Signifying Nothing

Top 100 Of The Nineties: By The Grace Of God-For The Love Of Indie Rock 7″

By admin on Mar. 2, 2006.

By The Grace Of God
For The Love Of Indie Rock 7”
Victory Records
1996

I remember Victory sending out a newsletter sometime in 1996, probably the summer, about their new releases.  The usual garbage like Snapcase and Earth Crisis had new releases, the One Life Crew controversy was covered, and there was an announcement about a new band called By The Grace Of God.  This band was supposed to have members of Endpoint and apparently had recently played their first show, playing three songs and a Judge cover.  At the time of course crap like Snapcase was huge, real hardcore bands like Devoid Of Faith and Floorpunch were starting to gain momentum, so hearing dudes from Endpoint were doing a band that covered Judge was a good thing.

I got the 7” shortly after.  I was pretty floored by it.  It sounded, by the time period’s standards, pretty “modern” but was still hardcore and a definite return to the older Endpoint style.  Throw in a cover of fucking Plastic Bomb on the CD and I knew this band was good.

I saw them live twice.  One at Manville Elks Lodge with the scab version of Deadguy & C.R.. The other time was of course at the infamous show in Yardley PA.  I actually missed the whole thing!  Our friends in the band Rad opened the show but then Saves The Day was playing so I walked down to the Wawa at the end of the street.  By the time I had come back everything had happened.  Whoops.

By The Grace Of God would go on to record another record for Victory and then one more record on a smaller label.  Members of this band have gone on to be in Black Cross, Good Riddance, and Elliot.

Here is an mp3 of Fissures.

These songs are posted for sample purposes.  I post them so that people can be turned on to cool music and hopefully return the favor for someone else.  Each mp3 will be up for one week and then will be taken down. please support the bands and labels by buying these records and checking them out when they play your town.  DIY hardcore punk bands deserve your support as an alternative to Clear Channel/MTV/RIAA nonsense. 

If you are the artist or copyright holder for this song and would like it removed please email me and it will be removed in a timely manner.

Weapon X

By admin on Oct. 12, 2005.

Weapon X was a band who only played one show at the Manville Elks Lodge on August 9^th 1997. Members of Weapon X have also been in Ensign, Vision, The Purpose, Black Turns Green, Kurbjaw, A Death In The Family, and some others. Here is the flyer from the show. I remember the week before Floorpunch, Vision, and 25 Ta Life played the same venue. In fact, Manville would be a consistent venue for a few years after this. Sometimes I really miss the place. It was easy to get to (go around the circle, go up six lights, make a left!), the people who ran it seemed to be really cool, and I always knew no matter what show I went to that some of my friends would be around. Anyhow, here are some things I remember from this show-

• Weapon X opened and sounded good. Of course, at the time anything that was not “metal” sounded good to us. Something about body bags and all that stuff you know? They busted out two covers at the end of their set, Insecurity by Turning Point and In My Way by Judge. They sold shirts (with the Calvin edge logo that I think is on the ep too if I remember correctly) and had 200 clear vinyl eps. I got a shirt and an ep. About a year later, in one of my first eBay sales, I sold both for a lot of money.

• In My Eyes and Fastbreak got crazy reactions if I remember correctly. Those early In My Eyes shows were pretty amazing. Fastbreak were still good at this point.

• I remember Justin buying, for both of us, the Time Flies and Count Me Out demos. At the time they were just two more youth crew bands to us, I never would have thought both would get as big as they did.

• This was also the first show with the new lineup (I think?) for Hands Tied. I remember being really excited but not many other people watched them! Despite all the cool shows in the summer of 1997, two big things were missing for most of the summer: Hands Tied and Floorpunch. We went outside to go to the car (for some reason we packed our lunches for this show!?!) and Justin and I overheard a couple “scenesters” openly talking shit about Hands Tied. This bummed me out hard. I wish 26-year-old Bill could go back and let 17-year-old Bill know that he had better be prepared for many bum outs in the next few years.

