Darby Crash
Encyclopedia : D : DA : DAR : Darby Crash
Darby Crash (born Jan Paul Beahm) (September 26, 1958 – December 7, 1980) was a rock musician who cofounded The Germs.
Crash had a troubled childhood: His biological father left the family and his older brother was murdered. He attended IPS, a school within University High School in Los Angeles, California.
He and childhood friend Pat Smear formed bands called Sophistifuck, Revlon Spam Queens and finally The Germs, which became an important Los Angeles-area punk band, known for their chaotic live shows. The Germs can be seen in the 1981 film The Decline of Western Civilization, directed by Penelope Spheeris.
After Darby broke up the Germs he formed the short-lived Darby Crash Band before committing suicide with an intentional heroin overdose on December 7, 1980, the day before John Lennon was killed. His legacy has carried on past the release of The Germs (MIA): The Complete Anthology in 1993, thought to be a prototype for hardcore punk. Darby Crash is interred in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.
A biography of Darby Crash, called "Lexicon Devil" after one of the Germs' songs, was published by Feral House and was written by Brendan Mullen, a club booker/ promoter during the early years of punk rock in Los Angeles (ISBN 0-922915-70-9). A movie based on his life is currently in post-production. Named after one of the Germs' songs, What We Do Is Secret stars Shane West.
In 2006, Matmos dedicated a song to Darby on their album The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast which features samples of screams from an extinguishing cigarette on the inner side of the left wrist. This mark is said to be a "Germs burn" if done by a member of the Germs band, or from someone that has been previously burned by the same.
External links
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.