Lexicon Devil: The Fast Times & Short Life of Darby Crash & The Germs

I don't really know what prompted me to finally pull this off the shelf and start reading it. Perhaps I was in need of a dose of punk after reading about dinosaurs Led Zeppelin. I must confess I'm not really into rock Biographies. I think the only two I got through ever were the Mike Barnes Beefheart book and Heroes & Villains: The True Story Of The Beach Boys by Steven Gaines like 17 years ago. The Gaines book particularly shitted me because I don't even think he liked their music. I got halfway through Patti Smith's book Just Kids and hey that was beautifully written..... I guess I'm more into music analysis, cultural/social impact and just the magic of music without all the blah blah. All my friends tell me to read you know the bio on Neil Young, Motley Crue, Keef, James Freud, various Guns & Roses folk etc. etc. I'm more into documentaries like the Classic Albums series one on The Mac's Rumours, 30 Century Man on Scott Walker, Made In Sheffield: The Birth of Electronic Pop,  End of The Century on The Ramones, It's A Long Way To The Top, the 6 part ABC series on the history of Australian Rock and The Story Of Anvil. I even avoid most of those. I never watched the one on The Pixies or The Minutemen. Mainly I like it when the focus is on the music not the gossip or the hangers on/groupies/business people. I like the mystery. I don't wanna know if Black Francis is a cunt or not.

Then there are the movies where they supposedly dramatise real life events of scenes and groups. I loathed 24 Hour Party People despite being a a massive Factory Records head with Peter Hook being one of my all time cult heroes. Even the great Steve Coogan couldn't save that shite. I've steered totally clear of Control, the movie based on Joy Division. I don't want these fake images in my head ruining what my imagination has come up with. After watching the Joan Jett movie I now picture Joan as the girl from Twilight. Ray Manzarek became Coop in a wig once I'd watched Oliver Stone's The Doors. IE. Kyle Maclachlan who was currently playing Agent Cooper in the Twin Peaks tv series put on an absurd wig and came across as nothing like the Manzarek we encounter more often than you might think.

Anyway I'd thought I'd get about 30 pages into Lexicon Devil and then give up. About 15 years ago someone made me a copy of The Germs GI record and I was massively surprised that they weren't total shite. I was never big on X and about 94% of the LA hardcore that followed in The Germs Wake. The only other thing from that era in LA that I liked was The Screamers who had this mental bootleg around that same time (as when I got GI) called In A Better World. As far as US proto-punk/punk/post-punk was concerned Detroit, San Fransisco, New York and Ohio were where it was at.

The Screamers

I pretty much knew nothing about this LA scene except for some of the main bands music - The aforementioned X and The Screamers as well as The Weirdos, The Urinals & The Go Gos. From the get go this book had me hooked. It was written oral history stylee. The stories of Darby's fucked up LA alternative schooling were totally bizarre. This was the 70s, this was LA, this was very experimental schooling and education. These school experiences along with Darby's studies of Scientology and brainwashing informed the rest of his short life. Who knew he was a budding cult leader in the making? So there were lots of drugs, booze, squalor, violence and oh yeah punk rock! Mainly though most of the people/hangers on/groupies in this book were total fucking arseholes. Lexicon Devil is an expose on repression, perversion, violence, manipulation, murder, mental Illness, depravity, suicide and wasted youth.

There isn't much talk about the importance (for want of a better term) or the cultural affect of some of the seminal records being released by bands included in this scene and book. As you can probably guess by it's title Darby's life begins to escalate into a drug and alcohol fuelled mess and finally tragedy. Legendary rock writer Richard Meltzer was quoted thus "Lexicon Devil is pure and Simple, the finest volume on punk to see the light of print."

Belinda Carlisle, Genesis P Orridge, Lee Ving, Kid Congo Powers, Jack Nitzsche, Kim Fowley, Gary Panter, Joan Jett, Tomato Du Plenty, Matt Groening, Jello Biafra, Phranc, The Quick, Mike Watt, Greg Shaw and many others make cameos in the book. Mainly though it's The Germs, Weirdos, Go Gos and X members along with the little gangs and cliques that congregated around wannabe cult leader Darby Crash that make up the story.

The Germs - Forming

What's missing though is the fact that The Germs Forming 7" is one of the greatest debut singles by any band ever (in all its lo-fi glory) and their GI LP is a fine record that still stands up to this day. Maybe it's even still influential today? Hello UV Race. You could do worse than having The Germs as an Influence.

Lexicon Devil

Darby Crash Punk Rock Poet. Hey!, Pat Smear, Don Bolles & Lorna Doom were pretty darn good too.

**Further listening Black Hole: California Punk 1977-80 released in 2010 on Domino.
**This features all the previously mentioned groups plus The Dils, Black Randy & The Metro Squad and The Flesh Eaters. There's even some bands from San Fran like Crime, The Dead Kennedys and The Sleepers.

