Screamers - 122 Hours of Fear

Do plenty people go for Tomata?

Yes, but he just goes for that special girl who says ‘NO’

(X, “Adult Books”, 1978)

Few stories in rock would be as essential to tell as those of bands who never managed to cross the fateful threshold of a debut LP, entrusting their legacy to a handful of songs, a few shows, and an oral tradition with the contours of legend. Acts often light years ahead of their time, ostracized by timid record executives, shunned by unprepared audiences and perhaps undone by internal rifts or self-destructive personalities, confirming the unbreakable bond between genius and recklessness. Music historiography is merciless: for reasons of availability but also of symbolic status, it's the albums that leave a trace, while singles, if unsuccessful, tend to get lost in the chaotic flow of the eras. Not tying one's name to an album cover usually amounts to being written off: that's why artists who lasted only the length of one record still fared better than singles only ventures, which most people tend to associate with a scattershot amateurism or an immature rock prehistory. From the garage outfits that made the fortune of anthology compilers to an unsung psychedelic institution like Oxford Circle, from the feral proto-punk of Electric Eels to the technical-knockout proto-hardcore of Crime, Testors and Pure Hell, such a survey would inevitably have to skip over some of the most original and innovative bands of all time.

A band that certainly deserves a place of honor in this club is the Screamers, the Californian combo still remembered today by fans with something close to veneration, even though their adventure lasted barely four years and their entire legacy consists of a handful of demos and a few live bootlegs, material of generally middling-to-poor sound quality (which, needless to say, only amplifies its thrilling underground flavor). With them, the aesthetic that musicologist Damian Ramsey will rename “synthpunk” (elsewhere also referred to as “electropunk” or “technopunk”) was officially staked out, an aesthetic that also counts among its disciples other mythical bands such as Nervous Gender, Units, Futurisk and Voice Farm. If the renunciation of guitars in favor of synthesizers had already been canonized by Suicide (and, more distantly, finds its seeds in pioneers like Silver Apples and United States Of America), the Los Angeles band takes an even bolder gamble by putting them in service of music that is as fast and aggressive as can be: from this point of view, Suicide is to new wave what the Screamers are to hardcore. This slippery balance between rawness and sophistication, which in a sense places them at the crossroads between the Los Angeles hooligans (Germs, X, Weirdos) and the catastrophist intellectuals of San Francisco (the proto-industrial sounds of Chrome, Factrix and Minimal Man), is at the same time made more cultured and more provocative by a carefully studied multimedia setup, in which elaborate video projections merged with the bizarre costumes and expressionist theatricality of frontman Tomata du Plenty, a scathing performer who loved to look every single spectator in the eye. More than a simple rock band, the Screamers were to all intents and purposes an avant-garde collective on a par with the Residents or Tuxedomoon, one that absorbed punk's ferocity and sheer unpleasantness. No recording could ever have captured their full impact, as the few surviving videos of them attest. A mutant product of a scene that spawned some of its most monstrous creatures, too averse to compromise to pursue a conventional career, the Screamers will essentially live on in the accounts of those lucky enough to see them live, and as such will remain the great lost band of California new wave, as well as, to quote Jello Biafra, “the best unrecorded group in the history of rock'n'roll.”

The story

Tomata du Plenty was born David Xavier Harrigan in Coney Island on May 28, 1948, to parents of Irish descent. The family moved to California when he was 9, first to Montebello and then, six years later, to Hollywood. He took his first steps as an artist in the thriving San Francisco of 1968, collaborating with the Cockettes, the legendary drag-queen theater troupe known for its highly transgressive shows, inspired by the most radical strands of hippie culture (in particular, the experience of the Diggers). Shortly afterward he moved to Seattle, cradle of an exciting experimental theater scene, where he formed the lip-sync collective Ze Whiz Kid, fusing the proto-glam winks of his previous experience with themes tied to the counterculture of the time and irreverent caricatures of show-business celebrities. The group disbanded in 1972, shortly after opening for an Alice Cooper show. The following year Tomata moved to New York together with Fayette Hauser of the Cockettes, with whom, besides staging “guerrilla comedy” shows, he created a video magazine called “Hollywood Spit,” wrote for the magazine “Naked News,” and opened a vintage clothing store. One night at the legendary CBGB's he saw the Ramones and the Stillettos (the first band of Debbie Harry) live, and that's how he began taking an interest in the nascent punk movement and, more broadly, in rock music.