• Despite the lure of singing along to the words hope is good, don’t do drugs, we skipped Shutdown to go get something to drink down the street at Quick Check. On the way down the street, we saw some workers cleaning up a nasty car accident. This older woman was standing on the curb, so we asked her what happened. We started talking and she, surprisingly, started asking us about “the concert at the lodge.” We made small talk for a few minutes and she seemed to really get where we were coming from. I remember feeling really good about that.

• I do not remember anything special about Ensign’s set. I probably saw them about twenty times that year, so most of it is a bit blurry.

• We did not bother watching Good Riddance. Well, Courtney may have; I know I stayed outside and tracked down Nate for Weapon X interview below.

For a long time this was the only Weapon X interview ever done, but apparently someone in Europe did one a few years later too. Present for this was Nate, myself, Justin, Pete Smith, and Justin’s sister Courtney. This is an amusing interview for me; the comments certain interviewers make in here would seemed ridiculous shortly after. Courtney’s brief cameo near the end of the interview would become a Manahawkin catch phrase for a while after. Sorry Courtney; we were assholes back then, especially me.

Bill-Who is in Weapon X?

Weapon X is Nate Edge on vocals, Chris Youth on bass, Positive Paulie on drums, and Shaun Edge on guitar

Bill-Are you gonna play more shows?

I want to

Bill-I haven’t gone off like that since Redemption 87, and that was the first band of the day!

Awesome

Pete-In My Way did it for me

Bill-Turning Point and Judge covers

It was good people were singing along because I couldn’t remember part of it…

Pete-My day isn’t complete without listening to the Judge 7”

I always mix up verses

Bill-Who from Strength 691 is in Weapon X?

Just me

We bullshit for a couple minutes…eventually the conversation gets into this dick measuring crap about hockey. I was not too into this back then and I really cannot stand it now.

Justin-Ronny Little was saying how the Flyers were going to win it all but they went down.

Pete-The Flyers and Rangers can both go down. Now the Devils on the other hand…

Justin-Yeah

Bill-Here we go again…

I’m all about New Jersey but I’m just not a Devils fan…not really a big sports fan

Bill-With the Turning Point cover a lot of people seemed to not know it or even the Judge cover. What do you think of that?

Doesn’t really bother me… I did Judge because, well…Judge is Judge! The thing with Turning Point is I love Turning Point ever since I first heard them. They’re so awesome; I always wanted to cover them. The closest I came was Strength 691 was going to cover Guidance but we never got around to it.

Bill-Has Ensign been supportive?

Tim pretends to hate it

Justin-That’s so you stay in Ensign!

Bill-You’re like Porcell…in so many bands

I told Tim some of the stuff is four to five years old. I had stuff written for a long time. I really wanted to do vocals for old school straight edge hardcore. I had people but I would get a guitarist and by the time I got bass the guitarist would’ve sold out.

Justin-You have a striking resemblance to Jimmy Gestapo…just a little

It’s the glasses; I have pictures of us hanging out

Justin-Awesome guy

Bill-Jimmy rules

Take them off and you get Civ

Bill-Yeah, wow

Justin-RJ…(Laughs)

Bill-Our friend RJ looks so much like Porcell

Awesome

The conversation turns towards band reunions. Judge and Wide Awake come up; Justin makes some embarrassing comments about loving Wide Awake.

Justin-What do you think about old bands getting back together?

Let’s put it this way…one minute you’re in your face straight edge, supporting the scene, and when the scene went bad they broke up and now their back for the money. I don’t want to name names…

Bill-That’s our job!

That’s what Ressurection on the demo is about

Justin-Never seen the demo

Real small press

Bill-Are all two hundred seven inches clear?

Yeah

Bill-Are you going to do a 2^nd press?

I want it to be like a Schism release…like New York Crew…if someone else wanted to repress it I’d be into it but I’m not going to

Bill-Is Weapon X going to be playing any of the Ensign/Good Riddance tour dates?

