Monday, December 27, 2021

YouTube Channel Profile Series: Garrett Rogers

It's now time for this month's YouTube Channel Profile, and in our last installment of this series of 2021, we're again looking at a randomly selected YouTube channel whose content is at least half devoted to local metal, hard rock, or punk musicians/concerts. Our random selection gave us quite a fitting channel to look at this month, given the extremely sad events of over a decade ago this month, so here's what you should know!

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Garrett Rogers (http://youtube.com/deformedpie) 

Owner: YouTube user Garrett Rogers, who I don't believe is from Sault Ste. Marie

Channel Timeline: Launched on May 24th, 2010; Videos uploaded from October 2015-July 2016

Channel Summary: A metal fan with a clear appreciation for defunct local blackened doom metal band Woods of Ypres, all but five of Garrett's uploads comprise of Woods of Ypres' entire studio catalog of original songs (as of 2021), all represented with the song alongside its album cover. The only songs not here from released albums are the cello cover of "Allure of the Earth" from that single, the Necramyth bonus disc from "Woods IV", and the producer's mix of "Finality" from "Woods V" on vinyl. Garrett's only non-Woods videos are still related, namely New Brunswick black metal band Thrawsunblat's 2016 EP "Metachthonia" (remember, Thrawsunblat feature the surviving members of Woods of Ypres' final lineup, including Joel Violette from "Woods V").
 
Why You Should Watch:
If you love Woods of Ypres and have been mourning the 10 year anniversary of frontman David Gold's death this month (hard to believe it's been a decade already), then this channel will quench your thirst! Granted, this is a fan channel and not official through any band or label-linked account (I don't believe), so keep that in mind, but if you just want a convenient spot to hear the vast majority of Woods of Ypres' recorded output, keep DeformedPie in mind!

 Our Recommended Videos To Check Out:
 
Woods Of Ypres - Deepest Roots And Darkest Blues: If you count the songs on the five canonical Woods albums + the "Home" single, you'll come up with one more song than Garrett uploaded. The discrepancy comes from his combining "Deepest Roots: Belief That All Is Lost" and "Darkest Blues: Relief That Nothing Can Be Done" from 2007's "Woods III" into one seven minute continuous track for his song uploads. There's no major break in between, so they blend together as one suite, as they were intended to on the album. These provide melodic black metal from the tail end of Woods of Ypres' Southern Ontario era that fans will still easily be able to, and the evocative lyrics certainly don't hurt this song's cause!
 

 
Woods Of Ypres - Wet Leather: Surprisingly, Garrett's most watched video is a song from the Thrawsunblat EP he uploaded, with "Fires That Light The Earth" garnering over 18,000 views! While a great band that carries the Woods torch very well, they're not local, so the most viewed Woods of Ypres video here is "Wet Leather" from 2009's "Woods IV: The Green Album", their only song here to crack 3,000 views (and by a healthy margin, at that). A nicely paced doom metal song best known from the "Life is just pain and piss..." lyrics, this is a fan favourite from their local era, and I'm not surprised it got a lot of hits on this channel!


 
Woods Of Ypres - Death Is Not An Exit: Given how the lyrical themes from 2012's "Woods V: Grey Skies & Electric Light" have been connected by fans to David's passing in December 2011, especially with that album's posthumous success and accolades, it made perfect sense to feature a song from the album here. Death, loss, and mourning are heavy themes on the record, but I went with "Death Is Not An Exit" here because it's less sorrowful and morose, and more optimistic about what David felt that death meant. I've had to reconcile that a lot myself, having lost my mother to cancer last fall. It's a shame that Woods of Ypres didn't get their true breakthrough until David was gone, but thankfully, his music never will be!
 

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I hope you guys liked this month's YouTube Channel Profile! To kick off 2022 in this series, we're taking a look at another randomly selected single YouTube channel, that being from YouTube user Jon Tiberious (a.k.a. Late & Loud guitarist Jonathan Tiberi), whose channel features an array of musical content despite it's seeming brevity! Look for that on or around January 26th, and for more news and content on the site this week! Thanks everyone!

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