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After The Germs' snarling debut "Forming" helped usher in the West Coast punk scene in 1977, singer Darby Crash, guitarist Pat Smear, bassist Lorna Doom, and drummer Don Bolles returned two years later with their sole studio album (GI), an unrelenting onslaught of primal pounding and verbal venom that influenced a generation. But it was the group's unhinged concerts – often teetering on the brink of riotous bedlam – that elevated The Germs to exalted status among punk rockers.
Considered by many fans to be The Germs' finest hour, Live at Starwood, Dec. 3, 1980 represents the band's final performance with founding member Darby Crash, who committed suicide by overdosing on heroin on December 7, 1980 – less than a week after this show. At one point, Crash told the audience, "we did this show so you new people could see what it was like when we were around. You're not going to see it again." Performing together for the first time in a year, the quartet played possessed, blasting rapid-fire through nearly every song in its arsenal.
After opening with "Circle One" from the 1978 EP Lexicon Devil, the band bashed its way through all but two songs from (GI) including "What We Do Is Secret," "Our Way," and "Shut Down (Annihilation Man)." "Caught In My Eye," an outtake from the (GI) recording sessions (produced by Joan Jett), found its way onto the set list as well. Also featured is "Lion's Share," a track the band recorded in 1979 with producer Jack Nitzsche for Cruising, a film starring Al Pacino; "No God" from the Lexicon Devil EP; a cover of Public Image Ltd's; "Public Image"; and "Forming" the first song the quartet recorded together.
Rhino Handmade released Live at the Starwood, Dec 3 1980 in 2010 on CD (previously unavailable in its entirety). The collection's liner notes provided a vivid eyewitness account of the show penned by Jonathan Gold: "The Germs are to the Los Angeles punk scene what Brian Jones was to the Stones or Syd Barrett to Pink Floyd – the primal creative force that was both too flatulent to live with and too vital to have come into being without." Run Out Groove issues this classic live set on vinyl for the first time as a gatefold, colored 180g 2LP edition pressed at Record Industry complete with replicas of the tour poster and fanzine.