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Germs

Germs

The seminal LA punk band whose only album, (GI), helped invent hardcore and whose frontman Darby Crash became a legend of the scene.

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Germs

About

MOODS · raw · chaotic · confrontational · literate · manic · aggressive · nihilistic · gritty · volatile · seminal · untamed · intense

BIOGRAPHY

The Germs formed in Los Angeles in 1976, founded by Jan Paul Beahm and Georg Ruthenberg, who became Darby Crash (initially Bobby Pyn) and Pat Smear. Rounded out by bassist Lorna Doom and, in their classic lineup, drummer Don Bolles, the band grew out of the city's fertile punk underground, initially performing under the tongue-in-cheek name Sophistifuck and the Revlon Spam Queens before shortening it to the Germs. Early on, the band was famously chaotic and barely able to play their instruments, epitomized by their ragged 1977 debut single "Forming." Crash's manic stage presence made them a fixture of the LA scene regardless. By 1979 they had matured into a tight, powerful unit, releasing their sole studio album, (GI), produced by Joan Jett on Slash Records. The band dissolved after Crash's suicide in 1980.

WHY THEY'RE COOL

The Germs occupy a singular place in punk history: a band that began almost willfully incompetent and evolved into one of the genre's most literate and ferocious acts. (GI) is regarded as one of the first hardcore punk records and carries near-mythic status among fans of the genre. Darby Crash, despite his erratic and self-destructive persona, was widely praised as a brilliant lyricist, with one contemporary critic describing his writing as "ransacking the dictionary." The band's appearance in Penelope Spheeris's documentary The Decline of Western Civilization cemented their place as chroniclers of the LA punk movement, and guitarist Pat Smear's later work with Nirvana and Foo Fighters extended their influence well beyond their brief run.