Two Inactive Local Bands, New Grunge/Alternative Covers, And Some Deleted Links!!

Let's keep our recent busy stretch going at the SMS with another news post, but what's on the docket this time around? Along with some link deletions from the site, we also have new covers from a pair of inactive & linked grunge/alternative bands, but first, we have some bands to consider as now likely inactive, so here's what you need to know!

I've opted to move two linked Sault Ontario metal bands to our inactive band links, those being local hardcore/death metal acts March Into Regression & With Blood Builds Character. Neither has issued a public update since last summer, and most of their personnel have been busy in other projects lately (Ray Cowan & Christopher Neveau in Unbound, Josh Stephney in The Bear Hunters & Giwakwa, Jeremy Hannah with solo indie material, and Tyler St. Amour in Social Suicide), so both bands seem to be on the backburner, or worse. As you may remember, March Into Regression (formerly Bring The Misery in mid-2011) was relaunched by drummer Travis St. Amour last June with a new larger lineup & a looser jam feel for shows in Laird & at The Rosie, but they were essentially succeeded by With Blood Builds Character in July, who featured the same lineup (minus Josh & Travis), though all of March Into Regression's last members played in some form at W.B.B.C.'s only gig last August in Laird. Note that M.I.R.'s return last year coincided with Travis' return home from college last spring, but I've heard nothing about a similar resurrection of either of these bands in 2013 (at least, not yet.)

Despite the informal nature of their shows, I thought both March Into Regression & With Blood Builds Character had a lot of promise (their originals proved that), and I hoped that one of the bands would last longer than they did locally, but at least most of the guys are keeping active in the local scene. Best of luck to Jeremy, Josh, Ray, Christopher, Dan, Tyler, Travis, and other ex-members in the future, and here's hoping we see more from them all shortly!

Next up, a pair of inactive projects from local musician Dann Pichette have some new audio uploads to check out via his YouTube channel on Friday! One is a cover of The Beatles' "I'm Not Sleeping", which is credited to his old grunge band No Arrow (though Dann played all instruments on the track), and while I'm not a scholar of Beatles material, Dann did seem to put in a good sound and effort on this cover, even if it's not that heavy! The vocals are somewhat punk-inspired & listless, but it gives it vibe similar to that of Dann's later SBD work. Check out his "I'm Not Sleeping" cover below!



Also, Dann also uploaded this cover of Syd Barrett's "Octopus" (credited to his most recent local band project, alternative/grunge trio SBD) onto YouTube as well! Featuring bassist Brad Griffith on drums in place of Shane Triplett, this is in line with many of SBD's live covers (lots of early Pink Floyd/Syd Barrett songs), and it shows more originality and a closer link to their sound than The Beatles one arguably did, so I like it more on that basis alone! Check out SBD's new/old Syd Barrett cover below!



Finally for today, here's some notes on deleted links leading from our recent layout changes. One deleted page was that of Andrea Gosselin Photography (who did lots of local concert photography and the photos for Garden of Bedlam's latest album), as her website is currently unavailable. No word on why this happened, but with no indications of it being temporary (or replacement pages), I've deleted it from our links... at least for now. The other deletions are inactive local metal-relevant message boards, as the forums for both defunct hard rock band Renderware & the former regional music webzine Northern Rocks Magazine have been taken down by their respective hosts. No reason was publicized for Renderware's forum, but the Northern Rocks forum was a casualty of the migration of old Forumer-hosted boards to the newer Yuku platform, similarly to why the old Sault Music Scene forums were taken down. It can be saved & completely migrated if requested by March 21st, but seeing as the magazine hasn't been produced since mid-2009, the odds are extremely slim. (I really wish the magazine was still around though, it had great content and a great purpose!)

With these closures, we're down to 5 active local metal-relevant message boards that I know of (Woods of Ypres & Gates of Winter's forums, Freq's Music Planet, SooNet Musician Central, and the 705 Video Magazine forums), but the 705VM boards are currently down (possibly due to spam issues), and only Freq's Music Planet has been otherwise maintained in the past year. This seems odd to see the dropoff, but maybe social media is diminishing the need for forums? I think there's still a place for message boards (even if my own attempts failed), and hopefully more will pop up soon!

That's all for now, but stay tuned for more news and notes shortly! Thanks everyone!