The Eat - God Punishes The Eat

A1. Jimmie B Goode


A2. Dr. TV


B1. Silly Drug Song


B2. Nut Cop


B3. Kneecappin'


THE EAT (Miami, FL)
God Punishes The Eat EP
Giggling Hitler (002), 1980

Brothers Mike and Eddie O'Brien migrated to South Florida in 1969 from their native Long Island home. They both played guitar in teenage garage bands. While Eddie leaned more in a country direction and played in bands that covered the likes of the Byrds and Flying Burrito Bros, his younger brother Mike gravitated more towards Sabbath and the glammy sounds of Roxy Music and Bowie.

In 1978, Eddie worked with a guy named Glenn Newland who decided one day he wanted to play in a band. So Eddie taught him how to play bass, while Mike tried his hand at drums, and Eddie stuck to guitar. By this time Mike had successfully turned Eddie on to bands like Cheap Trick and Sparks and they wanted to move in that direction. They brought in a second guitarist named Elio Garcia and began working on new wave covers, though they weren't taking it too seriously. Things began to progress when Chris Cottie joined the band.

Chris had played in a cover band called Helios with Eddie back in '72 before moving to Canada for a while. He returned to South Florida in 1977 and jumped on tour as David Allan Coe's hired drummer. When he was let go due to a broken ankle, he called up Eddie to see if he had anything going on. Informed of this new "punk" band, Chris jumped on board right around the time Elio left. Naturally, Chris took over on drums so Mike could switch back to his more familiar guitar.

Initially called The Fire Ants, they eventually changed their name to The Eat. At the beginning, their set consisted of songs by the Ramones, Clash, Devo, and others in that vein, but they quickly started writing original material so they could phase out the covers. Drawing influences from groups of the 60s while adapting the punk rock attitude, what came out sounded like sped up "psychedelic power pop." Each week Mike and Eddie would bring nearly completed songs to the table and they'd touch them up at rehearsal. Chris wrote a handful of songs as well.

At that time in South Florida, original rock acts were few and far between. The Cichlids, who began with a four girl line-up, were one of the first punk-type bands in the area doing a set of original material along with obscure covers. So in the summer of 1979, the Eat boys approached the manager of the Cichlids and asked if they could open up a show for them.

Soon after, they played their first gigs with the Cichlids but they didn't have any pretty girls in the group or charisma, so they didn't go over well. In the months that followed they developed a stage persona which consisted of them shooting off their mouths while drunk and stirring up emotions, which worked to their favor.

By late 1979, the South Florida punk scene was gaining momentum. Bands like The Reactions, The Essentials, Charlie Pickett & The Eggs, and many others had formed. The Eat were playing shows every couple weeks and drawing crowds as big as 300 people. Whatever money they earned they'd put aside to make a record or to buy silly clothes and stage props. Eddie would often be on stage dressed with a priest's collar, Chris would wear a wrestler's uniform, and the whole band even dressed up as Fidel Castro complete with cigars during a Halloween performance.

In September of 1979, they went to Down South Studios. Chris found a couple audio/video production guys who were supposed to shoot a video for them on a sound stage there. Having excessive money for expensive equipment but not the foresight to learn how to operate it, the video footage the guys took didn't turn out. But the raw audio was captured and used for the band's first 7" release, "Communist Radio."

The single was put out on their own Giggling Hitler imprint in a run of 500 copies. While the majority of the copies were sold for a buck a piece at shows or dropped at local record stores on consignment, the rest of the pressing was thrown off stage to the crowd at a big New Years Eve gig they played at the end of 1979 with the Contortions.

Six months later they bought a 4-track recorder and laid down the basic tracks for their next EP in Eddie's rehearsal space, which they coined Jesus, Mary & Joseph Studios. Unfortunately they didn't have a lot of knowledge of how to mic the instruments and were hoping for a better sound than what they got. So they took the instrumental tracks over to Music Recording Labs where Tony Mancino transferred them to 8-track and used his better microphones to record the vocals.

1,000 copies of God Punishes The Eat were pressed. Walter Cz of the Essentials designed the front cover. They liked the idea of Sgt Peppers and The Who's Live At Leeds, which both included a lot of different inserts. So not only was every copy of GPTE supposed to come with a foldout lyric insert, but they would also randomly shove in other stuff as well (baseball cards, stickers, out of focus snapshots, "The Eat Rebate", etc).

All the guys in the band held day jobs, so they rarely left South Florida for gigs. But near the end of 1980 they toured up the east coast and played shows in Tampa, Raleigh, Atlanta and a few in New York. Shortly after they returned home Glenn announced he would be quitting the band. So they brought in Kenny Lindahl who had previously played in the Eggs with Charlie Pickett. Since he'd played so many shows alongside the Eat, he already knew most of the material. After a few rehearsals, the new line-up played its first gig in July of 1981 at the Polish/American Club.

