I’m a 61 year old Los Angeles native… I loved The Screamers and especially Tomata. He encouraged creativity like life depended on it. I started going to shows regularly in 1977 when I was 13/ 14. I cant remember where I first saw The Screamers but it was in 77. They were on a different level. The lack of guitars was so wild at first yet their sound was so fucking hard. Damn… those were fun & crazy times. Thanks for doing a video about The Screamers. They deserve the attention.
That’s so awesome you got to see them. One of my first bands did a cover of “if I can’t have what I want, I don’t want anything” (circa 2003). The screamers were an integral part of my musical development.
I am so jealous, I wasn’t born but The Screamers live were supposed to b the most amazing thing ever. Thank goodness there are at least some recordings of live shows so those of us who weren’t there can hear how great they were.
@morgellon7877 Darby was a huge fan. I remember reading a Tomata interview in CometBus (an old 'zine) where he said he was flattered that the Germs covered "sex boy" so i guess the feeling was mutual.
@@williamdixon-gk2sk I’m not 100% certain, but I think that’s backwards. Pretty sure Darby/‘Bobby Pyn’ wrote ‘Sex Boy’ and was thrilled that The Screamers covered it.
@@williamdixon-gk2sk Thank Loki for secondary sources! Tomata Du Plenty: “The Screamers did a Germs song. K.K. found Bobby Pyn’s [Darby] lyrics to Sex Boy and both Tommy Gear and I thought they were brilliant. Gear and I sang it as a duet with some kind of Solid Gold dance steps he thought up. I remember Darby standing dead center in front of the stage of the Whisky. I was intimidated by the lack of expression on his face, but he told me later he dug it…It’s interesting now to me that two older queers would pay such homage to a young gay like Darby at the time.“ K.K. Barrett: “We did Sex Boy, which was sort of the equivalent of the Stones doing I Wanna Be Your Man written by The Beatles.” (from LEXICON DEVIL: THE FAST TIMES AND SHORT LIFE OF DARBY CRASH AND THE GERMS by Brendan Mullen, p. 59)
@pinverarity holy cripes! I fully recall reading that now. That's super rad. Thanks for pointing it out. That is What i get for confidently repeating a "fact" based on something i sorta-read 20 years ago. Super cool, though. Cometbus Fanzine did interview Tomata in the late '90s. Im positive of that as well, i need to track down a copy of the "CometBus omnibus" its a killer 'zine.
@ My once-razor-sharp mind is now that rubbery carrot you find hidden deep in the ‘crisper’ drawer. That’s why I insist on keeping all my old books still on-hand. OK, that and the hoarder thing. 😉
@@arkestra9858 Sorry to get back to you late. Gary Topp did book that show with his then partner Gary Cormier. Gary Topp has a new book called "He Hijacked My Brain" highly recommended !
@@fangettes That's right, were you there ? I remember bouncers walking around, there was real tension with the audience at times. Incredible performance.
My dad was friends with Tomata DuPlente and that’s how I got into The Screamers. My dad still has some original paintings by Tomata. RIP Tomata DuPlente. Also check out The Lewd, friends of the Screamers.
Saw a show at The Whiskey where X opened for them. Also their weird multimedia performance, might have been their final show. Thanks for the wonderful video. Fun times.
What a great video. I have been interested in the Screamers for awhile and I did not know all this footage existed. I think it would be proper to mention that Suicide had been doing something similar to them using keyboards in a punk setting.
Thank you for this!!! this is the real deal before the hardcore movement that everyone confuses punk with. This was the true guise of creativity in the music scene that inspired so many . THANK YOU! RIP Tomata!
Hey look at this! And just 2 weeks later we get a Suburban Lawns Su Tissue episode! Thank you so much for doing what you do and listening to your audience. I don't know you, but I dig what you are doing!!
U never disappoint,Tome. I learned of Tomata & the Screamers in 'zines after he passed. In 25 years, this is the most i've ever seen about them. Awesome ish, dude.
I was living in Hwood at the time and I remember seeing The Screamers and so many other great bands at the time. It was a great scene to be on the edge of the scene and watch and listen.
A phenomenal band from the undercurrent of punk - - - I got to hang out with Joe Rees here in Japan and listen to a bunch of old stories ! ! Thanxxx for the great upload ! !
Idk what that was at the end but it was f*cking awesome especially the part with Superstar Musician Beck (when he was 12) Tome thanks for this early Christmas present ❤
That was from a movie called Population 1 that Tomata starred in. Most of the people shown are in one scene that takes place in a club. El Duce of the Memtors dances with a woman briefly.
They are the Stooges on twin keyboards. Amazing. And Tomata made a great point about early punk musicians having library cards. Four of the Sex Pistols went to Art College (Lydon, Vicious, Matlock, Cook) plus half of the Damned and the Clash. The post-punk scene in the U.K. was even better educated.
