Five Updates From Five Local Bands!!!

Before I get to some new updates, I have an apology to make for a missed story. As it turns out, Sault Michigan hard rockers Monkey's Uncle played a weekend set at Dondee Lanes Friday night and yesterday. I could blame the band for not posting concert listings on MySpace, but I take full responsibility for missing these shows because they were hyped on The Dondee's Facebook page on Wednesday and it completely passed me by. I only first heard about them today in a commercial on Rock 101. So my apologies for missing these concerts, I bet they were awesome, and I'll try harder to pay attention to The Dondee on Facebook for upcoming shows there!

Today, we'll take a look at 5 different local bands with varying updates to share, including a new band page, a new magazine article, membership changes, an album update, and your first opportunity to a certain local band live in a different setting! Here we go!

Sault Ontario's own Lion Ride are featured in the Summer 2010 issue of Urban Male Magazine! This time, they were the focus of a "Music Buzz" feature by UMM's Keith Carman, where he sat down with Mikey Lion and Marky Lion to discuss the band! The article discusses Lion Ride's sound, background, philosophy, and much more. Among the notable tidbits: Their opinions on energy compared to hitting the right notes, their evolution from their over the top glam-influenced stage shows of 2007, and what the only kind of music they currently buy is. Fun read, though it'd be nice to feature a real sit-down interview/transcript rather than capsule replies. It's awesome to see Lion Ride get more press, and it's definitely worth reading! Check your local magazine-carrying stores for the newest issue of Urban Male Magazine (self-promoted as "the best Canadian magazine for guys"), and if you wanna subscribe, click here for details! Just $1 an issue, not bad! But if you don't want the full magazine, no worries, the band uploaded it to the internet for all to see! Click the image to check it out, and I know that the words are small, so if you want clarity from the interview, click here to read a transcript! Stay tuned for more news on Lion Ride, including news on their upcoming album that they hope will be "free of any songs that suck"!

Secondly today are some updates from local metal band Silver Dream, who continue to creatively keep fans updated on band news via Facebook-uploaded images. Apparently, Silver Dream are now ready to play live shows! That being said, they need shows to play on, so if you're in a local band that'd like Silver Dream to open for you, message frontman Matthew Silver on Facebook by clicking here! Good 80s metal sound that these guys have, mixture of heavy and lighter material, they'll go over well! Leading from that, the band will be playing at an open mic night TODAY at The Royal Canadian Legion on Great Northern Road with local folk rock outfit Blackwater! My source for this is this image. Now I'm not considering this an official "concert" because it appears to be completely open mic, but if you want a live taste of Silver Dream, you'll wanna be at the Legion between 3:00 and 11:00 tonight! Matthew has played a few open mic nights with members of Silver Dream and solo in recent months, maybe you've seen him/them at one! Nice to see them finally getting out there, once an official concert is booked, I shall let you guys know!

Next, we have updates on the upcoming 23rd album from Sykotyk Rampage, entitled "Bella Disgusta"! Though audio samples have yet to appear online yet (well, not that I've seen), the band have posted some information on the album onto their Facebook page! The album will have 11 tracks for a total run time of 50:54, much smaller than their last album "22" was, though to be fair, that had a number of re-recordings. The band's lineup remains the same as it was on "22". Of the songs on "Bella Disgusta", probably most notable to fans of their live show is "Bag On Your Face", which the band has performed live, including during the t-shirt giveaway at the Scotties Tournament Battle of the Bands from earlier this year! The track listing features a number of songs that seem to refer to girls and love, if the song titles are something to go by. Might this be a recurring theme on the album? If so, I wouldn't expect this album to be "soft", this should be another shining example of the blue Chinese metal crash punk we've come to enjoy over the past so many years! Click here for the full setlist and more! Now it also says the album had a release date of June 1st, which has come and gone. No word on an official release date, but when it comes out, expect an SMS review!

Closing today's updates are stories from a pair of local bands with a page on Reverbnation, which is a really good music site that I think more bands should take advantage of. We'll start with the discovery of a page, this one for Sault Michigan's own Blind Baby! If you've been following their Facebook page hoping for band updates with no luck, then check their Reverbnation page out! So here's what I can tell you guys about the band now that I have more to go off of: Blind Baby were previously known as Stone Circle, in case you remember them. A full band lineup is listed too rather than just nicknames, so I can now confirm the full lineup of Blind Baby, including singer Tadd Gravelle, guitarists Darian Causley and Bill Ogston, bassist Chris Leask (from the now-on-hiatus Muskegon rock band Kilacel), and drummer Ivan Shliska from Scofflaw! And also, the band have uploaded eight demos to the page, so now you can hear what Tadd sent me through e-mail! Definitely a progressive tinge to this stuff, but heavy enough to keep a nice groove, definitely check out Blind Baby on Reverbnation to get a taste of their sound! Click here to check out their new page!

And finally, we have lineup changes for Sault Ontario hard rockers Browbeat, and these are pretty noticeable! Bassist Tiffany Emmerson has once again left the band, reasons not stated, and replacing her on bass is... frontman Dutch Vanderploeg, who will trade instruments but will continue to sing. So who's playing guitar for Browbeat now? None other than local guitarist, concert promoter, and radio host Rich Moreland (pictured), who you may recognize from his work in local bands like Time of Ruin! Believe me when I say that Rich is extremely talented on the guitar, this is only going to help Browbeat with him in it! Dutch tells me the band will be even heavier with the current lineup, so we'll have to see! Definitely much different looking than it has in the past, but hopefully all will fall into place this time! I'll keep you guys posted with more on Browbeat as I hear it!

That's all for tonight, sorry again for the slowness of this post, usually I have more news more frequently, but at least I'm keeping my self-started goal to have at least one new post every three days! I'd rather have new stuff quicker though, things should pick up soon though! I have stuff on the Kiss show, the Kewadin festival, and more by Wednesday, hopefully sooner, so keep an eye out!