Punk legend John Doe returns to Big Sur.

“Something’s Happening Here” is the aptly titled first chapter of X co-founder John Doe’s recently released memoir, Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L.A. Punk. It opens with a vivid backstage scene at L.A.’s Whisky a Go Go in 1978. X was getting ready to perform, just like they’d done so many times before. Only on this occasion they sold out the infamous venue for the first time.

“This was a place where you knew something was definitely happening, that you were definitely headed somewhere,” Doe writes. “I would look down at my shoes… and think that we were part of something, like others had been part of something else.

“Where the people in their audience had known something that other people did not and were about to see something that other people did not and were about to see something the rest of the world might see soon.”

X’s gigantic guitar riffs, thunderous bass lines and abused drumkit swooped in. Exene Cervenka’s and Doe’s subversive vocals and sweaty energy fed audiences hungry for such mayhem.

“Like most good things, it just happened,” Doe says. “It was more inspiration than logic – L.A. punk rock didn’t come from nothing, it was part of a history of good music in L.A. That’s why [the book] references Buffalo Springfield.”

Doe couldn’t tell the story of L.A. punk by himself – he recruited everyone from his own bandmembers and Henry Rollins (Black Flag) to Mike Watt (The Minutemen) and Jack Grisham (TSOL) to contribute chapters. Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong penned the book’s foreward. Surprisingly, everyone’s take on the scene was similar.

“Everyone appreciated that the scene was very eclectic, open-minded and inclusive,” says Doe, who splits his time with X and performing his solo work, which he calls “western” music.

Grammy Award-winning music-producer Ian Brennan, whose fourth book, How Music Dies (or Lives): Field-recording and the battle for democracy in the arts, was published earlier this year, will join Doe in a conversation music lovers won’t want to miss. Expect some singing in the mix as well.

JOHN DOE AND IAN BRENNAN: A CONVERSATION ABOUT GRASSROOTS MUSIC 8pm (7:30pm doors) Sunday, Sept. 18. Henry Miller Library, 48603 Highway 1, Big Sur. $10-$100. www.henrymiller.org.