In 1980, John Doe and Exene Cervenka wrote the definitive west coast punk album: X’s Los Angeles, a taut twenty-eight minutes of anxiety and airlessness (and a Doors cover). More than any of their contemporaries, with the possible exception of The Clash, X were a songwriter’s band; few are the punks who were playing folk music by 1982.
It’s a tradition that Doe has continued, both with Cervenka in X and the aforementioned folk project The Knitters, and on his own. His most recent album, The Westerner, came out in April, and today we’re pleased to be premiering the video for “Go Baby Go,” which features a guest vocal from Debbie Harry of Blondie. It’s a chunky rocker of a track that struts on a “Sweet Jane” chord progression before shifting easily into a twangy chorus. The video, which was directed by Doe’s daughter Elena, finds he and pals—including members of his other daughter Amelia’s dance troupe—doing a number of increasingly silly dances in front of a log cabin and a landing strip. Of course, that’s not any old log cabin: that’s Jack London’s famous Alaskan cabin, now located in Jack London Square in Oakland.
You can check it out below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kU5SB_nMhM&feature=youtu.be
Earlier this year, Doe also released his first book, Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of LA Punk, which tells the story of punk’s evolution to hardcore in early-eighties Los Angeles.
The Westerner is out now via Cool Rock.
