by Roni Sarig
In a matter of months, the Germs had emerged as the most notorious band on the burgeoning L.A. punk scene. With stage moves, audience-baiting, and peanut butter-flinging antics borrowed from the Stooges’ Iggy Pop, Darby was ringleader of his band’s unrefined chaos. He slurred his words, showing little concern for lyrics or melody or whether he was singing into the microphone, while the rest of the Germs – Smear’s noisy untuned guitar, Lorna’s erratic and lumbering bass, and Donna’s precariously uneven drum tempos – sounded about as loose as a band could be without actually falling apart.
Nevertheless, the Germs became L.A.’s equivalent to the Sex Pistols; just as the Pistols had their loyalists, the Bromley Contingent, Germs fans were dubbed the Germs (or Darby Crash) Contingent. As the group’s notoriety (fueled by riots and food fights) escalated, though, gigs were increasingly difficult to secure. Few clubs would agree to book the Germs a second time. To trick venues into booking them, the group began billing themselves under a code name: G.I. (for Germs Incognito).
Mike Watt, Minutemen / fIREHOSE:
It was funny, some of the early Hollywood [punk] bands were like, “We’re going to be stars, this is the new rock and roll.” But the Germs were like, “We’re going to make our own music.” They were coming up with their own sound, and were copied by all the Orange County bands. A lot of the Hollywood bands had elitism, but Darby was into expanding it out. In a way he was kind of an ambassador.
By the summer of ‘78, Rhia had been replaced by a succession of drummers – including Nicky Beat of the Weirdos and future X drummer D.J. Bonebrake – and the Germs had earned the right to be called “most improved band.” They’d tightened up and increased the tempo of their songs in keeping with the high-speed hardcore trend that was emerging from the L.A. suburbs. The band didn’t settle on a (relatively) permanent beat-keeper, though, until Don Bolles arrived from Phoenix. In 1979, with their strongest and most stable lineup in place, the group entered the studio with producer Joan Jett (who they idolized from her days in the Runaways) to record their first and only album, (GI) [actually self-titled and credited to Germs (GI)]. Featuring a black cover with the band’s blue circle logo, the record was an instant punk classic, hailed by fans and critics alike as the first great post-Sex Pistols American punk album. The band managed to turn out dynamic and confident performances on songs like What We Do Is Secret, with Crash’s throaty growl setting the standard for punk vocalists of the future.
Ian MacKaye, Minor Threat / Fugazi:
The Germs, and the whole L.A. punk scene, were a big inspiration for us. It was so totally insane, but their music – and particularly Darby’s lyrics – can’t be replicated. The Germs were the center of an intense crew of really fucked-up kids in L.A., and this was their art. I think that Germs album is close to perfect.
As it turned out, though, the American version of the Sex Pistols would implode just as quickly as their British counterparts. Darby, while borrowing vocal affectations from Johnny Rotten, more closely resembled Sid Vicious with his heroin habit, dumb nihilism, and fascist flirtations. As Darby fostered his own cult of personality by encouraging followers to wear the Germs logo on armbands and scar their arms with cigarettes (Germs burns), he seemed to lose touch with reality. Toward the end of 1979, Darby fired Don Bolles and took off to London. Having seen Adam and the Ants there, he returned to L.A. a few months later sporting a mohawk and Indian face paint. By then, Lorna had quit the Germs and the band had folded.
Darby and Smear soon formed the Darby Crash Band, but the group fell apart after a handful of gigs. In December of 1980, Darby convinced Pat, Don, and Lorna to re-form the Germs for one final gig. Having earned enough money from the show to buy a lethal dose of heroin, Crash overdosed and died – one day before John Lennon’s assassination – at age 22. While Lorna Doom did not continue as a musician, Don Bolles has played in a number of bands, including Celebrity Skin.
