The Eddies

The Eddies were the only early-1980s punk rock band in Williamsburg, Virginia. Future GWAR guitarist Michael Derks and future Labradford bassist Robert Donne comprised the core of The Eddies, burning through a series of drummers who barely stayed around long enough to learn all the songs. Formed while Derks and Donne were still in high school, The Eddies performed disfigured covers of songs by their dominant influences (the Sex Pistols, the Clash, Black Flag, Cheap Trick, Hüsker Dü, Dire Straits) and crafted wrenching original songs about everything from current events (Ronald Reagan's militarism in "Nicaragua," American commerce-culture in "Seven Seconds Over Bedrock") to the friends they saw dissolving in drugs and despair ("Dying of Starvation").

In 1986, Derks and Donne graduated from high school and transplanted the band to Richmond, Virginia, where The Eddies quickly made a name for themselves playing with acclaimed local bands like Honor Role and the Alter Natives. Eventually running out of steam without ever formally recording their music, The Eddies dissolved in the mid-1980s. Derks went on to play guitar with Dent and then Selma before landing in the monster-Muppet metal band GWAR as Balsac the Jaws of Death. Donne played bass in Pumphouse, Selma, Breadwinner, Labradford, Spokane, and Cristal.