When a band announces a final record, complete with a farewell tour, the typical instinct is to bemoan the end of an era and prepare the search for silver linings in whatever cringeworthy content is likely coming your way. None of this is true of X. The legendary quartet, comprised of John Doe (vocals, bass), Exene Cervenka (vocals), Billy Zoom (guitar) and DJ Bonebrake (drums), were founding members of the “carnival of weirdness” that was the Los Angeles punk scene in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. Almost 50 years later, unlike many of their contemporaries, X still make albums that are not only worth listening to, but slot neatly into their expansive discography as a matter of course.
So despite their new album Smoke & Fiction’s designation as “the final record” (a concept that more often than not results in corny rehashes of storied careers), the album isn’t a nostalgia tour; it’s a final victory lap. Though X’s history is firmly rooted in West Coast punk, they are likely the most eclectic, musically complex and idiosyncratic group to emerge from the punk years on the Sunset Strip. Their nearly five decades of music-making, both as a group and apart, has spanned from punk to folk to rockabilly to jazz to country, but it has always been uniquely X.
Many of the songs on Smoke & Fiction, especially lead single “Big Black X” and its video, recall the early years of the band’s career (their moniker getting lost on huge marquees; LA’s first punk club, the Masque; the intersection where John and Exene lived when they met), but these references don’t linger in sentimentality. Instead, they are wielded like talismans—colorful and enigmatic artifacts in a collage-like tableau of memories becoming new imaginings.
Lyrically, the songs on Smoke & Fiction should serve to remind listeners that John and Exene are poets—prior to the pair meeting at a poetry workshop in the late ‘70s, Exene had never sung or thought about performing music. Throughout their partnership (a marriage, a divorce and decades of friendship and musical collaboration), John and Exene have always approached songwriting as wordsmiths, their writing exacting and vivid, buoyed by their distinctive vocal interplay that’s full of character and charm.
Much like 2020’s surprise record Alphabetland (the band’s first new material since Hey Zeus! in 1993), Smoke & Fiction is also a testament to the group’s incredible musical alchemy—or, as drummer DJ Bonebrake calls it, “some mysterious chemistry.” X’s dedication to their musical craft was what set them apart from many of their contemporaries in those early years—they could tear down the house and party with Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Germs, etc., but there was an elegant, technical precision to everything they did, from John’s objectively beautiful voice and Exene’s poetry to Billy’s melodic instincts and DJ’s tight, dynamic subtlety.
On Smoke & Fiction, songs like “Sweet Til The Bitter End,” “Big Black X” and the title track recall the breathless speed and rockabilly swagger of their earliest songs, but the band also makes room for the explorations of Americana, alt-rock and folk they’ve long been drawn to. “We have such a wide ranging musical context,” Exene says. “We all listen to so many different types of music. I don’t know what comes through from any of that; I just sing whatever sounds right to me and try to make it as perfect in my own way as I can.” On “The Way It Is,” guitarist Billy Zoom adds a dark country twang, while John’s vocal performance is reminiscent of his recent folk record, Fables In a Foreign Land. “Face in the Moon” could easily exist on one of John’s late ‘90s/early ‘2000s solo albums, while “Flipside” offers an infectious surf-rock groove. Of the latter track, John says it “has everything I strive for in songwriting: memorable vocal melody, cool guitar counter melody, surprising and somewhat mysterious lyrics.”
“Winding Up the Time” is perhaps the album’s best and most quintessential X performance: It’s blazing and fierce, flippant and artful. Close your eyes and you almost can’t tell that anyone has aged a day. It feels a little silly to state the obvious by commenting on how astoundingly good they still sound all these years later, but it is a necessary observation, considering that the apparent standard for rock legacy acts has been set by the near-unrecognizable sound of Mick Jagger’s voice in 2023, auto-tuned and compressed into the stratosphere. (The difference between X and Mick Jagger is neatly exemplified in a 2015 quote from Nicole Panter, manager of the Germs: “[Being called a rock star] was the worst thing anyone could say to you back in those days. ‘Rock star’ was a terrible, terrible insult.”)
While it’s not surprising to longtime fans that X’s sound and energy haven’t waned, there’s something incredibly comforting about the fact that the opening chords of “Ruby Church,” the first track on Smoke & Fiction, feel just as vital and raw as the ones on “Los Angeles” did in 1980, and that John and Exene sound as compelling together as they ever have. Sure, they’ve aged, but there’s a rich history in their combined voices—they wouldn’t be who they are if they pretended otherwise.
The beauty of Smoke & Fiction as a “farewell record” is that, for the most part, it doesn’t feel like one. “We’re saying the end is near because we can’t be touring like this forever,” DJ says. “It’s coming to an end, but we want it to end on a high note. We just want our fans to know.” There is a loving loyalty between X and their fans; tours now are attended by former punks who were there in 1979, or who snuck into theaters to see Penelope Spheeris’s LA punk documentary The Decline of Western Civilization, often with their now adult children in tow. They know all the words too, if not exactly what those words mean to their parents. In 1980, Exene wailed that “No one is united, all things are untied, perhaps we’re boiling over inside” over the driving pulse of “The World’s a Mess, It’s in My Kiss.” 44 years later, on “Big Black X,” John and Exene fade out on “Stay awake and don’t get taken, we knew the gutter and also the future.” The future is now upon us, and the world is still a mess. X may be marking their end, but their legacy will forever echo into whatever futures punk inhabits—no matter who’s singing about it.
