Thursday, February 23, 2012

Mike Libertoski & Late And Loud Updates, Plus This Week's Classic Video!!

Let's keep the news rolling on this Thursday morning, and for the record, weekend hard rock/metal concert previews are coming either tonight or early tomorrow. For now, we have this week's classic video, a local concert's venue search, and a lot of updates related to posted media by a prominent local guitarist, so here's what you need to know!

Swayze Train & Galactic Alignment guitarist Mike Libertoski has created a new YouTube channel, and unlike his inactive solo project's YouTube channel, this one is so far solely devoted to solo covers of metal tracks! Three videos have been uploaded there, all posted last month, and they include Mike's covers of Animals As Leaders' "The Price Of Everything & The Value Of Nothing", a short cover of Beneath The Massacre's "Lithium Overdose", and (as embedded below) his cover of The Faceless' "Legions Of The Serpent"! Mike's talent is on full display, and he seems to have a firm grasp on these songs, but I'd have turned down the original song from the recordings, as it can drown out Mike's playing at times, especially on the Animals As Leaders cover. Still, these show Mike's excellent guitar skills well, and you can check out all of Mike's newest videos at the above links, or check out his Faceless cover below!



Also in Mike Libertoski news, I recently came across some new media from his Galactic Alignment tech-metal solo project, but not from official band pages. Mike's old Slackjawed Rats bandmate Jared Lucas (who now lives in Big Rapids, Michigan while attending Ferris State University) has his own SoundCloud page, where he's revealed that he's an aspiring producer & sound engineer. His page has a number of tracks that he's produced, but there are a couple of tracks that Jared uploaded with local metal ties, the most recent of which being a recently remixed version of Galactic Alignment's original "Radiated Infinite Oblivion"! Jared supplies some bass on this track & produced it, and it sounds very brutal, with some nice progressive and technical elements! The other local metal-related video there is a song called "Deluxe 3" from December 2010 that Mike & Jared recorded with Mike's Swayze Train bandmate Scott Savoie (pictured.) Here, Scott played most instruments, with Mike handling lead guitar & drum programming, and Jared on (really good) death metal singing. I don't know how far that band arrangement ever got, but they have good chemistry & are extremely heavy, so check out that and the new Galactic Alignment song at the above links, and stay tuned for more from Mike's projects!

We'll close today with topics related to Sault Ontario classic metal quartet Late & Loud, who will of course rock Coch's Corner THIS SATURDAY! As you may remember, it was confirmed last month that Late & Loud would be opening for Victoria, British Columbia sleaze metal quintet The Lust Boys in Sault Ontario on March 30th, and though posters for their "Tour Before Dishonour 2012" say they're playing at The Canadian Nightclub, that doesn't appear to be final at present. No venue is absolutely confirmed yet for this show, and while I did send guitarist Brendan Christie some venue contacts, any press will help, so I'm spreading the word once again to help secure a Lust Boys date here on March 30th! Remember, The Lust Boys have a great old school mix of punk and hair metal, and former Saultite Ben Kemp-Reynolds (a.k.a. Benny Blitz) is their guitarist, and an ex-bandmate of Late & Loud's Benn Garside & Josh Hatherly from The Glass Statues, so along with their quality sleaze sounds, they have local ties too! It'll be awesome to see them here, but if you can help secure a venue or booking for this show (at The Canadian or elsewhere), give Brendan a shout at this location, and fingers crossed this show goes down! For now, I've removed it from our concert listings due to the venue uncertainty, but if anything new is announced, I'll have it here!

And finally, here's this week's classic video! For the second time in three weeks, we're tying in the current upload with Late & Loud, but only this time is it thanks to a concert (go see them on Saturday night!) As you may remember last January, one of our first classic video postings was of Late & Loud guitarist Jonathan Tiberi's short-lived local metal band Losing Ground (featuring State of Misery alumni Kevin D'Orazio & Nick Kainula) from 2009, and while that video was a cover of Pentagram's "Forever My Queen", they had one more video worth uploading from Facebook! This time, however, it was an instrumental original named "The Wizard's Pipe", and it honestly sounds better than the Pentagram cover! It's got nice speed and pacing, and it has a good classic sound going for it, though I'm curious to hear vocals with it, and the excess video effects can be detracting. Similarly to the first video of Losing Ground, this is from a late 2009 jam session sans guitarist Kevin Koprash, and Jonathan posted this onto his personal Facebook page on December 17th, 2009 at http://facebook.com/photo.php?v=1309568737634. NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IS INTENDED!! All credit for this video goes to the ex-members of Losing Ground, I'm just sharing this video with a wider audience like it deserves!

I know this wasn't the most accomplished band from Jon, Kevin, or Nick's musical resumes, but "The Wizard's Pipe" has a lot of promise, and it'd be interesting to see it expanded on, so give it a listen for some catchy instrumental classic metal below, and stay tuned for more from Late & Loud and related projects as it comes in!



That's all for now, but stay tuned for weekend concert previews either tonight or tomorrow morning! Thanks everyone!

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