X Nite
Pittsburgh , PA
X - they're a band.
A really good band. From
It was a sweltering July Friday-night; and Deb and I took a hike up a city hill, to find a small club called Graffiti, to see this band X.
It was well worth the walk.
How can I explain this? Exene - she's the singer - sways and shrieks. She's got a unique pitch and key. It's uh . . . alternative. Her vocals compete with and harmonize with the wail of the electric guitar - and with the pounding rhythms of the bass and drum. This energized synthesis somehow becomes mesmerizingly beautiful. Really.
Kind of like whale songs meet Jimi Hendrix
backed by Pearl
Exene's also something of a personality. She says things like . . .
"I advocate a total ban on sex . . . heterosexual sex . . . if Roe v. Wade is overturned"
and
"Oh, one more thing: drinking, smoking and taking drugs is exactly what the government wants you to do; the most outside, post-punk-rock, past being a hippie, past all that stuff is to be sober and clean. If you can do that you're really a revolutionary in this society, because it's almost impossible,"
to journalists who publish.
Tonight she's just singin' though. Belting out those banshee harmonies that meld with the band's screeching guitar and with the savory Jackson Browneish melodies and harmonies of X's other singer-songwriter - her ex-boyfriend, John Doe.
That may even be his real name. After the show I'll get to shake John Doe's hand. He'll be standing at the bar holding court and Deb and I will mosey into the circle, trying to listen to his words. When he turns to me and we introduce ourselves I just smile like a moron and sputter "You guys are great." Nothing else comes out.
I'm star struck. This is a guy who's wedded pieces of
his sometimes-country-sweet and sometimes-culturally-observant poetry, with
choice and mellisonant guitar chords to create moments of art as fine as
anything done by Sting or Voltaire
or Elia Kazan.
He's done that, yet he's as nice and as down to earth as . . . oh . . . Ron Howard's character from the Happy Days TV show. He's 6'1" and lanky, with an earnest face and dark hair. A hip Gary Cooper; homegrown in the suburbs of the American West.
I tell him I really liked his movie. "Which one?" he asks.
"The one where John Cusak ran out of those restaurants, and you rode a motorcycle and went to all those Motel 6's ."
He puzzles for a second, then says "You mean "Roadside Prophets" with Adam Horowitz?", making sure to give the film's star deserved credit.
"Yeah, that's the one. It was a great movie." Actually though, what I don't remember at this moment is that X was the subject of an obscure and excellent mid-nineteen-eighties documentary called "The Unheard Music", which was my first exposure to the band and (subliminally, at least) the reason that I passed on Van Halen tonight.
"Thanks." he says.
"You guys are really great."
"Thanks."
"Really great."
"Spread the word" he smiles.
"Hey, that'll be easy!" I gush.
My moment is fading. I'm kinda drunk, I'm probably boring, and I didn't come prepared to shake hands with Sting or Voltaire or John Doe.
My moment passes.
I'm still gripped by the show though. The four members of X play passionately as individuals, but their combination synthesizes into something transcendent. I guess that's what being a band is all about, huh?
Some nights (like tonight) X and its audience synchronize; creating moments of weird and awing beauty. Exene's siren, Tony Gilkyson's shrieking lead guitar, Doe's thumping bass and drummer D.J. Bonebreak's shaved-headed poundings, metaphysically fuse with the rhythmic and rowdy sway of a slam-dancing crowd.
At the end of the show, Exene, humbly thanks
the small crowd for "not going to see Van Halen tonight." The next
day's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
won't even mention that this legendary but largely commercially-untapped
After our moment with Doe, Deb and I stay
till the lights come up. We talk with a
It's a cool, clean, clear, Appalachian 3:00 a.m. when we head out the door, down the neon-lit hill, and back the fifteen blocks to our apartment.
Exene's probably in one of those gleaming downtown river-front hotels that we can see from our window.
Wonder where she's headin' next?
Text Copyright © 1993 Bill Frick (All Rights Reserved)
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