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Thanks to everyone who recommended that I see X on Friday. I’m still stunned by how amazing they were. X always distinguished themselves by matching their intensity with surprising-for-a-punk-band technical precision, but playing these songs so tightly 30 years after writing them and after an extended hiatus is next-level stuff. Lot of Wild Gift, lot of Big Black Sun. Jeff Young from The Hill got his wish of seeing them play "Riding With Mary" — I first heard that song from Born Against’s cover — and I got mine by seeing them play "Universal Corner." Pomocon Sam Goldman, in absentia, even got his wish, after a fashion, when they played "Sex & Dying In High Society," which they unfortunately skipped when he saw them in Boston.
Billy Zoom looks unaged. Completely. Frozen in amber for 20 years. Same pompadour. Black jeans and black leather, guitar strap with BILLY ZOOM stitched on. Mouthed the lyrics while he soloed solos written before I was alive. Not one false note. He ended the set by taking pictures of the crowd cheering him. I have a role model.
An apology to issue. Enthusiasm led me to scream the "I’m Coming Over" lyrics into the ear of a lady standing in front of me on the balcony. She gently corrected me, and while I was initially annoyed, the truth is that no one wants to have some drunk asshole screaming lyrics off-key while she tries to enjoy her old favorite band. So: I’m sorry ma’am. If it makes you feel any better, I’ll get what’s coming to me at the Blanks 77 reunion show of 2025.
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See, that’s a difficult call.
On the one hand, yeah, you’d like to hear the band without the drunk asshole in your ear.
On the other, especially when you ARE the drunk asshole, the whole point here, the whole attraction is these SONGS are part of your soul, part of who you are, the fact that you still know the words, hell, the words are burned into your cerebellum and you really don’t have a choice but to sing along. Hell, if I go to a Tesla show this summer, don’t think for a moment that I have the OPTION of just passively listening to “Lil Suzie”. Uh uh.
The best anyone can hope for is that I find a spot where I’m not right up in anybody’s ears when the time comes. That’s the best you coulda done, and sometimes it just ain’t possible…
mikey
Yeah, but if you’re loud enough to hear over the PA, you’re either singing too darned loud or you’ve time-travelled to one of those Jonathan Richman shows in the ’80s when you could barely tell he was amplified and the crowd would clap a little for percussion.
In re: Mr. Zoom, I always assumed he was a vampire or something, back when I was young and getting older and he never seemed to. I still don’t get it.
In re: X, never my favorite LA punk act (bring Darby back from the dead, please, or give me another Urinals reunion tour like their first one), but I am not shocked they put on a good show. They seem the type who would. And I always did like the way I found their first LP: in a box of free records on the sidewalk. Flipping through: ‘crap, crap, crap, X’s Los Angeles, crap, crap, crap.’ Original with inner and everything. Weird find, but what a fine record.