#lexicon devil

Died 45 years ago today: feral frontman of Los Angeles punk band the Germs, Darby Crash (aka Bobby Pyn, real name: Jan Paul Beahm, 26 September 1958 - 7 December 1980). “He was Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious rolled into one, a befuddled punk prophet with a brilliant mind,” Chris Campion writes in “Darby Crash: Saint Anger” in the October 2014 edition of Dazed Digital. “Darby Crash presided over the birth of the LA punk scene in 1977 and signaled its demise with his own self-inflicted death three years later. His was a vision of chaos that would never come to pass but left in its wake a legacy of destruction and one fiery punk classic, the Germs' 1979 Joan Jett-produced album, G.I.” Swallow a fistful of ‘ludes, give yourself a Mohawk, smear yourself in peanut butter and blast “Forming”, “Lexicon Devil” or “Media Blitz” LOUD today in Crash’s memory!

Photos taken by Jill Ash

hrghh pumpkin patch part 2

Today's listens

1987

For me, the two essential, iconic “faces” of the Los Angeles punk subculture will forever be Darby Crash, the feral frontman of The Germs and twisted voodoo dolly Exene Cervenka of X. Here is the duo captured in their surly youthful glory on a Hollywood rooftop in the late seventies by photographer Melanie Nissen (from her book Hard + Fast). Crash (aka Bobby Pyn, real name: Jan Paul Beahm, 26 September 1958 - 7 December 1980) was born on this day sixty-six years ago. “He was Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious rolled into one, a befuddled punk prophet with a brilliant mind,” Chris Campion writes in “Darby Crash: Saint Anger” in the October 2014 edition of Dazed Digital. “Darby Crash presided over the birth of the LA punk scene in 1977 and signaled its demise with his own self-inflicted death three years later. His was a vision of chaos that would never come to pass but left in its wake a legacy of destruction and one fiery punk classic, the Germs' 1979 Joan Jett-produced album, G.I.” Swallow a fistful of ‘ludes, smear yourself in peanut butter and blast “Forming”, “Lexicon Devil” or “Media Blitz” LOUD today in Crash’s memory!

photos by herb werde

Born on this day 65 years ago: feral frontman of first-generation Los Angeles punk band the Germs, Darby Crash (aka Bobby Pyn, real name: Jan Paul Beahm, 26 September 1958 - 7 December 1980). We don’t talk nearly enough about quite how gorgeous Crash was. “Sex Boy” indeed! (The doomed US punk equivalent of Sid Vicious, Crash died of a heroin overdose aged 22). Swallow a fistful of ‘ludes, smear yourself in peanut butter and blast “Forming”, “Lexicon Devil” or “Media Blitz” LOUD today in his memory!