John Skipp & Craig Spector - The Scream

[dem bones]

John Skipp & Craig Spector - The Scream (Bantam, 1988)

Stan Watts

Blurb:

It emerged from a war-torn jungle, where insanity was just another word for survival, and death was the easy way out.

It came to America with a dream of power, an army of believers, and the will to make it happen.

Tonight you will hear it.
Tonight you will understand.
THE SCREAM

It is the sound at the heart of the nightmare.

Skipp & Spector's helpful contribution to the Moral Majority & friends' campaign versus 'Satanic' Rock Music (and Boy George)! Been meaning to take the plunge withe The Scream for a-g-e-s but was put off by the hefty page count (420). Anyway, i wanted to mark Michael Jackson's death by taking in some vaguely appropriate reading matter, and, seeing as Scream is the only record of his i actually love, plus he copped plenty of flack from the Tipper Gore brigade for the Thriller video, making a start on The Scream suggested itself as a neat idea because there's a nice symmetry to the whole thing!

Three chapters in and it's very clear that 420 pages is not going to present an insurmountable problem as the Skipp & Spector approach is to hit the ground running and put on a sprint. We begin with a massacre at a post-Scream gig party where a bunch of stoned trendies are easy prey for local psycho Perry Dempsey and his new friends. Perry is a very possessive guy and he's out to stab local stud Eddie Hansen for fooling around with "his" girl, Cyndi Wyler. To this end and he's encouraged by a small crew of mysterious Screamers in a bone-white Cadillac (the band themselves, if i'm not mistaken) who pick him up and help him exact revenge in a very Manson family fashion. Cyndi, the party hostess, genuinely doesn't realise she's Perry's girl, but, like i said, he's not entirely the full ticket and is soon leading the charge on the party-goers who are systematically butchered against a backdrop of the Scream's nasty album track The Critical Mass. By now, Perry is presumably over his crush on Cyndi as, while his fellow fiends hold her down, he sets about parting his babe from some items she "won't be needing any more" ...

Now we cut live to The Dick Moynihan Show where six guests are debating the 'Is Rock Music responsible for everything wrong with America today?' issue before an increasingly agitated studio audience. For the prosecution, Pastor Daniel Furniss, Evangelist and founder of the Liberty Christian Village (record, book & video burning a speciality: The Big Blaze For Jesus); Joel Wenker, author of The Knock Rock Handbook and Esther Shrake, the token joyless old Doris, married to a congressman and co-founder of Morality Over Music. And who is to defend us versus these spokespersons for God's will? Jerry Crane, greedy rock promoter. Yke Dykeburn, outrageous front-man of the Slabs. And Jacob Hamer, leader of the Jacob Hamer Band who are currently arranging a Rock Aid festival in self-defence against the increasingly powerful pro-censorship lobbyists on the far right. Jake, 33, ain't your average rock star - for starters, his country awarded him a Purple Heart and a certificate of valor for his exploits during the last days of the 'Nam conflict - and the incendiary video for latest hit TV Ministries has endeared him to the Pastor and his pals not one iota. His open mockery of Furniss on the show ensures the Christians step up their campaign against Rock Aid.

And what of the Scream? We've only met them very briefly so far and that in flashback, but they're a hot post-metal cyber-thrasher outfit fronted by the gorgeous Tara Payne and, because i just read an interview with the authors in an old issue of Fear, i can tell you they take their Satanic rock band status very literally - they sacrifice groupies to a Demon (which leads me to suspect their hands-on involvement in the bloodbath at Cyndi's party).

Fifty pages down and it's all looking very promising ....

[David A. Riley]

This is the only Skipp and Spector book I've ever read. I don't know why, since I enjoyed every page of it when I first read it quite some time ago. Certainly far from too long at 420 pages. I think this is one of the fastest paced books I have ever read.

John Skipp is a fairly regular contributor to the Shocklines forum, with always something worthwhile to say.

David

[lordfroggy]

I'm a huge fan of Skipp & Spector's works including their solo offerings... both authors have a musical background, which I think is reflected in their writings.

Their eco-horror novel The Bridge was one of my favorites back in the day.

Recently, Skipp has teamed up with a new author named Cody Goodfellow, who has a couple of genre bending novels out that are incredibly detailed.

Craig has written a couple of novels, adapted a graphic novel based on an idea that Whitley Strieber felt he could not write (I think) and has been recording music with fellow writers Richard Christian Matheson and Preston Sturgess, Jnr under the name SmashCut.

A couple of years ago, I almost got the band to attend FantasyCon, but there was simply not enough funds in the coffers.

[dem bones]

EEYAAOW!

Totally beyond me to 'review' this or even give a semi-coherent synopsis, so some mindless rambling will have to do.

Just over a hundred pages to go and, perhaps i'm losing it entirely, but i can't help thinking The Scream is the kind of all-out horror shocker M. G. Lewis would have written if he'd been born two centuries later. Another name: Dennis Wheatley. This is very much in the tradition of his no nonsense Good versus Evil novels, although he'd doubtless splutter on his Hoyo de Monterrey at the very suggestion.

Be that as it may, biggest compliment i can pay the novel is i don't want it to be over. I particularly like that, up until the Rock Aid festival at the JFK stadium, Skipp 'n Spec keep the Scream on the periphery. We know they're around, but when we're not following the soap opera of Jake and his (fast unravelling) band, we're catching up on the often unsavoury antics of the self-appointed Guardians of Public Morals. Of course, the carnage at Cyndi's party told us from the start that Scream are BAD NEWS, and we pick up more tit-bits along the way. It takes plenty to unnerve Yke of the Slabs who has seen a bit in his time, but touring with the Scream is not an experience he's in any hurry to repeat. "They honestly do scare me .... I don't trust them at all. They're like the Khmer Rouge of rock and roll." Every once in a while, that bone white Cadillac will pull up in some out of the way hellhole to give an unlucky punter a terrible time of it, but it's only when they take the Stage in Philadelphia that they become the centre of attention, Tara, Rod Royale (guitar) and Alex his blind, keyboard genius brother (in cahoots with the Screamers) deliberately instigating Jacob Hamer's personal Altamont as a sacrifice to the Demon. Remember the football riot in James Herbert's The Dark? I'd have to say of the two Skipp & Spector's rock festival is more horrible/ terrifying/ convincing in every department.

Something else: S & S are very funny (unless you happen to be an Evangelist). Obviously, it's a toss up between the Christian fund-raisers - misanthropic pro-lifer alliance and the Scream and their decomposing fans as to who is the most 'evil', but it's Pastor Furniss (sexual pervert) and his creeps who get the piss taken out of 'em at every opportunity. By contrast Jake and his crew are dirty Saint's among us (because they are us) so no confusion as to who (you're supposed) to root for.

Jun 27, 2009 20:00:20 GMT lordfroggy said:

I'm a huge fan of Skipp & Spector's works including their solo offerings... both authors have a musical background, which I think is reflected in their writings.

One thing that surprised me was how conservative is their line-up for their fantasy festival. The Dead Kennedy's and Madonna are name-checked (but neither appear on the bill) and, give or take the invented bands, the only really 'controversial' presence is Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Prevention. Otherwise it's all comfy: Genesis, U2, Iron Maiden, Peter Gabriel, Pat Benatar, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Mr. Mister, Amy Grant, Pretenders, AC/DC, Bowie ....

David, agree with you that it belts along. I know you were very disappointed with Stephen King's The Cell but the only novel i've read that burns quite like this of late is - i kid you not - his 'Richard Bachman' outing The Running Man (forget the film[/i]. It's non-stop!