The next day John Lennon was shot, and outside the tiny and marginal world of punk, no one noticed or cared.

I don't think this means what you think it means.

Andy, me boy, Darby Crash was one of the ugliest motherfuckers ever to grace punk's stage, and that means he was superhumanly ugly. I doubt very much that your apparent dream of casting some andro pretty boy a la Depp or Phoenix would do Crash's ugliness justice. In fact, the mucky beauty of the Germs was that in the whole of the L.A. Punk scene where everyone stunk both musically and hygienically, the Germs stunk just a wee bit more than everyone else. As much as I love Darby and the Germs, they were fucking terrible. How about someone do a movie about the Screamers, Punk's version of the Velvet Underground). Love ya, Darby.

... I feel bad even mentioning this, but University High School is in West Los Angeles, and not Santa Monica.

Also, I remember Darby Crash as being an ugly dude.

I am sick and fucking tired of reading/hearing about how "heroic" were certain individuals in the early punk scene. "heroic"?? Excuse me?!

All of the Ramones are DEAD. Nearly all the Sex Pistols are DEAD. There is no magic or wisdom in being DEAD. You're just DEAD.

By the way, I take this wisdom from John Densmore's books about being a member of The Doors. You want punk? They were punk, before anybody knew the name Syd Vicious.

What about a movie about the Avengers or Culturcide or Really Red or maybe even Roky Erikson? L.A. was the epicenter of a scene that sucked. X were good and there were other good bands from that antisocial social sect as well, but the Sunset scene was really essentially pure Hollywood, which is exactly what this movie sounds like. Like some kind of belated Beatlemania for retarded, uber-reverential fans of the fucking Germs. How about a movie about the Stooges? Iggy's still alive ain't he? O'Hehir is right, see Spheeris' doc instead, or rent X The Unheard Music. I can't wait to see the Butthole Surfers make a movie and call it "Blow it Your Ass."

All of the Ramones are DEAD

The drummers are all still alive, in a nice reversal of Spinal Tap. The core members are dead, sure.

Nearly all the Sex Pistols are DEAD

That'd be news to nearly all the Sex Pistols. Only Sid is dead.

Of course, you could go on about any number of other dead punks, starting with Joe Strummer and then you'd get to say "DEAD" again in all caps.

There is no magic or wisdom in being DEAD

I'm sorry, there's no magic or wisdom in what now?

You're just DEAD.

You'll have to speak up, sonny. Too many years at punk rock shows you know... hearing's mostly gone.

The Doors. You want punk? They were punk

Wank, wank, wank. The Doors weren't punk. They were a bunch of hippies who couldn't do a song in under 10 minutes or without 8 minutes of "jazz noodling" solos.

um, the bassist in the germs is lorna doom, not lorna doon - that's kind of a pathetic error for o'hehir to make twice in the review. it is right in the caption, though...

I remember it very well and the writer is correct (though yeah, it's a poorly written sentence). Even though the Germs were essential to the LA punk scene, Lennon's death obviously totally overshadowed Darby's. I never did as well in tips as I did that night--many, many John Lennon tribute tips. None for Darby.

Kurt Cobain. Despite the differences in musical genre, any film about a charismatic, self-destructive, musical innovator filmed in the mid-90s would have been assumed to have a Cobainian--Cobainian? jeez, now I know I've been in school too long--subtext.

If "It all started with the Germs" is intended to refer to punk rock, per se, it just ain't true.

Iggy Pop and the Stooges from the Ann Arbor/Detroit scene were certainly much earlier.

And, strangely enough, Iggy Pop is still not dead...

At least you got my gist. Written late at night; I'll fix.

On the ugliness of D-Crash: Well, I didn't want to come out and say it. Shane West does a credible job of impersonating Darby, but he's WAY too pretty for the part. I think the other stuff I mentioned, like the movie's lack of a convincing social context or (here I go with the pretentious BS) philosophical/artistic vision, is more of a problem. But I guess you could say they're connected.

I didn't want to drag the review down my own memory hole, but I agree that there were other, arguably more *musically* interesting bands from that period and that marginal little scene. You guys have mentioned several. I'm from SF, not LA, so I was more familiar with the Avengers and (a couple years later) Flipper. I was briefly roommates with a dude from the Zeroes! And obviously there was X, a great band that rapidly transcended anything connected to punk or "hardcore" (a word not much in use until the early 80s, I think).

I never saw the Germs (not too many other people did either), and I wouldn't call myself a fan. The L.A. punk scene was scarier than shit; I saw Fear and Black Flag and I think the Circle Jerks and other bands I'm not sure about, and was always grateful to go home with all my teeth and only minor bruising. Still, you see Darby in the Spheeris film and you get why he & that band were "important." Like I say above, he epitomized the ultimate fuck-everybody nihilism of that LA scene more perfectly than anyone else. There was a debased purity about him, a certain terrible, self-destructive romance. He was like the Rimbaud or the Alfred Jarry of white-trash, smack-shooting California.

So I think he's a great subject for a movie, and I don't want to be too mean about this one. Glad it exists, impressive they made it, etc. Even if it's kinda too much of a love letter.