The band began recording songs with Glenn for a proposed LP before he left the band. With Kenny now on board, they re-recorded some of those songs as well as others. But without the finances to release it, the record sat shelved for a while. By this time, hardcore was coming up and a lot of the original bands from the scene had split. Meanwhile, Eddie was starting to have kids and devoting more of his time to his family. The momentum was lost and the Eat were playing far less frequently and to much smaller crowds.

Finally at the end of 1982, Kenny left the band. Glenn rejoined The Eat and played a few remaining shows into 1983. The last thing they did as a band was take acid and make a video for the song "Open Man" near the end of that year.

After they'd called it quits, Jeterboy Records asked to put out the unreleased recordings. 300 copies of Scattered Wahoo Action were released on cassette. The songs were later released on a 10" by Dutch label Wicked Witch.

Mike went on to play with Morbid Opera for a couple years following the break up of The Eat. He also spent time with the Trash Monkeys before getting back together with Chris Cotte in the Drug Czars in the 90s. In 1995 he played in a Psycho Daisies line-up that included Joey Maya and Johnny Salton of The Reactions.

Eddie had several kids and mostly detached from the music scene, though he did play with Charlie Pickett and Johnny Salton in a 2005 reformed version of The Eggs and has continued to play with Pickett a few times a year.

Chris Cottie, who played the bar circuit for decades also had a masters degree in counseling. He was planning to have bariatric surgery when he suddenly passed away in 2004.

Kenny more or less stopped playing music after the Eat, though he did join up with Mike in a mid-2000's version of the Drug Czars that included Chuck Loose of Chickenhead and the Crumbs taking over the drums after Chris's passing.

The Eat played numerous reunion gigs over the years, one of which resulted in a release of new material by way of the Hialeah 7" in 1995. In 2007, long time fan Jello Biafra approached them about releasing a collection of their material. The 2CD/2LP It's Not The Eat, It's The Humidity is a fantastic testament to the legacy they left behind.

Sadly, Mike O'Brien passed away on July 25, 2013 after battling cancer. Read more here.



























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The Reactions - Love You EP

A1. Nights On End


A2. Marianne


B1. I Can't Help It


B2. Rebel Rousers


THE REACTIONS (Miami, FL)
Love You EP
Reaction Records, 1981

The Reactions existed for just a couple short years but left behind quite a legacy with their two four-song EPs, Official Release and Love You. But those recordings are just a tiny glimpse into how great the band really was.

In 1980, the Reactions won a battle of the bands competition and the prize was four hours of studio time in a local rehearsal space. So they brought along a 4-track recorder and laid down a bunch of material. Their four favorite songs were chosen for release on the their first EP, while the other remaining tracks were forgotten about and the tapes eventually misplaced.

After much digging around, Cheap Rewards Records managed to track down a cassette rendering of that session. 30 years of repeat plays and being stored in harsh climates resulted in significant deterioration of the tape. But it was evident that the songs were top notch and needed to be cleaned up. So the tape was sent off to Dave Eck at Lucky Lacquers for a complete restoration. Dave spent months tweaking every nook, cranny, drop-out and phase issue, while eliminating the ever so bothersome tape hiss.

Dave also mastered the songs from the two EPs and some live tracks recorded in 1980 and '81. The end result is a 17-song collection of Reactions material entitled Saturday's Gone Wild. The band-sanctioned LP will be released in December, 2011 as the debut for Cheap Rewards Records.

The X-Conz - Do Dead People Tan?

A1. Do Dead People Tan


A2. (She's My) Hosebag


B1. A.R.M.Y. Now


B2. Big-Mouthed Girls


X-CONZ (Miramar, FL)
Do Dead People Tan EP
Edge (ER5831), 1981

Yves Bouhadana (lead guitar), Lenny Boguslaw (bass), and Rob Elba (lead vocals, rhythm guitar) formed a band called Karnal Knowledge in their junior year at Miramar High School but soon changed their name to The X-Conz. They played some high school shows and parties with Louie Avila on drums, but his mother wouldn't let him play gigs in bars and clubs. So Glenn Wexo took his place, and although he was a year younger, his mom was OK with him playing in those venues.

While most of the clubs in South Florida catered to cover bands in the late 70s (it was the only way to make a buck as a musician at the time), a new scene was blossoming with bands playing fresh, original material. The X-Conz did try their hand at playing cover material, but quickly realized they weren't cut out for it. So they gigged as much as they could with their self penned songs, often playing 2-3 shows a month. Before long, they found themselves sharing the stage with such legendary Florida acts as The Front, Charlie Pickett, The Essentials, and others.