Its Christmas day and this is the video to start it! What better way to celebrate, by dedictating it to one of the maddest bands of all time. I remember when i discovered this group (punk attitude documentary), i really became obsessed with the LA bands. Notably Germs, Screamers, X and also the Weirdos. I really started to see how great the LA bands were. Thanks for a great video and Merry Christmas all! I meant to add, the track which got me into this band, is their cover of 'and the beat goes on'. At the time i thought this was the craziest cover ever. So cool though!
It's all reminds me of the velvet underground -not just the scene and everything but the fact that legend has it they were ignored and too much of a cult but there is still so much outtakes, demos & footage and everything! I'm sure if I was in a band that didn't tour or record albums and nothing no one would've heard about it or know about it or were able to even know about it a year after disbandment let alone decades! It's a real labour of love this documentary thank you
Awesome! I’ve been into the screamers since I was in high school. I’ve consumed about every bit of media they have, from demos to bootlegs to live vhs…they are the best!!!
This is some amazing history, and its clear how much the singer influenced Jello's whole persona, wow! I like they never recorded too, I wish more bands would do this, just make it an event, a time in space that can never fully be captured. The whole put an album out, tour to support it and sell some merch, its kind of the antithesis of punk in many ways and all the genres that came from it, which I would include Black metal. I wish this could become a thing, just spontaneity and the unknown with no need to push a record or get clicks.
Way up here in San Francisco I saw the Screamers just one time at the Mabuhay, in '78 --Tomata was a truly peculiar and magical person, his presence, which can't be recorded, sound or sight, provided the experience that left an indelible impression on the viewer, one that lasts to this day--I think when they decide to do a Screamers' movie, Chris Kattan should play Tomata.
Tome video on The Screamers! What a gift. Your videos just keep getting better. I subbed when you had less than 1,000 subscribers, and it's been awesome to watch your growth. Can't wait to see you blow up to 6 figure subs when one of these excellent documentaries pokes the algorithm just right.
Great stuff! Well done. Just when I thought I had seen every bit of Screamers footage in existence, I see a few snippets in here that are brand new to me. The influence the Screamers had (and still have) cannot be overstated. For a band that never made records and very rarely played gigs outside of California, they made a massive and far-reaching impact, that’s still apparent to this day. Not much else I can add. However one thing I think is worthy of mention is Nervous Gender, the one band in L.A. that in a way kind of picked up where the Screamers left off, and took it to a whole new extreme. It would be great to see something like this done on them.
Me again, I'll share a story I read in Vale V's Search And Destroy--The Screamers were being interviewed on an FM radio station in Seattle, they started playing their synths on air, left the station, got into their car, turned the radio on to the station and drove around listening to their music until returning to finish the piece.
Wow. I got to see them multiple times and was a minor character in those days. It was possible to be an outsider in a group of outsiders! Although I never was one of the cool kids I enjoyed the music and scene.
HOLY GOODNESS I've never heard the Screamers (obvious reasons) and just the music in this video is changing my life. I'm changing RIGHT NOW! Feels good, man.
Love the early synth-punk movement - The Screamers, The Units, Nervous Gender, Suicide, DAF, Fad Gadget, Geza X, Primitive Calculators, Slugfuckers etc etc etc
what a band! ... & tomata was just magic in action! ;-) i hope u'll also do a video about the other great synth-punk band from way back then... the units! cheers! :-)
I was lucky to see them in San Diego in the summer of '78 at a club called "Abbey Road," Then I saw them a couple times in L.A. summer of '79 at a small club at Melrose, if memory serves me correctly. I loved Paul Roessler's blinking face while he played. The keyboards sounded so bionic and different.
In one of my favorite record stores in Rome, 15/20 years ago, they were big fans of The Screamers and kept in catalogue the 2 cds and vinyls..and they also kept their t-shirts, hoodies, posters with the iconic logo. BTW in the same shop I found a used but perfect copy of Nervous Gender cult record, another sick band from the west coast. Good times.
I think steve ignorant from crass take a lot from Tomata ...dont know.sound similar. Also a fan of kerouak like me.what a creative guy.i read a lot about Tomata in we got the neutron bomb and lexicon devil. Deserves much more recognition .But Tome got mine... king of punk
The Screamers did record, but those tapes never got released when they were active. Story was that Tommy was fixated on only doing video releases, which were much more difficult back then, so nothing happened. KK and Paul were behind at least some of the later bootlegs. Also, they did tour, but touring for a punk band without product and promotion was really really hard, so it wasn't extensive. I saw them often enough in SF, but even then you gotta take into account the 400 miles from LA to SF with NO PUNK VENUES AT ALL in between.