No because they’ll all be here and I’ll be on tour

Bill-Be funny if you played to the pop-punk kids…

That’d be awesome; the guys in Redemption 87, when they were out here for that weekend, said Weapon X should fly out, the kids would love it.

Bill-They’re playing their last show tonight

Justin-That’s funny because when Redemption 87 came out here Eric said New Jersey was the best place he’d ever played

Pete-Zoli said the same thing when Ignite came here, he said in California the kids have no energy

Well New Jersey is the best

Pete-When my brother came home from California with Hogan’s Heroes two years ago he said they loved them, especially at Gilman St.

Bill-Did you see Justin’s construction gloves?

Yes they’re awesome. I was going to get a pair but didn’t have time

Bill-You need chains and construction gloves for the whole Judge thing

I think I’m going to go for the whole Underdog thing and get football jerseys

Justin (suddenly peaking up)-Play Frontside Grind!!!

I wanted to do Back To Back

Bill-Play Say It!

Can’t…

Bill-During Ensign’s set Tim was like “you want to hear Say It?” and everyone was like YEAH and then he’d say “nope”

Bill-What happened during Shutdown’s set? We weren’t here…

Stupid shit

Justin-There was some kid raving tonight

Bill-Our whole high school is ravers

Courtney-I’m in the middle school, I’m not a raver

Pete-You could exchange their skate shirts for an Earth Crisis shirt because they already have the pants and shoes, you wouldn’t know the difference

Bill-I can’t tell sometimes

I remember when I started skating everyone was into hardcore

Justin-Token Entry

Bill-Ok, let’s finish up

Thanks for the interview; we had a great time tonight, awesome show

Justin-What do you think is the worst hardcore record ever?

Hmm…gotta think on this one

Bill-New Strife?

Pete-I’d have to go with Billingsgate

Bill-Ray and Porcell…that record just sucks

Yeah that would get my vote definitely. Ok I have to go help load

By The Grace Of God

By admin on Sep. 6, 2005.

Mike McKenna did this interview for me also. By The Grace of God has gotten a bad reputation in some circles but I’ve always thought that first 7” they did on Victory totally raged. Plus it’s hard to deny a band that covers Bringin It Down and Plastic Bomb. This was done with Tommy, their drummer, sometime in 1998.

What’s going on in Louisville?

Right now Louisville is doing just fine. We are going through a stage right now where a lot of great new hardcore, punk, and indie rock bands are coming out of the woodwork. Some great new bands you should check out are:

Five Times Fast

Flight 19

The Aasee Lake

Automatic

Tri-tet

Half Seas Over

The Dangers

Espionage

 

…just to name a few. The only thing that kind of sucks right now is that there are barely any places that will hold all-ages shows. There is a place called Sparks where about 90% of the punk shows are. The club is really cool to us and the people who work there are very cooperative, but the room the bands play in sounds like crap. Rumor has it that some kids are trying to find a place to start a collective but I hear that like every six months and nothing ever happens. I hope it works out this time.

I noticed that By The Grace Of God changed their lineup recently. Who are the new members and have they played in other bands before?

Our two new members’ names are Robby Scott (who replaced Jay Palumbo on guitar) and Brian Roundtree aka “Tree” (who replaced Jon Mobly on bass). So far, everything is working out just great except that Tree tends to hang out with hippies in drum circles and ends up coming to practice all stoned and smelling like patchouli.

By The Grace of God started as an “all star” band of sorts. How exactly did it come about, and more specifically when did you become involved?

By The Grace of God started because Rob and Duncan missed being in a hardcore band together since the breaking up of the all-mighty Endpoint. Duncan went around Louisville and found the biggest straight edge losers he could and asked them to be in a band. So we had our first practice and wrote three songs (Goliath, Pallbearer’s Hymn, and Navigator) and played them over and over again, then a week later we played our first show on a whim with Earth Crisis. Shelter was supposed to play but their van broke down or something so we got up after the opening band and used their equipment and played our three songs and a Judge cover. The room went nuts. It was so fun and exciting but also very sloppy.