Back in Seattle, he got in touch with drag performer Melba Toast (later known as Tommy Gear) and singer Rio De Janeiro (real name David Gulbransen), together with whom he put together his first band, the Tupperwares, a blend of glam rock and new wave. Over time, two musicians destined for very different kinds of success passed through the ranks: Bill Rieflin (future drummer of Ministry and a much sought-after session man in industrial circles) and Eldon Hoke (who, renaming himself El Duce, would go on to found the controversial “rape rock” band Mentors). Around 1975 the group relocated to Los Angeles, and the following year, due to the predictable protests of the plastics company of the same name, changed its name to Screamers. Rio De Janeiro jumped ship due to disagreements with Tomata, who thus remained the undisputed frontman of a lineup that had by then been joined by drummer K. K. Barrett and keyboardist David Brown, later replaced first by Jeff McGreggor and then by Paul Roessler (brother of Kira, future bassist of Black Flag).

This unusual two-keyboard setup (Gear, who also handled backing vocals, on the Arp Odyssey synthesizer and Roessler on Fender Rhodes, both run through a distortion unit), with no guitar or bass and a fairly bare-bones drum kit, was flanked by stylist Chloe Pass and illustrator Gary Panter, whose roles in shaping the band's identity were on a par with those of the musicians: the former would craft the group's flamboyant look built around elegant outfits and spiked hairdos, while the latter would design Tomata's now-legendary screaming-head logo, among the most referenced and imitated of all time. From the very start, the visual side carried the same weight as the music: the first images of the band began circulating before they had ever played a live show, immediately establishing them as the city's most mysterious and unsettling project (helped along by the enthusiasm of the seminal punk zine "Slash"). It was "Slash" itself that gave them their first chance to perform, inviting them to play one of its parties in 1977.

Starting that year, which also marked the arrival of Al Hansen (noted Fluxus artist, as well as Beck's grandfather) as manager, the Screamers began hitting the same Los Angeles clubs where the punk storm was raging, causing a sensation thanks to the unprecedented violence of their music and the striking stage presence of the four members: the devilish Tomata combined the apocalyptic showmanship of John Lydon with the vocal decay of Darby Crash, set between two keyboards cranked to excessive volumes and drumming that was part primitive, part cybernetic, with systematic use of video projections, stage sets and lighting to create a destabilizing multimedia short-circuit. After seeing them live in 1978, local journalist Kristine McKenna was the first to describe them using the now-famous term "technopunk". That same year, X name-checked Tomata in their landmark single "Adult Books", helping spread his name throughout the scene. Buoyed by this recognition, the band recorded a rough demo that would remain their first and only studio document, made mainly to help land bookings.

After a handful of shows at The Masque, at the time the go-to venue for the city's punks, Tomata and co. became regulars at Los Angeles' two biggest clubs, the Whisky-A-Go Go and the Roxy (never before had a band without a proper record deal played such prestigious venues), eventually playing two shows a night and massively boosting their standing on the scene.

They seemed destined for a definitive breakthrough, but their flat refusal to sign to a label or release any material put the brakes on their rise. The band became fixated on the idea that their debut could only happen through a fusion of audio and video, and believed in the project so strongly that they built themselves a small film studio to make it happen. While waiting to bring this ambitious project to fruition, they enlisted Dutch filmmaker Rene Daalder (known for directing the 1976 cult movie "Massacre at Central High") to make a series of short promotional films that anticipated the music-video phenomenon.

Sadly, Tomata's dream would never come true: after one final, disastrous show at the Whisky in 1981, in which he and Barrett performed alone to present the video-spectacle "The Palace Of Variety" (the result of their experiments with Daalder), the Screamers broke up, never to reform. The causes of their premature end may be linked to the instability of the lineup and the difficulty of carrying on without a record deal or any studio documentation, as well as the decline of the local punk/new wave scene brought on by the rise of hardcore. Paradoxically, the strong response they got at home ended up working against the band's wider success: the ease with which they found bookings, and the heavy demand from venues in L.A. and San Francisco, led them to concentrate their activity in California, barely ever playing outside the state (save for a few fleeting forays to New York, Seattle and Portland, where they won over the unreserved enthusiasm of veteran punk critic Joe Carducci), remaining, in the end, a local phenomenon.

Once the Screamers experience was over, Tomata left the music world behind (something he was perhaps never truly invested in to begin with, having used it only as a vehicle for his multimedia theories) to devote himself to a host of other fields that showcase his astonishing versatility. He initially returned to his old love of theatre, establishing himself as a writer and producer, before moving into film, directing a series of shorts and frequently collaborating with legendary horror actress Vampira (whom he persuaded to return in front of the camera after she had retired from the scene). Meanwhile he began cultivating painting: after a first exhibition at Hollywood's Zero One Gallery in 1983, this pursuit drew him in so completely that it became his main occupation, alongside work as an art critic.

