Under the Big Black Sun

June 15, 2016

Guitarist Doe of the band X here leads listeners through the nascent Los Angeles punk scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s. The book is a kaleidoscope of personal essays by those who were there to see it happen; members of X (singer Exene Cervenka as well as Doe), Black Flag, the Go-Gos, the Minutemen, and many others give a frontline perspective of the musical and cultural movement. Artists now venerated for innovation and creativity were then just kids figuring it out as they went--not just blindly and nihilistically rejecting authority (though there's plenty of that) but affirming and embracing a crusade for self-expression. The stories don't romanticize the sordid and coarse aspects of the scene, but the authors' sincere love of this turbulent period in their lives helps paint it as a time of inventive and energetic creation. Doe reads roughly half the book in an appropriately noir deadpan, and the rest of the chapters are narrated by their various authors (Henry Rollins is, as always, a standout; Jane Wiedlin's gleeful performance is another highlight). VERDICT Recommended for fans of the music, of course, and those who want a vivid snapshot of a weird and entertaining cultural moment. ["Will appeal to fans who want an inside look at the history of the punk lifestyle": LJ 4/15/16 review of the Da Capo hc.]--Jason Puckett, Georgia State Univ. Lib., Atlanta

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 4, 2016
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, rumble, muscle and smoking tires” to reveal the darkness behind the sunglasses.