Discovered this band in the early days of the internet , before I even heard them the pictures & information on the fansite archiving their history were fascinating , eventually ordered the 2 disc comp @ 3:39 from someone else online & still love this stuff . Also it'd be kick ass if you did a subhumans/subhumans episode since both bands existed simultaneously & shared most of the same ideas & convictions
Tomata passed away in Sat's (sats the singer for the lewd) apartment in sf. Where I was staying for a year or so, now he was the manager of an apartment building so he had full access to everything there, there was a room in the basement, which was tomata's art studio looked like the place was made to be an apartment for a maintenance guy when they built the place but they never finished so it was all brick and ceiling pipes, ect. Well I lived in there for over a year, the day I was finished cleaning it all out I hosed the whole room down used some spray cleaner, cleaned it good came back later when it was dry. When I get back down there, Sats is in the other room right across, but there was a guy Sats's hight and skinny too. This was a full blown dude, solid. A real person, so, I think it's Sats, and I start talking to him and he's reacting like, visually to everything I'm saying and when we get to the other side of the room at the far wall, bam, he just disappeared right in front of my eyes right ashe was turning around to fully face me, just as I was looking at him to fully face him, (he was never facing me full on the entire time and was turning to fully face me for the first time.)I immediately half way holler Sats's name, he's go's what.. (oh by the way the room which was just like 75 degrees had suddenly become super cold to where I could see my own breath all at once..) Any way I walk a few feet to where Sats is at and he doesn't act surprised or nothing he just said, I was wondering who you were talking to. He started showing me all of these pictures and stuff. Sure enough that was tomata. They had been best friends since they both were playing in their bands back in the late 70's and the 80's. Tomata got colon cancer and so he lived at Sats's place for about the last year of his life. Passed away in the apartment and recently, Sats passed away in the exact same way, same place, years before that Years ago, maybe ten years ago way before he passed very recently Sats gave me a couple of Tomata's paintings. One of them was by far the best one he had ever made as far as I know. Looked like a really real artists work.. like an pointing of a guy in shadow playing a saxophone by himself at the edge of an ally way, sitting on a stoop and all these people partying in the distance, looks like some celebration in new Orleans. The was the canvas was screwed into a smaller one AMF that one looked like a kid drew it, it was a palm tree on a tiny island all painted like a kid painted it, but the crazy good one I'm talking about, looks like he had something else painted on it before like, the sides of the canvas had colors that anywhere else and some of the palm tree one on the side. Tomata used to like to screw together these paintings in a line or in say, like the spots of what wall he had it on say there's some big piece of building framing on the wall right at the top of the wall, he would screw or nail in paintings around that or at a doorway, ect. I don't think that anybodies ever seen this painting other than himself, Sats and me.. totally not the style of anything that he had done before, other than a few that private collectors bought and a few others he painted back over, and he gave some away. But yeah that painting I gave is so unique and just really, really good. The more you look at it the more things you see in it. It's pretty amazing. It's actually pretty beautiful. I guess he did that one in his last year or so.
No doubt it was a ripoff, but the real question is, was it a direct ripoff, or was it taken third hand from a T-shirt the Dial an Insult people found, or something? Gotta love cultural ephemera.
Great video, but one of the things that you didn't mention was that the Screamers desperately wanted to record, but they had the concept of making the first video LP and that was a much more expensive concept at the time than just recording an LP. No major label would take the chance and no indie label could afford to. This is why you have those videos like "Vertigo" filmed in a rehearsal studio as those were dry run "demos".
The band went on tour. They toured the eastside in 78. The Screamers tried to get signed to a label, but were rejected. No one knew what to do with a punk band that didn't have any guitarists.
@@notvcinema8741 Not to quibble too much, but signed by who? Easy to get signed by an indie punk label (again, see Nervous Gender), but major labels could be so unlikely as impossible. With rare exceptions, the majors didn't like punk bands and especially not punk bands as extreme and unmelodic as the Screamers.
@@taknothing4896 I wasn’t specifically referring to getting signed by major labels; I was talking about the difficulty of getting signed in general, even by indie labels. It wasn’t easy to keep an indie label running during the late ’70s and early ’80s-labels like ZG Music, 99 Records, Important Records, and Medical Records often lacked the budget to survive. For example, Medical Records only managed to release one single by DNA before folding. While you’re right that Nervous Gender got signed to an indie label, their album Music From Hell had an extremely limited run and wasn’t reissued until much later. This shows how precarious the situation was for many punk and experimental bands at the time. Yes, some major labels signed punk bands-The Dead Boys, The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, and Sham 69 all found deals-but these bands were generally more melodic or marketable than acts like The Screamers. My original point was that The Screamers actively tried to get signed but were rejected repeatedly. The reason they didn’t release any albums wasn’t that they didn’t want to; it’s that no label-major or indie-was willing to take the risk on them.
