FRESH AIR
Best known as founder and frontman for the Los Angeles punk band X, musician John Doe has always had a weakness for country music — and X’s sound, in fact, sometimes had a twang to it. After that band’s dissolution, Doe explored his countrified yearnings further, and in recent years he’s turned in some eminently satisfying roots rock. With Country Club, Doe dives headlong into the genre, collaborating with the Canadian band the Sadies on a collection of classic covers originally recorded by titans like Merle Haggard, Tammy Wynette and Willie Nelson. The Sadies contribute three original tracks, while Doe and his X collaborator Exene Cervenka wrote one original of their own. Doe, who’s also a film and TV actor with credits including the hit series One Tree Hill, joins Fresh Air host Terry Gross in the studio with the Sadies for an hour-long chat and live performance.
[deadenddrivein: From the absolutely brilliant 1986 documentary about one of America’s premier pioneering punk music legends. The band X created utterly original urban neo roots music by fusing rockabilly with punk rock, and “Unheard Music” is a beautiful visual analogue of what they were all about. This band could have and should have been hugely successful, but they were simply too far ahead of – and defiantly out of step with – their time to gain much traction with a mass market conditioned toward MTV-friendly fodder like Duran Duran. (Your fucking loss, assholes.) So you say you’re a fan of Warped Tour bands like Green Day, punkie? Then watch “The Unheard Music” and learn the history of one far more talented band who busted their fucking humps for little to no thanks while paving the way for their successors.]