Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Under the Big Black Sun
WORK NOTES: with Tom DeSavia
PSEUDONYM(S): Duchac, John Nommensen
BIRTHDATE: 2/25/1954
WEBSITE: http://www.theejohndoe.com/#new2016
CITY: Fairfax
STATE: CA
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
Birth year cited as 1953 in Wikiped, 1954 in LOC and IMDB. * http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0230335/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm *
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born February 25, 1954, Decatur, IL; married Exene Cervenka (singer and musician), 1980; divorced 1985; married Gigi Blair; children: three daughters.
EDUCATION:
Antioch College, graduated 1975.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Musician, actor, poet, bass player, songwriter, guitarist, and writer. Worked as a roofer, an aluminum siding mechanic, a manager of poetry readings, a musician, and an actor. Cofounded LA punk band X, remains an active member, also of the band the Knitters. Has appeared as an actor and as himself in theatrical and television films, including The Decline of Western Civilization, 1981; X: The Unheard Music, 1986; Salvador, 1986; Slam Dance, 1987; Border Radio, 1987; Road House, 1989; Great Balls of Fire!, 1989; Liquid Dreams, 1991; A Matter of Degrees, 1991; Roadside Prophets, 1992; Pure Country, 1992; Wyatt Earp, 1994; Shake, Rattle and Rock!, 1994; Georgia, 1995; Scorpion Spring, 1996; Black Circle Boys, 1997; Vanishing Point, 1997; Touch, 1997; The Price of Kissing, 1997; The Last Time I Committed Suicide, 1997; Boogie Nights, 1997; Get to the Heart: The Barbara Mandrell Story, 1997; Lone Greasers, 1998; The Pass, 1998; Odd Man, 1998; Drowning on Dry Land, 1999; Sugar Town, 1999; Knocking on Death’s Door, 1999; The Rage: Carrie 2, 1999; Forces of Nature, 1999; Wildflowers, 1999; Brokedown Palace, 1999; The Specials, 2000; Gypsy 83, 2001; Jon Good’s Wife, 2001; Employee of the Month, 2002; The Good Girl, 2002; Bug, 2002; Red Zone, 2002; Wuthering Heights, 2003; Torque, 2004; Tom 51, 2004; We Jam Econo, 2005; Lucky 13, 2005; X–Live in Los Angeles, 2005; The Darwin Awards, 2006; Ten Inch Hero, 2007; The Sandpiper, 2007; Man Maid, 2008; Absent Father, 2008; One Tree Hill, 2008; and Pleased to Meet Me, 2013. Has appeared on television series, including Party of Five (one episode), 1997; Veronica’s Closet (one episode), 1999; Martial Law (one episode), 1999; The Strip (one episode), 1999; ER (one episode), 2000; Roswell (eighteen episodes), 1999–2002; Fastlane (one episode), 2002; Peacemakers (one episode), 2003; Law & Order (one episode), 2003; Carnivàle (two episodes), 2003; CSI: Miami (one episode), 2005; Jammin (one episode), 2006; and Wizards of Waverly Place (one episode), 2009.
WRITINGS
Composer, lyricist, and performer on albums with the band X, including Los Angeles, 1980; Wild Gift, 1981; Under the Big Black Sun, 1982; More Fun in the New World, 1983; Ain’t Love Grand!, 1985; and See How We Are, 1987. Composer, lyricist, and performer on albums with the band Knitters, including Poor Little Critter on the Road, 1985, and The Modern Sounds of the Knitters, 2005; Composer, lyricist, and performer on solo and collaborative albums, including Meet John Doe, Geffen, 1990; Kissingsohard, Forward/Rhino, 1995; Freedom Is…, spinART, 2000; Dim Stars, Bright Sky, Artist Direct BMG, 2002; Forever Hasn’t Happened Yet, Yep Roc, 2005; For the Best of Us, 2006; A Year in the Wilderness, 2007; Country Club (with the Saides), 2009; A Day at the Pass (with Jill Sobule), Pinko, 2011; Keeper, Yep Roc; The Best of John Doe: This Far, 2014; and The Westerner, Cool Rock, 2016.
SIDELIGHTS
Musician, composer, and actor John Doe was born John Nommensen Duchac. He cofounded and performed with the punk rock band X and later the Knitters. He has also released solo and collaborative albums and is an actor in films and on television. Overall, he has appeared in more than fifty films and television shows. Doe is coauthor with Tom DeSavia of Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of LA Punk. DeSavia became a fan of X at the age of fifteen and quickly struck up a friendship with Doe, which has continued for more than three decades. The book focuses on the West Coast punk scene from 1977 to 1982 and includes personal essays about the scene from many of the musicians who played in various bands, including Henry Rollins of Black Flag and Exene Cervanka, Doe’s ex-wife and a member of X. Essays are also contributed by journalists Pleasant Gehman, Kristine McKenna, and Chris Morris.
“The memories, some of them anyway, are here … for us to sort through and feel something akin to being there,” wrote Jedd Beaudoin in a review for the PopMatters Web site. Doe told Esquire Online contributor Jeff Slate that the book, which is named after the band X’s third album, was written to give the West Coast punk scene its due for contributions to punk music, noting: “I don’t really feel that what we all accomplished got its due credit. Some people still think the Sex Pistols were the first punk rock band.” Doe went on to add: “It’s nice to have this as a document, to tell the story of that time and place in the right way.”
Under the Big Black Sun does not present a linear look at the West Coast punk scene but rather features Doe’s, DeSavia’s, and other contributors’ essays in a haphazard fashion. “But what it lacks in tidy cohesion, it makes up for in you-had-to-be-there style storytelling, noted A.V. Club Web site contributor Ryan Bray, who added: “The varied voices and storytelling styles … give the book a loose, conversational feel that plays more like a documentary in words than a strict historical account.”
In addition to Doe’s reminisces and commentary interspersed throughout the book about the band X and the punk scene in general, coauthor DeSavia writes about his longtime friendship with Doe and his firsthand experiences in the punk scene. In their essays, Belinda Carlisle and Jane Wiedlin of the Go-Go’s talk about their love of the punk scene even before they formed the Go-Go’s and became a renowned band featured on the early days of MTV cable television network. Robert Lopez, better known as El Vez, a Mexican American singer, songwriter, and musician, reports on the the East L.A. scene, out of which came the Zeros and Los Lobos, although the latter was not a punk band. Matt Wyatt, a Los Angeles-based writer, director, and producer, talks about meeting D. Boon, who was the guitarist and vocalist in the punk rock trio Minutemen. Henry Rollins recounts his early years in California in the music scene in an essay titled “The Stucco-Coated Killing Field,” which PopMatters Web site contributor Beaudoin called “a piece that burns as brightly as his best vocal performances.” Another essay by Chris Morris reveals how he became a music journalist and a major voice reporting on the Left Coast music scene.
“The authors hang on every sinewy detail like it all happened yesterday,” noted A.V. Club Web site contributor Ryan Bray, adding: “Hard as it can be to make history seem tangible and visceral, Under The Big Black Sun speaks of a genre that’s still young at heart.” PopMatters Web site contributor Beaudoin noted: “One of the best parts of reading the book: These aren’t Rolling Stone profiles that have been sanitized to protect us from the truth, they’re the real conversations that you’d have with this gang if any of them were your friends.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Library Journal, April 15, 2016, Elizabeth D. Eisen, review of Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L.A. Punk, p. 89.
Publishers Weekly, April 4, 2016, Under the Big Black Sun, p. 76.
ONLINE
A.V. Club, http://www.avclub.com/ (April 25, 2016), Ryan Bray, “Under the Big Black Sun Opens Up L.A.’s Punk-Rock Underbelly.”
Esquire Online, http://www.esquire.com/ (April 26, 2016), Jeff Slate, “Under the Big Black Sun Chronicles the Often Forgotten Story of L.A. Punk.”
