Supposedly, Jello Biafra once praised the Screamers as "the greatest band never signed," and after viewing the +Live 1978 in San Francisco DVD, he may have a point. As part of the first wave of punk bands to emerge from California during the late '70s, the group was not your typical punk outfit. With just about every punk band still leaning heavily on buzzing guitars to get its point across, the Screamers ditched six strings all together, as their sound centered around organ processed through a distortion pedal, as well as ultracharismatic frontman Tomata du Plenty. Since they never issued an album during their heyday, all that's left is a 40-minute long video from September of 1978 -- originally released as part of the Target Video series, it has now been reissued as a DVD for the first time. Luckily, the sound is surprisingly good, and the performance is everything you'd expect it to be. In fact, it doesn't take long to see that the Dead Kennedys obviously "studied" the Screamers musically (as evidenced by such standouts as Vertigo and Punish or Be Damned), while du Plenty's stage presence is quite comparable to Biafra's. If the main attraction wasn't enough, the DVD also comes with five additional performances, taped live in Target's studio, as well as sneak peaks into other shows that Target taped during the early-to-mid-'80s (you can only hope that the short clips of X, Talking Heads, Flipper, Bad Brains, Devo, and the Ramones eventually find their way onto their own full-length DVDs, as well). A must-see DVD for fans of first-wave punk. ~ Greg Prato, Rovi

1		122 Hours of Fear
2		Vertigo
3		Last 4 Digits
4		Magazine Love
5		Beat Goes On
6		Punish or Be Damned
7		In a Better World

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