Screaming Urge - s/t LP [Hozac]

“Homework” was an earth-shaker the first time I heard it. Blasting off the sketchy CD-R on the Hyped2Death

volume of Homework Volume 1: American DIY R-T, it defined frantic punked-out power pop from the Midwest.

In such great company on those comps, sometimes the tracks seemed to seep into each other, yet Screaming

Urge seemed to consistently dig itself deeper, standing out and don’t forget, they named their entire SERIES after

that invigorating cut! Columbus, Ohio, in the late 1970s had an incredible cast of characters running around

Mr. Brown’s, Crazy Mama’s and such. Tommy Jay, Mike Rep, Ron House, Jim Shepherd, Nudge, it must have

just been a brown leather fever dream! “Released” on Mike Rep’s New Age label in 1980, the “Homework” single

is pure American DIY punk gold that really checks all the boxes. Overbearing parents, teenage frustration, beer,

everything you’d want in a punchy underground would-be hit. Later the same year they released their powerhouse

debut LP BUY, (aka The Blue Album) on Garner Records, which has sadly been out-of-print for 43 years, until now.

Packaged together with the “Homework” 7” tracks and freshly remastered, this Ohio Punk milestone is finally available again.

Screaming Urge. Archetypal American Punk Rock. Emerge now as the best underground music

you never heard created in their own NOWHERE, their own nu-topic derangement fantasized and

realized in the midwestern police city-state of Columbus, Ohio. Screaming Urge came into being

in 1978 with the self-creation of Michael Ravage. Myke Rock came into being in 1979. Dave Manic

came into being in 1980. They began touring the United States extensively in a black Chevy van

spray painted in white on the sides the same graffiti found around the police city state: Screaming

Urge. They played and in playing helped create the underground venues that sustained the new life

of the new forms of consciousness -a punk national/international cultural matrix of resistance. In 1978,

no club in the city police state permitted musicians to play original music, to write and say original

words. One was required to play the intellectually propertized, corporatized, has nothing-to-do-with-

anything-in-your-life bloated music of the 70s: to perpetuate the authoritarian think-not-for-yourself

consciousness required for the smooth operation of capitalism. It is hard to imagine now just how

shocking it was to want to play your own music live. It is harder to imagine now just how reviled and

despised punk was by mainstream culture, especially in a midwestern city.