Saturday, January 26, 2019

YouTube Channel Profile Series: ThePickMeUps

It's now time for our first YouTube Channel Profile of 2019! This monthly feature series looks at 1-3 YouTube channels whose content is at least 50% relevant to local metal, hard rock, or punk artists or concerts, in order to spotlight them and their content for readers and potential subscribers, with channels randomly selected as usual. This month's selection is the channel from a talented young band from the E.U.P. who deserved a higher profile run, so here's what you should know!
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ThePickMeUps (http://www.youtube.com/thepickmeups)

Owner: A member of defunct Sault Michigan ska punk trio The Pick-Me-Ups (my guess is frontman Matt LaPointe, but I'm not 100% certain)

Channel Timeline: Launched on April 12th, 2009; Videos posted from the following day through August 12th of that year

Channel Summary: The official YouTube channel for The Pick-Me-Ups, no less than 31 videos were uploaded there in a four month span. About half of the videos are devoted to live performances & "Studio Daze" recordings, with the remainder focused on humorous videos of band members & friends in non-musical situations, with all but two running for under one minute in length.

Why You Should Watch: This channel is naturally worth checking out for old Pick-Me-Ups fans, while anyone interested in seeing a rare Sault Michigan-based punk band in action might want to see this promising (but short lived) band's content! The comedic videos might be worth a watch if you like seeing silly lighter moments from local musicians. However, note that this channel has not been actively used since the band's 2010 breakup.

Our Recommended Videos To Check Out

The Pick-Me-Ups - Eureka Street (Live): 14 of The Pick-Me-Ups' videos relate to their public concert debut, which took place at a youth event of some kind at The Big Bear Arena in April 2009. Following their drive to the arena, the guys played 12 songs, including six originals, namely "Crawl Back", "Just A Shame", "What It's Like", "Grape Kool-Aid", and "Pick It Up", and featured here, their original "Eureka Street", which is their channel's most popular video. The Pick-Me-Ups are represented here by singer/guitarist Matt LaPointe, bassist Trevor Yake, and ex-Elements of Madness drummer Landon Mattson. The video quality on these clips isn't overly sharp, and warping can occur on occasion, but the audio comes through well enough, and their bouncy brand of ska punk with faster and heavier breakdowns would surely have went over really well had they lasted into the 2010s!



The Pick-Me-Ups - Badfish (Sublime Cover): The other six full songs performed at the aforementioned Big Bear Arena show were covers, including of The Ramones' "Blitzkrieg Bop", Dispatch's "The General", The Misfits' "Astro Zombies", Blink-182's "All The Small Things", and Rancid's "Time Bomb", but featured here is their version of Sublime's "Badfish". Nice laid back take on this ska classic, and everyone performs strongly, with Matt guitar work matching well with the rhythm! The last shot video at this event was an impromptu karaoke "version" of Guns N' Roses' "Welcome To The Jungle" by Trevor and ex-Cherubic Red frontman Steven Dahkle.



Studio Daze (Bass Track: Grape Kool-Aid): In July & August 2009, The Pick-Me-Ups recorded a self-titled demo at Lake Street Studio in nearby Brimley, featuring 10 original songs, and while this is unavailable in full online today, six songs were posted to the band's MySpace page. Four of their final six YouTube uploads were from the demo's recording sessions, hence the "Studio Daze" moniker, including Matt recording vocals for "Eureka Street" and Landon recording backing vocals for "Picket Fences". The other two are of Trevor's bass tracks for the songs "Just A Shame" and, as featured here, "Grape Kool-Aid", with bandmates looking on in each. You don't really see him playing the actual audio in either, but these give a nice isolated look at the recordings, and hopefully the full demo turns up down the road!


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I hope you guys liked this month's YouTube Channel Profile! Next month, our random selection has given us a local band's official channel for the third straight time, as we'll be looking at defunct Sault Ontario alt-hard rock trio The Din's channel! Look for this on or around February 26th, and stay tuned for more news and notes on the site next week! Thanks everyone!

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