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“These songs were recorded a few months after the Los
Angeles punk scene began. These five statements of intent
transcend Punk and project forward into the future: to the
analog synth wave of the late ’70s and beyond, to the present
day, four decades later, when they finally receive an official
release. Sourced from the original reel-to-reels, they are a
revelation compared to the countless copies that have been
circulating by multiple generations of tape-traders. Here,
for the first time, is the Screamers’ initial and legendary
manifesto.
“The Screamers concept was simple, yet audacious:
take the spirit and the look of Punk—the pseudo-psychotic
aggression, the spiky hair, vacant stares and barely concealed
sadomasochism—and match it to a different configuration
than the typical ’60s rock template. As launched, the
Screamers featured two keyboard players (Tommy Gear
and David Brown), a drummer (KK Barrett) and an
intensely charismatic singer (Tomata du Plenty). The idea
was to be confrontational—to evoke (as Tomata described
in an early interview) a state of anxiety.
“Forty years later, this release builds on the groundswell
of interest in the Screamers that has been occurring in
the early 21st century. There are web sites with detailed
histories of the group and several bootlegs of demos and
live material from 1977-79. The video of ‘122 Hours of
Fear’—perhaps their peak moment, recorded at Target
Video in August 1978—has now passed over 650,000 views
online. This is the Screamers’ time, and the time is now.”
—Jon Savage (excerpt from the liner notes)
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