A New Interview, A New Music Video, And More!!

Things have been relatively quiet around the SMS the last few days, but we have a new post to check out on this Tuesday morning, and a very video-heavy one at that! Sandwiching a music video from a prominent Sault Michigan group, we have two videos from Sault Ontario of wildly different lengths and purposes, so here's what you should know!

Local/Manitoba alt-hard rock solo musician Mike Haggith was the subject of a 50 minute interview that was live-streamed on YouTube last week! Conducted by Australian musician and internet host Pete Johns (of Studio Live Today and GarageBand Weekly), this is one of multiple videos posted onto Pete's YouTube channel from his "creator series" of extended interviews with musicians about their experiences writing and recording original music, especially if they use the GarageBand software. Entitled "Building Bridges Through Song", the remotely recorded interview features Mike answering questions primarily from Pete, but also some from live-stream viewers. Studio Live Today and Pete's social media sites are bigger than you may expect, with this channel alone having over 100,000 subscribers! The interview, which is very much geared towards musicians and the craft therein, features Mike discussing his musical origins, his sound, ...

...his inspirations for original songs, his day job, his new website, life in Canada/Thompson, the evolution of his recording process, his usage of GarageBand on his iPad, his feelings on having the best gear (or lack thereof), his work in making music & lyric videos, his proudest moment in music (hint: it's involves a band of his), how he got physical copies made for recent albums, and his advice for fellow upstart musicians. Very professionally done interview with nice touches to keep things visually interesting beyond seeing Pete and Mike where they were filming, including the text pop-ups for viewer comments and inset views of Mike's music video, website pages, and more where necessary! However, this interview is definitely something you'll take more away from if you are a musician who uses computer editing programs, rather than just being a casual fan.

This is some great exposure for Mike to an international audience, both via Pete being down under and his own wide subscriber base, and hopefully Mike's interview will lead to more Studio Live Today fans checking his music out! Give the whole thing a watch below, and we'll have more from Mike soon!

Next up, let's take a detour to Michigan, where local classical metal band Theatre of Night posted the second studio original from their upcoming second Christmas album on their YouTube channel on Friday, complete with its own music video (in colour!). This is for the Christmas carol "We Three Kings", and it features the band (including a new bassist to replace the departed Scott Andringa) playing in a dark, smoky room with a stage setup, intercut with a filmed version of the Nativity, source unclear. Assuming this album will be completed and sold, I'll hold comment for now, but if you like hearing Theatre of Night with vocals, you'll definitely wanna check this out! Video is nicely shot too, and Rachel plays to the camera pretty well, so give it a look below, and stay tuned for more on the new album and who the new bassist is!

To close, here's a new video from young Sault Ontario punk band Vanity's YouTube channel, featuring 12 seconds of them covering Green Day's "When I Come Around", albeit from a unique vantage point of an unseen cameraman filming them seemingly undetected during a jam session (2/3rds of the very short runtime is spent walking to and opening up a door to where Vanity are playing). Despite the length, it's a solid performance, so give it a watch/listen below, and look for more from their camp soon!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news & notes on the site as the week continues! Thanks everyone!