X
Smoke & Fiction

“The first time I realized that music could change life, stir the soul, and have cosmic power, I was twelve years old. I had just listened to the long version of Light My Fire on the car stereo.”

(Exene Cervenka, X)

It was 1980.

And what if that evening Ray Manzarek and his wife Dorothy hadn't been at Whisky A Go Go?

And what if Dorothy hadn't suddenly shouted at him if he recognized the song being played by the band on stage?

And what if he hadn't replied that he didn't know either the band or their songs?

And what if she hadn't then burst out in loud laughter, yelling at him that those wild ones were playing “Soul Kitchen” at a thousand kilometers an hour?

And, above all, what if the Doors had never existed?

Well, history is never made with “if” but I'm certain that, even if the Doors had never existed, Ray Manzarek would have reserved his front-row seat in rock history.

***

“The bands played hard, roared, lamented, fell, destroyed, and took too many drugs to be able to play decently; yet it all happened right there, in front of our eyes.” (John Doe, X)

It was 1984.

You could insist that “Breathless” was a remake of “À bout de souffle”, but it wasn't: Jim McBride wasn’t Jean-Luc Godard, Richard Gere wasn't Jean-Paul Belmondo, and Valerie Kaprisky wasn't Jean Seberg, even though she was the only reason that drove me to pay for the movie ticket.

However, the song that played over the freeze-frame final (one of the most ridiculous endings I remember, by the way) was electrifying, it was something I felt was mine, for me, whom the first Clash had just begun to upset the life; who played it or what the title was, I hadn't the faintest idea, just as I had no idea who Jean-Luc Godard was.

But I had no doubt that something was happening.

***

“I feel incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to do those things, to have been there at the beginning, when everything seemed possible and everyone was welcome. I feel even more fortunate because I survived. It was the best moment of my life.”

(Jane Wiedlin, Go-Go’s)

It was 2017.

According to those who claim that punk was invented by the Sex Pistols in 1977, 40 years had passed, and the anniversary was worthy of celebration with re-releases, books, reunions, and concerts.

The X celebrated too, not the invention of punk but their formation, and perhaps even more, simply the fact of being there, all four, as battered as they may be, but there.

A few concerts to confirm to me the certainty that heroes are young and beautiful only when they die young and beautiful, and that Exene’s crow-black hair and tar-black lips were now only in the famous photo where she widens her eyes and crosses her arms to form an X.

***

“Thanks to everyone for supporting us …”

(X)

It was 2020.

The X returned with a new album 27 years after the previous one and in the original lineup after 35 years.

Regardless of the beauty of “Alphabetland”, the feeling was (and still is) that it was a sign of respect and gratitude for the fandom, supported by the concluding minute of the video “I Gotta Fever”: “Thanks to all of our fans who contributed …” and a sequence of names in alphabetical order – from Adrianne C. to Yvonne Speck – each name a fan who delivered to X a concert ticket, a souvenir photo, an article cut out from who knows where, and thousands of memorabilia that were the only protagonists of that video.

***

It's August 2, 2024, when Bandcamp informs me that it has two pieces of news for me, one good and the other bad, and asks which I want to hear first.

The good one, I reply.

The new X album is out.

Thanks, I already know, I pre-ordered it two months ago. Now, spill the bad news because I need to run and listen to the album.

The X ends here.

I know this too, thanks again, Fat Possum wrote to me in Times New Roman 40 that it is the final album, the last time together in the recording studio for Exene, John, Billy, and DJ. I even know that in October they will start a tour to ideally greet and thank everyone who continues to spin any of their vinyls, from “Los Angeles” to “Smoke & Fiction”. If you're done, I'll go spin “Smoke & Fiction” on the turntable.

***

“She had to leave / … / She had started hating the blacks and the Jews, the Mexicans who filled her with shit, the fags, and the lazy billionaires / … / It had been hard to say goodbye to her best friend, she had bought a watch on Hollywood Boulevard the day she left, it was sad to have to leave”

(X, Los Angeles)

From Los “Angeles” to “Smoke & Fiction” is a whirlwind journey through Los Angeles, with a terminus at 1118 Genesee Avenue, from a big X burning in the dark to a big X that has stopped burning because no fire is eternal, 33 revolutions per minute for over 40 years: in the end, the X never left Los Angeles and have always continued to tell it to me, even if I haven't always listened to them.

Los Angeles has been told to me by many, from the Germs to the Blasters, from the Zeros to Los Lobos, each in their own way.

The X told it to me as if each song was a chapter from a novel by Raymond Chandler or James Ellroy, Hollywood in the background, in the foreground investigator Marlowe yesterday and sergeant Hopkins today, taken to scour the turmoil that stirs inside millions of poor souls, whether it is called cynicism, called vice, be it that pain that for many is a more trusted companion than love, the one who greets you in the morning calling you “darling” after beating you all night long.

I don't know if the lyrics of X's songs can be defined as “literature” or even “poetry”, I only know that the one in “Sex and Dying in the High Society” is not inferior to Chandler and surpasses Ellroy, and anyone listening to an X song without knowing what Exene and John are singing is truly missing out.

Then, the image of her buying a watch on Hollywood Blvd. the day she leaves Los Angeles has stayed with me much more deeply than the poems memorized behind a desk.

***

“There was never anything like L.A. punk and there never will be. We won.”

(Exene Cervenka, X)

I can't disagree with her.

I'll only add that there has never been anything like the X and there will never be.

***

For those who had the patience to read these lines to the end hoping to find a shred of a review, the album is splendid, “Big Black X” makes you cry with emotion for 3 minutes and 35 seconds, and in an impossible ranking, up there very high, so high it's even hard to conceive, there is “Los Angeles”, then “Under a Big Black Sun”, “Smoke & Fiction” keeps company with “More Fun in the New World”.