Our story begins some years ago when we co-existed in different groups in the very same country.
PEYR was a band that gained a reputation in foreign countries, but when they had had their name spelled in Japanese they tactfully ceased to exist and left God Krist. and Tryggur floating in the Ether waiting to make themselves manifest.
PURRKUR PILLNIKK was another band, never too bothered but quite possibly too concerned. They played with FALL in England, then they too ceased to exist and Einar kept spinning around hoping to hit someone.
TAPPI TIKARRASS was still another band. When their charm became stagnant Bjork decided it was time for an evolutionary leap and sent us a bright smile that opened our hearts.
Birgir caressed his bass in a band called MED NOKTUM, but when the call came he knew he had to obey and left his fellow workers in the Vineyard for the Cosmic Unity of KUKL.
K.U.K.L.
SALMUR.323.
And there was one with the name of Melax who had spent his time within the framework of the surrealist group MEDUSA, alternately making phallic Bird Cages and Music for Miro on the Moon. He too heard the call and obeyed.
KUKL thus became the logical conclusion of the Icelandic Musical Evolution. They depict the Marriage of Heaven and Hell: the Union of Opposites, Cold Claustrophobic Winters with the Agoric Midnight Sun of the Summer Months. Snow fused with Vulcanic Activity: A Cold and Calm Outside covering Catastrophic Aliveness that may tear the ground from under your feet.
Let me just preface this review by saying RTX are one of my favorite bands in existence. They really can do no wrong in my eyes and their records will always be constantly playing in my house. That said, you may remember Jennifer Herrema’s last band, Royal Trux. RTX is sort of like them except about a million times more shredding. It seems rare these days that a band manages to make a whole record full of hits (with the exception of say, Motörhead and The Kills) but I knew before the album even reached my hands that every song would be completely amazing. And I was right. Calling this their best work to date would be a record reviewing cliché but it is so true! If you like your rock’n’roll totally ripping, like the kind that makes you wanna ride your moto upstate at 125mph at 4am with your girl on back on your way to shoot guns, make out and drink a fifth in the woods while the sun rises (ok maybe that’s just what it makes me and my old man wanna do) then you should probably pick up the new album on Drag City in October.
As her S/S 2009 collection was inspired by Youtube, we couldn’t really conceive of the Future Tense fashion film project without the inclusion of Carri Mundane’s Cassette Playa. T.I.M.E. is comprised of computer-generated images, and video footage from her installation ‘I CAN HAZ YOUR NIGHTMARZ TURNZ TO DREAMZ,’ presentation at June’s Pitti Uomo in Florence, Mundane’s film shows how her Youtube influence translated into photographic prints on her luxury sportswear, with the pixellated prints of jump-dancers coming alive as Carri brought Gabba boys onto the stage. The next step, Carri said, was to video the performance, edit it and put it back on Youtube - making the 2-D 3-D, and then back to image again.
Los Angeles, 1975—disenfranchised University High School teen Jan Paul Beahm (Shane West), shares his five year plan to become a legend with best friend George Ruthenberg (Rick Gonzalez). Step One. They ignore the fact that they don’t know how to play instruments, as well as the fact that they don’t even have instruments, and form a band. Sophistifuck and the Revlon Spam Queens is born.
Paul and George recruit band members and play their first gig, which is pretty much a giant food fight to the tune of noise. These antics distract from the band’s lack of musical ability and endear them to the audience. Virtually overnight, the out-of-control group earns a reputation as a force of chaos and mayhem.
THE.GERMS.
LIVE.@.THE.WHISKEY…
After some false starts with band members that don’t work out (including Belinda Carlisle who shot to fame with the Go Go’s a few short years later, but got mono before she could ever go on stage as a Germ!), the final Germs line up is complete. Sculpting their punk image, Paul drops the moniker “Bobby Pyn” and adopts the name “Darby Crash.” He anoints George “Pat Smear,” and bassist Terry Ryan (Bijou Phillips) is “Lorna Doom.” Smart aleck drummer Don Bolles (Noah Segan) who heard the band’s early music, arrives from Arizona for an audition, determined to be a Germ.
Darby gets off on “mind-control” (interestingly his high school unofficially taught Dianetics) onstage and off and soon has the “Circle One” fans buzzing around him in a cult of their own. This both fascinates and fuels him. He develops the “blue circle logo” and the viral “cigarette burn circle.” He writes shockingly literate and insightful lyrics and comes to the attention of journalist Claude Bessy whose interview with Darby about his philosophies and plans for the future, provides a structural element for the film. The band runs wild in an FCC nightmare of an in-studio interview with KROQ DJ Rodney Bingenheimer who broke the band on radio.
DON.BOLLES.NOW…
Increased notoriety on the underground music scene for The Germs, also captures the attention of What? Records and later, Slash Records. Ironically as their popularity grows, ultimately the band is banned from playing every venue in town because the destruction of the club will inevitably ensue amidst a storm of flying bottles and fights. When they are asked when they will play again, the running joke is, “never”—and when Documentarian Penelope Spheeris wants to film the band for her seminal documentary on the L.A. punk scene, THE DECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION, she had film their performance on a soundstage with a live audience.
By 1980, Darby was increasingly dependent on hard drugs and unable to focus on writing more music to follow up The Germs’ one and only album. He subscribed to the “Live Fast, Die Young” mentality, and with Step Five of “the plan” he sealed his status as a legend of rock ‘n roll, by ending his life in drug-overdose suicide on December 7th. While he might have imagined himself on the cover of every tabloid, ironically his death was eclipsed by John Lennon’s assassination the next day. But the legend of Darby Crash and his hugely influential band, The Germs, continues to reverberate and grow.
LORNA.DOOM.NOW…
Pat Smear went on to play with Nirvana and is currently with the Foo Fighters as well as the “new” Germs, a band that grew out of the making of this film. Shane West, who portrays Darby Crash in the film “channels” Darby when he joins original band members Pat Smear, Lorna Doom and Don Bolles on stage. KIM.FOWLEY.THE.PRODUCER..&. RODGER.GROSSMAN.WHAT.WE.DO.IS.SECRET.DIRECT.
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