Pat Smear played with Nina Hagen and the Adolescents – as well as original Germ turned pop star Belinda Carlisle – then made records in the late ‘80s as a solo artist and half of the duo Death Folk. After recording with Courtney Love for a Germs tribute album, Smear met Love’s husband and fellow Germs fan Kurt Cobain. Invited to join Nirvana as a second guitarist on their 1993 tour, he remained part of the band until Cobain’s death. Afterward, he and Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl formed the Foo Fighters, which he quit in 1997 to focus on life as an MTV personality and other pursuits.
DISCOGRAPHY
(GI) (Slash, 1979); the only studio release, this can be found in its entirety on (MIA).
What We Do Is Secret EP (Slash, 1981); collects first two singles and two other songs; found in its entirety on (MIA).
Germicide: Live at the Whiskey (Bomp / ROIR, 1981); a live recording of an early show from June 1977.
Let the Circle Be Unbroken (Gasatanka, 1985); a live recording.
Lion’s Share (Ghost o’Darb, 1985); half live, half recordings from the soundtrack to Cruising [which appear also on (MIA)].
Rock N’ Rule (XES, 1986); a live recording.
(MIA) The Complete Anthology (Slash, 1993); the definitive collection which includes all of the studio recordings.
TRIBUTE: Various Artists, A Small Circle of Friends (Grass, 1996); a collection of Germs songs done by Matthew Sweet, Ly, the Meat Puppets, members of Sonic Youth, Hole, and Dinosaur Jr., as well as others.
BLACK FLAG
King Coffey, Butthole Surfers:
Black Flag’s early records virtually defined hardcore, and their records were required listening, part of the essential syllabus for every U.S. punk, then and now. Few records had as much rage. Few shows were as powerful. Rise above is perhaps the ultimate hardcore anthem, a gauntlet Black Flag threw down that inspired U.S. punks to create something indigenous: HARDCORE (‘77 Brit punk seemed tame in comparison). The Butthole Surfers came from the hardcore underground and therefore are indebted to bands like Black Flag for inventing it in the first place.
Black Flag played hardcore punk before there was a name for it. And by the time the genre had been defined, the band could take credit for having influenced just about every group that had formed in its wake. With superfast riffing and all-out fury, Black Flag’s take on punk would, for the first time since the Brit punk explosion, define the style as uniquely American. More than musically, though, the group put forth a hardcore ethic that backed punk’s rebellious rhetoric with an actual rejection of the “system.” By releasing records and booking tours on its own, Black Flag created a model for do-it-yourself bands and started a network for underground music. And by the time they were through, Black Flag – through their record label’s releases, their side projects, and their punk-metal hybrids – had laid the foundation for much of the so-called grunge and alternative rock of the ‘90s.
Scott Kannberg, Pavement:
They were my favorite band when I was 14, 15 years old. The first singles were a huge influence on me. I was scared to play them in front of my parents, it was just a whole different sound I’d never heard before... Their whole aesthetic of working really hard, touring a lot, was inspiring. I think Steve [Malkmus, of Pavement] got a lot of guitar inspiration from Greg Ginn.
Before he’d even picked up a guitar, Greg Ginn had cultivated many of the gifts that would make him a key force in the creation of an entirely new punk paradigm, American hardcore music. As a child Ginn hated the commercialism of pop music, and instead of listening to music he kept busy making things: He built electronics, then wrote and published his own magazine in high school. After studying economics at UCLA, Ginn set up his own company making home radio antennas, which he named Solid State Transformers, or SST.
In college, Ginn started playing guitar and immersing himself in various music styles, from jazz to avant-garde classical to pre-punk bands like the Stooges. When he finally decided to form a band, it was 1977 and Ginn was already 24 years old. He recruited Charles “Chuck” Dukowski on bass, Brian Migdol on drums, a
nd Keith Morris to be lead vocalist in the Hermosa Beach-based band he formed, called Black Flag. While inspired by the punk scene brewing in Hollywood, Black Flag began to project a separate musical identity for outlying communities such as theirs.
