Eater - All of Eater

Eater started when a couple of 15 year old North London kids - Andy Blde (vocals) and Brian Chevette (guitar) - decided to form a band (named after an obscure Marc Bolan lyric) by simply telling people that they had a band! Eventually they decided that maybe they should actually play a show or two and enticed Ian Woodcock (bass) and Dee Generate (and later Philip Rowlans on drums) to join in. A year and a half later, it was all over in a blur, but they put out several records, caused a bit of mayhem and had a lot of fun. This is a 28 cut collection, apparently, truly, all of Eater.

Ian was the only one who knew how to play when they started and he does his best to add a bit more musicality to the mix with fast moving bass runs moving throughout the numbers. The songs are super-short, fast-paced, simple-but-catchy 70's punk - not genius but about average and better than most of the crap that's around today. They threw in some covers, too, like a high-speed take on "Sweet Jane", Alice Cooper's "Eighteen" done as "Fifteen" and stripped down beyond minimalism, but very hip, Bowie's "Queen Bitch" (relentless!), the Velvets' "Waiting For the Man", also stripped to bare bones and sped up and T.Rex's "Jeepster" as "Jeep Star", oddly with almost no guitar in the mix.

Their first single was a couple of their catchiest numbers, "Outside View" and "Thinking of the U.S.A." - both sing-along tunes that move'n'groove and have some pretty neat changes. Although these tunes appear late in the CD running order, the ones that follow sound a bit more mature (there's even basic guitar solos!) so I surmise that they are later recordings, but that's only a guess.

Fun stuff for lovers of 70's British punk rock'n'roll. Sure, they're not the best of the batch, but they're pretty darn cool, regardless!