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You could probably gather by the cheerfully obscene title of this compilation release by Eddie & The Subtitles that it was loud, proud, antisocial and basic. Eddie and The Subtitles were at the beginning of their checkered career a power trio consisting of Eddie Joseph, Matt Simon, and a bass player named Mike Patton, who went on to fame and fortune a decade or so later with Faith No More. The liner notes are worth the price of admission alone here; in fact, I have to confess that this disc sounded much better after I read the notes, which is a subjective, and uncredited (I‘m thinking they were written by Matt Simon), account of how these tracks came into existence.

Eddie Joseph was, from this account, a guy on the cusp of 30 in 1977 (shit, if he’s still alive he’s older than I am) who inherited a whole bunch of money and used it to finance his entry into the punk music scene. After a whole bunch of false starts and side projects Eddie wound up recording and releasing SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET in 1980 with the aforementioned Simon and Patton. Six of the tracks off of that album, including the single American Society b/w Louie Louie, appear on Fuck You Eddie!; three tracks ( WWIII, Why Do You Lie, and Circus) are previously unreleased, and two, Waiting For The Bombs and another version of Circus, are from DEAD DRUNKS DON’T DANCE, a disc released in 1983 with a new and expanded version of Eddie & The Subtitles.

This thing has its moments. Drug and alcohol-fueled, the recording is no-fi to the extreme, sounding as if it was dubbed off of a cassette that had been used to prop up an air filter on an old Buick (I did that in the early 1980s with a Joan Armatrading cassette for about six months. The cassette still plays, but only a woman can start the engine on the Buick). Patton, who handles lead vocals on American Society, Louie Louie, and WWIII, sounds as if he’s making the lyrics up as he goes along even to Louie Louie. I love WWIII, by the way. It’s about three days long, and plods along smartly w with Patton half-singing something about heroin and some occasional guitar solos interspersed with it. Okay, it’s not three days long, but it takes up almost half of the CD, which will give you an idea about how cool the unreleased stuff on Fuck You Eddie! is. The rest of it is hostile punk, three chords and a cloud of dust, shouted (but not screamed or sung) vocals. It's just the thing for that early morning eye opener.

Do you need this? No. Is this some great historical document, like INDIAN ROPE TRICK by The Beatles? No, unless you have to have everything Mike Patton ever laid to tape. Do you want it? Hell yes. My ears have been bleeding since I got it. And buy the CD. The music and the liner notes go hand in glove.