LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Bay Mills Bands Together), A New Band Discovery, And New Videos!!

On this mild Saturday, let's keep our relatively busy streak at the SMS rolling with a new news post! Below, you will find some new videos from Sault Ontario artists, and a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT from the Sault Michigan area, but first, here's a new defunct band to add to our band links!

We have a newly found local punk band to add to our inactive band links, and they are a short lived all-female punk/emo band from 2005 named Murder By Romance! Launched that July, the band featured Aisha Day on lead vocals alongside singer/guitarist Brianne Fournier, and keyboardist Katie Niskanen (I believe), while an earlier post on Brianne's personal Tripod page indicated that a guitarist named Misty (full identity unclear) was a later addition on lead guitar. At last word, Murder By Romance was a work in progress, without a firmly established bassist or drummer, but a search for them was underway. The band's Tripod page features some basic biography & contact information from that time, and an extensive potential setlist suggested by a friend of the band, which indicates that bands from AFI & Avenged Sevenfold to Weezer and Yellowcard were possible to be covered in concert.

Aside from Aisha's past work as a concert promoter, I can't place anyone from Murder By Romance in a musical context, so I can't comment on how they sounded, especially with no posted media or reference to live gigs. That said, the prospect of an all-female punk/emo band is definitely intriguing, and would have been very unique in the mid-2000s local punk scene had they played live, much like Apocrytha were around the same time. Check the above links for more on Murder By Romance!

Next up, here's that LOCAL CONCERT ALERT, as a second Bay Mills Bands Together fundraiser will be held on Sunday, February 25th at Pickles Bar & Grill in nearby Brimley, Michigan! Nine months removed from the non-profit group's debut concert at the same venue in support of Marissa Kronemeyer, a number of local bands will unite to help raise funds for Liz & Christian Perron, who recently lost their son Wesley after a long medical fight, which you can read up on at this link if you're not familiar with their story. This concert is designed to help raise funds for the Perrons to help cover medical expenses, and bands are donating their time to the cause, which is awesome of all of them! On the SMS-covered front, this show will feature four returning bands from last year, including local hard/blues rock quartet Project 906 and the first 2017 date from masked metal quartet Stoned Ape Evolution, while female-fronted cover rockers The Whole Shabang are the advertised headliners, and solo artist Ken Jahnke will also return.

New performers on the 25th will include local rock cover trio Absolute Magnitude (featuring Broke on Sunday & Oddfellow alumni), country rockers The Brooks Band, and a mysterious band named The Lost Dogs, whom we'll have info on if found. Bay Mills Bands Together II has a 6:00 PM start time, $5 minimum entrance fee (you can donate more if you want), while there will be tickets on sale for door prizes & a 50/50 draw.  It's great to see another fundraiser concert of this scale at Pickles, so click here for more details, keep the Perrons in your thoughts, and Bay Mills Bands Together is finally in our Other Local Metal Links!

We'll close today with new videos, starting with a new live concert video posted to Sault Ontario alternative/hard rock trio The Din's YouTube channel on Thursday! This comes from their headlining show at LopLops Lounge two weeks ago, and it's of their original song "The Rose", which kicked off their set that night. The stationary camera footage is nice and close, and while it sounds largely good with nice & clear vocals from Mike Haggith, I will note that Tammy Hill's guitar work is fairly quiet until her guitar solo. The Din teased that they have much more footage from this show to post or share in the near future, so stay tuned, and give "The Rose" a look below!

Finally, here's a new solo cover video from Stegadeth guitarist Tiffany Stocco's YouTube channel! Uploaded there yesterday, this is a cover of Bad Religion's "Sinister Rouge", and while it is visibly well performed, the audio quality is once again an issue, with the loud backing track coming out very scratchy, and it can be hard to make out Tiffany's part. Still well done, so give it a look below, and keep watch for more from her & Stegadeth!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for much more on the site next week! Thanks everyone!