Unlike the more glitzy city punk, where dyed hair and black leather were the standard, Black Flag was strictly short hair, T-shirt, and jeans. And oblivious to genre classifications, Black Flag owed as much to Black Sabbath’s metal as they did to the Sex Pistols’ Brit punk. While early Black Flag songs like Nervous Breakdown and Wasted were harder and faster than any punk before, they were for the most part meat and potatoes American-style hard rock. Though it hadn’t yet been named, this was the beginning of hardcore.
To release Black Flag’s first EP, Nervous Breakdown, Ginn mutated SST Electronics into SST Records. Despite personnel changes that included replacing Morris (who left to form the Circle Jerks) with singer Ron Reyes, the band’s EP and powerful live shows solidified Black Flag’s reputation. Unlike the intentionally provocative punk bands, Black Flag wanted to play as much as possible and had little interest in controversies that would make it difficult to get gigs. Miles away from the Germs nihilism, Black Flag developed a nonstop work ethic.
Thurston Moore, Sonic Youth:
Black Flag were the first band that got in a van and just played in people’s rec-rooms all across the country, and they created this whole network of people doing it for themselves. Sonic Youth was just coming of age as far as touring, and we were totally into that: “We’ll book our own tour and put our own records out, and we’ll play with these bands.” A lot of them were great, Black Flag were fantastic.
By the end of the ‘70s, Black Flag had switched to a third vocalist, Dez Cadena, and was reaching its widest audience yet. Songs like Six Pack, and TV Party appealed both to fans who appreciated the irony of lines like “We’ve got nothing better to do / Than watch TV and have a couple of brews” and those who actually identified with it.
Eric Wilson, Sublime:
I was always into the Six Pack thing and TV Party. Definitely the lyrical content influenced me, just them talking about being young, growing up, and having a good time.
As the band developed a national reputation through constant touring, Black Flag could draw hundreds of young hardcore fans in cities like San Francisco and New York. After one fan, named Henry Garfield, sang with them at a show in New York, they asked him to quit his job as manager of a Washington, D.C. ice cream store and become their new singer. With Garfield – now calling himself Henry Rollins – doing vocals and Cadena switched to rhythm guitar, Black Flag released their first full album, Damaged, on SST in 1981. Containing much of the band’s most memorable material – the “party” tunes as well as intensely emotional songs like Depression and the anthemic Rise above – the album became a definitive document of American hardcore.
Lou Barlow, Sebadoh / Folk Implosion:
When I was 14 or 15, I went to see them play live. Wow, that pretty much killed me. Black Flag was so stripped down. They had all these emotional issues, and that was pretty inspiring.
As the band’s popularity grew, Black Flag aligned itself with the MCA-affiliated Unicorn Records, a larger company that could better distribute their album. However, MCA executives deemed Damaged an “anti-parent” record and refused to release it. A two-year legal battle ensued, during which the band was barred from releasing records under the Black Flag name (1982’s outtake collection Everything Went Black listed band members’ names on the cover). Through 1982 and most of 1983, Black Flag spent what could have been their most fruitful years without any new releases. By the time Unicorn went bankrupt and freed Black Flag, the band was down to three members: Ginn (who also played bass under the pseudonym Dale Nixon), Rollins, and former Descendents drummer Bill Stevenson (Dukowski remained active in SST but not the band).
By the time they released My War, their long-awaited second studio album, Black Flag had evolved away from the full-on assault of their earlier hardcore punk. Tempos were slower and Ginn had developed a lead style that brought in more metal and prog rock influences. Meanwhile, Rollins had discovered a new avocation in spoken-word poetry, which appeared on the band’s half-instrumental Family Man album in 1984.
That same year, with the addition of bassist Kira (Roessler) – a rare female in the male-dominated world of hardcore – Black Flag released two more albums: the hard rocking Slip It in and Live ‘84. Three more releases came in 1985: Loose Nut, The Process of Weeding out, and In My Head. While the Process EP offered punk-jazz fusion instrumentals, the others defined a punk/metal hybrid that would reach mainstream ears a half-decade later as grunge.