I used to act like the Screamers back in 1st grade due to autism. My mom called me the Dork from Ork. Yet, as a 6 year old, I was unaware of the LA punk scene happening in '77, because here in the Midwest that behavior was "being a spaz." Now, I have a band to obsess over. Thanks, Screamers.
They were way ahead of their time here. Walls - Emery Granted they had guitars too but they also had a hardcore keyboardist flying around and still do to this day.
There’s a fascinating connection between San Francisco hippies, the San Francisco gay scene, and punk that runs via Tomata. There’s an extraordinary documentary about a San Francisco art/performance collective known as The Cockettes. They formed at the end of the Sixties and are probably best described as “what happened when some Haight Street hippies noticed that they were queer and started hanging around Polk Street leather bars.” At various times some of the people involved on the fringes of the Cockettes included future gay disco star Sylvester (You Make Me Feel Mighty Real), future filmmaker John Waters…and the young Tomata Du Plenty. Coda: for awhile, the militant AIDS activist group ACT-UP was using the famous Screamers logo around San Francisco. Seemed fully appropriate.
I’m a 61 year old Los Angeles native… I loved The Screamers and especially Tomata. He encouraged creativity like life depended on it. I started going to shows regularly in 1977 when I was 13/ 14. I cant remember where I first saw The Screamers but it was in 77. They were on a different level. The lack of guitars was so wild at first yet their sound was so fucking hard. Damn… those were fun & crazy times. Thanks for doing a video about The Screamers. They deserve the attention.
You have any candid Darby Crash stories?
That’s so awesome you got to see them. One of my first bands did a cover of “if I can’t have what I want, I don’t want anything” (circa 2003). The screamers were an integral part of my musical development.
I am so jealous, I wasn’t born but The Screamers live were supposed to b the most amazing thing ever. Thank goodness there are at least some recordings of live shows so those of us who weren’t there can hear how great they were.
My band G.r. Scum was influenced by the screamers as well... around 2005 or so. We have some songs here on youtube for those that are interested
Darby Crash and friends pogoing at 2:41. About damn time someone did a thing on the Screamers. Thank you, Tome.
@morgellon7877 Darby was a huge fan. I remember reading a Tomata interview in CometBus (an old 'zine) where he said he was flattered that the Germs covered "sex boy" so i guess the feeling was mutual.
@@williamdixon-gk2sk I’m not 100% certain, but I think that’s backwards. Pretty sure Darby/‘Bobby Pyn’ wrote ‘Sex Boy’ and was thrilled that The Screamers covered it.
@@williamdixon-gk2sk Thank Loki for secondary sources!
Tomata Du Plenty: “The Screamers did a Germs song. K.K. found Bobby Pyn’s [Darby] lyrics to Sex Boy and both Tommy Gear and I thought they were brilliant. Gear and I sang it as a duet with some kind of Solid Gold dance steps he thought up. I remember Darby standing dead center in front of the stage of the Whisky. I was intimidated by the lack of expression on his face, but he told me later he dug it…It’s interesting now to me that two older queers would pay such homage to a young gay like Darby at the time.“
K.K. Barrett: “We did Sex Boy, which was sort of the equivalent of the Stones doing I Wanna Be Your Man written by The Beatles.”
(from LEXICON DEVIL: THE FAST TIMES AND SHORT LIFE OF DARBY CRASH AND THE GERMS by Brendan Mullen, p. 59)
@pinverarity holy cripes! I fully recall reading that now. That's super rad. Thanks for pointing it out. That is What i get for confidently repeating a "fact" based on something i sorta-read 20 years ago. Super cool, though. Cometbus Fanzine did interview Tomata in the late '90s. Im positive of that as well, i need to track down a copy of the "CometBus omnibus" its a killer 'zine.
@ My once-razor-sharp mind is now that rubbery carrot you find hidden deep in the ‘crisper’ drawer. That’s why I insist on keeping all my old books still on-hand. OK, that and the hoarder thing. 😉
Long overdue thanks for the video RIP Tomata.
Saw them here in Toronto in October 1978 at The Horseshoe. Never saw anything like that ever again. Thanks for posting this documentation.
Do you happen to know if Gary Topp booked that show?
@@arkestra9858 Sorry to get back to you late. Gary Topp did book that show with his then partner Gary Cormier. Gary Topp has a new book called "He Hijacked My Brain" highly recommended !
@@arkestra9858 Yes Gary Topp booked that show.