John Doe Home Page, http://www.theejohndoe.com (February 21, 2017).
NPR: National Public Radio Web site, http://www.npr.org/ (May 2, 2016), Terry Gross, “A Personal History of L.A. Punk: ‘It Was a Free-for-All for Outcasts,’” author interview.
PopMatters, http://www.popmatters.com/ (April 25, 2016), Jedd Beaudoin, “Under the Big Black Sun Tells of an L.A. before the Kids from Orange County Arrived.”
John Doe (musician)
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John Doe
John Doe, born John Nommensen Duchac.jpg
Background information
Birth name John Nommensen Duchac
Born February 25, 1953 (age 63)
Decatur, Illinois, United States
Origin Los Angeles, California
Genres Roots rock, alternative country, folk rock, punk rock
Occupation(s) Musician, actor, poet, bass player, songwriter, guitarist
Instruments Bass guitar, guitar, singing
Associated acts X, the Flesh Eaters, the Knitters, Eddie Vedder, Jesse Dayton
Website theejohndoe.com
John Nommensen Duchac (born February 25, 1953),[1] known professionally as John Doe, is an American singer, songwriter, actor, poet,[2] guitarist and bass player. Doe co-founded LA punk band X, of which he is still an active member. His musical performances and compositions span rock, punk, country and folk music genres. As an actor, he has dozens of television appearances and several movies to his credit, including the role of Jeff Parker in the television series Roswell.
In addition to X, Doe performs with the country-folk-punk band the Knitters and has released records as a solo artist. In the early 1980s, he performed on two albums by the Flesh Eaters.[3]
Contents
1 Career
1.1 Music
1.2 Acting
2 Personal life
3 Discography
4 Filmography
5 References
6 External links
Career
Music
Doe moved to Los Angeles, California, and in 1976 met guitar player Billy Zoom through an ad in the local free weekly paper, The Recycler.[4]
John Doe Performs at Adams Avenue Street Fair, San Diego, 2006
As a musician with X, Doe has two feature-length concert films, several music videos, and an extended performance-and-interview sequence in The Decline of Western Civilization, Penelope Spheeris's seminal documentary about the early-1980s L.A. punk scene.[5]
Along with co-writer Exene Cervenka, Doe composed most of the songs recorded by X. Wild Gift, an album from that band's heyday, was named "Record of the Year" by Rolling Stone, The Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times. With Dave Alvin, he co-wrote two of the songs on the Blasters' 1984 album Hard Line, "Just Another Sunday" and "Little Honey". He also wrote "Cyrano de Berger's Back" for the Flesh Eaters LP A Minute to Pray, a Second To Die.
Since 1990, Doe has recorded nearly a dozen albums as a soloist or in collaboration with other artists, and has contributed tracks to motion pictures. In the 1992 movie The Bodyguard (starring Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston), it is Doe's version of "I Will Always Love You" that plays on the jukebox when Costner's and Houston's characters are dancing. It was released on audio cassette by Warner Bros. in September 1992, but no version is believed to exist on CD. He co-wrote and played on the song "Lobotomy" with Tyler Willman for the eponymous 1998 debut studio album of the band Calm Down Juanita.[6]
Doe took part in Todd Haynes's 2007 movie I'm Not There, recording two Bob Dylan covers, "Pressing On" and "I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine." Both recordings were included on the film's soundtrack, and the former was prominently featured in the film, with Christian Bale (as Pastor John Rollins) lip-synching Doe's vocals. Doe recorded the song "Unforgiven" in 2007 with Aimee Mann on A Year in the Wilderness, an album which also featured Kathleen Edwards, Jill Sobule, Dan Auerbach. He then joined with Eddie Vedder on a mix of the song "Golden State" in 2008. "The Meanest Man in the World" by Doe was featured in Season 4 of the television series Friday Night Lights and included on the second soundtrack album. Country Club (2009), featuring Canadian indie rock band The Sadies, covered country classics along with original songs.
Doe contributed a cover of "Peggy Sue Got Married" to the 2011 tribute album Rave on Buddy Holly.
His latest solo record, The Westerner, was released in 2016. Doe said that it was made in the desert, in Arizona, and that the genre is psychedelic soul.[4]
He is also working on a book that will about the punk rock scene from 1977 to 1983 that will be released in the spring of 2016. It will be named after the X record Under the Big Black Sun, and will incorporate the punk ethos of contributions from other musicians that were part of the scene, people like Exene Cervenka, Jack Grisham, Henry Rollins, Mike Watt, Jane Wiedlin and others who wrote chapters. Doe wanted it to be a collective recollection, not just one person's perspective of the time.[4]
Acting
In the 1989 biographical film Great Balls of Fire!, Doe played Jerry Lee Lewis's cousin-turned-father-in-law J. W. Brown. He starred in the 1992 film Roadside Prophets and in the 1998 short Lone Greasers. Other movie acting credits include Road House, Vanishing Point, Salvador, Boogie Nights, The Specials, The Good Girl, Gypsy 83, Wyatt Earp, "Border Radio", and Pure Country.
Personal life
Doe was born in Decatur, Illinois. He was married to fellow X member Exene Cervenka between 1980 and 1985.[7] He remarried in 1987, later revealing to Adam Carolla in a podcast in September 2011[8] that he currently resides in Fairfax, California (in the San Francisco North Bay area) with his wife Gigi Blair[9] and three daughters.
Discography
See also: X discography, Knitters discography
Year Album Peak chart positions Label
US US Heat US Indie US Country
1990 Meet John Doe 193 — — — Geffen
1995 Kissingsohard — — — — Forward/Rhino
2000 Freedom Is... — — — — spinART
2002 Dim Stars, Bright Sky — — — — Artist Direct BMG
2005 Forever Hasn't Happened Yet — — — — Yep Roc
2006 For the Best of Us — — — —
2007 A Year in the Wilderness — 42 — —
2009 Country Club (with The Sadies) — 10 37 32
2011 A Day at the Pass (with Jill Sobule) — — — — Pinko
Keeper — 13 — — Yep Roc
2014 The Best of John Doe: This Far — — — —
2016 The Westerner — — — — Cool Rock
"—" denotes releases that did not chart
Filmography
The Decline of Western Civilization (1981)
X: The Unheard Music (1986)
Salvador (1986)
Slam Dance (1987)
Border Radio (1987)
Road House (1989)
Great Balls of Fire! (1989)
Liquid Dreams (1991)
A Matter of Degrees (1991)
Roadside Prophets (1992)
Pure Country (1992)
Wyatt Earp (1994)
Shake, Rattle and Rock! (1994)
Georgia (1995)
Scorpion Spring (1996)
Black Circle Boys (1997)
Vanishing Point (1997)
Touch (1997)
Party of Five (1997) 1 Episode
The Price of Kissing (1997)
The Last Time I Committed Suicide (1997)
Boogie Nights (1997)
Get to the Heart: The Barbara Mandrell Story (1997)
Lone Greasers (1998)
The Pass (1998)
Black Cat Run (1998)
Odd Man (1998)
Drowning on Dry Land (1999)
Veronica's Closet (1999) 1 Episode
Sugar Town (1999)
Knocking on Deaths Door (1999)
The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999)
Forces of Nature (1999)
Wildflowers (1999)
Brokedown Palace (1999)
Martial Law (1999) 1 Episode
The Strip (1999) 1 Episode
The Specials (2000)
ER (2000) 1 Episode
Gypsy 83 (2001)
Jon Good's Wife (2001)
Employee of the Month (2002)
The Good Girl (2002)
Bug (2002)
Roswell (1999–2002) 18 Episodes
Fastlane (2002) 1 Episode
Red Zone (2002)
Wuthering Heights (2003)
Peacemakers (2003) 1 Episode
Law & Order (2003) 1 Episode
Carnivàle (2003) 2 Episodes
Torque (2004)
Tom 51 (2004)
We Jam Econo (2005)
Lucky 13 (2005)
X – Live in Los Angeles (2005)
CSI: Miami (2005) 1 Episode
The Darwin Awards (2006)
Jammin (2006) 1 Episode
Ten Inch Hero (2007)
The Sandpiper (2007)
Man Maid (2008)
Absent Father (2008)
One Tree Hill (2008)
Wizards of Waverly Place (2009) 1 Episode
Pleased to Meet Me (2013)
John Doe was born in 1977 when he arrived in Los Angeles. His previous life in Tennessee, Wisconsin & Baltimore was a great & fertile time but new music and social changes led him to events that created a life in art. He graduated from Antioch College in Baltimore in 1975, worked as a roofer, aluminum siding mechanic, and ran a poetry reading series. Ms. Meyers was his landlord in the rural black community of Simpsonville , MD.