Mark Robinson, Unrest:
I saw them when they put out My War. It really struck me how they were playing more of a King Crimson-ish prog rock kind of punk – doing different things within the punk construct – it wasn’t straight-ahead stuff. With Unrest, we were really into King Crimson and also into punk, so the fact that Black Flag could cross over the two genres was appealing to us.
By late 1985, internal tensions in the band led to the departure of both Stevenson and Kira (who married Minutemen bassist Mike Watt and formed the duo DOS with him). Rollins, meanwhile, became more interested in spoken-word and writing projects (and started hanging out with fellow rising stars like Michael Stipe and Nick Cave). Ginn, who had formed the instrumental side band Gone to better explore new directions, decided to end Black Flag in the summer of ‘86.
While Ginn has continued with Gone and solo albums, he has devoted much of his time to running SST with Dukowski. With releases by hardcore forefathers the Minutemen, Bad Brains, Hüsker Dü, and the Descendents – as well as future alternative rockers the Meat Puppets, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., and Screaming Trees – SST became the preeminent indie of the ‘80s. Apparently, Ginn’s industriousness also rubbed off on Rollins, who has put out seven solo albums (mostly spoken word), and another seven as leader of the Rollins Band. In addition, Rollins has run a record label (Infinite Zero) and publishing company (2.13.61), written books of poetry and prose (including the Black Flag tour diary Get in the Van), appeared in films (including 1997’s Lost Highway), and done ads for Apple Computers. He participated in the first Lollapalooza and now records for the Spielberg/Katzenberg/Geffen label Dreamworks.
DISCOGRAPHY
Damaged (SST, 1981); their debut album and first release featuring Henry Rollins, this hardcore classic includes Rise above and TV Party.
Everything Went Black (SST, 1982); a double album of alternate takes from pre-Rollins recordings and radio promos.
The First Four Years (SST, 1983); collects all the pre-Rollins EPs and singles, including 1978’s Nervous Breakdown and ‘80s Jealous Again.
My War (SST, 1983); a long-awaited follow-up to Damaged, showing a move away from traditional hardcore to slower and more complex songs.
Family Man (SST, 1984); features both instrumentals and Henry Rollins spoken word.
Slip It in (SST, 1984); an uneven mix of the band’s further explorations into a punk-metal hybrid.
Live ‘84 (SST, 1984); a cassette-only live recording.
Loose Nut (SST, 1985); a slight return to punk roots, including the late-career classic Annihilate This Week.
Process of Weeding out (SST, 1985); an instrumental four-song EP, with a punk/jazz fusion bent.
In My Head (SST, 1985); the final studio recording, ending the band on a relative high note.
DEAD KENNEDYS
Micky “Gene Ween” Melehiondo, Ween:
When I first head the name Dead Kennedys, I thought it was the fucking funniest thing. I knew it was for me, it was so totally offensive. Once I heard the Dead Kennedys I denounced everything else – it became as close to a religion as anything – I wrote “DK” on everything I owned.
With outrageous songs delivered with equal parts frenzy and intelligence, the Dead Kennedys gave American punk rock a political voice. And when confronted with a challenge to
its free speech rights, the band fought the system wholeheartedly – even to the point that it consumed and destroyed them. Their commitment to backing up words with action makes them an inspiration to politically oriented groups in punk and beyond, while their twisted humor and unorthodox take on punk has paved the way for bands like the Butthole Surfers. Through their music as well as their label – which has fostered the careers of many younger bands – the Dead Kennedys’ legacy continues long after the band has gone.
King Coffey, Butthole Surfers:
They were probably most influential on us for the sheer fact that they put out our first two records. They also took us out on tour, which exposed us to the rest of the world. They were kind of our mentors to a large degree.