Yes on Halloween with Drastic Measures and Card Board Brain
@@fangettes That's right, were you there ? I remember bouncers walking around, there was real tension with the audience at times. Incredible performance.
Great video covering a often forgotten bit of punk history.
My dad was friends with Tomata DuPlente and that’s how I got into The Screamers. My dad still has some original paintings by Tomata. RIP Tomata DuPlente. Also check out The Lewd, friends of the Screamers.
That clip from churxh of rock is bloody f mess and his radio show. Hes played my old band g.r. scum twice on that show... look us up here on youtube
I have some of his drawings. We worked together in the 80s.
Saw a show at The Whiskey where X opened for them. Also their weird multimedia performance, might have been their final show. Thanks for the wonderful video. Fun times.
I saw one of those last shows. NON opened, as I recall. I think Screamers by that point was just Tomata & Tommy, no?
Wow - what a great peace of music history - beautiful work Tome!!!
I'm so glad you covered these guys, saw tose flyes a lot when I lived in L.A. but they were broken up by then, always wondered what they sounded like.
Wow I have been wanting to see a video about these guys for years. Awesome! Thanks! I wish that The Screamers would have gotten more attention.
Thanks for covering these guys! They deserve all the respect
What a great video. I have been interested in the Screamers for awhile and I did not know all this footage existed. I think it would be proper to mention that Suicide had been doing something similar to them using keyboards in a punk setting.
Thank you for this!!! this is the real deal before the hardcore movement that everyone confuses punk with. This was the true guise of creativity in the music scene that inspired so many . THANK YOU! RIP Tomata!
Man!! You do good work! Just found your channel a couple of months ago and I love it, so many memories!
You should for sure do Suburban Lawns.
Hell yeah!
Yeah and the Units.
Hey look at this!
And just 2 weeks later we get a Suburban Lawns Su Tissue episode!
Thank you so much for doing what you do and listening to your audience.
I don't know you, but I dig what you are doing!!
U never disappoint,Tome. I learned of Tomata & the Screamers in 'zines after he passed. In 25 years, this is the most i've ever seen about them. Awesome ish, dude.
I was living in Hwood at the time and I remember seeing The Screamers and so many other great bands at the time. It was a great scene to be on the edge of the scene and watch and listen.
A phenomenal band from the undercurrent of punk - - - I got to hang out with Joe Rees here in Japan and listen to a bunch of old stories ! ! Thanxxx for the great upload ! !
Oh wow. Yeah. As soon as I saw him jumping around, I instantly thought of Jello Biafra.
Another great upload from my favourite channel.
Yessssss! Tome take over.im here for it.you can get the DVD of the population one for a decent price.
Love it when I discover a new band. The way they use synths/organs/keyboards instead of guitars is amazing - I'd never have guessed, tbh!
Top post 👍.
Crazy how they became such legends and never had an album come out
Their whole idea was to realease a videotape instead of an album every year- I knew Paul years after the Screamers broke up
Idk what that was at the end but it was f*cking awesome especially the part with Superstar Musician Beck (when he was 12) Tome thanks for this early Christmas present ❤
That was from a movie called Population 1 that Tomata starred in. Most of the people shown are in one scene that takes place in a club. El Duce of the Memtors dances with a woman briefly.
@@prokesuk Film is on UA-cam, was watching it earlier.
Tomata Plenty what a legend
You are intensely talented. I love your content, thank you for being so in depth.
This is some of the best content on UA-cam. I love Tome
Well done sir. Great content
Dudes vocals are so snotty, love it
Really like your channel. Good work. Thanks. 78 yrs and digging it.
I forgot to say you need to talk to utube search. I put your name, Tome, in search and nothing but Time and time related stupid stuff came up.
They are the Stooges on twin keyboards. Amazing. And Tomata made a great point about early punk musicians having library cards. Four of the Sex Pistols went to Art College (Lydon, Vicious, Matlock, Cook) plus half of the Damned and the Clash. The post-punk scene in the U.K. was even better educated.
Its Christmas day and this is the video to start it! What better way to celebrate, by dedictating it to one of the maddest bands of all time. I remember when i discovered this group (punk attitude documentary), i really became obsessed with the LA bands. Notably Germs, Screamers, X and also the Weirdos. I really started to see how great the LA bands were. Thanks for a great video and Merry Christmas all!
I meant to add, the track which got me into this band, is their cover of 'and the beat goes on'. At the time i thought this was the craziest cover ever. So cool though!
It's all reminds me of the velvet underground -not just the scene and everything but the fact that legend has it they were ignored and too much of a cult but there is still so much outtakes, demos & footage and everything!
I'm sure if I was in a band that didn't tour or record albums and nothing no one would've heard about it or know about it or were able to even know about it a year after disbandment let alone decades!
