re: The Germs are the band people think the Sex Pistols are

Straight edge was a militant form of hardcore, primarily out of DC. It is best summed up by Minor Threat's Out of Step: Don't drink, don't smoke, don't frick. It is essentially doing the things your parents supposedly want you to do, and still pissing them off.

It was an incredibly violent scene and it was populated primarily by under 18 year olds. DC bars would admit under age kids to clubs, and put an X on their hand to indicate they couldn't drink. Straight edge kids took this as their symbol ("The X is my mark!") and touring bands would usually play two shows in DC: a night time show for the drinkers and a matinee show with no alcohol served. Holy shite, those matinee shows were insane. You get a bunch of sexually frustrated, angry, puritanical 15 year olds in a room and then play them the fastest, loudest music you can, and bad things happen. It was an awesome time, but it is completely ridiculous with the benefit of any distance from the scene (time or space). Some great music came out of it, Minor Threat especially, but the scene was such a dead end.

The Germs are nowhere near straight edge. They were in LA and they were pretty much all addicted to heroin to varying degrees. They also openly antagonized their audience and Darby would usually be so drugged out of his mind, he couldn't sing into the microphone, he just yelled to the rafters. You can see some of that on the last track of (GI), which is a nine minute dirge, after an album of 2 minute hardcore songs.

(GI) by the way, stands for Germs Incognito. It was a name they used to book gigs in LA, as the Germs shows were apparently so destructive that they were banned from almost every venue in town. I point this out to again say the Pistols were a bunch of British poseurs.