The Screamers--Demo's 1977-1978 LP

LA Art Punk

and now something totally different than normally
something non-japanese (Shock!)


The Screamers were a punk rock group active in the Los Angeles, California area in the late 1970s.

Included among the first wave of LA's punk rockers, the label "techno-punk" was applied to the band by the Los Angeles Times in 1978. The Screamers are widely cited as the pioneers of a genre now known as "synthpunk," and might also be classifeid as art punk. The Screamers were notable for their unusual instrumentation, featuring electric piano and synthesizer, while omitting guitars. Additional musicians, including violinists and a female vocalist, were occasionally incorporated into their performances.

The group featured a highly developed theatrical presentation that centered around a manic lead vocalist, Tomata du Plenty, whose stage persona one early commentator described as "a psychotic Mickey Rooney."

Though they developed a substantial following and generated considerable press coverage, the Screamers never released a record. In the Don Letts-directed documentary Punk: Attitude (2005) singer Jello Biafra of Dead Kennedys cited the Screamers as a key influence on his group, and as one of the great unrecorded groups in rock history, sentiment echoed by Brendan Mullen, who ran the punk club The Masque.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Screamers

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