Eater – Outside View // You (The Label) 1977. I first heard Eater on the much loved Burning Ambitions compilation with their track Lock It Up, which was also their first single. I would have featured it instead but the B-Side is a terrible Marc Bolan cover. This one is more consistent. The story on Eater is that they were really, really young kids when they recorded this stuff. The drummer, Dee Generate, was only 14. They made some press back then by saying in their first interview that they thought Johnny Rotten was “too old”, which is pretty damn funny when you think of it. Shades of Max Frost? Their sound as you will hear is kinda cool. They definitely were a rock-n-roll band (they wore their glam influences on their sleeves) but they had a youthful energy which today makes the stuff almost sound bubble-gum or something, which is also kinda funny when you consider they used to throw pigs heads from the stage and had a song called Get Raped. So clearly they were the world’s first pigfuck-bubble-gum© band. All of their stuff including this great 45 is currently available on the amazingly great The Compleat Eater.
Hardcore Podcasts
September of 2010 I put together eight Hardcore Podcasts. You can check them out here if you are interested. For more insight into how I came up with the years 78-90 for the First Wave you can read about The Hardcore Superiorty Myth.
They did the fastest version of ‘Queen Bitch’ I’ve ever heard…
hi joe!
oh lord, eater brings me very nice memories
the very first punk vinyl i ever got was the live at the roxy lp. and you know, there was “don’t need it” song on it. of course, don’t need to say it was a total masterpiece and even today everytime i listen to this song it makes me go totally nuts!!!
very best wishes,
edu
Great, raw, and still with one foot in pub-rock. Nice Steve Jones-style phaser on the A-side too! BTW, wasn’t this their first single? I’ve read somewhere it took Label-boss Dave Goodman more than 6 months to put this out, which would mean this was recorded around autumn ’76!
I like their 2nd 45 “Thinking about the USA” a lot as well, great bass guitar.
Anyway, keep it up!
where did you hear about them throwing pig heads thats crazy was it more than once or a one time deal maybe goat throwing metal bands were influenced by htem to
anyway i love eater
thanks for the great blog
Hey Ray SS — you can actually see it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Slv-LxSNcnA
Pigs head at 3:03. It was a one time deal, I think.
I LOVE Eater! That “HISTORY OF…” LP was a godsend in the days before everything was reissued on CD. The bonus 7″ included was pretty good too, if memory serves me correct!
One minor correction – THIS is their first 7″, not Lock It Up!