John met Exene Cervenka at the Venice poetry workshop Nov 1976 and he started working with Billy Zoom around the same time. When DJ Bonebrake joined X in mid-1977 the line up was complete. They released six studio records, five or six singles and one live record from 1978-1993. Five of X’s records have been re-issued along with two compilations. The Unheard Music documents their lives and progress as a band from 1980-83. In 2009 the film was included in the Sundance UCLA Archive of greatest films of all time. They appeared several times on American Bandstand, Solid Gold and David Letterman. As one of the last original punk rock bands standing, they continue to tour. The day that X played a free noontime concert in Fullerton, CA, they caused Orange County’s greatest high school truancy rate to date.
In 1988 John started a family and lived in the Tehachapi Mountains, near the “Grapevine” of Highway 5, which separates southern and central California. He has recorded 8 solo records w/ numerous renowned singers and players, more recently including Patty Griffin, Dan Auerbach, Aimee Mann, Don Was, Kathleen Edwards and Greg Liesz. He has appeared in over 50 films and television productions, with some of his most notable roles in Road House, Georgia, Roadside Prophets, Great Balls of Fire, Pure Country and Roswell. He continues to act these days but more sporadically as his touring schedule has become more demanding.
Other musical side projects include work with the Knitters, Jill Sobule and The Sadies. He continues to write poetry and has even taught workshops from time to time. He currently lives north of San Francisco, California.
< A Personal History Of L.A. Punk: 'It Was A Free-For-All For Outcasts' May 2, 20163:15 PM ET 43:54 Download Facebook Twitter Google+ Email TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. We're going to take a look back at the LA punk scene with three people who helped define it - John Doe and Exene Cervenka, co-founders of the band X and Dave Alvin, who co-founded the Blasters with his brother Phil. After leaving the Blasters in 1985, Dave joined X for a few years as their lead guitarist, replacing Billy Zoom. John Doe has a new book called "Under The Big Black Sun: A Personal History Of LA "Punk." It collects his personal essays along with essays by Dave and Exene, Henry Rollins, who fronted Black Flag, Jane Wiedlin of the Go-Go's, Kristine McKenna, who wrote about the punk scene for the LA Times, Robert Lopez, aka El Vez, who played guitar with the Zeros and Tom Desavia, a music publisher and former journalist and A&R man who produced the X anthology "Beyond And Back" and edited the new book with John. John Doe, Exene Cervenka and Dave Alvin are going to perform a couple of X songs for us. X still tours together, and next year marks the band's 40th anniversary. That's a long time. But when you listen back to their records, you still feel the energy and excitement. Let's listen to the title track of X's debut album "Los Angeles" released in 1980. As the description says, in Rolling Stone's list of the hundred best albums of the '80s, no album has succeeded better as a snapshot of a city and its punk subculture. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LOS ANGELES") JOHN DOE: (Singing) She had to leave... EXENE CERVENKA: (Singing) Los Angeles. DOE: (Singing) All her toys go around in black and her boys have, too. She started to hate every [expletive] and Jew, every Mexican that gave her a lot of [expletive]. CERVENKA: (Singing) Every homosexual and the idle rich. DOE: (Singing) Idle rich. She had to get out. CERVENKA: (Singing) Get out. DOE: (Singing) Get out. CERVENKA: (Singing) Get out. DOE: (Singing) Get out. CERVENKA: (Singing) Get out. DOE: (Singing) She gets confused flying over the dateline. GROSS: John Doe, Exene Cervenka, Dave Alvin, welcome all of you to FRESH AIR. So I want to ask you all what you thought was like new about punk and what drew on the past in punk. But first, John, I thought I'd ask you to read a poem about punk that you have in "The Big Black Sun." DOE: Yes. I didn't really write this as a poem, but it kind of looks like one of those list poems. (Reading) Punk rock songs are not all screaming and yelling, three chords. Most Ramones songs are not two-minutes long, stupid lyrics with no leads, fast, loud and atonal. Punk rock songs are provocative, immediate, quick-driven, the title usually repeated many times, specific, fast, slow and in between. GROSS: I like that. So what do you think was, like, new about punk and what do you think drew on from the past? DOE: Just the attitude was new, freedom. And what it drew from the past was the danger and a little bit scary and a door that you maybe shouldn't have opened. (LAUGHTER) GROSS: And you write, you know, that X's melodies were simple, but the chord changes were often one step off of what was expected. I think like the melody is often a little off, too, in that respect. Like, I'm thinking, for instance, of "Johnny Hit And Run Pauline." The notes just go to this weird - I don't know if it's like a minor place, but it's just - kind of becomes flat in unusual places. DOE: I - yeah. (LAUGHTER) DOE: I don't know. You know, it's nothing that we planned. It's just the way it came out. GROSS: OK. DOE: One of the things that was going on in music at the time is that everything was all brainy and white guys and just thinking. And it was so much intellectualization and so much - so many notes and so many long, you know, songs and all that kind of stuff. And that was all left side of the brain. And then the right side was punk rock and it's just saying screw all of this. I'm going to just do something and see what happens. GROSS: So I'd like you each to describe something that you think was unique to punk and more specifically to LA punk. Exene? CERVENKA: Well, it was youth-based to some extent. Although, it was a free-for-all for outcasts. Anybody could belong to punk that wanted to be there, didn't matter how old you were or what you were like, persuasions, so it was similar in that way. I think the thing that probably set it apart was it had an eye more to the future than the immediate present, even though we were so present-based. Like everything was happening now. We also wanted to save the world, to some extent, from what we saw coming - especially what I saw coming - which was the corporate takeover of culture and things like that. We wanted things to be, you know, real. And we thought that this music was going to prevent that from happening 'cause people would realize, oh, wow, this is what real music sounds like. We don't need corporate music, and we don't need corporate culture. GROSS: Oh, mission accomplished. No more corporate music. CERVENKA: Yeah, right? (LAUGHTER) CERVENKA: Hey, you know what... GROSS: Well, done guys. Yeah. (LAUGHTER) CERVENKA: Hey, you know what? GROSS: What? CERVENKA: We were the ones trying to stop all that, and no one listened to us. So it's not our fault that people are where they are at now. GROSS: Dave, anything you want to add to that? DAVE ALVIN: Well, I was attracted to the LA thing because of the sense of community. And, you know - and inside of that community was, you know, various factions and clicks and this that and the other. But with the Blasters, we kind of floated around the clicks. But even inside even - with the cliques and sometimes the warring factions, everybody looked out for each other, you know. Everyone lended a helping hand. X helped the Blasters. The Blasters helped Los Lobos. You know, the Germs helped X. You can go down the list. And what always amazed me was the huge variety of sounds that came out of the LA scene where certain scenes were maybe more limited in how they approached the music. In LA in that period of time, you did have everything from X to the Dickies, to the Screamers. There wasn't any rules really, you know? GROSS: So I would like you to all play a song, like an X song for us and see how it sounds now acoustically (laughter) in the studios of NPR West. DOE: Well, we - we can do that. And Dave and Exene and I after being asked to do a number of benefits and having other band members that will remain nameless not wanting to be, you know, benefiting El Salvador and that war - Dave and Exene and I thought let's just do a three-piece and we'll just do some fun stuff. So we made The Knitters, which was part of the, you know, early Americana thing. So this is kind of Knitter version of an X song, which is called "In This House That I Call Home." And let's try to stay on time and see if it happens. (LAUGHTER) ALVIN: Punk rock baby, punk rock. DOE: Yes, that's right. One, two, three, four... (PLAYING "IN THIS HOUSE THAT I CALL HOME") X: (Singing) A hundred lines are shoved inside. Guests arrive to dump their mess. Obedient host and a visiting wife. Come out of the bedroom straightening clothes in this house that I call home, in this house that I call home. Beautiful walls are closing in. Looking at you, you're having a nightmare. Stumble over tombstone shoes. I reach to surround you but it's too soon. In this house that I call home, in this house that I call home nobody knows the party rules, got to get in but there's no room in this house that I call home, in this house that I call home. GROSS: Thank you. That was John Doe, Exene Cervenka and Dave Alvin performing the X song "In This House That I Call Home." And a there's a new collection of personal essays about the LA punk scene. That's called "Under The Big Black Sun: A Personal History Of La Punk." And John, Exene and Dave all wrote essays for that. John edited the book. So since we just heard your great harmonies, John and Exene, can you talk about how you came to the unique sound that you have together? CERVENKA: Well, John is a really great singer and I'm not (laughter). DOE: (Laughter) That's not true. CERVENKA: And so when I was, you know, 20, I never sang. And he liked one of my songs and wanted to sing it with Billy. And I said if I have anything of value on this planet, it's just one song. No, you can't have it. I'm singing it, so I kind of got in there. Anything went in the punk days, so it was just a good time to experiment and try to come up with whatever we wanted to do. And that's what we came up with, and it was not studied or learned. It was just kind of a crazy combination of things. GROSS: And you'd never sung before? CERVENKA: Nope. GROSS: So kind of the - like, the DIY aesthetic of punk gave you permission to sing even though you didn't think of yourself as a singer? CERVENKA: Yeah. Well, I don't know if that aesthetic had been established yet. I think we kind of all started that ourselves. So it wasn't like oh, everyone's doing this. I can do it, too. It's just kind of like - I don't know, it was just in the air. ALVIN: In those days in the '70s, in the larger pop culture, everything was being planned, you know? And it was the beginning of nothing you would hear hadn't been approved by a committee, you know? And that went from advertising all the way down to popular music. It seemed that the sort of thing that made me turn up the radio when I was, you know, 8 years old - you know, the car radio with my mom driving - that thing had disappeared from music. And so when I heard, for example, X, the first time I saw them live and heard the harmonies, yeah, I heard all sorts of things going on that - you know, I heard Richard and Mimi Farina happening, whether they knew it or not. You know, I heard the unique kind of folk Appalachian blend. I heard all these things going on that, you know, you just - you didn't hear on "The Love Boat," you know? And in those days, things like "The Love Boat" - kids today don't realize, you know, just how oppressive pop culture had become. GROSS: My guests are John Doe and Exene Cervenka, co-founders of the band X, and Dave Alvin of The Blasters, who was also X's guitarist for a couple of years. We'll be back after a break. This is FRESH AIR. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. My guests are John Doe and Exene Cervenka, co-founders of the band X, and Dave Alvin of The Blasters, who was also X's guitarist for a couple of years. John has a new book called "Under The Big Black Sun: A Personal History Of LA Punk." Exene and Dave contributed essays to the book. So can you go around the table and each share a story from the late '70s and '80s from the punk rock scene in LA that kind of typifies to you what the atmosphere was like that was so kind of exciting and/or dangerous, something that wouldn't have happened at any other time or in any other place? (LAUGHTER) DOE: Oh God, no pressure. (LAUGHTER) DOE: In '79, we became friends with this band called The Brat. And they were from East LA. We had them play with us a couple times. And Teresa, who also contributed to the book, invited us to a party in a backyard where they were going to play. And Exene and I went there, and we were really excited because this gave us - having all these young Latino kids coming in was like this is for real. It's not just a bunch of white runaways that like our music. So we went there and it was great. And The Brat were playing, and they had a kind of pop sound. But they were a little more strange, and it was great. And then some guy pulls out a .45 and just starts banging off rounds like up in the air... ALVIN: (Laughter). DOE: ...45 pistol and just shooting off rounds, and everyone just, like, scatters a little bit and goes oh, damn it. You know, uncle Tito is - like, gone off again. And he gets hustled out, and someone gives him a good talking to. And Exene and I thought wow, this is cool. This is punk rock. And, you know, it didn't actually seem that dangerous to me. That's the weird thing. GROSS: Dave, you got one? ALVIN: There was a club called The Starwood that I loved. And The Starwood was like - it had a dance club and had a live music club. It had a balcony - big balcony that if you had played the club, you could get into the club and hang out on the balcony. And every musician in town, no matter who was playing, was in the balcony trying to get drunk, trying to do this, that or the other. And to me, a lot of the LA scene took place in that balcony of The Starwood. But then to get into The Starwood, especially with the rise of hard-core punk, you had to walk a gauntlet because there was a special entrance for musicians and this, that and the other. But to get into that thing, there was a gauntlet of skinhead kids that you had to pass through. And it was - every night was like this initiation rite where, you know - where, like, they do in New Guinea where there's guys in a line and they're hitting you with sticks, you know... (LAUGHTER) ALVIN: ...Just to get in. You know, and you just want to go to the club and have a beer, right? But I loved that club, and I loved the - sort of like in Kansas City back in the '30s with Pendergast and the corruption - created the great music scene of - you know, that gave us Count Basie and Lester Young and Charlie Parker. The Starwood was owned by a guy named Eddie Nash, who was this gangster - gangster drug dealer, murderer. And I'd have to go settle up with him sometimes. You know, we'd play - The Blasters would play. And then - in those days, I was the sort of the manager, gig guy. And so I would go at the end of the night and sit at Eddie Nash's table in his little office and pick up the money from this gangster. And so it was no different than Louis Armstrong playing for Al Capone or these kind of stories. But The Starwood to me was Ground Zero of LA. It was all ages. Kids could get in. They could drive from Pomona or Pacoima. They could see X. They could see Fear. They could see The Germs. They could see The Blasters. They could see The Go-Go's. They could walk the gauntlet. They could get in fights. They could dance. They could fly through the air. And so that wonderful little bit of art and corruption meeting, you know? And to me, that's my memory. That's my - you know, that was my focal point of that scene. CERVENKA: You know, I think for me, one of the greatest things was I lived down the street from The Starwood with John. We lived right there. We could walk there, you know? But the Whiskey a Go Go, of course, to me - just talking about clubs and scenes - I thought about that as being Johnny Rivers and The Doors. And I just thought of it as - you know, it's a mythical place. And the thing about going to the Whiskey for me that was great was if we were allowed in and we hadn't been, like, kicked out or whatever was walking down Sunset Boulevard to get to the Whiskey and having to walk a gauntlet again of Hells Angels. They'd have their motorcycles parked in the street, and then they'd be leaning up against the wall. So you'd have to walk between to them and their bikes. And as a 20, 21-year-old, you know, it was really exciting and scary. But Mario, who wasn't - who kind of ran the Whiskey - he'd always let us in. John would talk to him. He'd go all right, go ahead, and he wouldn't charge us. We'd see Siouxsie And The Banshees or Blondie and all these great bands and all the local bands. And one day they said that I had a tab. I had a tab, and I could just get anything I wanted. Anytime I wanted to go to the Whiskey, which was probably, like, four nights a week, I could go and hang out and I could just sign my name and get anything I wanted. And pretty soon it turned into this thing where I would be sitting in a corner booth drinking martinis with all these, like - the more, like - oh, down-and-out-type people and stuff just sitting there all eating cheeseburgers and having to sign for it every night. And everyone - I was just, like, buying everybody cheeseburgers, buying everybody cheeseburgers, drinking all these martinis. And I felt like the queen of the world at the Whiskey in the same booths - you know, it could've been The Doors or Johnny Rivers. It was just so exciting. And I felt so grown up and so sophisticated. And then, of course, one day I got the word that there was no more tab for me. (LAUGHTER) GROSS: So let's talk about the mosh pits in LA punk. And I'm curious what it was like for you to be on stage looking down on the mosh pit and if any of you ever did the thing where you jump into the pit and people hopefully support you (laughter) after you jump down that... CERVENKA: I'm definitely going to field this one. GROSS: OK. CERVENKA: I'm definitely going to field this one. GROSS: Yeah. CERVENKA: The first person I ever saw jump into the audience was me, OK? (LAUGHTER) GROSS: Oh no... CERVENKA: And that happened at The Masque when there were, like, 14 people and the stage and was 4 inches tall. In other words, that started in the punk days of people comingling with each other. The band and the audience were one. We wanted to blur the lines. No one was a celebrity. I'm on stage; you're on stage. I'm in the audience; you're in the audience. We were interacting with each other physically - jumping up and down, grabbing each other, just being kids. The mosh pit is the organized version of that that came much later in the hard-core scene where men run around in circles. And I think that describes both of those scenes kind of a little bit - the hard-core scene was different. So that was a much later creation. We didn't hurt each other or have an organized version of that. We weren't - we were just more, like, spontaneous than that. So no - when we first started seeing that, we were like what the heck? GROSS: When you started seeing the more violent version of the mosh pit, is that what you mean? CERVENKA: Well, when we started, like, Dave was talking about with the gauntlet, it's like whatever happened to just, you know, walking down the street and going into the club and having a good time? All of a sudden, it became very - in a weird way, it was kind of, like, almost like a political correctness thing. Like, you had to be... ALVIN: Yeah. CERVENKA: ...A certain way to be allowed to be a punk rocker. And then we were like - we didn't know where they were coming from with that. So... ALVIN: Yeah, it became this thing of - in the early days, there kind of was no rules, right? And then - I won't say what year but it was early '80s - there became rules of this is punk rock, this isn't punk rock. And when you would walk the gauntlet or when you would play a gig, you know, and some 16-year-old kid decided that no, you weren't punk rock and you're going to get a beer thrown at you, that kind of thing, it - you know, it kind of soured me eventually on the scene because the violence got to a point where it seemed like there were guys that were - you know, they heard about this stuff called punk rock and you could go - you could bash into each other in front of the stage. And then it became I'm going to go beat somebody's brains out tonight because that's what's cool. And that became kind of really weird. GROSS: My guests are John and Doe and Exene Cervenka, co-founders of the band X, and Dave Alvin, who co-founded The Blasters with his brother Phil Alvin, was the and X's guitarist for a couple of years. John has a new book called "Under The Big Black Sun: The Personal History Of LA Punk." Exene and Dave contributed essays to the book. After we take a short break, they'll perform more songs. And John and Exene will tell the story of how they met. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross, back with John Doe and Exene Cervenka, co-founders of the seminal LA punk band X and Dave Alvin, who co-founded the Blasters with his brother Phil and was X's guitarist for a couple of years. John Doe has a new book called "Under The Big Black Sun: A Personal History Of LA Punk." It collects his personal essays along with essays by Exene, Dave and others who were part of that scene in the '70s and '80s. Well, Dave, you tell a story in "Under The Big Black Sun" about a bottle that was thrown at you. Would you tell that story? ALVIN: Well, I had a few, you know. Everybody did in those days. GROSS: Sorry to hear it, but go ahead. Yeah. ALVIN: Yeah, no, there was one particular one. I had a '61 Fender Mustang - and I still have it - but that was the guitar that I played back then. And we were playing the Cuckoo's Nest opening for an Orange County hard-core band called the Crowd. You know, a lot of the people in the audience liked the Blasters. And it was OK and everything's cool, and everything's great. But then there's an element of the audience that hated the Blasters. You know, we were almost like their older brothers who liked rhythm and blues. You know, and they were going to show their displeasure. And yeah, one kid threw this beer bottle really well. And he threw it right at my head. And I raised - in one of - maybe the greatest moment of my life physically - I raised the guitar up to cover my face at exactly the time that it got to my face. But the guitar got in the way. And, yeah, there's about a 6-inch long, quarter-of-an-inch deep gash in the Mustang to this day from that beer bottle. And, you know, that kind of stuff happened. You know, I remember it was in the '90s - about in the mid-'90s when I started relaxing before I went onstage because I could go out and nobody's going to throw anything. I think those days are in the past for me, you know. (LAUGHTER) DOE: It was very important to keep your eyes open. ALVIN: Yes, at all times. DOE: Very important. GROSS: Did you ever wonder, like, what is it about the music that is connecting with that kind of chaos and violence? I mean, you had, obviously, your own kind of energy and anarchy and defiance and anger, but it wasn't about beating people up. And it wasn't asking people to commit harmful acts against each other, and certainly not to throw bottles at you. So like... CERVENKA: What happened was punk converged at the same time that Southern California suburbia was collapsing, and people were getting divorced and their kids were doing drugs in the morning before school 'cause it was on the coffee table and drinking. And there were all these homeless kids and all these lost kids that were getting into skateboarding and surfing and looking for a connection. And, you know, the gang thing was definitely starting up, and I think that it was just a misunderstanding with the media kind of portraying punk as violent through the Sex Pistols kind of stuff and the spitting because the spitting didn't start in LA until 1980. And it ruined everything we owned and never got it out of my clothes. And I think it was just this weird convergence of a timeline thing of what these poor kids were really - they were very angry. And I think they just misunderstood. DOE: I agree with that. But I'd add that it's something that you can't really explain. It's like why do people want to have sex after listening to Elvis Presley? ALVIN: Well, that's pretty obvious. CERVENKA: I was going to say... ALVIN: Well, like you can't have sex after listing to Lawrence Welk. (LAUGHTER) ALVIN: No, it's a feeling. It's what I mean. CERVENKA: We're kidding you. ALVIN: The music was fast and the music was like chaotic, and it was like (screaming). And so it's this primal scream, and people just go berzerk. It took me a while to realize that when the shoe got thrown onstage that probably the person who owned the shoe didn't throw it. It was probably his friend who ripped the shoe off of his friend and threw it onstage. It's like, there. Have fun getting home, dummy. ALVIN: For all the discussion of the violence which was a part of that scene, I don't think that it was the same. And so, you know, we could tell stories for hours about weird things that happened. I once saw John literally smashing his hand to bits on the stage of the Starwood, you know, because this guy was making lewd gestures at Exene, and John's foot took care of the guy. You know, we all have stories - hours of stories like that. DOE: Who me? ALVIN: You, yeah. I was propped up in the balcony drinking a beer, trying to get a girl and saw you. Anyway - but the violence that was part of the scene wasn't a scene. It wasn't what got you up every morning 'cause in those days, there was a buzz in the air. And every night there was a different club with a great band playing, and the creativity was electric. GROSS: Can I ask you to do another X song acoustically in our studio? DOE: Sure. Should we try the "The World's A Mess, It's In My Kiss?" GROSS: That's a great idea. DOE: One, two, one, two, three, four. CERVENKA: (Singing) No one is united and all things are untied. Perhaps we're boiling over inside. They've been telling lies. Who's been telling lies? There are no angels. There are devils in many ways. Take it like a man. The world's a mess, it's in my kiss. The world's a mess, it's in my kiss. The world's a mess, it's in my kiss. The world's a mess; it's in my kiss. Can't take it back and pull it out of the fire. Pull it out in the bottom of the ninth. Pull it out in chords of red-disease. There's a drag in my system. There's a drag in my head and body. There's some facts here that refuse to escape. And I could say it stronger, but it's too much trouble. I was wandering down at bricks, hectic isn't it? Down we go, cradle and all. The world's a mess, it's in my kiss. The world's a mess, it's in my kiss. The world's a mess, it's in my kiss. The world's a mess, it's in my kiss. GROSS: Thank you. DOE: Stronger than dirt. GROSS: (Laughter) Ajax laundry detergent. DOE: We've learned our lessons from The Doors. (LAUGHTER) GROSS: Yeah, well, you know, I realized this from The Doors, and Ray Manzarek produced, like, your first few albums and plays on some of your music, too. That would've been - that must've been like remarkable for you. You were big fans of the Doors. And then you ended up working with one of them. DOE: Exene and I were big fans of The Doors. I wish that I remembered the night that we met. I know it was at the Whisky a Go Go, and I still miss Ray Manzarek. He was a mentor for sure, a bit of a father figure to both of us. And it was. It was a miracle, like this is a real rock star. The Doors were huge and somehow they kind of passed in punk rock because they were chaotic and dark, and they meant it. And it was real. And Ray did the first four records with us. It was terrific. GROSS: And he does a real Ray Manzarek organ solo on the recording of "The World's A Mess, It's In My Kiss." DOE: Yes. Yeah, he does. GROSS: All right. This is a good time to take a break then we'll be right back and talk some more. My guests are John Doe and Exene Cervenka, the co-founders of the band X. Dave Alvin is with us as well. Dave became the lead guitarist from 1985 to '88, and is on their album "See How We Are." And they've all written essays for the new book "Under The Big Black Sun: A Personal History Of LA "Punk" which was edited by John. We'll be back after a break. This is FRESH AIR. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. My guests are musicians and songwriters John Doe, Exene Cervenka and Dave Alvin. John and Exene co-founded the seminal punk band X in 1978. Dave Alvin became the band's lead guitarist, replacing Billy Zoom, after Dave left the band The Blasters. John also has a new solo album called "The Westerner." John and Exene, I'd like you to tell the story of how you met because your meeting is actually a really important contribution to the history of punk and to American music. CERVENKA: So I moved to Southern California, didn't really know where I was. I was in Venice. I got a - I don't know what you call it - the state was giving me free training to learn a skill. So I learned typeset and - typesetting and layout, which, you know, wouldn't know - these people - nowadays, wouldn't know what that is, but anyway, pretend like I'm on a computer. OK, so then I'm in - I get a placement at this place called Beyond Baroque, which is a Venice poetry workshop, started in the '60s, really amazing place. And I'm working in the library in there. And I'm learning this skill. And I'm - I find out there are these poetry readings. I'm living upstairs in this little apartment. And I go one night because I'm a writer and I came to California with no career ideas at all - just wanted to get out of Florida. Get there, sit down, guy sits next to me and, you know, we met. And so we met the - both the first night we went to this poetry workshop. And we ended up being part of that. And my son and his dad still are part of that. My son does things there all the time. So it's kind of cool that Beyond Baroque is still there. It's still, you know, a resource for people. It's an amazing place. So it was great that that's where we met rather than a bar - for once. For once, I met someone not in a bar. (LAUGHTER) GROSS: So John, do you want to add to that story? DOE: Yeah, I sat down to - I sat down next to Exene because she was the coolest person in the room - the coolest, youngest, best looking person in the room. Little did I realize she was also the smartest and had the most soul and everything else. But they asked us to fill out a piece of paper with our ten favorite writers. And Exene - the first - one of the first things she did was cheat off my paper. (LAUGHTER) DOE: She had a few people. And she goes, I don't know poets, what the hell is this, you know? So she looks at my paper and says, oh, by the way, you wrote John Ashbery twice. And it's, like, I'm an idiot. So... GROSS: So there's a big kind of romantic ideal of what it must be like to be lovers and in a band together. And John and Exene, you kind of lived through that. So I'm wondering, like, what's the reality like? (Laughter) Like, what are some of the best and worst parts of being lovers and also being in a band and being on stage every - you know, so many nights together? CERVENKA: Well, I think it's a hard thing to do because you both want to be great, but you're in these weird situations, you know, where people are kind of like hitting on you or are trying to, like, get to meet you and it - so you have to be pretty solid. And we were pretty solid there, I think. I think the hardest part was sharing the hotel rooms with the roadies because we didn't have enough money to have our own. That was a little awkward night after night, especially when they brought people back, you know? But, you know, I think we had a really sane life, actually. We lived in - for a while we lived on, like, the east side of - kind of LA and the Mount Washington area. And we had this little wooden house that friends referred to as the Haney Place (ph). And, you know, we had - we would have a cat. And we would, you know, get up in the morning and eat really nice breakfast and then do fun stuff - go to museums, and, you know, be healthy and, you know, eat Mexican food and hang out with our friends. And then at night, we'd just go wild. And we'd rehearse and make - you know, make up all this stuff, all these songs. And it was - it was fantastic really. But, you know, like any relationship, you know, people do change. So - but I think we - we coped with that whole thing of being together all the time pretty well, you know, because it can be hard when you're in such a kind of a - I don't want to say it was a stressful lifestyle, but it was pretty action-packed and so a lot of things could happen. DOE: Yeah, I would say the best part of it is that you know what each other is going through because you're with each other 24/7. But that's also the bad part because you're with each other all the time. In retrospect, I would've given Exene a lot more space. (LAUGHTER) DOE: I would've given myself a little more space. CERVENKA: Yeah. DOE: And, you know, it was great, but I think that the difficulty comes in when you - I don't know, you don't like arguing in the same way (laughter). Exene wouldn't argue the way that I wanted her to argue (laughter). GROSS: What do you mean? DOE: I don't know. She just wouldn't - she wouldn't get into it. She would just say, I can't. And then she'd just stop. And it would drive me insane. But she was smart because I was probably too volatile to - to engage at that point. CERVENKA: Do we have to pay you $200 for this? (LAUGHTER) DOE: We could split it. GROSS: One of the problems I could see, if you're a couple, if the relationship ends, you know, if the marriage ends, what happens to the band? So when your marriage ended, were you able to play together effectively as a band? CERVENKA: Well, here's the problem - the thing is that during the time when John and I were kind of splitting up, also Billy didn't want to play anymore. So, you know, there's a lot of changes going on. Luckily, we did have Dave and Tony Gilkyson. And we kept going for a while, but, you know, then we met people. We had kids. So, you know, it was just I think the life of the band kind of ended around the same time the life of the marriage kind of ended. So it was just time for change. I mean, I met John when I was 20. We were together from the time I was 20, you know, so we were pretty young. And I think we just wanted to do different things. But we still obviously get along great. We still work work together all the time. So, you know, X is still playing. We should say X plays millions of shows, and we are probably happier with each other in - all the four of us than we ever have been. And I think we're a better band even then we used to be. So it all worked out really. DOE: I would say that Exene and I met as friends, then we became romantically involved and then we ended as better friends. We just had to be adult. I felt like it was fate that we met. And I felt like, you know, Exene and I share something that - it's like a soul mate thing that a lot of people don't get a chance to, and I'm really grateful for that. X is actually about to celebrate our 40th anniversary. That's pretty frightening - 1977. GROSS: I know that Billy Zoom has had cancer. And there was, you know, a campaign to raise money