the sound is restrained and haunted. And taking the trademark female harmonies is Neko Case, who most certainly learned some of her art-country-punk stance from Cervenka. It is who you know, after all.

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