It's a real labour of love this documentary thank you
i cannot say enough good things about this channel. no one one is doing what your doing. its important and i appreciate and share with homies
Awesome! I’ve been into the screamers since I was in high school. I’ve consumed about every bit of media they have, from demos to bootlegs to live vhs…they are the best!!!
BEST FOOTAGE CHANNEL IN WELL EVERYWHERE. TOME TOME TOME. WHERE DO U FIND ALL THIS STUFF. ❤❤👍👍🙏🙏
This is some amazing history, and its clear how much the singer influenced Jello's whole persona, wow! I like they never recorded too, I wish more bands would do this, just make it an event, a time in space that can never fully be captured. The whole put an album out, tour to support it and sell some merch, its kind of the antithesis of punk in many ways and all the genres that came from it, which I would include Black metal. I wish this could become a thing, just spontaneity and the unknown with no need to push a record or get clicks.
Great content as always! Top channel with interesting subjects. Well done!
Way up here in San Francisco I saw the Screamers just one time at the Mabuhay, in '78 --Tomata was a truly peculiar and magical person, his presence, which can't be recorded, sound or sight, provided the experience that left an indelible impression on the viewer, one that lasts to this day--I think when they decide to do a Screamers' movie, Chris Kattan should play Tomata.
Thank You for covering this long overdue bout time bout time
The Screamers were truly great. Thanks Tome.
Tome video on The Screamers! What a gift.
Your videos just keep getting better. I subbed when you had less than 1,000 subscribers, and it's been awesome to watch your growth. Can't wait to see you blow up to 6 figure subs when one of these excellent documentaries pokes the algorithm just right.
122 Hours of Fear is one of my favorite songs ever.
Great stuff! Well done. Just when I thought I had seen every bit of Screamers footage in existence, I see a few snippets in here that are brand new to me. The influence the Screamers had (and still have) cannot be overstated. For a band that never made records and very rarely played gigs outside of California, they made a massive and far-reaching impact, that’s still apparent to this day. Not much else I can add.
However one thing I think is worthy of mention is Nervous Gender, the one band in L.A. that in a way kind of picked up where the Screamers left off, and took it to a whole new extreme. It would be great to see something like this done on them.
Tome! When you gonna do a video on the Surf Punks?! The screamers were a trippy band.
Well done! Really enjoyed this
Me again, I'll share a story I read in Vale V's Search And Destroy--The Screamers were being interviewed on an FM radio station in Seattle, they started playing their synths on air, left the station, got into their car, turned the radio on to the station and drove around listening to their music until returning to finish the piece.
It might not be easy but a good video on the history of Nervous Gender is much needed
Wow. I got to see them multiple times and was a minor character in those days. It was possible to be an outsider in a group of outsiders! Although I never was one of the cool kids I enjoyed the music and scene.
So inspiring. True art lives forever. Thank you for your good work.
Fantastic. I had no idea this band even existed. I think Wall of Voodoo copped a few things from them too.
HOLY GOODNESS I've never heard the Screamers (obvious reasons) and just the music in this video is changing my life. I'm changing RIGHT NOW!
Feels good, man.
These guys OG as foooooook!
Finn Mkenty’s worst nightmare
Who’s Finn Mckuntly ?
@Grimmoon1998 a former music commentator on UA-cam.
Punk Rock DOA
When i started watching no-fun mckunty people like Dan Frampton, PunkRockreview and Tome came up in my feed. So he's ok for that...
Finn doesn't like Punk or music for that matter.
Love the early synth-punk movement - The Screamers, The Units, Nervous Gender, Suicide, DAF, Fad Gadget, Geza X, Primitive Calculators, Slugfuckers etc etc etc
what a band! ... & tomata was just magic in action! ;-) i hope u'll also do a video about the other great synth-punk band from way back then... the units! cheers! :-)
So damn good. I enjoyed this very much.
I was lucky to see them in San Diego in the summer of '78 at a club called "Abbey Road," Then I saw them a couple times in L.A. summer of '79 at a small club at Melrose,
if memory serves me correctly. I loved Paul Roessler's blinking face while he played. The keyboards sounded so bionic and different.
I like the idea that they used keyboards. And not in a traditional way. Too dark sounding for electro pop but not going with the cliche of guitars.
Yeah, I thought the same. I was gonna post pretty much the same comment, but you beat me to it!
👍
Great job - thanks for this!!!!
Wow!!! A breath of fresh air!!!
Loved this band growing up.
Bob Forrest said on his podcast before that him and tomata du plenty were lovers, i was really surprised hearing that one
Fantastic!!! 🖤
In one of my favorite record stores in Rome, 15/20 years ago, they were big fans of The Screamers and kept in catalogue the 2 cds and vinyls..and they also kept their t-shirts, hoodies, posters with the iconic logo. BTW in the same shop I found a used but perfect copy of Nervous Gender cult record, another sick band from the west coast. Good times.