The Perspective album sounds more developed than the 7”. Is this because more time was spent in the studio, or was it because at that point By The Grace of God was a full-time band?

Well…neither. The songs on Perspective came out not as aggressive because that’s how they were written. We all didn’t sit down and say “hey, let’s write some more polished hardcore songs.” Hopefully, our next release will be much more aggressive the way I personally like it.

Some people would label By The Grace Of God as a political band. Obviously, there are some very political songs on your records but do you feel that this perception of the band in any way constrains you?

Not really. I am not really educated enough on politics to be as political as I want to be. When Rob writes his lyrics, he sometimes shares them with us so we can all put our ideas to mold it into a better song.

Are the messages reflected in such songs as November’s Lie and Red Hand Plan representative of the feelings of the band or are they mostly expressions of Rob’s ideas?

The songs November’s Lie and Red Hand Plan are expressions of Rob’s ideas.

Does By The Grace of God have any plans to head back into the studio in the near future?

By The Grace of God plans on going back in the studio in April to record songs for a new 7” on Three Little Girls Records out of Louisville, and some for some compilations.

Everyone knows By The Grace of God is on Victory. How did that come about? I mean, nothing against Victory, but why not go with Initial Records, who you not only work with, but is also a hometown label?

Just for the record, By The Grace of God is not on Victory anymore. We didn’t leave on bad terms. We still appreciate everything they did for us but in the long run Victory wasn’t the right label for us. Victory came into question about what labels we wanted to be on because Duncan’s old band Guilt was on Victory and Tony told Duncan that he wanted to put it out. We figured that Tony would probably get it out the fastest so we went with it. It worked out great because our record came out like a couple of months after we recorded it. The reason why we haven’t done anything with Initial is totally over my head. I wanted to release something with Initial from the get go, but it didn’t work out that way.

On the back of the Perspective LP there is a little box which says STRAIGHT EDGE IS A NON-VIOLENT MOVEMENT. I think that is really cool and more straight edge bands should promote non-violence. Do you think that violence in the straight edge community is as bad as everyone says it is?

I think it depends on what scene you are from. Here in Kentucky, we have a semi-violent scene but there are never any fights. The scene here is a lot different than say, New York or New Jersey because it seems that kids dance a whole lot more violent up there than they do in the south. I am strongly opposed to mindless violence and I think it has no place in any hardcore scene. If people have the brain to just talk things out instead of fighting, things wouldn’t be so bad in some scenes. I might get called a sissy for saying this but it’s just the logical thing to do…plain and simple.

What’s new with your other band, The Enkindels?

The Enkindels just finished the recording for our new LP Buzz Clip 2000. It is by far the best Enkindel release yet, much more melodic punk rock than emotional hardcore. We are going to be touring like hell this summer and hopefully go to Europe this winter. I love playing in all sorts of different genres of punk. I also play in a band called The Life Of An Ocean that’s different than anything else I’ve ever done.

What were the bands or albums which made you want to play hardcore?

There are tons and tons of records which made me want to play hardcore, but if I had to narrow it down to three records it would be Minor Threat-Out of Step, Gorilla Biscuits-Start Today, and Bad Religion-Suffer. But still today there are great records that are coming out that totally motivate me like Ten Yard Fight-Back On Track, and Good Riddance-Ballads From The Revolution.

Right now, in your opinion, what are the worst problems in the hardcore community?

Violence, sexism (yes, sexism…look around, it’s still there), and superiority.

What albums are you looking forward to in 1998?

I am looking forward to the new Ink and Dagger LP. I think Don and Sean are going to blow everyone’s ass apart with this next one. The Saves The Day LP. I am also looking forward to the next Boy Sets Fire release.

Any closing comments?

It seems like every five or six months I get a new record that totally blows me away. Recently I got the new Good Riddance LP and it is so fucking amazing. The music is incredible and the lyrics are ingenious. I can’t wait to see them live so I can run around and scream my head off. Check it out; if you don’t you are seriously missing out.