Tomata du Plenty and David Lee Roth

As you would expect in David Lee Roth’s Crazy From the Heat (1997 ed.), there are not many references to punk, though in an amusing conflation he oddly and belatedly hands the year 1978 over to Van Halen, the Sex Pistols and the Bee Gees. All three get a passing nod. There is also a passing reference to Henry Rollins and to LA scenester Tequila Mockingbird. I know that Pleasant has thought that David Lee Roth was an investor in the Zero Zero gallery as you can read here. There are also references to the club in the excellent Peter Ivers bio In Heaven Everything is Fine. In Crazy From the Heat, Roth confirms that he was in fact a partner, and was where he had his initial meeting with Steve Vai “actually after a police raid at the local Zero One Gallery, an after hours spot where I was a partner. We got busted every three months: there is supposedly no after-hours in L.A.” Arguably the better anecdote and one that has only somewhat recently been brought to my attention is that DLR and Tomata du Plenty knew each other and that the Zero Zero was the common denominator.

L.A. Scene Report: November 1977/"Three Bands Stand Out. The Weirdos, Backstage Pass and the Screamers"/Nickey Beat Has "Movie Star Potential"

In an alternative universe, the Weirdos' lp from 1977-1978 (that they never got the chance to make) would make the all time top ten list. More importantly, how could two of the world's greatest bands of 1977 - the Weirdos and the Screamers - not record a single lp ("Condor" excluded)? Maybe the Weirdos were too picky for an lp deal or maybe Sire could have invested something in LA. Was Lou Adler sitting on the great LA punk live lp from the rejects of the "Up In Smoke" sessions? Was Crime courted by the major labels up in SF? After the success of the Runaways, why not Backstage Pass, perhaps the most criminally underdocumented of all the early LA punk bands?? As a teenager, I was able to find domestic cutouts of "Radios Appear" and "(I'm) Stranded." Why couldn't a teenager in Brisbane, Melbourne or Sydney find a cutout of the Screamers lp, one of the greatest major label underground lps of the 1970's outside of the Hampton Grease Band. It simply was not meant to be. Continuing a Screamers theme, some scans from the archive from my favourite US/FR zine, IWBYD:

1977's Answer to the Four Preps

The long gone innocent days of the American, male harmony vocal trios and quartets. The Four Preps, the Lettermen and the Beach Boys front line of Wilson, Wilson, Love and Jardine. Inspired by Pleasant Gehman's recent post on the Screamers, as well as Alice Bag's upcoming local reading, I dug this one out of Hoffman, Denney, Pyn and Du Plenty. Kristian has posted another photo from the same event by Douglas Cavanaugh here, but this one is by the late, great Herb of the Screamers fan club published in Seattle in 1978. Back-up to Black Randy at the Masque in 1977.