Grow

Digging through some old stuff I found a flyer for a Straight Edge band my friends had in high school. The band was called Grow and contained the members Ray (who is currently in Carpenter Ant), Sean and Brian (who is in the photo on the left.) I wasn't part of the Lehigh Valley Hardcore scene when I was younger but they were my friends and they have influenced me to this day. Their demo was to come out in January of 1994, the year we all graduated. The flyer had the lyrics from two of their songs:

Disease You're something that I don't need / Why Must you make us bleed / You're something that was in my hear / Never thought we shall part / You should always be aware / Of friends that have cared / These lies you now portrayal / I have failed / This problem shall never be solved / Now I wish I never got involved / This disease caught in my mind

Conflict As Open as the wind / As free as a cloud / You watch us grow / Knowing we grow wild / Can't grasp our feelings / Can't open our eyes / Hate what you feel / This is the deal / Laughing at your remarks / Caring not in our hearts / Exploding from within / You won't realize / Taking us for granted / Wishing you would die / No crave for acceptance / Cause now I can fly

Note: I edited the songs to be spelled and grammatically correct.

Best deal under a dollar

Ska Punk is not dead! 99 Cents (or less) put on a great set at ABC No Rio today. Of the four bands that played tonight they were the best and the most fun. I haven't skanked in sooooo long that I had to get in the pit for them. They even did a killer punk cover of La Bamba! The lead singer really got into the show and they brought up a large crowd of their local fans, so that made the place and the pit way more fun. This one guy did not stop dancing the whole set, I don't think he ever got tired. They're from NJ so I hope to see them again soon. The mp3s on their site and the ones from StereoKiller seem to be broken, hopefully they'll fix them soon cause I didn't see any of their CDs at the merch table.

A little bonus to boot, I picked up a CD by Carpenter Ant before the show, they had played ABC last fall. The interesting thing is that I went to high school with the lead singer Roy Carnage (aka Ray Gurz). It's a funny thing too, cause a few weeks ago I was wondering what the hardcore scene was like back in the Lehigh Valley. I searched around for stuff on old hardcore bands of friends I knew. Ray once did vocals for the SxE band Grow, and some other friends were in Blindside (not the same band that currently goes by that name). So I came across the Capenter Ant website and a few forums that talked about the local scene and such. So C.A. is a pretty good skatecore band, they seem like a lot fun. They did their most recent show in June, but I hope they'll come up to NY soon. I emailed ray to see what their shows are, I'll give a review of them once I finally see them live.