Germs “Rock N’Rule (Live at the Masque Reunion Christmas Party 1979)″ 1979/1986. XES Records. Today, September 26th, would have been Darby Crash’s 60th birthday (b. Jan Paul Beahm, 1958, d. 1980). This album is a live recording of a concert at the Whisky A-Go-Go soon after the release of their classic album G.I. and, after leading off with Crash wailing “Waitress, we’re the Germs. We want beer,” launches into several tracks from that album including “Let’s Pretend,” “Communist Eyes,” “Media Blitz,” “Manimal” and two of my all-time favorite Germs songs “Richie Dagger’s Crime” and “Lexicon Devil.”

The liner notes on the back cover of Rock N’Rule consist of a fairly extensive essay by Geza X who is notable for producing the Germs’ “Lexicon Devil” single as well as other punk classics like Dead Kennedy’s “Holiday in Cambodia” and Black Flag’s “Six Pack;” he also played in The Bags and The Deadbeats. From Geza X’s notes: “Darby knew he was going to die young. He used to look straight at me with those hypno-coil eyes of his and say ‘I’m gonna kill myself in five years.’ When I said I wished he wouldn’t talk like that, he would answer ‘Bowie says we only got five more years.’ Those were the early days and he was really into Bowie. Five years later, perhaps to the day, he was dead. A suicide at twenty-two. He was found under a sign that said ‘Here lies Darby Crash…’ with an arrow pointing at his head….The thing in your hands is a very memorable 1979 Christmas Party at the Whisky-A-Go-Go. It’s only luck that I recorded it, on a four-track, because it was a rare Masque reunion. It was a really psychotic show, packed to the gills, and the Germs literally tore the house down, as usual. Don [Bolles, Germs’ drummer] was two hours late because he had been arrested, the audience was about to riot from being cooped up and waiting, and the owner of the Whisky was hiding in his office, shaking. The Germs had to stop a few songs because there was so much commotion on stage – you can hear bottles breaking. Darby and I got into an argument towards the end of their set; I was supposed to go on next, everything was running late, and he didn’t want to give up the stage. As a result, I wound up singing the first couple bars of their encore “Shutdown.” The club shut the lights off, thinking it would shut everyone up, but noooo…a fan set the stage on fire, one of the bouncers tried to grab him, Pat Smear smashed him a good one with his guitar, the bouncers tried to jump Pat backstage, Pat escaped, came back and whacked him with a broken beer bottle – I suppose it was a riot!”