Solid Little Rock Jams

The Screamers - Demos 1977-78

I am reviewing a band that doesn't even really exist in our internet age. They never recorded an album. We don't really have scenes anymore, we have movements. We have dudes from New York aping dudes from Britain. Music has become this big homogenous evolving creature I think, ever since the advent of the internet. I'm not really sure how many people are behind me, but it seems like back in the day, a band like The Screamers might have gained a lot more notoriety around the country for being a phenomenal band because we could transfer music around like a mere snap of a finger! It didn't happen though. The Screamers were L.A's baby, rather than it's gift to the world. You can't trade what we see with our eyes all that well yet, just our ears. Bootlegging video is still sort of awkward with our primitive internet connections, and is not very practical. Therefore, the visceral experience of a Screamers show would have been lost on a midwestern, uncultured schlub like me.

Around this time in the 1970s I would probably be jerking off to David Bowie records and purchasing tickets to that Led Zeppelin tour that never happened because John "lard ass" Bonham(who reportedly became so obese he would swallow his drumset after shows in storage rather than have his roadies take it down, and then vomit it profusely when necessary to perform.) happened to be a train wreck of a human garbage disposal. Yet, there was tons of exciting music out there that was lost on people who weren't "down" or "hip with it." Nowadays, any bro can just log onto the internet, click on Pitchfork and start jamming to some supposed hipster indie rock. I think it's all sort of bullshit, really. However, this begs the question. Is it better for music to be widely available by just a click of a mouse, or should we be hearkening back to the old days when great music was sometimes forever lost or buried through the annals of rock n' roll history? The question when posed in this form is obviously a very, very obvious one. I love being able to catch on all sorts of bullshit I missed out on because I was just a sperm in my dads sack, but music has sort of lost that familarity and coziness to it, that feeling of ultra-hipsterdom that I'll never know.

Rating: This is really sick, early punk rock. It's got new wave influences and the like, some of the coolest songs are the keyboard heavy ones. Everything is still really raw and unfinished, like a punk rock record should sound, anyway. A lost classic that was never recorded. I'm fortunate to hear it.

Download: http://www.sendspace.com/file/mjx643