For those unfamiliar, Germs, or The Germs, were a Los Angeles punk band formed in 1976 and were only active until 1980, releasing only a single album in their short career before the lead singer Darby Crash was to commit suicide only a year after the release of their debut album: (GI) in 1979.
Germs singlehandedly created the blueprint of hardcore punk, capturing the pure essence and ferocity of punk, simultaneously birthing the genre and surpassing pretty much every other hardcore band that has existed with the exception of maybe VOID. (GI) is the first hardcore punk album, and achieves everything a hardcore punk album should, enough for an introduction and conclusion to the genre. Germs were a band I had always been aware of considering my interest in the punk rock scene, especially the scene in the late 70s and early 80s – the essential years in which the genre was born and came to acquire the meanings and associations it still has today, however, Germs had somehow passed me by. This might have been due to the album initially sounding essentially to me just like loud noise; the instruments are played ferociously fast, the vocals are growled and sloppy and the songs barely reached the 2 minute mark. It was only recently that I have come to appreciate the genius of Germs.
Germs are, in my opinion, one of the most unique and interesting punk rock bands in the history of punk music. At the time of the release of (GI), the band consisted of Darby Crash, Pat Smear, Lorna Doom and Don Bolles. Before the release of their album, a punk audience’s only familiarity with Germs was through their infamous raucous live shows in which lead singer Darby Crash was often seen thrashing about on stage heavily intoxicated by alcohol and hard drugs and barely attempting to sing into the microphone. One of Germs live performances was captured on the 1981 film ‘The Decline of Western Civilisation’, which chronicled the LA punk rock scene in the late 70s and early 80s, in which their performance was recognised by many as one of the ‘worst’ live performances ever recorded. Darby was often also seen cutting himself on stage and fighting with audiences; behaviour that gave Germs a reputation amongst LA venues and got them blacklisted from performing at almost all of these clubs. The album’s title – G.I., short for Germs Incognito, was a name used by the band to bypass this blacklisting in LA clubs.
For the release of their album (GI), Germs hired long-time friend Joan Jett, known from her own band The Runaways to produce for them. (GI) was released in late 1979, and what resulted was a hardcore masterpiece, solidifying Germs as a force to be reckoned with in the LA punk scene. The album also came as a shock to many fans, as the album proved the incredible instrumental proficiency of the band which was not apparent at their live shows. Another shock to the audiences was Darby Crash’s surprisingly profound and poetic lyrics that were equally almost non-existent at Germs live shows. Whilst the vocals on the record are still slurred and deliberately delivered in a very sloppy and disoriented manner, the printed lyrics inside the cover of the album gave fans a new idea of Crash’s brilliance and way of writing, covering topics such as feeling isolated in a world that didn’t understand him, issues of politics for example his perceived contradictions of doctrines such as communism, hints to his repressed homosexuality and poetic representations of his worldview as an outsider and an outcast.
In terms of the songs themselves, the songs are played very fast, utilising extreme metallic sounding power chords with the vocals of Crash slurring and shouting incoherently, which to some may sound messy, but I personally feel it captures the pure anger and rage of hardcore punk whilst maintaining the tight proficiency of instrumentation, not at all amateurish as was seen at the time by critics. No other 70s punk album sounds like this, no other band played as loud, fast and as aggressive as Germs; whose sound is incredibly impressive and forward thinking for 1979, the reason many believe that this to be the first hardcore punk album. To believe this album was released in the same decade that the Beatles were releasing music kind of blows my mind.
The song Richie Daggers Crime chronicles an outcast man, a living legend who “stomps and swaggers” and whose values and interests are in direct conflict to mainstream culture which leads to him to feeling rejected by society. The song is sung in majority in first person yet just before the end, the song changes to third person in which Crash switches the perspective from someone who is a self-professed reckless savage to a description of a character that is charming and intriguing and who can “set your mind ablaze”. Many see these lyrics as either an autobiographical account of Crash himself, who sees himself as misunderstood, or a description of his boyfriend of who he kept him and his repressed homosexuality a secret.
The following track – strange notes is one of the most unhinged songs on the track list, with each line ending with an emphasised growl on the final word making it feel like you as a listener need to throw your head up in the air like a deranged animal to sing along. The bass playing and drumming on this track is fantastic, perfectly in time and tight which makes a really great contrast to the animalistic vocals spat over this track.
Lexicon Devil is the biggest track off this album and has become a cult punk classic. No surprises on this one because this track is faultless. The drum beat and guitar work are so perfectly in time that you cannot help but thrash your head back and forth. Crash’s vocals work perfectly over this as well as he growls menacingly into the microphone as the initial head banging phase of the song fades out. Its basically a head banger and has the perfect rhythm for a hardcore punk song, maintaining a coherent memorable rhythm whilst keeping the speed of the track and the rawness of the vocals. Essentially by Lexicon Devil, Crash is boasting that he is using lexicon (or vocabulary) and charisma to manipulate people for his own personal gain. This is also backed up by accounts that maintain he manipulated the language of his influences such as Nietzsche, Charles Manson and the Church of Scientology using mind games and whose message ensnared many disaffected impressionable LA suburbanites who were to become his devout following. This track really sums up the essence of what Germs were really going for with their sound and shows they were clearly ahead of their time.
