More Lion Ride News, Possible New Shows, The Local Radio Situation, And More!

Hey guys, hope those of you who went enjoyed last night's Stillbroke show at The Rockstar Bar! I couldn't make it, but it sounds like it was a good concert, and there's lots more where that came from tonight and tomorrow! My last post has all you need to know on the metal side of things for the area this weekend, hopefully all the shows have good turnouts! But now, it's news/updates time, and we'll start with lots of new stuff concerning Lion Ride!

Remember when I said they were in the voting for a chance to play at the 14th Annual Ernie Ball Battle of the Bands in Toronto on July 9th at The Vans Warped Tour? Well, if you remember correctly, the top 100 would be the bands from which The Warped Tour would select competing bands. As of 4:44 PM today, Lion Ride are in 95th place with 74 votes, and are just 10 votes out of 86th. First place is a Toronto band named Majesty with 4,431 votes. VOTE FOR LION RIDE TODAY!!!! The more votes they get, the more odds that The Warped Tour will put them in the Toronto segment of the battle!

But that's not all when it comes to voting contests that Lion Ride has recently entered. Listen to this for a hypothetical: Imagine SLASH guest starring on a Lion Ride song. Not kidding either, it could happen! A new online contest called "Your Next Record With Slash" has been launched by Guitar Center in co-operation with the Velvet Revolver/ex-GNR axeman, and the winner will get a laundry list of cool prizes, and Lion Ride have entered! If they won, they would get to record a 3 song E.P. produced by legendary producer Mike Clink, of which Slash would write and perform on the single! They'd also get a management development deal with "The Collective", their single would be put on iTunes, plus they'd get a worldwide distribution deal with Tunecore, $20,000 worth of gear and endorsement deals, the opening slot on Slash's upcoming tour, and an editorial feature in Guitar World Magazine!

Now all that just sounds awesome, but it will never happen to Lion Ride unless we all support the cause! You have until April 30th to vote for your favourite bands in this contest for the right to get all these cool prizes, and of course, the E.P. with Slash's guest spot! Hopefully, of course, your votes will go to Lion Ride! To vote for Lion Ride for all of this awesome stuff, CLICK HERE! I don't know the criteria for who will "win", I'm assuming it's the highest voted band, but I can't say for sure. Also, if it counts for anything, the fan who votes the most between March 5th and 31st will win a Slash autographed guitar, so there's more incentive to vote! Keep in mind though, you can only cast ONE VOTE PER BAND PER DAY. Still, let's show our support, wouldn't it be cool to see Lion Ride ft. Slash? CLICK HERE TO VOTE, DO IT NOW, DO IT DAILY!!!!

Next up, might Out Of The Mouth Of Babes have new shows coming up? If you look at their MySpace page, they list two shows this spring, including one April 20th at The Oddfellows Hall, and another on May 6th at Foggy Notions, the latter of which apparently also includes Bring The Fallen. Now I haven't seen any announcements of either of these concerts anywhere else, not on Facebook, not anywhere. Sometimes when a band lists a new show on MySpace alone, I feel confident about reporting it as confirmed, I'm not so sure on these two though. So I'll wait for second word before I confirm these as official local concerts, but keep them in mind! It'd be great to see OOTMOB back live, all you old fans of As It Stands should take notice too!

Now, back to the local radio situation, and it appears all the attempts to make Sovereign Communications bring back the fired 99.5 YES FM DJs (including Bad Side's Melissa Krahnke and Jason Mapes) have not worked. And now, there's not even Tim Ellis in the mornings, as 99.5 has replaced the old "Soo Morning Crew" with "Kidd Kraddick In The Morning", a nationally syndicated radio show out of California. I really don't agree with YES FM's site calling this "the new Soo Morning Crew in town" when I doubt Kidd Kraddick has ever even been here, but hey, it's all business, they wanna hype this and get people to listen. But Tim and John Gilbert are still on the job, and apparently so is Rock 101's Scott Cook, who's now listed on YES FM'S personalities page! I don't listen to YES FM enough to know how he handles being on this type of station, but he's never sucked before, so he'll do fine! I half expected that Sovereign would use existing DJs to fill in the gaps from the ones they didn't rehire, and looks like I guessed right!

Still, this is a contientous issue for many, especially YES FM lovers and fans of the old "Soo Morning Crew", and the 2,249 members of the "Boycott YES FM" group are still pissed. But now the comments are mostly critical of Kidd Kraddick. I'm a "Scott and Brian" listener in my mornings, so I can't comment on Kidd's show, but even if he's good, people don't like change, and the Soo Morning Crew as we knew it were really good, so I can see why people are mad. I notice that group member Johnny Lewis has been pushing people to e-mail the FCC to file complaints on the supposed local monopoly, and it wouldn't hurt! Click here, look for Johnny's posts, and e-mail away if you want to bring this to the FCC's attention even more! Remember, the sale still isn't final. I know this isn't on the surface a metal story, but considering that it involves members of Bad Side, and now a Rock 101 DJ, it's worth discussing!

Also, just as an aside, if I had to replace Timmy and Lissa and all them with a nationally syndicated show, no way around it, I'd have gotten The Bob & Tom Show, which now has no local outlet with The Bear's demise. It may not fit YES FM's demographics, per say, but it was a very popular show locally, often very funny, and now we can't listen to it on normal FM radio here. Plus, it had listeners who would follow to 99.5 to listen to it, so on that level, it'd make more sense to pick up than a show that has never aired up here before. Just thought that was worth bringing up. I've been contemplating writing an editorial opinion piece on the SMS about the local radio situation for us rock/metal lovers, seeing as we only have two stations that air heavy music now (Rock 101 and WLSO on occasion), so I was thinking about discussing what I'd like to see happen in the future in terms of FM rock radio in Sault Ste. Marie. It may not happen, but it's something that I'd like to discuss!

And finally, if you see a copy of The Soo Profile magazine at a local establishment this month, you'll notice the presence of Woods of Ypres on the cover! Yes, they're the cover story in this month's issue, and you'll notice that the author is....me? Yeah, I've done some freelance work for them, I don't like tooting my own horn, but I've contributed to The Soo Profile a bit in recent months. But don't check it out for my work, do so cause it involves the Sault's own Woods of Ypres, who are the cover feature! It talks about the band's sound, past, and future, it's not a huge article, but it's pretty good! The more local press, the better! It is FREE at many local establishments, mostly restaurants, click here to find out where you can get The Soo Profile! Music aside, it's a nice magazine, discussing lots of local stuff and interests, you'll like it! It's now in the Other Local Metal Links too!

In my next post, I'll have new songs from a re-activated local metal band, and hopefully lots more! And maybe at some point soon, an opinion piece in local rock radio? You never know! I still have to review "Castle Stories", but school gets in the way whenever I try to give it a proper reading, damnit. Soon though! More news and updates are on the way real soon!