In 1989 he moved to Miami, where he kept painting and showing his work, often in unconventional settings (bars, restaurants, even laundromats). In his paintings, marked by a simple, effective naïve style, he portrayed celebrities, icons of culture and entertainment, or simply people he admired (especially boxers, another of his great passions). True to his own deeply personal and incorruptible code of ethics, he became notorious for his habit of selling every piece for just 25 dollars, insisting it was better to "sell 1000 paintings at 25 dollars rather than one at 25,000" and reaffirming, in doing so, his closeness to Pop Art principles (already spelled out in the Screamers' must-hear "In A Better World", in which he declared that "In a better world everybody must be made to feel important"). In the mid-90s he moved to New Orleans, before eventually returning to California.

Tomata du Plenty died of cancer on August 21, 2000 in San Francisco (where he had given his final performance shortly before, alongside Jello Biafra and Penelope Houston), at just 52 years old. According to some sources, he had been living with Aids for some time. He was one of the most refined, eclectic and elusive intellectuals the United States ever produced, deeply American in his restless, enigmatic nature. His influence on each of the countless fields to which he lent his talent is almost incalculable. And yet he never made much money from any of his pursuits: in the final years of his career he supported himself working as a bartender.

K. K. Barrett, founder and owner of the influential label Dangerhouse (whose roster included Weirdos, Dils, Bags, Avengers and X), would go on to establish himself as a film production designer (in 2013 he was nominated for an Oscar for his work on Spike Jonze's Her). Paul Roessler lent his keyboards to Nervous Gender (one of their performances is immortalized on the legendary "Live At Target"), 45 Grave, Saccharine Trust, Nina Hagen, Mike Watt, Smashing Pumpkins and many others, besides forming the band Twisted Roots with his sister and Pat Smear. After Tomata's death, the two reunited to play some of the band's songs in tribute to their late friend.

In 2014 the California filmmaking collective The Remainder Is Productions launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund a documentary about Tomata, currently in pre-production.

Then, in 2020, came news nobody could have expected (or maybe some did?): Superior Viaduct would release the Screamers' first ever official publication, announced for January of the following year. The title, "Screamers Demo Hollywood 1977", says it all about the origin of the five unreleased tracks (a misleading term, for a band that in fact never "released" anything), accompanied by artwork from Gary Panter and liner notes from the ever-present Jon Savage. A tricky move to judge: is it legitimate to breach the code of obscurity with even so modest an operation? After all, punk also means desecrating one's own dogmas: it's not out of the question that Tomata himself would have approved.

The songs

With the exception of a few demos recorded between 1977 and 1978 and never officially released, the Screamers never recorded a single note of their music. Various theories have been put forward for this attitude, which undeniably played a major part in turning them into a cult band: the most common simply points to the plain impossibility of capturing on record the elaborate visual apparatus that accompanied their shows, a factor that may also have discouraged most labels from approaching them; another theory holds that the band was holding out for a top-tier deal, and so preferred to wait to the end for the definitive opportunity rather than settle for unsatisfying stopgaps, confirming once again their uncompromising nature ("If I can't have what I want, I don't want anything", as they put it in the song of the same name); yet another explanation might stem from the band's intellectual influences, steeped in the avant-garde, situationism, radical counterculture and of course punk, all movements that, each in their own way, pushed an explicit anti-art, anti-professional nihilism; finally, one shouldn't underestimate just how visionary, and perhaps too far ahead of their time, the Californians' music and concept really were, and that this awareness may have bred in them an instinctive distrust of traditional record formats, ill-suited to conveying such an extreme idea. Even taking all these considerations into account, it seems downright surreal that a band with a record-label owner among its members and an established artist as its manager, and one that had won over the enthusiasm of figures such as Joe Carducci (who name-checks them in his essential "Rock and The Pop Narcotic") and Brian Eno (who, it's said, was even interested in producing them), never managed to land a record deal.