The band went into Cutting Edge studios in Miramar and laid down six tracks. Four of them appeared on the bands' self released EP which was pressed in an edition of 500 copies. The songs are all fun, catchy punk tunes. Though they tried pushing the record in local stores and even made special display cases, most of the copies were eventually given away.

Things started coming to an end after Yves went away to college. They replaced him with another high school friend named Joe Horvath for a few shows before calling it quits. Their final gig was at a short lived club called Blitz in Hialeah. Though the band had retired their song "Do Dead People Tan" about a year earlier, they closed their last show with it.

"Do Dead People Tan" was featured on Powerpearls Volume 4.

The Reactions - Official Release EP

A1. Tonight


A2. Marianne


B1. In Society


B2. It's Our Turn Now


THE REACTIONS (Miami, FL)
Official Release EP
Reaction Records, 1980

Isaac Baruch started the Reactions as a five-piece with neighborhood friends Tony Supa on vocals, Liz Rothfield on guitar, Jeffrey Pollock on bass, and John Morrow on drums. Isaac played guitar and wrote the music and melodies to the lyrics Tony would bring him. After a while of jamming together and learning to play their instruments (and with a couple shows under their belt playing mostly Cheap Trick and Dave Clark Five covers), Tony felt they could do better. So they went about finding more accomplished musicians.

A short-lived drummer came into the mix for just one gig before they hit it off with Joey Maya. He had seen them play and wanted to join the band. They still needed a bass player though, so they went out to see other bands perform to try and recruit. Johnny Salton was a guitar player in a band called The Girls. After seeing him perform a show at the Blue Waters Hotel, one of the few places in Miami that hosted bands playing original music, they approached Johnny and asked if he would be interested in playing bass with them. Salton, a seasoned guitar player who was older and much more experienced was looking for a new project and agreed.

The newly formed four-piece instantly clicked and practiced constantly. Tony and Isaac would get together at Isaac's mothers house for a couple hours each day to go over new material and song structure before the others joined for a full practice. A new song was written every day. Some of them stuck, others were immediately tossed if they weren't working. With full support from their families and no jobs or other obligations, they had the time to apply themselves and studied other musicians to try to be as good as possible. They aspired to be like the Ramones: get a contract, write good songs, put out records, tour and be famous. They had the ability and the songs but never got their break.

With help of their friend Errol Waltzer, the band released their first EP in 1980, entitled "Official Release." Errol, who was a photographer, financed the 1,000 copies that were pressed and did the artwork for the 7". The band cut and pasted the covers and stuffed all the records themselves, but sold few copies of the record. They viewed the release as a calling card to shop around to major labels and ended up giving most copies away or dropping them off in stores. Isaac went to New York that summer and dropped off a bunch in shops up there as well.

The South Florida scene, which was now boasting such legendary talent as The Eat, The Essentials, Cichlids, Charlie Pickett, The Front, and many others, was still small in size compared to larger cities. When the Ramones would come to town, a flurry of people would come to see them, but a typical local show would usually only generate 50-100 people.

By the time the band had recorded their second EP, "Love You," Tony had stated that he would soon be leaving the group. Salton was already playing with Charlie Pickett & The Eggs, and Isaac didn't see himself finding a suitable songwriting partner as Tony had proved to be. So they only played a couple shows after the record came out before calling it quits. The "Love You" EP was self-financed using money they earned from gigs in a run of just 500 copies. However, it is reported by the band that four boxes, which may have contained as many as 400 copies of the record, were tossed in a dumpster in the mid 90s, making originals very difficult to locate. The record shows how the band greatly matured in a short time and it's a shame further material was not properly recorded and this project never went any further.

Isaac, who had not been a lyricist in the Reactions, took to writing and formed a band called U.S. Furys with Ricky Mahler, who later went on to play in Circus Of Power. They didn't record anything, but when Isaac later restructured and recorded some of those songs in a band with other notable local musicians called Eden's Rebels.

Johnny played with Charlie Pickett for a long time and eventually started the Psycho Daisies, who he performed with until he died earlier this week. You can read more about Salton on the Trash Fever site.

Joey later played with Roach Moel and Sheer Smegma before joining a rockabilly revival group called the Spinouts. He later moved to California to tour with the Battalion Of Saints. Tony got married and went to work for his family.

There are several appearances of Reactions songs on other formats. "In Society" was comped on Killed By Florida. "Tonight" made its way onto Back Seat Love Vol. 2. The South Florida band Screaming Sneakers (who featured Gary Sunshine, later of Circus Of Power) covered the Reactions song "I Can't Help It" on their lone 12", Marching Orders. A short-run bootleg 10" entitled Love You (with the same cover art as the EP of the same name) features all the songs from both 7"s. An official collection of rare and unheard Reactions material is slated for release at the end of 2011 on Cheap Rewards Records.