Friday, November 10, 2017

LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Soundcheck), The Doors & Fours Concert Preview, And Much More!!

As promised, our preview of this weekend's Doors & Fours concert is now back on the site, and to fill things out, we have some assorted recent news and notes, a surpsise throwback to channel 48 almost 13 years ago, and leading off, here's some new LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS!

Local classic/hard rock cover quartet Soundcheck will end a three month concert hiatus when they return to The Esquire Club for shows on Friday, November 17th & Saturday, November 18th (yes, next week!) After taking a few months off, with a handful of concert cancellations in between, it's great to see the Mourning Wood successors back in advance of their Toystock debut in a couple of weeks, so be sure to welcome this fan favourite band back next week! Soundcheck also hopes to have new tunes added into their setlist for these shows, their first at The Esquire Club since Rotaryfest weekend. As usual for their stops at this west end venue, expect 9:30 PM start times next Friday and Saturday, there are no announced cover charges, and you must be 19 or older to attend. Visit the official Facebook event page for more details, and look for more in our preview next week!

Next up, here's our delayed preview of the other big concert at The Algonquin Hotel,  THIS SATURDAY NIGHT, where fans can check out the local debut of Hamilton punk/grunge trio Doors & Fours downstairs at The Algonquin Pub/Spin Nightclub! Attentive fans may recognize Doors & Fours from sharing the stage with local punk/metal quintet Jack Spades in Hamilton back in July, so it's cool to see the inverse happen as they come north on Saturday! With a grungy but heavy sound that will remind listeners of the 1990s, Doors & Fours are definitely worth checking out, so keep them in mind for some hard hitting original action this weekend! Jack Spades will open this show in their first local stop since their Wolves on Parade tour of Northern Ontario with Archelon and The Elements, while local punk trio Stegadeth were quietly confirmed recently as the second opening band on Saturday, marking their first set since opening for The Ripcordz last month. Solid choice, and they should set the tone well!

Coming midway through Doors & Fours' Canadian tour this fall, Saturday night's concert (promoted by Jack Spades frontman J.D. Pearce) has a 19+ age limit and 9:00 PM start time, and while there has surprisingly not been an announced cover charge, bring at least $5 just in case. Visit the official Facebook event page for more details, and here's Doors & Fours live!



Also today, here's a bit of a change of pace from our usual coverage. In recent searches of SMS-relevant videos on YouTube, I recently came across a new posting of an episode of the 1999-2005 Comedy Network original series Kevin Spencer, with the episode name "Treble Charger". This isn't just the name, the local/Toronto indie/punk quartet voiced themselves in this episode, and I never knew about it until this year! If you're not familiar with the series, it was very much an adult cartoon about a delinquent teenager and his white trash parents. The episode in question aired in January 2005 during the show's seventh season (though early in the band's original hiatus), and it's about Kevin winning a contest from a MuchMusic-esque station to hang out with and interview a band of his choice (Treble Charger), though nothing goes according to plan, especially with his parents tagging along. The band was voiced here by their 2003-2004 lineup, including then-guitarist Devin Bronson in place of Bill Priddle.

I will not embed the episode here due to it's explicit content, but I might as well give a brief review. Crude animation & even cruder humour, but it has a few amusing moments, especially from Kevin's narrator, the "April Wine room", and some of the inside remarks on the music industry & personalities covering it. Treble Charger themselves get lots of screen time, as do their friends-turned-enemies in Sum 41 (also voicing themselves), while clips from "American Psycho", "Brand New Low", and "Wear Me Down" can be heard throughout. This won't be everyone's cup of tea, but if you like adult humour, this & many more episodes can be found on YouTube!

Finally for today, here's three assorted shorter news items from the last while, and as usual, these are in alphabetical order by artist or event name:

  • Local death metal favourites The Bear Hunters did play the Special Ops show at The Rockstar Bar last week after all! Frontman Nik Deubel confirmed on the Facebook event page that the scheduling conflict that came up for "one of us" was delayed a day, allowing them back on the bill, while a personal Facebook posting noted that they played last that night. Hopefully the show was a hit!
  • In case you haven't been following the municipal elections in Sault Michigan, City Commissioner and former Rock 101/The Bear DJ Ray Bauer lost the mayoral election to incumbent mayor Anthony Bosbous on Tuesday. Ray pulled in almost a third of the vote, against Mayor Bosbous' healthy majority of over 61%, continuing his run as Sault Michigan's longest serving mayor. Congratulations are in order, as with Ray on running a good campaign! Click here for more from local news media on Tuesday's elections.
  • Timeslots for this year's Toystock at The Northern Grand Gardens on November 26th were revealed via the Facebook event page earlier this week, which confirm that Bone Yard and The Peace Vibe will headline once again, while The 3 Day Millionares & Soundcheck will bring the hard rock at 4:00 & 3:00 PM. Also confirmed there is the exit of blues rock band Mojo from the event, who were replaced by guitarist Alex D'Ettore's acoustic country duo The Bearded Lounge. With all of Mojo playing in Bone Yard that night, an afternoon scheduling conflict for Brad or Ric is likely to blame for the change, but don't miss everyone in over two weeks!

That's all for now, but stay tuned for this month's Defunct Local Band Profile on the site next! Thanks everyone

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