Laughing Clowns - New Bully In The Town

Drummage: A Reprise

New Bully In Town

Laughing Clowns

The drums on this track are the hook, the...fuck let's face it they are the whole song. How did I miss the post-punk drummer of all post-punk drummers in the original Drummage blog conference/party started by Mr Simon Reynolds at the end of last year? Listening to the Ghost Of An Ideal Wife LP from 1985 the other other day New Bully In The Town stopped me in my tracks while I was doing the er... dishes. The drummage swings like mad and blew my mind and not for the first time. You could put more than half of the Clowns catalogue on here but this'll do for now. According to Ed Kuepper this is a humorous song influenced by 2 old songs. One was an old hillbilly instrumental and the other a 1920s blues track. Laughing Clowns 2 main players were Ed on guitar & vox and the incredible Jeffery Wegener on the drums with a revolving line up of other instrumentalists. Wegener even once played in a later/near the end line up of The Birthday Party, after Phil Calvert was no longer required, for some final live dates in Europe. Wegener even played in an early version of The Saints. If I recall this correctly early on at Laughing Clowns shows Wegener and his Kit would be front and centre of the stage. That's how important/integral Jeffery was to the band.

*Writing about drumming is really hard particularly if you're not a drummer. I had a few lessons at school in grades 5 & 6. I even once had to fill in at a rehearsal for my brothers band. I was in year 7 and they were all  form 6ers doing their HSC (year 12). Eventually though they got fed up as I really couldn't keep time. 

Broadcast

Broadcast In Shindig Magazine Shock

On a rare pop in to a newsagent I checked out the music magazines like I used to when I was a teenager (I thought this would pass eventually but er...no). Pink Floyd were on the cover of Mojo again, some other old cats on the cover of Uncut and I think it was Led Zeppelin on the cover of Rolling Stone. I didn't bother flicking through any of those. Even Wolf Eyes on the cover of The Wire struck me as a bit retro. Then I glanced over and saw Broadcast on a magazine cover. I thought 'great there must someone finally giving The Wire a bit of competition.' But no they were fronting the cover of would you beleive Shindig. Shindig caught my eye about 5 or 6 years ago. I thought it was like a cross between Mojo and Ugly Things. I thought that perhaps they were now going down the path that I thought Mojo might have taken by now after they'd surely run out of stories (Mojo that is) on The Beatles, Stones, Hendrix, The Who, Eric Clapton, Beach Boys, Pink Floyd, Bowie, Sex Pistols, The Smiths, Nirvana etc. etc. Sadly this was not to be. I thought by now Mojo would perhaps be havin Black Widow, Heldon, Simply Saucer, The Electric Eels, Cabaret Voltaire, The Homosexuals, The Minutemen, The Cocteau Twins, LFO or even Omni Trio on the cover. Hey that's not gonna sell large quantities is it?

'Cor blimeyI can't believe we us haven't been on the cover of Mojo!'
The Homosexuals

Anyway I once bought a copy of Shindig with articles on The Pink Fairies, Dennis Wilson, Mad River, Love and The West Coast Experimental Band adorning the cover. I dug it. Sure they didn't have the name writters of Uncut, Mojo etc. but they had enthusiasts/lovers of music, not paycheck journos.

So it was a surprise to see Broadcast there on the cover. Is this Shindig broadening its horizons and entering a new bold age? They always have current music reviews but usually of the most retro groups. Lee Gamble or Raime aren't gettin a review here. Of course Broadcast do have that Retro-Futurism thing going on but at the same time they always struck me as a very modern band. I must say it was slightly haunting (no pun intended) seeing Trish Keenan on the News stands, God rest her soul. Contained within this latest issue of Shindig are ye olde types such as Sweet, Donovan, Mike Herron and Gene Clark but there's even an article on the Ghost Box label. Sure it's ten years or so after their inception but that's nowhere near the 40+ years since Donovan did records. Hopefully this isn't just a one off flirtation with modern music. Maybe Ekoplekz will be on next months cover! Here's hoping.

Stephen Malkmus does Can's Ege Bamyasi?

What the fuck? What's the point? Can you improve on perfection? Is this further proof that the ideas well in music has dried up? Does this prove Stephen was never that original in the first place? This is like some kind of joke to add to Simon Reynolds Retromania book, particularly the retroscape section. Will we file this alongside Jo Mitchell's re-enactment of the infamous Concerto For Voice and Machinery at the ICA in London, where they re-enacted the gig/riot that included Einsturzende Neubauten, Throbbing Gristle and Fad Gadget members originally? IE. how fucking pointless considering how spontaneous that riot was. Can were the same on Ege Bamyasi. Can's records were improv/jam sessions where usually the editing would retain the telepathic magic and dump whatever was not so happening. That's a big part of the feel and attraction of Ege Bamyasi as well as the incredible chemistry between the 5 members. I doubt they ever played a song the same way twice. This was music summoned out of the air. How the fuck are you gonna replicate that vibe when your vibe is the total opposite. You get the feeling Malkmus has missed a very important point here. Maybe he's not as cluey as he/we thought.

