Cervenka to make mark at Vino’s
Posted on Sunday, November 19, 2006
X was never exactly an “X-rated” band, but lead singer Exene Cervenka now leads another band, The Original Sinners. Putting aside the question of sin, Cervenka hasn’t closed out her X days. She has just added another band to her resume, which is already replete with art and poetry, in addition to music.
Just to set the record straight on X, she explains the origins of that seminal Los Angeles punk rock band’s moniker.
“We didn’t want to have a name, just a mark,” she says, admitting that sometimes confusion results. Perhaps in its time, X confused people, as when Prince changed his name to a symbol.
“I think we achieved a little more than that,” Cervenka adds.
Born Christine Cervenka 50 years ago in Chicago, Cervenka headed west when she was 20, arriving in time to become the rock goddess in Los Angeles at the same time Patti Smith was doing similar duty in New York and Chrissie Hynde (who had left Cleveland behind ) did the same in London with The Pretenders.
Cervenka started X with guitarist Billy Zoom, drummer D. J. Bonebrake and bassist and singer John Doe in 1977. Cervenka had met Doe, whom she later married, at a poetry workshop. The group was discovered by Doors’ organist Ray Manzarek, who produced their early efforts. After five albums, Zoom left and X lost some momentum, with remaining members doing solo projects and former Blaster Dave Alvin joining the lineup.
Whether or not she was rocking, Cervenka was otherwise creating poetry and art all the while.
“I have a new art book just out,” she says. “It’s a book of collages. All along, I’ve done my visual art and I have shows every year, in galleries in Los Angeles and New York, and sometimes in Miami.”
The Santa Monica Museum of Art presented the first exhibition of her art in 2005.
Her new band recently released its second album, Sev 7 en, a follow-up to the group’s self-titled debut in 2002. The new album takes its name from her band’s other identity as The 7 Shot Screamers, based in St. Louis. Members are Jason Edge and Dan Sabella on guitars, Chris Powers on bass and Kevin O’Conner on drums.
And one of her side projects, The Knitters, finally released its second album, The Modern Sounds of The Knitters, a followup to that alternative country band’s debut release, Poor Little Critter on the Road, from 1985.
Other Cervenka projects have been a band, Auntie Christ (which she now proclaims to be defunct ); a book of poems for Henry Rollins’ publishing company; collaborations with Lydia Lunch, Rancid bassist Matt Freeman and The Old ’ 97 s; and occasional solo albums. She collaborated on Just Another War, a book about the first Persian Gulf War, with photographer Kenneth Jarecke. She even recorded a reading of the Unabomber Manifesto, which came out on the day the bomber was captured.
After her marriage to Doe ended, she later married actor Viggo Mortenson, and the couple — divorced after 10 years of marriage — had a son, Henry, in 1988, who is now in college.
X still performs on occasion, she reports.
“We got back together about nine years ago and play lots of shows in California, mostly in the summer,” she says. “And in my new band, we play a couple of X songs and some songs from the other bands I’ve been in. I usually spend about three or four months of the year on the road.
“ With the Original Sinners, we play fast, which makes for comparisons to X, I think.”
As for that name, Original Sinners, Cervenka is known for her collection of evangelical Christian propaganda pamphlets.
“I use the concept of original sin, along with Catholicism and Christianity, in my art,” she confesses. “Sometimes I use them erotically. I’ve been doing that since I was 15.”
Cervenka doesn’t think about a life outside of music, and her art, as long as she can do both.
“I’ve been at it for 29 years or more. I’ve taken my vitamins, gone to the gym, danced around and managed to stay healthy, so I’m able to keep doing it.”
After three decades in the music business, Cervenka doesn’t see that things have gotten any easier for women in her field.
“It’s harder now,” she reckons. “You have to compete with the Pussycat Dolls and that stuff. A lot of women have given up and just joined that mentality of taking your clothes off.”
Ironically, for someone who’s an avatar of the punk rock scene, and so linked to Los Angeles, Cervenka recently opted for a slower pace, not that distant from central Arkansas, a place she has never performed in before.
“In July, I moved to Missouri,” she explains. “Just outside Jefferson City. I didn’t go there for a punk rock scene, but for the lack of a punk rock scene. I moved there to make music and art.”
MUSIC Exene Cervenka & The Original Sinners Opening acts: Knuckle Dragger, Josh the Devil & The Sinners 7 p. m. Tuesday, Vino’s, West Seventh and Chester streets Tickets: $ 8 advance, $ 10 day of show (501 ) 375-8466
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