7 Plys Forever

I recently got around to hanging up some favorite show posters and skate deck in my garage. I always dug Giancarlo's artwork from the color choices the the style of drawing and am totally stoked to finally have all three hanging up. I picked up the skate deck at a basement show at the now defunct Pirate's Cove of the Lehigh Valley. The middle poster was in honor of the Rain on the Parade, Atari and Panic Attack reunion show in which Carpenter Ant also played and was at Pennskate in Whitehall I believe. The final poster all the way to the left was from Carpenter Ant's final show at Jan's Room that included Dentally Insane (ex-Atari), Exit Reflex and Middle America.

I'm into a ton of different kinds of music, but Carpenter Ant was special to me for so many reasons. I discovered them at a time where I was pretty much just listening to Lehigh Valley bands that were around when I was in high school, for nostalgia's sake. They clicked from the start and I realized that there were bands still worth checking out in the LV. Their influences were all over the place and could be heard directly and indirectly in their sound. You'd hear all kinds of stuff within songs: fast parts, mosh parts, heavy riffs...everything. And it worked. They'd cover Mouthpiece, Crud, I Hate You, the Ultimate Warriors even Nirvana when they played. There were so many good songs, so many anthems, that it didn't matter what they played when you saw them because their catalog was so deep and you'd just be hearing other songs you hadn't heard in a while. Ray (or Roy) was such a good front man and I loved that fact that here was someone my age, still doing it and still just as involved as any high school aged kid.

There aren't many bands that would make me drive three hours to go find some little place that I'd never been to before mostly by myself no less (all my friends graduated from punk), but Carpenter Ant was one of those bands. I remember driving up the Blue Route in March after an ice storm just to get to seem them play Globefest and it was totally worth it. Their final show was incredible and I loved the fact that they brought back Charlie, Chaos and Coach Heim for different songs. The set was packed with all kinds of favorites, including "Anthem 2", which I
was so psyched to hear. There are a lot of good bands coming out of the LV these days (middle america, exit reflex, tile, secret cutter, etc.), but Carpenter Ant will always be number one in my book. I can only hope that there will be a reunion show in the years to come.

Last Song at Jan's Room:




Globefest Openers: