The Germs were an American punk rock band from Los Angeles, California, originally active from 1976 to 1980. The band's "classic" lineup consisted of singer Darby Crash, guitarist Pat Smear, bassist Lorna Doom and drummer Don Bolles. They released only one album, 1979's (GI), produced by Joan Jett, and were featured in Penelope Spheeris' seminal documentary film The Decline of Western Civilization, which chronicled the Los Angeles punk movement. The Germs disbanded following Crash's suicide in 1980. Their music was influential to many later rock acts, and Smear went on to achieve greater fame performing with Nirvana and Foo Fighters.
Kira Roessler is an American musician, Oscar and two-time Emmy Award-winning dialogue editor. She is best known as the bassist for the influential hardcore punk band Black Flag from 1983 to 1985. Since the mid-1980s, she has been a member of the rock duo Dos with her ex-husband Mike Watt as well as other collaborations and solo work.
Georg Albert Ruthenberg, better known by his stage name Pat Smear, is an American musician. He is best known for being the lead guitarist and co-founder of Los Angeles-based punk band The Germs and for being a rhythm guitarist for grunge band Nirvana, which he joined as a touring guitarist in 1993 and Foo Fighters, with whom he has recorded six studio albums. After Nirvana disbanded following the suicide of its frontman Kurt Cobain, drummer Dave Grohl went on to become the frontman of rock band Foo Fighters with Smear joining on guitar. He left Foo Fighters in 1997, before rejoining as a touring guitarist in 2005 and has been a full-time member since 2010.
45 Grave is an American rock band from Los Angeles formed in 1979. The original group broke up in 1985, but vocalist Dinah Cancer subsequently revived the band.
Nervous Gender is an American punk rock electronic band formed in Los Angeles in 1978 by Gerardo Velazquez, Edward Stapleton, Phranc and Michael Ochoa.
The Screamers were an American electropunk group founded in 1975. They were among the first wave of the L.A. punk rock scene. The Los Angeles Times applied the label "techno-punk" to the band in 1978. In the documentary Punk: Attitude (2005), vocalist Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys cites the Screamers as a key influence on their group and as one of the great unrecorded groups in rock history.
Mary Ann Sims, known professionally as Dinah Cancer, is an American singer. She is the lead vocalist of 45 Grave, which helped found the deathrock music genre.
Bags were an American punk rock band formed in 1977, one of the first generation of punk rock bands to emerge from Los Angeles, California.
Mike Watt and the Secondmen is the punk rock trio formed by former Minutemen and Firehose bassist Mike Watt to perform and record his third solo album, The Secondman's Middle Stand. Formed in 2002 in Watt's hometown of San Pedro, California, the band first consisted of organist Pete Mazich and drummer Jerry Trebotic, both of whom had played with Watt in a side project, The Madonnabes, that was devoted to reinterpreting the works of Madonna; the three musicians had also previously recorded a song for a Doctors Without Borders benefit album under the name Mike Watt & Masina in 1998, with Mazich's wife Ljil on vocals.
Ball-Hog or Tugboat? is the 1995 debut solo album by American musician Mike Watt, previously known for his work as the bass guitarist and songwriter for the punk rock groups Minutemen and fIREHOSE.
GI, stylized as (GI), is the only studio album by American punk rock band the Germs. Often considered the first full-length hardcore punk album, it was released in the United States in October 1979 on Slash Records with catalog number SR 103. The album was later released in Italy in 1982 by Expanded Music with the catalog EX 11. The album's title is an acronym for "Germs Incognito", an alternate name the band used to obtain bookings when their early reputation kept them out of Los Angeles-area clubs. After (GI)'s release, the band would only undertake one more recording session, for the soundtrack album to Al Pacino's 1980 film Cruising. On December 7, 1980, a year after the release of (GI), vocalist Darby Crash died by suicide.
Lexicon Devil is a three-song EP and the second release by American punk rock band the Germs. It was also the debut output of Slash Records, and of Geza X both as a producer and as a recording engineer. The record was named after its leadoff song.
Geza Gedeon, professionally known as Geza X, is an American producer. He was a personality in the Los Angeles punk scene in the late 1970s. He is now a producer. He was born in Indiana and moved to California when he was a teen. Geza produced records for a number of early California punk bands including the Dead Kennedys, Germs, Redd Kross, Black Flag, The Avengers and The Weirdos. His productions of "Holiday in Cambodia" for Dead Kennedys and "Lexicon Devil" for Germs separated California's punk sound from others at the time with its eccentricity, humor and spunk, making Los Angeles and San Francisco very different from the scenes in New York or London. Record executive Howie Klein, then writing for BAM, a San Francisco music magazine, was quoted as saying "...Geza X is The Only person to capture the West Coast's compelling power and urgency."
What We Do Is Secret is a 2007 American biographical film about Darby Crash, singer of the late-1970s Los Angeles punk rock band the Germs. It was directed by Rodger Grossman, who wrote the screenplay based on a story he had written with Michelle Baer Ghaffari, a friend of Crash's and co-producer of the film. Shane West stars as Crash, while Rick Gonzalez, Bijou Phillips, and Noah Segan respectively portray Germs members Pat Smear, Lorna Doom, and Don Bolles. The film follows the formation and career of the Germs, focusing on Crash's mysterious "five-year plan", his homosexual relationship with Rob Henley, and his experimentation with heroin, culminating in his December 1980 suicide. It is titled after the first track on the Germs' 1979 album (GI).
DC3 was an American rock and roll band formed by singer, songwriter and guitarist Dez Cadena in 1983 and active until 1988.
Lorna Doom was an American musician best known as the bass guitarist for the punk rock band the Germs from 1976 to 1980, and again after they got back together from 2005 to 2009.
Celebrity Skin was a post-punk, glam-influenced, hard rock band from Los Angeles, California. They were active from the mid-1980s until the early 1990s.
RuthenSmear is the first solo album by guitarist Pat Smear. The song "Golden Boys" was originally written by Darby Crash, but never recorded by him before his death. Vagina Dentata, a short-lived punk band that Smear was in following the death of Crash, recorded and released a version of the song on the compilation Flipside Vinyl Fanzine Vol 2, released in 1985, prior to its re-recording for this album.
"Circle One / Shutdown" is a split single by the American alternative rock band Hole and the supergroup The Monkeywrench, released in November 1994 on the independent label Gasatanka Records. Both tracks are cover versions of songs by the Los Angeles punk group the Germs. On the single, Hole is credited as "The Holez," a nominal homage to "The Germs."
