Last month, a woman in the beer line at the Paramount Theatre confessed that she had never heard of the band X. She was there to see co-headliner Los Lobos. Their somewhat anachronistically conjoined tour was cheekily dubbed “99 Years of Rock ‘n Roll.”

(It’s cheeky because X pretty much took 35 years off between producing original music.)

“Please just tell me this is not Elon Musk’s band,” she said. After spit-taking my Stella, I assured her that X the band is largely considered the second-most influential American punk band of all-time, behind only the Ramones. They pretty much put L.A. on the punk map.

In fact, it was X and Los Lobos’ common L.A. origin that put the amps in motion for this spirited (presumed) farewell tour of seventy-something rockers.

X co-singer Exene Cervenka told

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