What We Do is Secret
The Germs
The Los Angeles Film Festival
Westwood , California
June 22, 2007
By Victoria Joyce
Photos by: Mike Prusek
Was life imitating art or was art imitating art? The Los Angeles Film Festival hosted a world premiere of the film “What We Do Is Secret,” a biopic of Darby Crash, lead singer for The Germs.
A stop and start project, director, Rodger Grossman wasn’t sure how long it took for his movie to get made. “Twelve years? My dad says 14.” He was speaking at a post-screening Q&A with his cast beside him along with their real life counterparts, Lorna Doom and Don Bolles. Pat Smear took off, but the guy who played him in the movie, Rick Gonzalez, stayed.
We had just watched “What We Do Is Secret,” the story of Darby Crash and his legendary LA punk band, The Germs. They were the first on the scene. They started it. This film shows Darby went around saying “I’m in a band” and the band members, instruments and learning how to play came after. So Punk.
Rodger’s film was a love letter to Darby, The Germs, the clubs, the scene and LA. The rest of the cast has Shane West (renamed Shane Wreck by Bolles) as Darby, Bijoux Phillips as Lorna and cutie pie Noah Segan as Bolles. Everything was there; the damp dirty basements that were the first stages for this music, the broken beer bottles, the mosh pits, the crazy club owners, the fans and the friends all spinning in a downward spiral.
Darby never had a chance. His tragic life was a set up to a tragic end. Crash OD’ed the same day John Lennon was shot in December of 1980. He often spoke of his ‘five year plan.’ The film portrayed The Germs final show and the fateful evening with David Bowie’s song “Five Years” in the background. Rodger credited Bowie’s consent to the use of his song to getting the picture made.
“This was an impossible film. This film should not exist.” Six minutes of credits with double columned thank-yous at the end were the testimony. Including one to our friend, Rodney Bingenheimer, portrayed in the film by J.P. Monoux for a KROQ interview segment that provided the film’s comic relief.
“Who’s singing with them?” was the repeated question when we told friends we were going to see The Germs play. Darby Crash is beloved, an untouchable of sorts and replacing him was unspeakable. This question was even raised at the screening Q&A.
Earlier that evening the real life Germs took the stage on the Broxton Promenade just as the sun was going down. Summer was two days old and Punk Rock is in Golden Years. Shane sang his brains out. That’s the hook about life imitating art imitating life on this punk rock Mobius strip.
“Did you see them smiling on stage? They were so happy to be playing. That’s what its all about.” We met this cool guy Mike at the concert. He grabbed the set list written on corrugated cardboard and took better pictures than we did. He drove all the way from Phoenix for this double dose of The Germs.
The evening before, we went to a sold-out show of Bravo reality show star, Kathy Griffin. She opened with a story about a stoned phone call from her friend, Andy Dick who wanted to open for her. “We gotta love our junkies. We all have them.” Andy never showed.
We gotta love our junkies.
