X' marks the spot

Arizona Daily Wildcat Photo courtesy of Elektra Entertainment X (from left): Billy Zoom, D.J. Bonebrake, Exene Cervenka, John Doe

And there, among Darby Crash's self-immolating performances and the general creepiness of Lee Ving in his pre-movie star days, was X. Exene Cervenka, John Doe, Billy Zoom and D.J. Bonebreak. Geeky, intellectual poet-punks. I made my boyfriend give me all his X tapes immediately.

It's kind of sad that I've had wait 10 years for Beyond and Back: The X Anthology (Elektra). If I had this in 1987, I may have turned out a very different girl that you see before you today. Angrier, with my hair more tangled. As it is, I held onto my one tape with "Los Angeles" on it, bought John Doe's countrified solo compact disc, and became a balanced, well-adjusted literature major.

"Los Angeles" is the first song on this two-disc set. Makes me want to crash my domestic knockoff of a foreign subcompact car into the Farmer John cow mural up on Grant, stumble out of the wreckage with my hair on fire and wander the welfare alleys of the '05 zip code like an avenging punk angel. And that's just the first song.

The anthology is a collection of greatest hits, live versions, rehearsals and demos salvaged from various orphan tapes. Regardless of the origins, these songs all share the same violent propulsion of Zoom's guitar and Bonebreak's drums, the earthy and heartbroken crooning of Doe and, of course, Exene. Exene sings, alternately, like she's regarding something repulsive yet vaguely appealing on the bottom of her shoe and like her entire soul is being pulled out of her throat, memory by memory. She keeps getting caught on the buttons of her childhood and the safety pins of early '80s L.A.

Exene and John Doe met at a Bohemian poetry thing in L.A. and became, as Jane Wiedlin (The Go-Go's) says in the liner notes, "the king and queen of the Hollywood punk scene." The CD booklet sings the praises of X in nearly unbearably excessive terms. Johnette Napolitano (Concrete Blonde) states that "Without question, they were the best band to come out of L.A." Henry Rollins, that big ol' softie, swoons, saying "I am defenseless to the beauty of X. Hank Williams would've given them the nod. Patsy Cline would have smiled."

It's telling that "the beauty of X" comes out of Country & Western music tradition. Before the big hats and the Ford endorsements, C&W was about broken hearts, drinkin' and the overwhelming disillusionment of life. While all the other punk bands were rebelling against their parents and the Reagan years, X was nursing a sunburnt soul. "See How We Are," the title song from their 1987 album, appears here in demo form and it's a plaintive demand for attention and a belligerent declaration of self.

"Burning House of Love" appears four tracks later, a smoldering paean to incendiary, destructive love that is a direct descendant of "Ring of Fire." Doe says "I wish Johnny Cash and June Carter would record it."

Unfortunately, there are also things included that, as Exene explains in the liner notes, "Seemed like a good idea at the time." "Wild Thing" is one of those, following as it does in the punk tradition of slashing and burning oldies tunes; this is one song that started life slashed and burned. "Arms for Hostages/Country at War" is explained as "demo fragments" from the recording of 1993's Hey Zeus! This is not archeology; fragments are not relics.

But in two whole CDs worth of stuff, there's bound to be a couple less fortunate tracks. The ones you want are here: " In this House that I Call Home," "White Girl," "Jonny Hit and Run Paulene," "4th of July," "Devil Doll."

I may have forgotten about the little punk girl with the heart of Patsy Cline who lives inside of me, but X has not. And, at their brilliant suggestion, she and I are gonna go for a drive.