Anarchy In The S.A.: One Question with K. Langford

© Brad Perkins

TheGourdsNews: What comes to mind when you look at this picture of the X-Men playing the Cameo Theatre in 1986?

Keith Langford: The X-Men was our high school punk band, and I was probably 15 in that picture. We were really pretty good. We had a horn section later, kind of like the early Chili Peppers, and that put us ahead of some of the other punk bands. Our singer, Mike, was a big draw, too...a big muscly guy in overalls that punker girls loved. I can still remember some of songs we used to play, like "Border Patrol" and "XXX baby". They were silly, but got the mosh happening. We usually played the Bone Club in San Antonio, but made our way to Dallas a few times to play the Circle A Ranch. We were lucky and got to open for road acts in San Antonio, like Sonic Youth, the Big Boys, and The Minutemen. There was actually a neat little punk scene there underneath the gigantic heavy metal one. I wasn't all that into punk. Black Flag was big with the bandmates. I loved AC/DC, and so it seemed okay to move over to the punk scene. We stopped when our trumpet player started playing R.E.M. in his car...and our guitar player saw the movie Top Gun and wanted to join the Air Force.

Editor's Note: According to mexicajun, "The Bone Club was at 828 San Pedro + Laurel. It's now a gay-bar called The Electric Company" (City-Data.com forum for 80s San Antonio Hardcore and Punk Music, December 30, 2008).

Two original X-Men concert posters can be viewed here: 7-05-85 by Brad Perkins / 10-18-85 by Mig Kokinda

Special thanks to Brad Perkins and mexicajun for contributing to this piece & to Christian Kurtz for originally posting the photo on Facebook.