field trip investigation

Well I chose to investigate the pile that was found in the second department of the art gallery. The pile consisted of blank records, a record player and a sign that reads “screamers crash and burn demo”. My first thought was the screamers were an underground cult band from the 70’s, and the blank records represented how they were overshadowed by more mainstream band such as led zeppelin, queen and Aerosmith. However after doing more research I have discovered more about the pile.

 

Apparently the screamers were an L.A punk rock band that began incorporating electrical pianos and synthesisers rather than the popular usages of guitar and bass guitar. They are considered to be the first “technopunk” band and are consider as one of the greatest non-recording bands around in the underground world. I used the term non-recording because they have never actually released an album or a single, however there is a rare demo tape called crash and burn.

 

With the help of Craig Leonard and his blog I have discovered that the centre for experimental arts and communication hosted an event called “crash and burned” in 1977 an event that featured the screamers. Apparently there are demo tapes and picture that detailed the event, but are incredible rare to find. I have also discovered that has a thank you to the band Craig Leonard had made a dub plate out of there demo recordings and then into a vinyl record, which was given to them as a gift. I think craig leonard did this because he wanted the band to have their first record

 

The following picture is of the dub record found in the gallery

 

 

http://giftforthescreamers.blogspot.com/search/label/demos

  and this picture is the dub record craig leonard made

 

I went to youtube to see if I could find the demos, and found out that even though they did not make any albums or singles, they do have music videos. According to the comments on the video the screamers were more of video art project which explains the existences of the music videos but not recorded material. When reading the description of the video it turns out that the studio in which they recorded the video is unknown. That is until I noticed it looked a lot like the art gallery.

 

Though people don’t know much of the screamers they do know that they have been inactive since 1981. So is it possible that the pile is more of a tomb or tribute to the screamers who once played in the gallery.  

Video for the screamers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHJO3h4gSnk

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~ by sivaram on March 6, 2009.