slash records. sr-103 / 16 tracks / 1979

I: expanded records. ex 11 / 1982

RI: slash/warner bros. / 1988??

First pressing has old-style cover (brown inside), heavy cardboard stock machine-pasted with glossy paper. Matrix numbers are just SLASH-A and SLACH-B (misspelled). Lyric sheet. Some of these copies have 2 B-side labels (but play A and B side). Next pressing has a regular sleeve (white inside), same matrix #s, and a printed inner sleeve instead of the insert. Subsequent pressings have SR-103 A and B added in the dead wax, but much fainter than SLASH. Even later pressings have a bar code on the back. Darby Crash OD’d on heroin Dec 7, 1980.

The Germs have been described as the American Sex Pistols - and indeed they were loud, ugly and scandalous (not to mention Darby’s overdose), and their first and only LP could be mistaken for a collection of shock punk blasts. However, it’s a lot more than that. The foundation is noisy and aggressive LA punk, of course, but the playing and the songwriting is quite sophisticated and professional, there are interesting harmonies and rhythms, and some of Darby’s lyrics have a surprising depth and intelligence. Definitely a classic. [9]

So was wie die amerikanischen Sex Pistols, skandalös, laut, häßlich - und mit Darby, der 1980 an einer Überdosis starb, hatten sie sogar eine US-Version von Sid Vicious. Außer Schockeffekten hatten sie aber auch musikalisch etwas zu bieten, krachiger, aber durchaus professioneller LA-Punk, der hin und wieder auch Ungewöhnliches in Harmonik oder Rhythmus zu bieten hat. Dazu dann noch Darbys ätzende Grölstimme… fertig ist der Punk-Rock-Klassiker.

Tracks: what we do is secret / communist eyes / land of treason / richie dagger’s crime / strange notes / american leather / lexicon devil (lp version) / manimal / our way / we must bleed // media blitz / the other newest one / let’s pretend / dragon lady / the slave / shut down (live)