X

“Around My Heart” on the Live at the Whisky album

so fucking goddamn good

X is the kind of music for me where it’s like, the passion inherent makes you want to pick up an instrument & play & sing your heart out but also that simultaneous thing of: how on earth can you ever make what you do sound anything remotely like these unearthly geniuses

magic

Don't have anything to add but hear hear

Is this the new Twitter thread? Jk

yeah something uniquely magical about them

they could incorporate old rock n' roll and roots/country stuff into punk in a way that felt organic and completely special to how they did it...even the best of the cowpunks it always felt a bit "dress up"

also whenever John or Exene sing part of a song solo, part of my enjoyment is that runway of anticipation for the pre chorus or chorus moment when they harmonize

https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/mobile/000/026/155/maxresdefault_(2).jpg

all these posts are otm

i got into them because i wanted to impress a crush who was obsessed with "the world's a mess; it's in my kiss" and the moment i heard it and the rest of los angeles i knew i had no chance because i could never ever be as cool as x

that sounds self-deprecating but i don't intend it as such! x were just the coolest band ever

i first heard them on a mix cd Mr Veg made me before we were married when I was still in Australia … i’d never heard them before & was like WHOA what is this

and then we listened to the Live at the Whisky CD on our first road trip from Sacramento to Vegas

still to my ears New World sounds SO theillingly american in the best possible ways - musically, lyrically, stylistically, vibes - everything

boosting the love, they really are magic when they hit just right

but what about the minutemen, flesh eaters, DOA, big boys, and the black flag?

those are other good bands that have their own threads

ding ding ding

Also a lot of related Wild Wild West action incl. beyond what's mentioned in title:

TS: Lone Justice or Cruzados or Drivin' & Cryin' or Green On Red or Del Fuegos or Jason & The Scorchers or Long Ryders or Bodeans?

also pertaining Dave Alvin C or D

xps

2:58
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iypAEijnq5A

but what about the minutemen, flesh eaters, DOA, big boys, and the black flag?

those are other good bands that have their own threads

lol I love all those bands but yes

yeah something uniquely magical about them

YES. even their bad albums are not awful. Alphabetland is way better than pretty much any reformed punk bands' album. Not including Anthrax (UK) because they rule.

Yeah was really pleasantly surprised by Alphabetland, really great!

I saw them in Florida in ‘87 on that ‘Live at the Whisky’ tour. It was a free outdoor show. I remember that Exene was pregnant and wore a potato sack dress.

are you guys fucking serious

A lotta folks didn't see what you did up there.

lol. in my/our defense those bands get brought up a lot in relation.

am sulking now

I see that Sunset Strip isn't up on Spotify, so that means it's the next one they're reclaiming the rights to. They now own all of the Slash & Elektra studio albums and also the first Knitters set.

lol budo

The rockism in that song though. Even back then it made me wince.

Yep

can you explain what you mean?

"glitter disco synthesizer night school
all this noble savage drum drum drum"

would be my guess, also "b-e-e-t-s not b-e-a-t-s"

(I love this song, to be clear, Exene went on a rant about rock star "whores of Babylon" when I saw them do this live a few years back)

those are definitely lyrics from the song. to me they don't seem to be saying "rock is the best kind of music"

my take is that it's more about the simmering resentment they have re: the new Brit bands, it's low key but def there

my take is that it's more about the simmering resentment they have re: the new Brit bands, it's low key but def there

"Will the last American band to get played on the radio please bring the flag" — yeah, pretty low key, easy to overlook...

There's certainly a thread of complaint though the career of X (and to some extent the Ramones) of "why aren't we one of the biggest bands?" I do recall the press push working the "discovered by Ray Manzarek, they are the new Doors" angle hard. That message got to me, even as a kid who just listened to AOR at that point, not really interested any anything outside of Beatles/Who/AC-DC/Cars etc. But to my kid ears, they were impossibly uncanny looking on TV - not skinny tie cool, not rough and tumble hard rock, and not young for a new band! Billy Zoom shoulda hid behind sunglasses like Ocasek. And they did not sound like The Doors at all. I could sense the were talking about older person things, so wordy. "Lunatic Fringe": now there's a haircut you can set your watch to. I resented stuff like X even being pushed on me. I was still trying to distinguish Billy Squire from Led Zeppelin.

Of course, I loved 'em after I got into punk. But even that took a little while. I've long thought that in their peak era, the problem was that they read as too old for the young and too new for the old.

And too punk for the rockers and not punk enough for the punks.

And right after they gripe about synthesizers, their next album leads with a single - "Burning House of Love" - that has conspicuous synthesizer on it. (It probably would've been better without.) This move did get them on AOR radio for a minute, though still no big hit. The Ramones did the same thing just before on their Too Tough to Die album - also no hit. I was rooting for both those bands, but I agree both of them projected a certain chippiness.

where did they gripe about synthesizers??

I just quoted it! That line is absolutely intended in a disparaging way

idk i think that's a stiflingly narrow reading of that passage

literally two lines after complaining that there are no American bands on the radio, but ok

and "night school" is not a compliment

bodu jeru – how do you read it?

i wouldn't say i have a reading necessarily. i'm not really a lyrics person, but i do bristle when people make bold proclamations about what lyrics must mean. in this instance, it just seems plausible to me that they're being ironic, or that the narrator is a character or a semi-real avatar of the band and they are venting their "bad thoughts," you know? i just wouldn't take it as a given that the official band line is that synthesizer music is somehow not as important or real as punk rock

(I saw what you xxxxpost did budo, just didn't want to laugh---friends warehouse their pain.)

haha, yes. and now look what i've gotten myself into

I mean it could be “in character” (there’s a pretty famous example of the same band doing that, but the distancing is made somewhat clear in that case), but then it’s the character’s rockism making folks wince…

one of many possible readings, but yeah -- i guess at the end of the day, if that's what you and others here, i won't argue about it.

hear*

Possible hot take: I was let down when I heard the studio version of "Nausea" the first time because I was introduced to the track through Decline of Western Civilization and that live crunch - but more importantly, the lack of Ray Manzarek's insufferable key bleats - was way more potent to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2xehSjrzVs