Few people outside of southern Florida have probably ever heard of The Eat. They were a local punk rock phenom starting in the late 70s and their MO was that they didn’t give a shit: not about how their recordings came out, not whether anyone bought their records, not even about fans booing them. They made music for themselves, so much so, in fact, that one could almost hear each member of the band playing a different style. The Eat embodied the punk rock spirit in this sense, and the result is music with true energy, character, and rawness, even in songs that are saturated with pop hooks and melodies. It was this attitude and spirit in that made The Eat an underground favorite, and why Alternative Tentacles Records scooped up whatever recordings they could find to issue this collection.
It’s Not the Eat, It’s the Humidity is a compilation of pretty much everything that got recorded by The Eat, or at least everything that’s survived. There are an astounding 59 tracks on two CD’s, one disc with all their studio recordings, and another with all live tracks. The sound quality is often bad, sometimes downright horrible on the live tracks, but the music still comes through.
You can tell the band members were having fun, and the music is fun as a result. The lyrics are sometimes political in nature, more often funny (Take this line, for example: “She’s pissed off ’cause my brother wouldn’t fuck her!”), and never preachy or heavy handed. The music is not super fast or loud compared to punk bands that came after The Eat, but rather what we’d call pop-punk now days. It’s loose, fun, and full of catchy hooks, and the album is a must have for any punk rock aficionados and historians.
