* Tomata du Plenty; Lead Singer of the Screamers

Tomata du Plenty, 52, whose contorted face and high-spiked hair were an emblem of Los Angeles punk rock in the late 1970s. Du Plenty was the lead singer of the Screamers, widely regarded as the most popular Los Angeles club band of the time, even though it never released a record. The band was ahead of its time in its synthesizer-based sound and its early use of video and film. Artist Gary Panter’s caricature of Du Plenty became one of the most recognizable symbols of the era. Du Plenty, whose real name was David Xavier Harrigan, was born in Coney Island, N.Y., and moved as a child to Montebello. After working in theater troupes in San Francisco and Seattle, he returned to Los Angeles in 1977 with Tommy Gear, his partner in a vocal group called the Tupperwares, and formed the Screamers with Gear, David Brown and KK Barrett. The band’s aggressive, theatrical productions packed such clubs as the Whisky and the Roxy. After the band broke up in 1981, Du Plenty--whose stage name was a play on “do plenty”--became a self-taught artist, often painting series of such heroes as Elvis Presley and Lucille Ball. Living in New Orleans, he would pack suitcases with his works and travel to various cities, exhibiting in galleries, bars, restaurants and even Laundromats. Last March a San Francisco cafe presented his “Black Leather Kerouac” paintings, throwing a reception that featured his punk peers Penelope Houston and Jello Biafra. On Monday in San Francisco of cancer.