For today’s video, we’ll proceed a little further down the LA punk thread started with yesterday’s Black Flag clip from The Decline of Western Civilization.

The Screamers were an intimidating, guitar-less phenomenon on the city’s scene between 1977 and 1981. Their nervy synth-punk sound and innovative live performances, which integrated video and stage props into a compelling visual spectacle, won them a massive local following and gigs at high-profile LA venues like the Roxy and the Whisky, but for reasons still unknown, they never released an actual record.

Here’s the Screamers performing “122 Hours of Fear” in a clip from their one readily available release, Live in San Francisco: September 2, 1978, issued by Target Video. The moment where frontman Tomata du Plenty pauses and sinks to the floor before standing up again to yell, “YOU BETTER SHUT UP AND LISTEN!” is pretty extraordinary.

Read more and watch another excellent Screamers clip after the jump…

Du Plenty, who’d been active on the art and music scenes of San Francisco, Seattle, and New York City prior to locating to Los Angeles, started the Screamers with Melba Toast, with whom he played in a band called the Tupperwares in Seattle. They started the Screamers after moving to LA, Toast changing his name to Tommy Gear and playing an ARP Odyssey synthesizer, with the band being fleshed out by David Brown on Fender Rhodes (he was replaced by Jeff McGreggor, who was replaced with Paul Roessler shortly after that) and drummer K.K. Barrett.

Between the DVD and YouTube, there are several spellbinding clips through which one can enjoy their sounds today. Here’s another clip of the Screamers, taken from a UCLA performance, of the song “Eva Braun.” This video gives a better, if blurry, presentation of the unusual visuals they were employing in their live gigs.