Scarkazm Concert Previews, Tarnished Updates, And More News & Notes!!

Here's a new news post for your Thursday night reading, and it includes some assorted topics from recent days, a new video, the latest from a prominent local band, and unless something super short notice turns up in the next couple of days, previews of the only hard rock concerts announced for this weekend in the Twin Saults. For what it's worth, we'll be previewing Tuesday's Buckcherry concert on the site on Sunday or Monday, it's a little early yet to do it today. Now, here's what you should know!

We'll start today with a pair of concert previews for Sault Michigan, as Traverse City metal trio Scarkazm will make their long awaited return to the E.U.P. with concerts at The Rapids Lounge at the local Kewadin Casino TOMORROW & SATURDAY NIGHT! These will be Adam, Dave, and Jeff's first concerts in our neck of the woods since February 2020 for extremely obvious reasons, and it's great to see Scarkazm's hard hitting blend of covers and originals back at a Kewadin venue after 20 long months, so if you've missed them in the pandemic era, here you go! If you can't come this weekend, they will be back at The Rapids Lounge on New Year's Eve. As usual, these are 9:00 PM concerts with 21+ age limits and no cover charges, but please honour and respect any public health and social distancing guidelines at the lounge and/or casino. Visit the official Facebook event pages linked here & here for more details, and here's Scarkazm live!

Next up, here's the latest from local hard rock band Tarnished, who have yet to reveal the identity of their apparent new bassist on social media, but they haven't been idle as of late! Following their short notice concert in Gould City (outside of our coverage range) on September 25th, the guys hit the road for Grand Rapids this past Saturday for a headlining concert alongside opening acts from that area with quite the imagery, if the poster on the Facebook event page is any indication! Hopefully the concert was a success and that they made some new fans in the Lower Peninsula! As well as sharing a previously posted 2019 concert video of them covering Van Halen's "Eruption", Tarnished's other recent post was to acknowledge that their music video for "Metalyn" won the fan vote for Best Student Music Video at the Soo Film Festival last month. Congratulations to Jay and Tarnished for sure, and stay tuned for more from their camp!

Also, let's head north to Sault Ontario for a brief new video from local party metal band The Apocalypse Afterparty's Facebook AND TikTok page! Yes, they're now on the latter service, but on TikTok, they also post some personal content not related to the band, and anything musical has been double-posted to Facebook anyway (both Paul and Amanda appear to have admin controls on there). On September 24th, The A.A. shared a video of them jamming a Lorde cover as only they can, with just the Stanghettas visibly performing, but Paul drops in an impromptu "simple dimple" dance, parodying a recent viral challenge on TikTok. Myself, I don't get it, but I'm also not on TikTok to know what trends there. Still a silly and light-hearted moment in between a solid rendition, so give it a watch below, and remember their private gig at Mellow D's Underground next week, more info forthcoming!

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

 

• Local author George Case (arguably best known for his books about Led Zeppelin) has released a new book called "Takin' Care of Business: A History of Working People's Rock 'n' Roll", which explores the influence of rock music on the working class as it relates to populism and the evolution of political affiliation trends. I don't get into politics on the site unless explicitly related to local concerts/original songs, so I hesitate to elaborate on this line of discussion, but it's an interesting topic of debate! Click here to read Frank Rupnik's SooToday article on the book from last week, and click here to buy George's new book (and more) on Amazon!
• After being closed for almost three years, The Tech has re-opened under new ownership! The former Lakeway Collegiate/St. Mary's College building had been repurposed as a multi-purpose events center in the fall of 2015, but it quietly closed in February 2019. A handful of concerts (like the annual mental health fundraiser The Sky's The Limit & The Din's debut CD release party) were held at The W.W. Baldwin Auditiorium on-site, and given that former local concert promoter/musician Jeremy Hannah is involved in The Tech's revival, could more shows happen there in time? Stay tuned for updates, and learn more at their new Facebook page!
• I have deleted late 2000s Sault Michigan acoustic hard rock band (and Shift side project) Wild Fate from our inactive band links, as their page was hit by the slow decay of publically viewable photos on their MySpace (and only surviving online) page. I have found that MySpace pages have been liable to lose pictures as time progresses, further eroding anything that made MySpace worthwhile, but it is what it is. Hopefully Joey and Amy are doing well nowadays!
  

 

That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and notes on the site this weekend! Thanks everyone!