Garbage Days Revisited #81: Eater - "Ant" (1977/2022)

 

"Oh well, here I go again/Nothing to give and nothing to gain..." - Eater - Outside View

The general consensus when punks talk about Eater is that they were a band who had plenty of energy and enthusiasm but not a whole lot in the way of skill and guile (then again, wasn't that the whole point of punk in the first place?) Formed in the early days of punk by frontman Andy Blade, his brother Social Demise and their schoolfriend Brian Chevette, the novelty of them being such a young band even by punk standards saw them quickly coming to the attention of the press and their debut single Outside View, produced by Pistols associate Dave Goodman, would see them as one of the very first punk bands out of the gate in '77 (Ian Woodcock joining on bass and Dee Generate having replaced Social on drums by this point). They were regulars at the Roxy and, being big Alice Cooper fans (they would frequently perform a speeded-up take on I'm Eighteen renamed Fifteen), were out to shock their audience with Blade playing with knives onstage and drummer Dee frequently chewing fake blood capsules just to give that added shock value.

However, as with a lot of those very early punk bands, Eater would quickly find the wave that carried them forward petering out. Line-up instability would start to take hold with Dee leaving after a gig at the Roxy was smashed up by Millwall fans to be replaced by Phil Rowland (later of Slaughter & The Dogs). While a lot of the bands they shared those early bills at the Roxy with like X-Ray Spex and the Adverts would end up signing to majors, even if it was just briefly, Eater didn't even get that far and would end up joining Goodman's indie label (imaginatively titled The Label) for their sole release, The Eater Album in late '77.

The Eater Album is pretty much what you'd expect a '77 punk album put together by a bunch of 15 year olds to sound like - plenty of energy and aggression which just about overrides the generally quite basic feel of it (which, to be fair, was pretty much the point of the '77 revolution anyway). Along with the Fifteen cover, it sees them also taking on a couple of Velvet Underground standards (Waiting For The Man and Sweet Jane) plus a group of froth-gobbed originals like Lock It Up, You and No Brains. Apart from the decidedly less-than-sensibly named Get Raped, it's simple cut and thrust no nonsense punk rock. Sure, Eater were arguably never gonna last beyond that one album and were on the way out by the time '78 came around (although arguably their best song, the Ramones-meets-T.Rex Thinkin' Of The USA, would come after the album's release) with Chevette following Dee out of the door to be replaced by Gary Steadman. The group managed one more single What She Wants She Needs but as Blade states in his excellent autobiogaphy I Was A Teenage Punk Rocker, by that time the fun had gone out of the band as it had turned from four enthusiastic amateurs to three professional musicians and Andy as the sole remaning enthusiastic amateur. The band would split in late '78 with Rowland moving on to Slaughter & The Dogs and Woodcock going on to briefly join the Vibrators during their lean years (when Knox had left for a solo career leaving drummer Eddie as the only original). Blade meanwhile would attempt to start a band up with former Nosebleeds/Slaughter & The Dogs guitarist Billy Duffy but that would fall through when Duffy joined Theatre of Hate and, from there, would of course go on to the Cult.

And that was that. Blade would go on post-book to launch a solo career including the excellently named Let's Burn The Internet album but 2022 sees Eater's album reissued under its original title Ant (Ant-eater, geddit?) According to Blade, the version of the album that was released was unfinished and hadn't been properly mixed with a lot of the guitar overdubs missing from it but their less-than-honest manager did a runner with it. It was only following the passing of Goodman that a copy of the tapes were found in his attic and the album was able to be properly finished all these years later.

It's quite easy to be cynical about these "remastered" albums where you listen to it and there's hardly any difference to the original version and it just leaves you feeling like a mug for having spent a tenner of your hard-earned on it but Ant is a definite exception to the rule. These new mixes are a world apart from the skeletal mix of The Album and it really makes you wonder if this version of the album had come out whether Eater might have managed to avoid the "one album and done" curse that claimed them and so many of the class of '77. Tunes like Lock It Up, Anne and You sound like they've gone from 2D to 3D here and it genuinely moves them up a level from sounding scruffy and demo-standard to proper old skool power-punk with the gleefully sloppy riffs marking Andy Blade and Brian Chevette out as Finchley's answer to Johnny Thunders and Walter Lure (except with the heroin replaced by the cheapest sulphate they could get their hands on). Lord knows why Goodman didn't think that this version of the album wasn't worth releasing - not '77 enough maybe? I dunno but he definitely made a mistake there - Ant is arguably the legacy that Eater actually deserve finally given to them all these years later.

Blade is currently arranging some gigs to revisit these old Eater songs backed by members of up and coming pop-punks Jo-Jo and the Teeth and for those able to attend, it should be well worth it. In the meantime though, Ant is definitely worth a listen and proves that Eater really were a bit of an unlucky band when it comes to what's comprised their recorded legacy for so many years on this evidence.

You can download Ant from Bandcamp here.