Interesting to hear punk with keyboard and no guitars. Sounds good tho. 👍
I think steve ignorant from crass take a lot from Tomata ...dont know.sound similar. Also a fan of kerouak like me.what a creative guy.i read a lot about Tomata in we got the neutron bomb and lexicon devil. Deserves much more recognition .But Tome got mine... king of punk
This is miraculous dude id never heard of these guys instant huge love for the screamers and you thank you for your excellent work Merry Christmas!
Thanks for this. I needed to go beyond the threshold of bands like Bad Brains & Dead Kennedy's.
At 2:56 the hand motions Tomata were doing were during “punish or be dammed”. I’ve seen live videos of them so many times lol!
I worked for KK a couple times. Most notably on th Nirvana video "Come as you are" i destroyed a piano and blamed it on Kurt.
Nice
Thanks for this !
Cheers from Westminster CA 🇺🇸
The Screamers did record, but those tapes never got released when they were active. Story was that Tommy was fixated on only doing video releases, which were much more difficult back then, so nothing happened. KK and Paul were behind at least some of the later bootlegs. Also, they did tour, but touring for a punk band without product and promotion was really really hard, so it wasn't extensive. I saw them often enough in SF, but even then you gotta take into account the 400 miles from LA to SF with NO PUNK VENUES AT ALL in between.
Discovered this band in the early days of the internet , before I even heard them the pictures & information on the fansite archiving their history were fascinating , eventually ordered the 2 disc comp @ 3:39 from someone else online & still love this stuff . Also it'd be kick ass if you did a subhumans/subhumans episode since both bands existed simultaneously & shared most of the same ideas & convictions
The edit on that population one trailer is tight.
Tomato goes back way before LA. There is a great documentary about the early Seattle scene that is very enlightening.
Reading the book We Got The Neutron Bomb introduced me to em 20 years ago! TY for this video!
Tomata passed away in Sat's (sats the singer for the lewd) apartment in sf. Where I was staying for a year or so, now he was the manager of an apartment building so he had full access to everything there, there was a room in the basement, which was tomata's art studio looked like the place was made to be an apartment for a maintenance guy when they built the place but they never finished so it was all brick and ceiling pipes, ect. Well I lived in there for over a year, the day I was finished cleaning it all out I hosed the whole room down used some spray cleaner, cleaned it good came back later when it was dry. When I get back down there, Sats is in the other room right across, but there was a guy Sats's hight and skinny too. This was a full blown dude, solid. A real person, so, I think it's Sats, and I start talking to him and he's reacting like, visually to everything I'm saying and when we get to the other side of the room at the far wall, bam, he just disappeared right in front of my eyes right ashe was turning around to fully face me, just as I was looking at him to fully face him, (he was never facing me full on the entire time and was turning to fully face me for the first time.)I immediately half way holler Sats's name, he's go's what.. (oh by the way the room which was just like 75 degrees had suddenly become super cold to where I could see my own breath all at once..) Any way I walk a few feet to where Sats is at and he doesn't act surprised or nothing he just said, I was wondering who you were talking to. He started showing me all of these pictures and stuff. Sure enough that was tomata. They had been best friends since they both were playing in their bands back in the late 70's and the 80's. Tomata got colon cancer and so he lived at Sats's place for about the last year of his life. Passed away in the apartment and recently, Sats passed away in the exact same way, same place, years before that Years ago, maybe ten years ago way before he passed very recently Sats gave me a couple of Tomata's paintings. One of them was by far the best one he had ever made as far as I know. Looked like a really real artists work.. like an pointing of a guy in shadow playing a saxophone by himself at the edge of an ally way, sitting on a stoop and all these people partying in the distance, looks like some celebration in new Orleans. The was the canvas was screwed into a smaller one AMF that one looked like a kid drew it, it was a palm tree on a tiny island all painted like a kid painted it, but the crazy good one I'm talking about, looks like he had something else painted on it before like, the sides of the canvas had colors that anywhere else and some of the palm tree one on the side. Tomata used to like to screw together these paintings in a line or in say, like the spots of what wall he had it on say there's some big piece of building framing on the wall right at the top of the wall, he would screw or nail in paintings around that or at a doorway, ect. I don't think that anybodies ever seen this painting other than himself, Sats and me.. totally not the style of anything that he had done before, other than a few that private collectors bought and a few others he painted back over, and he gave some away. But yeah that painting I gave is so unique and just really, really good. The more you look at it the more things you see in it. It's pretty amazing. It's actually pretty beautiful. I guess he did that one in his last year or so.