Manimal is another highlight for me and one of the most profound and angry songs on the album. Beginning with a slow deep guitar riff that could be seen on a Type O-Negative record, before bursting into a barrage of speedy punk guitars. The lyrics cover Crash likening his existence to that of a “puzzled panther waiting to be caged”, but something always stood in the way of this happening. Throughout the song Crash likens himself to that of an animal, but there is a fundamental difference between him and an animal that stops him from being able to live life in the reckless way that he wants to. The lyrics “evolution is a process to slow to save my soul, But I’ve got this creature on my back and it just won’t let go” shows Crash seeing himself as an individual that is similar to an animal, but the fact that he is an individual rather than an animal species means that the rules of evolution do not apply to him in the same way that they do to an animal, yet he feels there is something animalistic about his nature that he cannot escape. This is followed by unhinged animalistic growling in place of lyrics over this meaty riff which sounds so pained and full of anger. The final lyrics of the song “If I am only an animal then I can do no wrong, But they say I’m something better, So I’ve gotta hold on” are some of the most profound as they mark the difference most significantly between him and an animal. The laws of right and wrong do not exist in the animal kingdom so he wishes he was able live life in this way, unable to do wrong. However as people say he is a human, he must reconcile with this aspect of his animalistic and reckless aspect of his personality. The contrast between nature and societal norms of how people are expected to behave makes him very angry and depressed however there is nothing he can do and so he must hold on.
We Must Bleed follows this, a horror-esque hardcore song with a descending riff that sounds so menacing it could be on a film about a vampire punk. The lyrics seem to have an obscure meaning but you can read enough to understand the pain and anguish in Crash’s lyrics about being driven mad. The lyrics “The crash as the bottle breaks, Flashes it will through my veins, The pain, the colours, Making me sane (x4) We must bleed, We must bleed (x2)” could be a potential hint to the heroin addiction Crash had and the feeling of injecting the heroin into his veins and how he must bleed to achieve this ‘sanity’. The song ending depressingly with a repetition of “I want out now (x10)”
Media blitz is a simple song, yet effective. Lasting at just over a minute in length, the blistering guitar riffs are relentless in the background and have the more conventional qualities of a speed focused hardcore song you would expect to hear in a mid-80s hardcore song, a style they clearly ushered in. A significant thing I have also noticed about Germs, this song being a prime example, is despite the extremely short length of these tracks and without a discernible rhythm for most of the track, they manage to make the hook, or chorus of the song incredibly catchy. I think this is mostly achieved through a repetitive and memorable short phrase (for example ‘Media Blitz’) that is shouted over the riff giving the listener a bit of time and space get a hold of the super speedy instrumentals that lie behind it and get into the groove. A visionary technique that became the standard for hardcore punk in the following years.
Skipping to the final track of the record Shut Down (Annihilation Man), which was recorded live in the studio and a song which the band usually closed their live performances with using avant-garde improvisation at the end. The track is almost 10 minutes long, being longer than the average track on the album by at least 8 minutes, and features a slow repetitive riff with Crash reciting his poetic lyrics in his distinctive growled voice as the instrumentals become more and more abrasive and experimental as the song progresses. The song is also the only one on the track list to feature any piano on it. The lyrics feature crash speaking disparagingly and angrily about people in general, how people should turn away when they see him in the street, how sad that such a “smart man” JFK got “blowed away”, how people shouldn’t judge him for his heroin usage and pretty much feeling angry at everybody and that they should just leave him alone because they are so small compared to him.
In 1980, one year after the release of the album, Darby Crash committed suicide by intentional heroin overdose. Unfortunately Crash’s suicide was overshadowed by the murder of John Lennon just 24 hours later and so his death became a footnote to the death of a far more widely recognised anti-establishment musical visionary. Guitarist Pat Smear went on to have a successful career, recognised by Kurt Cobain as an influence and so played alongside Nirvana from 1993 – 94 as a touring guitarist and following Kurt’s suicide, played rhythm guitar for Dave Grohl of Nirvana’s own band Foo Fighters. Germs were immortalised by the independent 2007 film “What We Do Is Secret” in which the actor Shane West (who also helped finance the film) played Darby Crash. The other members of Germs were so impressed by West’s performance that they re-formed the band with West taking the deceased Crash’s place as lead vocalist.
Overall an extremely interesting punk album with an even more interesting backstory, the music is fierce, yet catchy as hell. This album is a hardcore punk classic before hardcore punk even existed and an extremely underrated contribution to the punk rock canon. Overall the albums strengths lie in the fact that something so sloppy and loose can sound so powerful and tight, equally, something that sounds so belligerent and chaotic can sound so poetic and profound. The contrast between the juvenile sound of the album and the mature and focused themes of the lyrics makes it stand out as an artistic masterpiece to me. Each song is a punk classic and represents a time for punk rock when chaos and noise were more important than craving success and the desire to be recognised. For something that was released over 40 years ago, it barely sounds dated, and you are able to hear the Germs punk formula used today by contemporary hardcore punk acts. Germs were hardcore pioneers that were well ahead of their time. RIP Darby Crash and Lorna Doom who died late 2019, the year of (GI)’s 40th anniversary.
Germs – (GI), a crucial point for hardcore music whose story is unmatched, plus that album cover is pretty iconic.
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