A friend forwarded me this picture a few months ago and a flood of memories came back. Yes, that is me, shirtless (!!!), about to stage dive and the band playing is Fists Of Fury, who were the local hardcore band in our town. Fists of Fury did two (?) demos and sounded like a lot of early 82 NY/DC bands. They covered Cause For Alarm, Minor Threat, etc.
This show was sometime in the summer of 1997. They just decided to play in the afternoon and busted it out. I think this is in the backyard of this kid Jake who the band hung out with (I knew his older sister really well). They also played a backyard show at our friend CJ’s house that the cops broke up (complete with me freaking out on cop who wanted us drug tested…good times).
Fists of Fury did not last much longer than this show I don’t think. Their singer Joe broke edge (I sang their Minor Threat covers after that) and I think they played a few more times before going their separate ways. I have not talked to Joe in a really long time (that is probably his girlfriend Robyn I am about to dive on), but I did see their drummer RJ at a wedding a few years ago along with their bass player Chris, who still goes to shows from time to time.
i stumbled upon your website due to the wonders of the internet….and i see that you were from manahawkin in the late 90’s. whoa, i lived there in 1989-1990 and it was while living there that i dove into hardcore headfirst. for the summers of 1987-88 i worked on lbi and would spend my paycheck every friday afternoon at the red rocker on bay ave(?). i bought so many awesome records there. and even more terrible ones. i remember buying the 2nd false justice demo at the philadelhia record exchange and seeing that they were from manahawkin and being a super excited teenager. or seeing the hogans hero lp that they put out on straight on with the address in somewhere like west creek or tuckerton. i thought ocean county was a dead zone for hardcore (or anything cool) and left for greener pastures in baltimore and dc