X releases its first shot with debut album Los Angeles

X: Johnny Hit and Run Pauline

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On April 26, 1980 X released their debut album, Los Angeles, on Slash Records. It would sell 60,000 copies, considered an incredible number for a small label, and prove that the West Coast punk scene has something both loud and intelligent to say. Sounding like a guided tour of the bleakest aspects of life in Los Angeles, the album would place #16 in the year's Village Voice Pazz and Jop Critics Poll.

The band was made up of John Doe and Exene Cervanka, who met at a poetry workshop in Venice, California. They would get married in Tijuana. They were joined by guitarist Billy Zoom who had played with Gene Vincent in the 70's and drummer D.J. Bonebrake. Charles Bukowski would have been proud to have written some of these uncompromising lyrics:

She had to leave Los Angeles 
All her toys wore out in black and her boys had too 
She started to hate every nigge‍r and Jew 
Every Mexican that gave her a lotta shit 
Every homosexual and the idle rich

The Doors' Ray Manzarek produced the album after catching the band's performance at The Whiskey.

"It was love at first sight," he told the Los Angeles Times. "I thought (vocalist) Exene was the next step after Patti Smith. She takes it further than any woman has ever taken it. Next to her was this striking, strong bass player (John Doe) and the two of them did the strangest things. It wasn't atonal harmony, but it was bordering on that...Then I looked over and there was Billy Zoom playing the loudest guitar, yet doing it so smoothly and effortlessly. I was amazed at the edge and the rawness but he attacked the guitar strings with such grace and finesse, And the drummer, DJ Bonebrake, is so solid and strong and powerful...Don had the power to make that damn thing crack like a rifle shot..."

The album received rave reviews. Robert Christgau gave the album a grade of A-, writing:

From poet-turned-chanteuse Exene to junk-guitar journeyman Billy Zoom, these aren't mohawked NME-reading truants who think Darby Crash is God or the Antichrist. They're sexy thrift-shopping bohos who think Charles Bukowski is Norman Mailer or Henry Miller. This may not be exactly the aura they crave, but combined with some great tunes it enables them to make a smart argument for a desperately stupid scene. Of course, when they're looking for a cover (or a producer), they go to the Doors, prompting L.A. critic Jay Mitchell to observe: "Their death and gloom aura is closer to the Eagles, which is to say it is all Hollywood." But only in L.A. is that an insult, elsewhere the distinction between a city and its industrial hub is more like a clever apercu.

I think the band would top the debut three times, with 1981's Wild Gift, 1982's Under The Big Black Sun and 1983's More Fun In The New World.