About Me
Scream began in the winter of 1985 as a dance club on Monday nights at the Seven Seas Nightclub across from the famed Chinese Theater on Hollywood Blvd. After a few months of packed Mondays, the promoters Michael Stewart, Bruce Pedrew, and booker Dayle Gloria decided to unleash the club as a huge Friday night that would feature both a dance club and a live band room. This first Friday night featured Janes Addiction as headliners at a beat-up downtown theater where the club lasted just one week.
The second Friday night the club moved downtown to the basement of the Embassy Hotel. From the summer of 86 through the spring of 87, I and many others spent a million late night hours at this cavern of rock and debauchery. During those months, The Scream built a reputation for booking great bills. The club grew and drew the oddities from every scene. You'd see glammed model type girls dancing to the Lime Spiders' Slave Girl in one corner and mohawked punks sneaking drinks from a pint of Wild Turkey in the other. You'd see Andy Warhol upstairs in the dance room snapping pictures, while the members of Sigue Sigue Sputnik were downstairs trying to scam free drinks, while New York Doll Arthur Kane milled about with members of L.A. Guns. It was during the Embassy days that Janes Addiction were coined as the House band."With its growing popularity Scream began drawing an abundance of "Curiosity seekers" it was often fun to see them told that the club was members only as they were charged 20 bucks to get in, when regulars were only charged 5 bucks.
In the spring of 1987, the club moved its weekend location down the the Park View Plaza Hotel. The upstairs ballroom there, with its full concert size stage, would be the Screams home for the next 2 years. Less than 3 months after moving to the Park View, the Cult played the final show of their Electric tour as a surprise gig at the Scream. Over the next 2 years, bands as varied as Kix, Ministry, Iggy Pop, LA Guns, Soul Asylum, Faster Pussycat, Death Angel, Revolting Cocks, Balaam & the Angel, TSOL, Redd Kross, Lords of the New Church, Soundgarden, and others played their major L.A. shows in the ballroom. Countless bands probably first were sighted by record labels on the stage, and Guns 'N Roses used the building to film the live footage for their Welcome To The Jungle video.
By the end of 89, the Scream itself was history.
-Trashy Anderson
