Art 4 Punks!: Screamers - Demo 77' 12"...

this post falls into a slightly new catagory for this blog... in the 3 years that i have been posting here as Art 4 Punks, i have purposely avoided posting reissues in an effort to keep the conversation focused on current bands involved in the DIY punk and hardcore scene. i mean, reissues are great... i love them and buy them often! however, from the perspective of this blog, i feel they act as somewhat of a distraction from what is happening as a collective art expression within DIY.

all that said, i'm gonna go ahead and throw it all out the window and post up this rad SCREAMERS Demo 77' 12inch i came across the other day at the record store! L.A. based Screamers were a short-lived and largely influential "first wave" punk band that (rather tragically) never released a single official recording before breaking up. many collections of practice tapes and piss-poor live recording have been bootlegged and circulated over the years, as well as a few "complete discography" cds that were authorized by the band. this release definitely falls to the "unofficial" side of things, but it's got a lot of really great attributes going on in the art and packaging realm....

these covers are hand screen printed with red ink on a natural uncoated professionally manufactured 12" cover. i've seen these covers used before, but never with such a quality screen printing job! the trouble with these covers is that they come pre-folded and glued, so from a printing standpoint, it's a less than ideal printing surface since they don't lay flat due to the jacket spine...

the back covers were screened with the same color red ink and then also hand stamped in the bottom left corner with "second edition LTD. 500 copies. play loud" in black ink. i love this photo of them on the couch, i don't think i've ever seen it used before too which is always worthy of extra points...