Sunday, July 31, 2022

Heavy Lies The Crown Updates, Plus New Live Concert Videos!!

A post a day through July 2022, not bad! I think the last time the SMS had an unbroken string of posts every day in a month was during the first pandemic lockdown in the spring of 2020, and thankfully, things being so busy lately are for much better and happier reasons! To end the month, here's a new video-heavy post that largely covers a couple of notable bands in the E.U.P., but we'll head back to Ontario at post's end!

We'll start with more recent uncovered updates from St. Ignace, Michigan metalcore quintet Heavy Lies The Crown, who have posted a lot of content on their Facebook page in the past 2+ weeks, so apologies while we continue playing catch-up. On the 15th, singer Brandon West announced in this video that H.L.T.C. would be playing the Summerbash concert festival in Gaylord (an hour & 45 minutes south of the Soo) that took place yesterday! Apologies for missing it here, but it is still way out of our one hour coverage range (the band did lampshade things by noting that "this is the closest to home we might get, lol".  The Facebook event page lists the complete lineup and camping-friendly details, and as far as I can tell, Heavy Lies The Crown were the only Yooper band to make the trip. Videos were shot there, but we'll save those for an upcoming post. so what else did we miss from their Facebook page before then?

On July 18th, this "reel" was shared of Brandon playing with his hair alongside audio from their song "Dead Teeth", and the next day, they teased getting proper new lineup photos and a single ready soon. On the 20th, Brandon posted this video to quietly plug the Gaylord concert and a linked Jackson guitar raffle, and later plugged their next show, sadly not local either, when they'll open for Nagazi at The Music Factory in Battle Creek (details here). This will be as out of the way in Michigan from here as you can get, but hopefully it's a great show! Many of H.L.T.C.'s other recent updates have been comedic in nature, keeping with their general social media focus since their mass lineup changes earlier this year, but to close for now, Heavy Lies The Crown did share this video yesterday to get one last push out for Summerbash and to formally introduce their three newest members!

Of note is that Christian Thanasiu is actually their new rhythm guitarist, while Christian Bailey (who I'm also not familiar with from prior bands) is the new bassist, so I apologize to them (and Jesse Utter) for any erroneous earlier reporting. Not every band has two members named Christian, you can see why there'd be an easy way to get tripped up! It's good to see Jaxon and the Christians finally get to formally introduce themselves to online fans, especially with how Brandon-heavy their recent videos have been! I can't embed it here due to Facebook content matching their own song "A Sold Soul" from the end-of-video rehearsal footage, alas, but give it and much more from H.L.T.C. a look above!

Next up, here's a video that I can embed here, namely a live video of local blues/hard rock quartet Project 906 covering Collective Soul's "Shine" at The Islander Bar in Hessel on July 22nd! This was uploaded to their Facebook page on Thursday, and was filmed by the same person who shot their "Man In The Box" cover that was uploaded previously from that night. I find "Shine" to be somewhat overplayed (if not on "December" levels),  but it's a faithfully handled cover! Shame about the overdone blue stage lighting still though. Check this video out below, don't miss them back in Hessel in a few weeks, and stay tuned for more in the summer of 906!


Finally for today, let's jump north to Sault Ontario for a couple of live performance videos from local punk/alternative quartet Handsome Sandwich's Facebook page! These were uploaded on July 15th during Ourselves' Handsome Sandwich's set at Shooters Downstairs Lounge that same night, both featuring covers that will interest fans of pre-pandemic Handsome Sandwich gigs, but also will help fill a four hour timeslot for one band at a nightclub & interest a wider audience of nightclub patrons. One has the band (minus Taylor) covering Tears For Fears' "Everybody Wants To Rule The World" with drummer Johnny Belanger back on lead vocals, which seemed to go over well with the cardboard cutout of Jason Momoa! Embedded below is the second video, which has the full band covering Tommy James & The Shondells' "I Think We're Alone Now" (though this is arguably more influenced by the Tiffany version).

The videos are both in square dimensions and short (33 and 20 seconds respectively), but they are fun covers for what they are, and it's interesting to see the Sandwich back in their old cover band guise! Yes, they do play originals at Shooters too, but again, they're on for typically four hours a night there. Well shot and performed, so give these a look above & below!

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

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