nerv·ous
easily agitated or alarmed; tending to be anxious; highly strung.
eat·er
a person or animal that consumes food in a specified way or of a specified kind.
A pallid white hand emerges from the Cistvaen breaking through the dank earth clutching a Shure Unidyne I Model 556 microphone. The clicking of the bones and chattering of the decaying teeth keeping time to the boisterous backbeat, the antithesis of well-tailored mansuetude.
Yesteryear, when snot-filled pug nose-encrusted snottiness was celebrated and not admonished. One big finger firmly planted upright to the sky poking holes in clouds.
The Nervous Eaters were a staple of Boston with Cataldo plying what he knows best -- rock ‘n’ roll ready to get your ass off the pew and absorbing the maniacal preacher's leanings. Repent and hold the poisonous snakes of biting sin and let the venom convert you.
I had the recent pleasure of chatting with Steve Cataldo over the past and present tense of The Nervous Eaters. No Holds Barred.
Scene Point Black: Philosophical question: What is a Nervous Eater?
Steve Cataldo: Band members, when out as a unit, cannot organize dinner to occur at the same time.
Scene Point Blank: What has kept Nervous Eaters in existence for almost 50 years!?
Steve Cataldo: I keep writing material for this band, which is my band. No one until now (Adam Sherman, who is an extremely talented songwriter, singer, and musician, and is contributing many superior songs to our present set,) was writing songs. It just never occurred to me to stop.
Scene Point Blank: Do you think that if you were still called The Rhythm Assholes, history might have been different for Nervous Eaters?
Steve Cataldo: Why do you ask that? Is it because most of the listening public has anal fixations?
Or we could have ended up doing commercials for sanitary wipes, I suppose. That’s why we shortened the band's name at that time to the Rhythm A’s. Work was much easier to get after the name change.
Scene Point Blank: What memories do you have of The Rat, its demise, and what eventually it became?
Steve Cataldo: How many years do have to go over this question?
Mostly opening for all the great bands that came through town. Plus, the owner of the Rat -- James Harold, who managed the early Eaters -- helped a ton. Also being able to have sex with girls on the roof of the club on a warm summer’s night under the reflection of all the neon lights everywhere, like the Citco sign.
“Sex and drugs and rock and roll.” Gee, was Ian Drury ever right on the money with that tune.
Scene Point Blank: Why do you think that the self-titled first release wasn’t accepted essentially by the critics? It has been suggested that perhaps it misrepresented the band. Any reflection on this?
Steve Cataldo: For one, the record sucked. The producer didn’t know shit about the band and the fans back home were let down because it lacked some of the heavy, rocking, profane songs they were used to…plus the record company was busy releasing The Cars and The King's new LPs.
Why this question has not gone away by now, I have no freaking idea. “Fuck me running.”
Scene Point Blank: How did COVID affect you, both personally and musically? Did it create barriers in creating or the opposite?
Steve Cataldo: For sure. Just like so many other bands, it pushed everything back, fortunately at that time no one came down with it, but COVID won’t give up, it will never give up. It’s a weapon designed to infect everyone on the planet, simultaneously reducing the surplus population. It's going to target music critics next.
Scene Point Blank: Nervous Eaters have a rich history of supporting many well-known bands (i.e. Ramones, Iggy Pop, Stranglers, etc). What are your most memorable gigs so far?
Steve Cataldo: Cyndi Lauper while singing for the band, Blue Angel, was fantastic and continues to be so today. I knew after hearing her sing for just a minute that she was going to be a huge star and I told her so. Iggy was a blast, [a] crazy out of his mind wild child fellow. Some of the off-stage antics I can’t mention, I’m sure that hasn’t changed. The Ramones were a lot of fun, Jonathan Paley fromthe “The Paley Bros” played with the Eaters for years. Jack was great friends with all the Ramones so that was the shoe-in there. The British groups were a little stuffy, usually. We started wearing tea bags faste ned to our leather jackets with safety pins, and they got the message. We became friends with the Pretenders through the Boston band the Bristols. I was dating Kim, the Bristols’ bass player. Kim is one smart, beautiful woman. She and the rest of her band introduced us to Chrissie Hynde and her band. We did a ton of shows with the original Pretenders and became friends with James and Pete.
Scene Point Blank: Any memories of Ric Ocasek and his involvement with Nervous Eaters?
Steve Cataldo: Yeah, sure. Ric was a good guy back then. In fact, we were good friends with the whole band. We gigged a lot together. One gig we would open for them, another gig they would open for us -- as they did with a lot of other Boston bands. Until they became famous, ha. After that we always opened for them. They never expected the first record was going to skyrocket to the top of the pops the way it did. Ric produced our demo for Elektra Records. In hindsight, we should have released that demo as the LP. Oh well. Just fuck me running.
Scene Point Blank: Have the Ric Ocasek demos ever been released and, if not, will they ever see the light of day?
Steve Cataldo: We asked Ric about the demos, but the Cars had moved their studio from Newbury St, Boston, to Ric’s Gramercy Park home in Manhattan. The masters were somehow misplaced.
However, I talked with Greg Hawkes about it when he stopped by our Wicked Cool sessions, and he told me that he is presently going through a large amount of Cars demos, not only as a band but the music they created independently. He said he would keep an eye out for any Eaters material. However, the only recordings of those sessions that remain are some cassettes of the rough mixes. Some crafty fellow with some next-generation gear could probably “whip it good”…and return it to the grand lustre of yesterday year.
