Excited to team up with Green Noise Records once again to bring the world yet another repress of the classic Australian band X!!!! This will ship out in early September at the latest. Here’s the some info!
Five years after their debut album Aspirations, 1985’s sophomore full-length “At Home with You” showcased a new depth for the seminal Australian group X. The record mixes commercial sensibilities (the melodious, brass-laden part of “T.V. Glue” is easily imagined as the background for a television advertisement) with unabashed punk ethos that can most readily be detected in frontman Steve Lucas’s expressive, sore-throated vocals. The album features ambitious and artful musicianship, and even an atmospheric ballad in the smoky “Don’t Cry No Tears,” while the band’s pub-rockin’ roots are still on display in tracks like “Degenerate Boy” (a re-working of one of their earlier songs) and the bouncy “She’s Gone.” While it positions its maturity up front, spending a bit of time at home with this newly-reissued LP will assure you that you’re still tuned into the same delightfully abrasive outfit that produced the classic posthumously-released 1977 X-Spurts sessions.
-MRR
A split release between Green Noise Records and Dirt Cult Records
190 on blue vinyl. 330 on black.
Record includes photocopied insert with photos and testimony from Steve Lucas. Here’s what he had to say
“X birthed itself into the Australian music scene on the 23rd of October 1977…Ian Rilen and Ian Krahe with Steve Cafiero and Steve Lucas…recorded studio Hate City EP in 1978. The band was really taking off when Ian Krahe died, tragically, of a heroin overdose after a gig at The Bondi Lifesaver… we found it impossible to replace Ian Krahe both emotionally and musically. Some time in 1979, it was decided that I should take up the guitar…under the guidance of the legendary Lobby Loyde, recorded X-Aspirations in 3 and a half hours. The band continued sporadically, traveling between Sydney and Melbourne until 1983 when Steve Cafiero decided to focus on his family life. Cathy had only recently joined X when we were doing a gig at Chasers on Chapel Street, and as we were stumbling off the stage, were approached with undiluted enthusiasm, by a fellow called Jex (Olympic Sideburns) …and asked if we wanted to make a record…with Lobby Loyde once again at the helm…we were housed in the classic St Kilda pub gig, The Prince of Wales. It was all very rock and roll. We pulled apart the beds, put the mattresses on the floor and moved in and reduced it to a slum. I have no idea in what order we recorded the songs [on At Home with You]. As usual, everything was done off the cuff…one-take wonders that included false starts…The idea was to get a spontaneous performance and to keep it as live sounding as possible. We recorded during the day, and we’d go out and gigging until the wee hours…Most of the songs were regulars in X sets when Steve Caferio was still in the band. Cathy’s inspired groove set the tone, and Ian and I followed suit. Song writing was always very spontaneous…Lobby insisted on recording my vocals for “Degenerate” and “Moving On.” He waited to catch them until X had done some really late-night gigs and then summoned me first thing in the morning. He’d make me sing and scream over and over again until my throat was completely shredded and I could taste blood. I couldn’t talk by the end of it. It hurt so much! To this day my throat tightens in sympathy when I hear those two songs. Because of that extremity, people initially assumed Ian sang “Don’t Cry No Tears”…Ian did take the lead vocally in two of the songs…Ian had a totally different vocal delivery… I miss it. It was a wonderful moment in time. X was a really tight unit. We were a tribe – a family. Rough, raw and unpolished performance was what we were all about. We wanted an album you could play at home that felt live. That’s why we called it At Home with You. We were expanding our family by including the audience in it.” — Steve Lucas 2025 (complete testimony on insert)
dirtcultrecords.com 