Live At Barbarellas 1977

Recorded live in Birmingham, England, in August 1977, Live at Barbarella's is a surprisingly listenable document of Eater at the height of their powers — at the height of the summer of punk. The movement was breaking out everywhere, not least of all in the corridors of industry power, where labels that had once run a mile from the safety pins were now furiously piecing together their own snotty quartets in the hope of grabbing a piece of the action. And Eater, one of the handful of bands without whom it might never have happened, were ideally poised to ride the new rage, gigging relentlessly through the year with a cargo-hold full of incendiary anthems. "No Brains," "Outside View," "Thinkin' of the USA" and "Lock It Up!" step far beyond the usual gathering of so-called punk classics, and it's amazing just how readily history has forgotten Eater - mention their name today and the best response you'll get will be "ah yes, they had a 13-year-old drummer." But they also had one of the best songwriters of the age, Andy Blade, and one of the most fiery sounds, a hard-hitting wall of adrenalized riffing that never let up. Add sharp, smart runs through Bowie's "Queen Bitch" and the Velvets' "Waiting for the Man," and this quickly develops into one of the definitive live documents of that long-gone age. And Eater themselves might well be in line for some serious rediscovery.