for him. How is his health? Is he able to perform? Does he have enough money... CERVENKA: He's great. GROSS: ...To take care of himself? CERVENKA: Billy's great. And this is his second cancer so he says he doesn't worry about this one so much but the next one he's kind of concerned about. He's funny. He's got the best sense of humor of any one in the world. But actually, he's doing fantastic. And I think he really appreciates that he can still do it. GROSS: I find it kind of upsetting that - that, you know, with all of the great music that X contributed, that he didn't have enough money to pay for his medical bills. And I know there's... CERVENKA: Nobody does. GROSS: And Exene, there was a period when you were having trouble with medical bills and there just seems to be something inherently unfair about that? CERVENKA: Well, actually, I never had trouble paying my bills. I've never had a benefit. I was misdiagnosed with a really bad disease, and I had to wrestle with that. But the thing is that he - you know, people have insurance and they have Medicare. That doesn't pay your medical bills. Obamacare doesn't pay your medical bills. Nothing pays your medical bills unless you're on a total 100-percent assistance from the government or something, I suppose. So The Knitters - that's why The Knitters started - to help people pay their bills. You know, you just take care of things. You know, just like any kind of civilized society, you take care of each other. You know, you can't depend on the government or insurance or anything. It's just out of control. ALVIN: You know, it's one of the things about the LA scene of those days is we all live different lives now. You know, we all don't live at the Canterbury, and drink beer and hang out - wish we could. But a couple years back, when my brother was very ill and we needed to raise money quickly, all I did was pick up the phone, got a hold of John and Exene and said, can you help Phil, my brother who was sick? Called Los Lobos, can you help Phil? Everybody came. It was like 1982 again. Everybody came because we were part of a tribe. And even though the tribe is scattered now, we still come together to help each other. And yeah, these days it seems to be all about health issues as opposed to other things. DOE: If we wanted security, we would've chosen another job. So it's all right. It's OK. You know, in that way, we're still on the fringe, and that's a good place to be. GROSS: My guests are John Doe and Exene Cervenka, co-founders of the band X. And Dave Alvin of the Blasters, who was also X's guitarist for a couple of years. We'll be back after a break. This is FRESH AIR. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. My guests are John Doe and Exene Cervenka, co-founders of the band, X and Dave Alvin of the Blasters, who was also X's guitarist for a couple of years. John has a new book called "Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History Of LA Punk." Exene and Dave contributed essays to the book. John, you have - of everybody's albums here, you've got the most recent one. It's called "The Westerner." One of the songs on it is a song that Exene wrote. It's a great song called "Alone in Arizona." And I thought it would be, like, really great if you could sing the song together. Since you've each recorded it separately - Exene, you recorded it on your 2011 album. John, you recorded it on your new album. You don't perform it with each other on your albums, so could I bring you together to perform it together now? CERVENKA: Sure. Also, on my version, Dave played on it - on my album, so it's kind of interesting. GROSS: Oh, so it brings you all together. Beautiful. CERVENKA: We're all here. GROSS: Beautiful. DOE: Oh, I'd like to say that this was - I dedicated my record to an old friend of ours that passed away, Michael Blake. I think about him every time I play or sing this song. CERVENKA: (Singing) My heart is blue, losing you. My soul is still losing you. The road is rough, I'm losing you. DOE: (Singing) Losing you. CERVENKA: (Singing) The sun beats down, losing you. My heart's in California. I'm alone in Arizona. My heart's in California. I'm alone in Arizona. Found her where it shouldn't be, I'm losing you. DOE: (Singing) Losing you. CERVENKA: (Singing) Cactus run away from me. I'm losing you. The shades I've drawn, losing you. My eyes are closed. I'm losing you. My heart's in California. I'm alone in Arizona. My heart's in California. I'm alone in Arizona. My heart's in California. I'm alone in Arizona. My heart's in California. I'm alone in Arizona. GROSS: That was John Doe, Exene Cervenka and Dave Alvin performing Exene's song "Alone In Arizona," which Exene recorded on her most recent album and John Doe recorded on his new album. That new album is called "The Westerner." It's a beautiful song. John, you said you always think of your friend Michael Blake when you sing it. Tell us something about him and his connection to this song. DOE: Well, Michael Blake is a close friend of ours - passed away last year. He wrote "Dances With Wolves" and a number of other books. That's what he's best known for. He was also just a wild, free spirit. We got to be friends in the early '80s, and he and Exene were very, very close. I'm not sure that that's necessarily about him, but I think of it as about him. GROSS: Exene, is it about him? CERVENKA: No. (LAUGHTER) GROSS: OK. That clears that up. CERVENKA: No, it's not - but it definitely is now. I mean, it wasn't written about him, but yeah, he lived in Arizona. And before he died, I spent a lot of time going out there to be with him and help him out a little bit and John did, too, so now it is. GROSS: I'm so grateful to the three of you for your music and for doing our show today. Thank you so much, and all best to the three of you. CERVENKA: Thank you so much. ALVIN: You got it. DOE: You're welcome, thanks. GROSS: John Doe has a new book called "Under The Big Black Sun: A Personal History Of LA Punk" that includes essays by Exene Cervenka and Dave Alvin as well as others who were part of that scene. John Doe also has a new album called "The Westerner." Tomorrow on FRESH AIR... (SOUNDBITE OF 2016 WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS' DINNER) LARRY WILMORE: Welcome to Negro night here at Washington - or as Fox News will report, two thugs disrupt elegant dinner in D.C. GROSS: That's Larry Wilmore doing stand-up at President Obama's final White House Correspondents' Dinner Saturday night. Tomorrow, I'll talk with him about his performance and its very controversial ending. I hope you'll join us. FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our associate producer for online media is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. I'm Terry Gross. We'll close with a track from John Doe's new album, "The Westerner." (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SUNLIGHT") DOE: (Singing) Dirty little arms, dirty little hands, shoelaces untied, zipper broken, warm-blooded horse, red-hard kid. He trusted her. His dad never did. Like summer fall, his mom checked out. His uncle Bill was always hanging around, but all he ever wanted was a little patch of sun. All he ever wanted was a little patch of sunlight, sunlight.
John Doe has worked as a roofer, an aluminum siding mechanic, a manager of poetry readings, a musician, and an actor. He met Exene Cervenka at the Venice poetry workshop in 1976 and started working with Billy Zoom around the same time. When DJ Bonebrake joined X in mid-1977, the lineup was complete. As one of the last original punk rock bands standing, they continue to tour, most recently with Blondie and Pearl Jam in front of stadium-sized crowds and audiences born after the band’s formation. He has recorded eight solo records with numerous renowned singers and musicians and as an actor has appeared in over fifty films and television productions, including Road House, Great Balls of Fire, Boogie Nights, and Roswell. He currently tours as both a solo artist and with X. Doe lives north of San Francisco.
LC control no.: n 91121537
Descriptive conventions:
rda
Personal name heading:
Doe, John, 1954-
Variant(s): Nommensen, John, 1954-
See also: Corporate body: X (Musical group)
Birth date: 1954
Found in: His Meet John Doe [SR] p1990: label (John Doe)
Georgia, 1996: container (John Doe; actor)
Internet movie database, 9/17/96 (John Doe; actor; member
of punk band X)
The Guinness encyclopedia of popular music, 1995: p. 4571
(John Doe, b. John Nommensen)
The Rolling stone encyclopedia of rock & roll, c1983: p.
604 (John Doe, b. 1954)
================================================================================
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS AUTHORITIES
Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave., SE
Washington, DC 20540
Questions? Contact: ils@loc.gov
LC control no.: n 84018485
Descriptive conventions:
rda
Corporate name heading:
X (Musical group)
See also: Member: Bonebrake, D. J.