The only document ever authorized by the band is a videotape released by Target Video (digitized to DVD in 2004), taken from one of their 1978 shows at the Mabuhay Gardens in San Francisco, paired with the earliest videos shot during that period at the production company's studios: the latter are especially memorable, with the frontman's silhouette against a desaturated, monochrome backdrop slowly, eerily coming into focus before he starts pulling faces and dancing. Further filmed material can be found in the 1986 "punk musical" "Population 1", directed by the aforementioned Rene Daalder and starring Tomata, which weaves a deranged sci-fi plot together with performances by various Californian artists (including Penelope Houston, Los Lobos and even a very young Beck). On the audio side, several anthologies are available, none of which ever received official approval: the most comprehensive is "In A Better World", released in 2001 by Xeroid, which gathers most of the demos, four live shows and a brief radio promo across two CDs and 40 tracks.

As already mentioned, the Screamers' instrumental setup did away entirely with guitar and bass, handing the harmonic parts over to two keyboards, occasionally joined by a violin and a female voice: despite this unconventional lineup, their songs were as simple and powerful as the wildest punk anthems, folding in kraut and space-rock touches into their more extended set-piece numbers. True to synthpunk form, they never used a drum machine, always relying on an acoustic kit, albeit played in a very minimal, repetitive fashion.

It's hard to single out one track that stands above the rest in a songbook so slim yet so consistently high in quality. Their most celebrated anthem is undoubtedly "122 Hours Of Fear", inspired by the hijacking of Lufthansa Flight 181 carried out in 1977 by a Palestinian commando demanding the release of RAF leaders, a key episode of the German Autumn: the tense electric piano intro worthy of a John Carpenter soundtrack, the overwhelming eruption of the other instruments whipped on by the organ hook, the lyrics babbled out in psychotic fashion ("Be quiet or be killed!") and those anxiety-inducing ten seconds of silence, as eloquent as a freeze-frame, make it an ideal summary of Tomata's worldview. In 2018 it was covered with just the right amount of viciousness by Cleveland's "hi-fi organ punk" duo Archie and the Bunkers, the rightful heirs to the Screamers. Equally effective is "Vertigo", a concentrate of neurosis and a merciless portrait of the alienated condition of homo capitalisticus.

Other unmissable moments include the blood-thirsty march of "I Wanna Hurt", the schizophrenic fits of "Punished Or Be Damned", the dystopian nightmare of "I'm A Mensh" and the piercing bullet of "It's A Violent World", titles that act as unequivocal calling cards for their spasmodic sadomasochism. But the most incredible creation of all is perhaps "Eva Braun", a tormenting quarter of an hour of anguish and delirium, guaranteed to keep you up at night. Their repertoire also includes two covers drawn from almost irreconcilable worlds: "Sexboy" by fellow Angelenos the Germs and "The Beat Goes On" by Sonny & Cher, an ironic nod to their own relentless sense of rhythm.

The regret of never being able to hear these masterpieces in a sound quality that would have done justice to their depth is redeemed by the eternal charm of lo-fi, which turns every note into part of a highly dangerous subversive program, banned by an obtuse and unjust System.

The legacy

Besides having effectively coined the synthpunk language, the explosive recipe devised by our heroes was fundamental to the evolution of genres such as dance-rock, synth-pop, industrial, EBM and Neue Deutsche Welle (with particular reference to DAF), while their violent approach pushed well beyond the boundaries of punk-rock itself. Their lyrics too, made up mostly of short, sharp phrases repeated obsessively, set a precedent. The Screamers' clothing, graphics and even their logo were plundered wholesale by new wave aesthetics. Tomata's spastic movements, drawn from cabaret and honed to the millimetre through years of theatre, mime and avant-garde training, may in turn have influenced the epileptic dancing of Ian Curtis. Through his uninhibited play with cross-dressing and sexual ambiguity, Tomata also helped introduce elements of queer/transgender culture into rock music.

While the merits listed above are beyond dispute, his greatest legacy remains his contribution to multimedia theory: Tomata was among the first to grasp the enormous potential that moving images held for music, foreshadowing the birth of MTV and the explosion of the music video. Curiously, the era best suited to spreading his art is the one we're living in right now, with new media like YouTube pairing images and sound into a powerful, all-encompassing tool, perhaps not so far removed from the science-fiction vision of this dazzling pioneer. Few groups have managed to be at once so simple and so complex. The Screamers' influence is still tangible today, even in our own country: take, for example, the Roman duo Holiday INN, whose aggressively vintage electronics bear the acidic imprint of the inimitable Tomata.

I ask myself, ‘is it possible to be all things to all people?’ Yes. It is my fate to assimilate the inner turmoil of others. I am a human illustration of struggle, anxiety and fear.

(Tomata du Plenty interviewed by "Slash Magazine", 1978)

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