Edweena Banger/Eddie Garrity – Obituary

Edweena Banger Obituary

Edmund Stephen Garrity, referred to as Eddie, Ed and Edweena Banger, who handed away on the twenty first January, was born in 1959 in Manchester and introduced up in Wythenshawe. He attended the native St Paul’s Faculty with Toby Toman and Pete Crookes. Collectively they fashioned a band known as Stable State with Ian Grey, earlier than altering the identify to Ram (later to grow to be Wild Ram), after a Paul McCartney album. They have been contempories of Mick Rossi and Brian Grantham, who along with Wayne Barrett, Phil Rowland and Howard Bates would type Slaughter and The Canine (SATD).

Garrity went to see The Intercourse Pistols at their first gig in Manchester in June 1976, and their second look in late July the identical yr, when he was a roadie for SATD. Throughout a punch up on the gig, which noticed him get a bottle to the pinnacle and Grey, punched within the nostril. A bouncer shouted, ‘have a look at you, head banger and the nosebleeds!’- the identify caught. Vini Reilly changed Grey, and the band recorded the seminal punk single Ain’t Been To No Music Faculty in July 1977, the second launch on Tosh Ryan’s Rabid Information. The track turned an instantaneous punk basic with its orchestrated opening and Vini’s ferocious guitar.

“They have been genuinely, fully, completely crazed – Ed particularly, who, with completely no sense of self-preservation would suppose little of leaping on to a desk mid-performance, grabbing a man’s beer and pouring it over his girlfriend. Different such actions would end in close to tragedy” – Mick Middles

“I do not know how we managed to remain alive” – Vini Reilly

Vini left the band and later joined ex Quick Breeder members Chris Joyce and Dave Rowbottom within the Tony Wilson assembled Durutti Column, the primary manufacturing unit signing. After the break-up of The Nosebleeds, Eddie went solo and performed domestically as Ed Banger, releasing the comedy report Kinnel Tommy about his brother-in-law who used to play for The Royal Oak, a neighborhood pub. Sizzling on the heels of one other comedy report Jilted John (additionally on Rabid), the report was picked up by EMI and given a full launch in a bid for chart stardom. It didn’t materialise. After SATD break up in 1978 then reformed in 1979, Eddie was recruited on vocals after Barrett jumped ship mid tour and went on to pursue different ventures. The band launched Chunk Again on DJM in 1980, their second studio album, in addition to the singles East Facet of City and I’m The One. Prepared Now entered the highest 75, and with the band all able to go on High of The Pops if it went increased. it dropped from view, and their desires of TV stardom pale. The album, which was produced by Mott The Hoople’s Dale Griffin is regarded by many as a basic. A possible look on The Previous Gray Whistle Check equally received cancelled as Van Morrison rode into city.

The dangerous luck continued once they lower a cope with NEMS. Their supervisor, travelling again with the contract died in a automobile accident. With the paperwork on the passenger seat, the police thought it was Eddie who was within the automobile. Nonetheless dwelling a straight life though he knew he was homosexual, he married Lynn Myers in 1982 and so they had a son, Kirk. Following one other failed cope with Hansa in Germany he moved to the Isle of Wight and began performing as a glam cabaret act.

In 1991 Eddie’s luck turned when he was provided a TV presentation job on a present known as Entry All Areas, the sister present to The Phrase. He’d developed a swaggering character known as ‘Eddie the Baskerville’ and was going to current the present with Mark Lamarr. On the eve of the primary recording, he had a mind haemorrhage which knocked him out of motion for six years. His spouse Lynn died of a mind haemorrhage in 1998.

Eddie first beginning cross dressing within the late ‘80’s on-stage with ex-V2 member Mark Stanley within the glam band Diamond Canine, which later turned PleaSureDome. When he got here off stage, the come down was so nice that he’d hold the garments on for so long as doable, which led to him to experiment with cross dressing throughout the day. Rockschool got here subsequent, a model of PleaSureDome, however with out Mark. It was throughout this time that Eddie developed a critical drug downside.

“I used to be listening to voices and music. I’d stick me ‘ead out of the window considering somebody’s enjoying bagpipes exterior, telling them to cease! It was simply in me ‘ead”.

He moved as much as Saddleworth and hid away, strolling on the moors to convalesce, dwelling as a transgender individual and figuring out as Edweena.

Edweena slowly began to get again on the circuit with a trans glam act, billed as ‘Edweena’s Celebration’, now dwelling full time as Edweena Banger in Sale. She continued to report music as The Nosebleeds, placing out a collection of glam impressed punk albums. Eddie/Edweena all the time had an ear for an ideal punk melody, and this actually got here throughout in these restricted releases which included Kicking Off in  2013, New York Metropolis 2016, Authorized Excessive in 2017, Revolution X 2022, plus solo albums Diamonds on tenth avenue & Diamond Rocks each launched in 2021. She moved to Hale village earlier than transferring in with boyfriend Ronnie in Liverpool in 2021. Tragedy struck once more when Ronnie handed away on the finish of 2022.

In 2021 Mick Rossi, Howard Bates, Phil Rowland and Edweena reformed the unique ‘Chunk Again’ period of Slaughter & The Canine billed as Slaughter Bites Again, with the persevering with spat with ex-SATD front-man Wayne Barrett persevering with to canine them. The re-energised band performed a storming set at Riot in Manchester – see the video above. The next yr the band performed Riot competition in Blackpool, gracing the Empress Ballroom stage. They might later recuperate full use of the band identify in 2024.

Edweena continued to play night cabaret reveals in addition to recording within the studio. Late final yr she completed recording a brand new album with Mind Grantham on drums and ex-Naughty Boys and Gustaffson guitarist David Gleave. They recorded 10 tracks collectively which Edweena was on the cusp of releasing. Dubbed The Coney Island Challenge, the deliberate album was known as Northern Deliverance. In direction of the top of final yr Edweena put collectively a brand new band beneath the identify of ‘Eddie Garrity’s Slaughter’ and launched an EP ‘Sizzling Uncooked Steel & Gasoline’. Stay dates have been secured for this yr, the place the band could be enjoying ‘Chunk Again’ in full, together with the singles. The debut present at Manchester’s Star & Garter on the 28^th December 2024 being the one present they performed.

I met Eddie/Edweena quite a lot of instances through the years, and it was all the time memorable. I used to be at Bowdon Social Membership in 1979, when, after enjoying as Ed Banger, Eddie signed my copy of Kinnell Tommy. I shared a beer together with her at The Malt Shovels in Altrincham the place she towered over the black anoraked clientele on the bar in her six-inch stilettos! I interviewed her for Louder Than Struggle in 2017 after which once more on my radio present 2022, each instances she regaled me with tales from her lengthy (and chequered) profession, and risqué private life. She was all the time proud and fully undaunted of how she introduced herself, however beneath all of it, was clearly affected by some individuals’s attitudes in the direction of her. She performed a storming set of Glam classics at Tony Davidson’s e book launch at Dysfunction in Manchester and continued packing as a lot as doable into her inventive aspect. Her Fb feed crackled with humour, a relentless stream of ‘Carry-On’ & ‘extra tea vicar’ jokes and innuendo; all the time humorous, all the time prepared with the saucy one quip come-back.

Edweena is survived by her son.

Learn Steve McGarry’s obituary on his Substack.

Phrases by Nigel Carr. Due to Paul Andrew Bedford. Pictures: Edweena banger.