Member: Cervenka, Exene
Member: Doe, John, 1954-
Member: Gilkyson, Tony
Member: Zoom, Billy
Type of corporate body:
Musical groups
Found in: Morris, C. Beyond and back, c1983: t.p. (X) p. 5 (an
American rock 'n' roll band)
All Music, viewed Sept. 19, 2014 (X; formed 1977; Group
members: Billy Zoom, D.J. Bonebrake, Exene Cervenka,
John Doe, Tony Gilkyson)
http://www.allmusic.com/artist/x-mn0000960690
================================================================================
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS AUTHORITIES
Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave., SE
Washington, DC 20540
Questions? Contact: ils@loc.gov
Doe, John with Tom DeSavia. Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L.A. Punk
Elizabeth D. Eisen
Library Journal. 141.7 (Apr. 15, 2016): p89.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
Doe, John with Tom DeSavia. Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L.A. Punk. Da Capo. May 2016.320p. illus. index. ISBN 9780306824081. $26.99; ebk. ISBN 9780306824098. MUSIC
Doe (guitarist & bass player, X), fellow band members, and friends such as Doe's ex, Exene Cervenka and Henry Rollins, reminisce about the prime years of the Hollywood punk scene (1975-80) in this fascinating collection of essays. The punk movement was a subculture centered on art, creativity, rebellion, and anger. There were links to futurism, Dadaism, surrealism, and the influences of Arthur Rimbaud, Fats Domino, Jim Morrison, R&B, and rockabilly. Prior music experience was not a prerequisite to form a punk band. The genre was meant to be performed live, because radio play was scarce to nonexistent. Violence in the mosh pits added fuel to the excitement at the events publicized in various fanzines and fliers. Many of the musicians lived in rat-infested apartments, wore vintage and thrift-store clothing, drove late-model cars from the 1950s and 1960s and rechristened themselves with glam rock names. Heroin became the drug of choice and sadly, many of the original punks succumbed and died. VERDICT This book will appeal to fans who want an inside look at the history of the punk lifestyle. For further exploration, check out Slash: A History of the Legendary L.A. Punk Magazine: 1977-1980, edited by J.C. Gabel and Brian Roettinger.--Elizabeth D. Eisen, Appleton P.L., WI
Eisen, Elizabeth D.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Eisen, Elizabeth D. "Doe, John with Tom DeSavia. Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L.A. Punk." Library Journal, 15 Apr. 2016, p. 89. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA449543005&it=r&asid=cc604bc9a0a9d83b800504465a390624. Accessed 24 Jan. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A449543005
Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L.A. Punk
Publishers Weekly. 263.14 (Apr. 4, 2016): p76.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L.A. Punk
John Doe, with Tom DeSavia and friends. Da Capo, $26.99 (320p) ISBN 978-0-306-82408-1
Doe, frontman for X, has gathered the testimonies of punk's progenitors in L. A., a scene only rivaled by those of New York and London for fecundity and influence. Twenty-four chapters draw on the accounts of Mike Watt (the Minutemen), Jane Wiedlin (the Go-Gos), El Vez (aka Robert Lopez), and others to follow the genesis of punk beginning with glam, garage, and early punk abroad. Focused around the Masque club and the Canterbury Apartments, a few hundred outcasts exploited the low-rent environs of Hollywood and downtown L.A. to live in semi-communal squalor and make rock new again. The punk scene ultimately became fragmented by way of heroin, death, and migration to major labels, with the final blow coming from the brutal intrusion of Orange County musicians ("OC kids") who didn't share punk artists' art-school inclinations or gender ambiguity but embraced their confrontational rage to create hardcore metal. Chapters by older artists and members of the East L.A. contingent demonstrate punk's broad appeal. Even the despised OC kids get a say through Jack Grisham (TSOL), whose response to the original punks' contempt for the newcomers, while self-aggrandizing, is both savage and eloquent. In an essay on photographers and other visual artists, Doe's co-editor, talent scout DeSavia, traces an influence that transcended sound. L.A. punk's unique aesthetic, heir to Raymond Chandler and Joan Didion, is filtered through "exhaust fumes, fumble, muscle and smoking tires" to reveal the darkness behind the sunglasses. (May)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L.A. Punk." Publishers Weekly, 4 Apr. 2016, p. 76+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA448902751&it=r&asid=c7dcc5ef241370df4670376d9cb8cc7e. Accessed 24 Jan. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A448902751
Under The Big Black Sun opens up L.A.’s punk-rock underbelly
By Ryan Bray
Apr 25, 2016 12:00 AM
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Under The Big Black Sun: A Personal History Of L.A. Punk
Author: John Doe and Tom DeSavia
Publisher: Da Capo Press
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Forty years would seem to be plenty of time to canvass and document the history of punk rock, but as is the case with any genre, there are always some narrative holes that need filling. New York City and London dominate much of the discussion about punk’s nascent years, so much so that even the most casual music fans likely have some understanding of CBGB, The Clash, the Talking Heads, and other big-picture genre talking points. Those are important conversational pillars, of course, but there’s plenty of ground to cover between the two cities.
Los Angeles, for one, cultivated its own hugely influential punk rock scene. If New York and England helped lay the foundation for punk’s first wave, L.A. had a large hand in building the subculture that’s kept the genre going through the years. This is the story Tom DeSavia and X singer-bassist John Doe tell in Under The Big Black Sun: A Personal History Of L.A. Punk. Culled from the personal remembrances of roughly a dozen of the city’s most prized punk-rock figures, the book digs deep into the ugly, dangerous, but nonetheless fraternal nature of the burgeoning L.A. punk scene of the late ’70s and early ’80s. From Hollywood over to East L.A. and south to San Pedro and Huntington Beach, Under The Big Black Sun covers the scene’s considerable sprawl, from the sketchy clubs and apartment dwellings to the bands and the drug and booze-fueled chaos that followed them.
Considerable attention is given to many of the scene’s most enduring exports, and understandably so. Stories of X’s legendary stage presence, violent Black Flag shows, and the tragic self-destructiveness of the Germs’ Darby Crash are necessary parts of the story, even if they’re already well-told ones. But DeSavia and Doe’s collection shines when it digs deeper. Robert Lopez—a.k.a. El Vez, the Mexican Elvis—sheds fascinating light on an East L.A. scene that fostered the likes of The Zeros, Alice Bag, and even chicano roots rock heroes Los Lobos, pre-La Bamba. Many might be aware of The Go-Go’s origins in L.A. punk, but Belinda Carlisle and Jane Wiedlin go into incisive detail as to just how much the band was into that scene before becoming new wave hit-makers. The dirt dished on the bands and the music is great, but the book wisely casts a wider net to capture broader aspects of early L.A. punk culture. Other entries call attention to the documentation of the scene through ’zines including Bomp Magazine, Flipside, and Slash, the latter of which morphed into a label that released early records by The Blasters, The Gun Club, Fear, and others.
Fans seeking a linear, front-to-back telling of the scene’s early years might be thrown by the erratic structure of DeSavia and Doe’s narrative. Under The Big Black Sun spurns chronology in favor of personal anecdotes and reflections that dart all over the map. But what it lacks in tidy cohesion, it makes up for in you-had-to-be-there style storytelling. The varied voices and storytelling styles—from Mike Watt’s eclectic dude speak to Gentleman Jack Grisham’s vulgar-but-emotional gutter poetry—give the book a loose, conversational feel that plays more like a documentary in words than a strict historical account. Given punk rock’s innate wont to flaunt convention, the style fits the subject matter in its own roughshod sort of way.
Considerable time has lapsed since the book’s subjects inhabited the matinee shows and house parties they speak of. But the authors hang on every sinewy detail like it all happened yesterday. Hard as it can be to make history seem tangible and visceral, Under The Big Black Sun speaks of a genre that’s still young at heart.