Eyes In The Back Of My Head

I would just like to point out clearly that despite evidence to the contrary, I am not losing my mother-lovin' mind.

The photo you see above is so far the single, fragile scrap of evidence that I can procure proving that X was once on American Bandstand. And I know and remember this, because that picture you see above is the very first time I ever heard of or laid eyes on the group in my life.

Long-time readers, or just overall knowers of me, know that I have been looking for some physical proof of seeing this performance, which was probably some Saturday afternoon in 1982 having spent the night at my best friend Sheryl's house and tuning in to AB like we always did after Saturday morning cartoons. And the reason why I think it was 1982 was because Dick Clark, sitting in the audience with the kids before announcing the band, held up the album cover to X's 1982 release Under The Big Black Sun -- with cover art intriguing enough as it is -- and explained how this upcoming band held the distinction of never having had a single bad review written about them in their entire career. I was thirteen years old, and Sheryl was probably either eleven or twelve, and we were both dying to check out this curious criticism-free ensemble. With John Doe and Exene Cervenka, in her black-and-white skunk hair, harmonizing through "Hungry Wolf" like twin ghosts desperately howling through an abandoned house, it left two pre-teen girls accustomed to the likes of Thomas Dolby and A Flock Of Seagulls thoroughly gobsmacked. So much so, I suppose, that it took me five years later to buy a copy of their See How We Are album in college, and later acquire Los Angeles, Wild Gift, More Fun In The New World, watch The Decline of Western Civilization a buzzillion times, and utterly fall head over heels with Bonebrake, Zoom, Doe, and that skunk-haired wailing ghost of a woman by his side.

I was talking to Al on the phone tonight, telling him about first seeing X on American Bandstand as a kid, and naturally he refused to believe me. Mostly because it's Al and he just likes to be a contrary bastard, but in his defense he was online searching while on the horn with me and kept coming up bupkis, which is exactly what's happened to me every time I tried to do a little research on the subject myself over the years. Nowhere have I seen mention of X on AB, even in AB archives that I've visited, and even music geeks and fellow X fans I've talked to over the years insist I must have dreamt the whole thing. This photo, found here, with a short blurb about the experience, is the closest I've come to proving that I don't dream up first sightings of punk bands on Saturday mornings after cartoons, or movies about dead babies, or dirty fish tanks and broken elevators. Wait, I always have dreams about dirty fish tanks and broken elevators. Usually after heavy doses of mind-altering prescription cough syrup. Which is why I'm always having them.

Help me find the video clip of this performance, and you will have justified my entire existence. Just imagine how immeasurably satisfying that would be!

Meanwhile, enjoy the single to "Hungry Wolf". Because I always do.