Late-’70s Los Angeles punk outfit The Germs’ final performance with original frontman Darby Crash — recorded just four days before the singer’s suicide via heroin overdose — will be released on CD next month for the first time.
The 22-track disc, Live at the Starwood Dec. 3, 1980 will be released June 22 by Rhino Handmade, the venerable label’s online specialty imprint, and won’t be available in stores. The disc — featuring liner notes resembling a punk fanzine, a copy of the setlist and an 8 1/2″-by-11″ replica show poster — can be pre-ordered here beginning Monday.
The concert at Hollywood’s Starwood Club was the first by the Germs — whose lineup included future Nirvana/Foo Fighters sideman Pat Smear — in a year. and saw the band playing nearly all of its sole studio album, 1979’s (GI), as well as tracks from earlier the Lexicon Devil EP, plus the band’s debut single “Forming” and a cover of Public Image Ltd.’s “Public Image” (see full tracklist below).
According to a Germs tribute posted on Mike Watt’s website, Crash at one point told the audience, “We did this show so you new people could see what it was like when we were around. You’re not going to see it again.” It was a prophetic statement, even if the Germs have reformed in recent years with Shane West, the actor who portrayed Crash in 2007’s “What We Do Is Secret,” taking over on vocals.
See tracklist for The Germs’ ‘Live at the Starwood’ after the jump…
Tracklist: The Germs, Live at the Starwood Dec. 3, 1980
1. “Circle One”
2. “Manimal”
3. “Caught In My Eye”
4. “Lion’s Share”
5. “No God”
6. “Our Way”
7. “Strange Notes”
8. “What We Do Is Secret”
9. “Richie Dagger’s Crime”
10. “Land Of Treason”
11. “My Tunnel”
12. “Media Blitz”
13. “Communist Eyes”
14. “The Other Newest One”
15. “Let’s Pretend”
16. “Forming”
17. “Lexicon Devil”
18. “Shut Down (Annihilation Man)”
19. “Public Image”
20. “American Leather”
21. “We Must Bleed”
22. “Richie Dagger’s Crime” (Reprise)
RIP Darby. I’ll have to get this. Thought I had everything. Hey, only 7 years late…
Hiya ! I am very interested in this certain gig not only for the fantastic Germs but for PIL my secound favourite band and I don’t think I have got this gig , is there footage of the whole gig ? I have a mini poster flyer ( original and I am sure it has some purple colour in it ! I got it from a music museum hotel what was getting demolished and the owner gave it to me ) hopefully you can help
40 years ago today! Gone but not forgotten!
“First show in a year?” Not accurate. I was at a show in May of ’80 at the Fleetwood in Redondo Beach with The Germs, Mau Maus and Middle Class. It was FANTASTIC and the cops came and I got out of there and was just about the last car to leave the large parking lot nearby (borrowing my friend’s car from colledge 35 miles away!) before the cops stopped everybody. What a night!!
I was there…we were lucky—went on a lark, and were some of the last to get in with many more outside waiting in vain to get in (I heard they threw a mini-riot, but we didn’t care, as Middle Class was already starting).
What was freaky was the way Darby was talking, portending his demise 4 days later…we didn’t know what to make of it—was he just being punk? I guess not.
But what a show!!!