Anyhow any excuse to get into a bit of Can and dig out the old 1989 reissue cd of Ege Bamyasi which perhaps wasn't the best remaster ever to see light of day. It's like someone leaned on the volume levels during the process leaving a very quiet cd that really has to be pumped twice as high on the volume switch as anything else I own. There have been several reissues since so maybe it's time to reinvest in one of the greatest LPs of all time.

3 of Can's tunes that really could have made them international pop stars.

Spoon

Can's best attempt at pop fo shizzle!
This was actually a top 10 hit in Germany and a theme tune to a German TV crime show.

Vitamin C

Could be my fave pop Can Song.
This was used in another TV crime series.

I'm So Green
Can at their most pop again albeit idiosyncratic can pop!

Is anyone actually gonna buy that Malkmus LP?

'Which Was Nice' Shots I

Led Zeppelin IV - Eric Davis

I finally read this book in the 33 1/3 series after hearing those Zep trax in the films Argo and Silver Linings Playbook. Surprisingly I got through a book of 170 pages written about 1 LP. Surprising as my favourite template for LP reviews is Greil Marcus's appendix to Stranded. The appendix is basically 2 sentence reviews of hundreds of records that didn't make into the main body of the text. He once noted he loved doing that but perhaps prior knowledge was required to fully understand them. Considering we're in the age of info-overload this seems like a perfectly valid way to analyse Albums today. The kind of information in a normal media review is usually padded out with this type of background/prior knowledge anyway, so who needs another one. Every time Nick Cave puts out a record I have to wade through his immense history, usually in the Sunday supplements, before we get to the few words about his new LP. This has got to the point where I just scan to the new info or sometimes I just give up all together. So Eric Davis you've done well to get me through your 170 pages. Admittedly I didn't know that much about Led Zeppelin, their history and what they were on about.

I don't need to say anything about Led Zeppelin IV except I cant believe how much I enjoy it. For a large part of my life they were the enemy, everything worth hating about rock. This stance of course was residue from the punk/post-punk/new pop eras. I guess this all started to erode in the late 80s. I was very confused when Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth in a Juke magazine (Aussie equivalent of NME, MM & Sounds) article said he was re buying old Led Zep LPs. I think though I started to cross the line when I could no longer deny how fucking great Jane's Addiction were and bought their classic Ritual De Lo habitual. Some how I could put it down to their mix of Zep rock and post-punk/hardcore/pop flavas. I was yet to be convinced that you could listen to a Zeppelin LP in all seriousness though.

I didn't really like the more trad Zep influenced bands like Soundgarden etc so it was ok. My Phobia & denial continued despite kinda digging the Dazed & Confused film clip which was frequently played on Rage from the late 80s onward. 6 or 7 years ago I thought 'if i can be massively into the first 4 Black Sabbath albums surely I can let go of my Led Zeppelin prejudice. They must be bloody good'. In a record shop I found II, III, IV and Houses of the Holy for 5 bucks each. II was the one for a couple of years. Then III & IV took my fancy then the levee broke and it was all over. I was finally emancipated from the narrow minded anti dinosaur dogma.

Buffalo - Freedom

One More For ANZAC Day

Buffalo

Freedom

9 minutes of slow burning hard rocking boogie oz rock stylee from 1971. I can smell the booze, smoke & exhaust from here. Taken from the classic LP Volcanic Rock. Rock on Sydney!

JPS Experience

ANZAC DAY

JPS Experience Inside Out

Absofuckinglutely gorgeous tune from an underrated Flying Nun band. Recorded in 1988.

JPS Experience Get My Point

From one my favourite Flying Nun records of all time The Size of Food. This is a fucking incredible intense psychedelic track. I love how he's losin his mind at the end. More gold.

The Eastern Dark

ANZAC Day

The Eastern Dark

Julie Is a Junkie

Wow I cant believe how great this is every time I hear it. I can't put my finger on what it is about this tune. From 1985 this is their only 7" before singer/guitarist James Darroch died in a car crash en route from Sydney to Melbourne for a tour. There was an EP recorded prior to his untimely death released posthumously. What could have been? More mid 80s gold from when Sydney was the place to be.

La Femme - Chelsea Kids

ANZAC DAY

La Femme

Chelsea Kids

Glitter punk into New Wave from 1979. I love this song.  Can't deny classic status for this track. The godfathers of Eddy Current doncha reckon? Frankston area scuzz.