Wednesday, April 22, 2015

YouTube Channel Profile Series: kennybekendam, Jon Livingstone, And George Poury

It's now time for this month's YouTube Channel Profiles, as our monthly feature series on local metal/hard rock/punk YouTube channels enters another month! As usual, we're looking at 1-3 randomly selected channels (3 this time) with a 50% or higher count of videos relevant to our coverage, in order for readers to check them out, subscribe, and/or learn more about the presented artists and shows, and yes, the first channel is the one we postponed after realizing we had more different videos last month than anticipated. There's a wide array below to check out in this installment, so read on for what you should know!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
kennybekendam's Channel (http://www.youtube.com/kennybekendam)

Owner: Hamilton pop rock solo musician Kenny Bekendam

Channel Timeline: Launched on October 17th, 2011; Videos uploaded from January 2012-April 2014

Channel Summary: Though intended as a solo YouTube channel on his music and performances, two of Kenny's four videos are from local/Toronto indie punk quartet Treble Charger's reunion concert on March 21st, 2012 at Toronto's Phoenix Concert Theatre during that year's Canadian Music Fest. His videos include Treble Charger playing their songs "10th Grade Love" (complete with an enthusiastic fan dancing on stage) and, as embedded below, the more viewed "Red". Greig, Bill, and company sound good on two of their popular early hits, and the crowd's definitely into both, but the videos aren't terribly close to the stage, and they can be a little blurry. Still, Treble Charger fans should like these clips from their first concert in nine years, and though this channel hasn't been updated in almost a year, give Kenny's own material a look too for some solid indie rock!


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jon Livingstone (http://youtube.com/channel/UC62PXyx9K6IkL2qQVpwySRA)

Owner: Sault Ontario resident and local musician Jon Livingstone

Channel Timeline: Launched on October 30th, 2012; Videos posted on January 28th, 2013

Channel Summary: All three of Jon's videos are audio recordings of his friend, ex-Pillory drummer Bret Shuttleworth, playing what are labelled as solo tracks. These include apparent original songs named "No Doubt In My Mind" & "Now I'm Here" and the most viewed video, a cover of Metallica's "For Whom The Bell Tolls", though it's unclear if Jon plays an instrument role on them. If that's Bret singing on these tracks, then he has a good voice, and that fits very well on the Metallica cover, but the two originals are much softer than Bret's band work, though the dark "Now I'm Here" does give the vibe of an intro to a metal song yet to be written. Bret's talented, and it'd be nice to see him pick up his solo work again, or join another local band in the future! However, keep in mind that Jon hasn't updated this channel in a year or so.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
George Poury (http://www.youtube.com/jurgenss88)

Owner: YouTube user George Poury

Channel Timeline: Launched on March 26th, 2012; Videos posted on February 16th, 2013

Channel Summary: Though not from the Soo (a post on his channel is in Latvian), George's two YouTube postings are both of songs by defunct local doom metal band Woods of Ypres, both from their final album, 2012's "Woods 5: Grey Skies & Electric Light". Both uploaded as lyric videos with the song lyrics synched with the music, the songs are "Modern Life Architecture" and (as embedded below) "Silver", both among the doomier of the songs on the disc. Though there are fuller and more substantive sources of Woods of Ypres studio material on YouTube, these videos are worth checking out if you want to sing along with or get the lyrics for these two, so they work well on that basis! Note however that George hasn't visibly updated this channel since last year.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I hope you guys liked today's YouTube Channel Profiles! Next month in this series, we'll return to a single channel profile, as next month's random selection is Skeyes of Seven/ex-As It Stands drummer John Mignacca's current YouTube channel, featuring a bunch of A.I.S. and solo postings! Watch for that on or around May 22nd, and stay tuned for weekend concert previews next! Thanks everyone!

No comments: