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

By Adam Parfrey, Don Bolles, Brendan Mullen

Book Overview

The definitive oral history of Darby Crash and the Germs --
the legendary, self-destructive LA punk band that ignited Los Angeles hardcore
and burned out in a heroin overdose in 1980. Born Jan Paul Beahm, Darby Crash
was the charismatic, manipulative, hyperintelligent frontman who built a cult
following in the slums of Hollywood before dying at age 22.

Compiled by three insiders -- Brendan Mullen, founder of the
Masque and coauthor of We Got the Neutron Bomb: The Untold Story of L.A.
Punk; Don Bolles, drummer for the Germs; and Adam Parfrey, founder of Feral
House and author of Apocalypse Culture -- Lexicon Devil assembles
raw, firsthand testimony from the people who were there. Voices include John
Doe, Exene Cervenka, Belinda Carlisle, Joan Jett, Jello Biafra, Phranc, and Pat
Smear, tracing the rise of West Coast punk through the scene that produced it.

The book demystifies the punk-messiah myth of Darby Crash,
revealing a scared, insecure, brilliant misfit whose story runs from the
hilarious to the tragic. Extensively illustrated with rare photographs and
including a Germs discography, gig list, lyrics, and a full cast of characters.

Essential reading for fans of LA punk, hardcore, 1970s and
1980s punk rock history, oral history music biographies, and definitive
accounts of the Sunset Strip underground.

Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers called the Germs the best
punk rock band of all time. Critic Richard Meltzer praised it as the finest
punk book ever printed.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0922915709
• ISBN13: 9780922915705
• Release Date: April 2002
• Publisher: Feral House
• Length: 296 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

breathtaking cultural history

As a cultural history of Los Angeles in the 1970s, this book can't be beat. Visually stunning photographs and a refreshing, multiperspective commentary bring qualities of both Faulkner and the blog together in a chronological progression to the suicide of Darby Crash. I especially enjoyed the coroner's document and the funeral bill, but all the exhibits were great. The book includes an unbelievable involvement of church and state in the Scientology influenced Innovative Program School in Los Angeles which 'graduated' Darby in 1976. This section once again shows the importance of LSD in late 20th century culture. The dynamic of LA punk as it emerged in artfag circles, was subsumed in a Huntington Beach testosterone surge of disaffection and violence consuming punk and creating thrash hardcore. Darby Crash's closeted homosexuality and his apparent fear of rejection for it in late 70's culture, adds historical depth to the effects of discrimination, even among the young. The book is compelling. I missed Darby's show at the Mabuhay, although I saw the other big show of the weekend, the Sex Pistols at Winterland. The great strength of the book is the stylistic approach, the book being years in the making. Adding the content into that, I think it's the biggest thing in American literature since Douglas Coupland's Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture in 1991. Best music history I have ever seen or read.

Darby-The 'Glitter' influenced performance artist

I love The Germs. I love this era of punk rock. I love that Southern California had it's own punk rock cult leader . We went to the same high school! I like how this book portrayed Darby as kind of nerdy and idealistic. I appreciated that he was such an earnest fan of David Bowie,searching for hidden meanings in his lyrics on LSD. I was also fascinated by the strange relationship with his mother. I thought the book did an excellent job of humanizing an "icon". I could really see and feel him as a disturbed young man creating work that still has profound ripple effects.

Punk IS dead!

Plain and simple: This is a great document of the early punk scene in L.A.Not through one writers analysis, but through hundreds of quotes of people who were actually there, we get a clear picture of how it started, how short lived it was and how it got killed. And in the middle of all this was Darby Crash. All I can say about him (I've never met him): poor [guy].This is a great read, very entertaining. Sometimes funny, sometimes sad. A book you wont put down untill you finish it. Go buy it!

Spengler was right?

Rest assured, this riveting chronicle of the brief rise and ugly eclipse of Jan Paul Beahm, aka Darby Crash, will not make you dream how romantic your life would have been as a first generation punk rocker in the late 70s. By the time the average reader has traversed the nearly 300 pages of damaged life documented here, they'll want to take a shower to wash off all the dried blood. Wrapped with a stunning color photo (by Ruby Ray) of Darby in a filthy San Francisco dressing room, this book captures all the mayhem, the confusion, the broken glass and the shattered brains that a film like "The Decline of Western Civilization" only offered a fleeting glimpse at. Lexicon Devil is pure oral history, with the spit, vinegar and vomit right there alongside the vitriol. In this case, a thousand words are worth a lot more than one picture (although the book contains a goodly number of the latter that have never been seen before).It's no wonder the cesspit of HelL.A. played home to a tragic tale of this sort. It's the stuff California is made of-the slime behind the hippy new age façade. In their few years of existence, the Germs captured something almost profound, although they themselves might not have realized it at the time. This book captures the Germs and Darby Crash in a way that will not likely be surpassed.