My favorite punk band😅
The screamers at the rat is a classic concert board
WoW! Thank you! Was really El Duce a member of The Screamers?
He was the first drummer of Tupperwares in 1975, the band that originated The Screamers in 76, but he only played on Tupperwares.
@PunkTome Thanks.Great one again
As was future Ministry, Revco, REM, King Crimson drummer Bill Rieflin.
No, was just in a movie w tomata..
@@WesleyGravolet He was in the band when they were called the Tupperwares and based in Seattle.
I saw the Screamers in NYC, probably at the Ritz, and I remember that Sid Vicious was at the show. He smelled bad and was asking for money.
I can't believe this is the first time I've ever heard of the Screamers
The Screamers head looks like Sultan from Dial An Insult
No doubt it was a ripoff, but the real question is, was it a direct ripoff, or was it taken third hand from a T-shirt the Dial an Insult people found, or something? Gotta love cultural ephemera.
@@mx248 I'm happy others know what I'm talking about haha
13:36 First ever stage dive?🤔
Iggy Pop did one earlier during a live show, and is considered the person who popularized it.
I'd seen Jello do that miming live and though it looked silly. Never knew why he did it. looked much cooler with the pro doing in this band.
Great video, but one of the things that you didn't mention was that the Screamers desperately wanted to record, but they had the concept of making the first video LP and that was a much more expensive concept at the time than just recording an LP. No major label would take the chance and no indie label could afford to. This is why you have those videos like "Vertigo" filmed in a rehearsal studio as those were dry run "demos".
The band went on tour. They toured the eastside in 78. The Screamers tried to get signed to a label, but were rejected. No one knew what to do with a punk band that didn't have any guitarists.
Nervous Gender? They did get on a label, tho it was a small punk label, which was how it was done back then.
@@taknothing4896 I didn't say it was impossible for a band like them to get signed.
@@notvcinema8741 Not to quibble too much, but signed by who? Easy to get signed by an indie punk label (again, see Nervous Gender), but major labels could be so unlikely as impossible. With rare exceptions, the majors didn't like punk bands and especially not punk bands as extreme and unmelodic as the Screamers.
@@taknothing4896 I wasn’t specifically referring to getting signed by major labels; I was talking about the difficulty of getting signed in general, even by indie labels. It wasn’t easy to keep an indie label running during the late ’70s and early ’80s-labels like ZG Music, 99 Records, Important Records, and Medical Records often lacked the budget to survive. For example, Medical Records only managed to release one single by DNA before folding.
While you’re right that Nervous Gender got signed to an indie label, their album Music From Hell had an extremely limited run and wasn’t reissued until much later. This shows how precarious the situation was for many punk and experimental bands at the time.
Yes, some major labels signed punk bands-The Dead Boys, The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, and Sham 69 all found deals-but these bands were generally more melodic or marketable than acts like The Screamers. My original point was that The Screamers actively tried to get signed but were rejected repeatedly. The reason they didn’t release any albums wasn’t that they didn’t want to; it’s that no label-major or indie-was willing to take the risk on them.
I worked as an assistant for Don Bolles of the Germs. He told me that he was a roadie for the Screamers before he joined the Germs.
In a strange way i wanna believe jim carrey was influenced by tomata ..
LONG LIVE THE SCREAMERS!! HAIL HAIL ROCK AND ROLL!!
Heavy badass organs.
I used to act like the Screamers back in 1st grade due to autism. My mom called me the Dork from Ork. Yet, as a 6 year old, I was unaware of the LA punk scene happening in '77, because here in the Midwest that behavior was "being a spaz." Now, I have a band to obsess over. Thanks, Screamers.
They were way ahead of their time here.
Walls - Emery
Granted they had guitars too but they also had a hardcore keyboardist flying around and still do to this day.
Nevermind I just seen Paul 45 GRAVE'S keyboard player in it answered my own question
you gotta make a video on Poison Idea and the Portland punk scene
There’s a fascinating connection between San Francisco hippies, the San Francisco gay scene, and punk that runs via Tomata.
There’s an extraordinary documentary about a San Francisco art/performance collective known as The Cockettes. They formed at the end of the Sixties and are probably best described as “what happened when some Haight Street hippies noticed that they were queer and started hanging around Polk Street leather bars.”
At various times some of the people involved on the fringes of the Cockettes included future gay disco star Sylvester (You Make Me Feel Mighty Real), future filmmaker John Waters…and the young Tomata Du Plenty.
Coda: for awhile, the militant AIDS activist group ACT-UP was using the famous Screamers logo around San Francisco. Seemed fully appropriate.
The🗣Screamers never had a Guitarist😉All Synth Keyboard Baby🤖🎹🤖
VHS is just like this cool