Scream - @The Echo, Los Angeles, CA 02/28/10

Tonight in Los Angeles was a reunion show I half stumbled upon a couple of weeks ago. I saw “Scream” and just assumed it was some stupid LA hard rock band. Once I finally looked at it I realized it was the same band I knew and loved since I was 14 years old. Awesome news.



When I got into hardcore, most of it was pretty straight forward, loud, fast, screaming dudes…at least the stuff I liked. Scream’s debut, Still Screaming, is probably my favorite hardcore/punk/whatever album of all time, or at least in the top three. The album came out on Dischord and it was actually the first “album”, or full length, as Dischord was putting out mostly EP’s and singles. Filled with ultra fast speed at some points, catchy as hell melodies, acoustic guitars (!), reggae, funk and straight ahead rock, and of course Pete Stahl. Something about his voice, it fits perfect with this music and, once you see him perform you realize how much soul he has. I always kind of thought of him as a Tom Waits type of guy, he has that kind of vibe.



When I was sixteen years old and doing my hardcore fanzine in Boston, Scream came to town and played with UK’s The Subhumans at the Paradise on Commonwealth Ave, which is where a number of great shows had been taking place that year. It would be my first time seeing either band, both favorites of mine at the time, and to this day. They both were completely amazing, especially Scream who were just merciless, song after song of their high energy rock, and the manic Peter Stahl stalking the stage, flailing around and putting every ounce of soul he had into the performance. Before the show I approached him and asked if I could interview him, he obliged and we met up after the show and he spent an hour or so with me talking about whatever I asked him. He was generally nice and down to earth and I thought to myself how your musical idols can sometimes be cool guys, you didn’t have to be scared that they would let you down.



A few years later, my hardcore band opened for them at TT the Bear’s in Cambridge, along with the underrated Kingface. The club was sold out, and Scream were now bolstered by another guitar player and a new drummer, a young kid around my age, Dave Grohl. At the end of the night, we were in the backstage area and Peter, who had remembered me from a couple years previous and drummer Dave talking. They asked us how much money the club had paid us, we told them we got out measly $25. Both of them thought this was shitty, and took $75 of their money and gave it to us. This was one of the coolest moments I remember from being in that band, and was the epitome of how that scene worked at the time.



That would be the last time I saw Scream. Years later Pete Stahl and his brother Franz (who also played in Scream) would come out with a new band called Wool, a great rock band from the LA area. I saw them one time in Boston with the Melvins, and approached Peter who again remembered me from years previous. That band broke up and Pete moved on to doom/stoner band Goatsnake. He can also be “heard” singing backup vocals on “The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret” by Queens of the Stone Age, who
I think he managed or worked in some capacity for.



So after reading that tonight’s show would be the original lineup I was pretty psyched. Although I originally read bass player Skeeter Thompson would not be there, he was in the lineup along with Franz Stahl on guitar and Kent Stax on drums. One thing I will miss about Los Angeles shows is that people really do get into the music out here. I was pleasantly surprised at this…maybe because of the types of shows I go to, I rarely see what we sometimes call “hipsters” back east. Growing up around the hardcore scene in Boston, every weekend when you went to these shows you would sometimes see musicians from your favorite bands mingling around, contemporaries of you and your friends. Bands would come to town and that same vibe would be there. There was no real “vibe” about anyone really aside from maybe the real big ones like Rollins, Danzig and Jello. Most of the time they were just normal dudes who you didn’t feel like you couldn’t approach. Tonight I got there right before the first band played and who do I see come out of the back area but Dave Grohl. A few minutes later I see Buzz Osbourne from the Melvins come in, he is standing near me with that hairdo of his, he is shorter than I remember him being. A little while later I spot Pat Smear, Dale Crover from the Melvins and Shrinebuilder. Scott Kelley from Neurosis and Shrinebuilder is also there. Shrinebuilder are here this week so I assume that’s why the two of them are in town. I also see Brant Bjork from Kyuss/Fu Manchu. I guess being in LA this is the kind of thing you see all the time, but obviously in the context of this scene it’s awesome, not like seeing like Jay-Z at a Lady Gaga show hanging out behind a roped off area. All of those musicians are huge in my world, guys who have created songs I have listened to hundreds of times throughout my life. So I was a little star struck, but not enough where I approached any of them. I mean how often do you get to look to your left and see four people talking to each other who wrote or played on Nirvana – Nevermind, Melvins – Houdini and Neurosis – Times of Grace...and then near them a guy from the Germs. Never!



Once the band came out I made my way to the side of the stage so I could take some pictures. The band was as tight as they were when I saw them over twenty years ago. The energy in the place was intense and I forgot how great of a front man Peter Stahl really is. I got some good shots of him, but he was hard to get since he moves around so much. They played just about all of that first record, some from the second album and a few new songs.



On my way out, it could have just been my senses being overloaded, but I swore I saw actor Gary Cole, who played Bill Lumberg in Office Space and Mr Brady in the Brady Bunch movies but I could be wrong. That would have pushed the night over the edge if so, but it was good enough up to there anyway.

Who's this dude?