LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Inconsistent Me) And More Recent News & Notes!!

Before we begin today's post, I wanted to offer our deepest condolences to the family and friends of Firehouse frontman C.J. Snare, who passed away due to cardiac arrest on Saturday at the age of 64. Visit your preferred music and/or news outlets for more details (here is Rolling Stone's coverage) but he had previously been battling cancer and abdominal issues. Local hair metal fans will recognize C.J. as the long-time frontman of the South Carolina glam metal/hard rock band dating back to his joining Firehouse in 1987. They peaked in the early 1990s with commercial hit singles like "Don't Treat Me Bad", "Love Of A Lifetime", and "When I Look Into Your Eyes", and got a Billboard Top 40 single as late as 1995. Firehouse played in the Twin Saults multiple times, most recently when they opened for Dokken at what's now GFL Memorial Gardens in September 2017, while they opened for Bret Michaels and Skid Row at Kewadin Casino in Sault Michigan in 2014 & 2009 respectively.

While never a headlining attraction in their local gigs in the past 15 years (the cancelled Moloney's Alley show in 2016 acknowledged), Firehouse delivered the goods for Hair Scare diehards in their Sault Ste. Marie sets, and C.J. was a talented singer who could handle hard rockers and ballads with ease. What I have heard about him as a person is positive, and hopefully fans can look back on his work with Firehouse to remember him in the best ways at this difficult time. R.I.P., C.J.!

Now, today's post features some recent news and notes, and leading off, a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT, as Detroit pop punk solo project Inconsistent Me will make their local concert debut on Sunday, June 23rd at The Distraction! The second Michigan-based punk solo project to make their way to the East Street venue this year (though they have performed with backing musicians in some videos), Inconsistent Me deliver a fun and up-tempo brand of pop punk that should find a receptive audience this summer, so definitely give Brendan's work a listen to see what they'll bring to the table north of the border! Local punk trio Vanity First will open in their first announced concert following their album release next weekend, and they should pair well sonically in a few months, so don't be late for their set! This is an all ages event with doors opening at 6:00 PM, and admission is $10 or "pay what you can". See above for more details!

Next up, we haven't written about local industrial metal solo project Molten Imp on here since last year, so what have they been up to lately? As it turns out, the project took down their Facebook page for unannounced reasons late last year and replaced it with a new Facebook page in December, albeit one set up as a normal user account that you have to add as a friend to follow (not unlike what Double Down have). Project leader Boyd "Unterbiss Von Wigwaus" Rendell has kept things relatively cryptic in updates there since, but he revealed that new music would be released in "the first quarter of 2024", but that could take until the fall given the pace he was working at. In February, Boyd indicated that he was working on new music, and teased a possible virtual single release like in their early run, but again, updates tend to be cryptic, often just about writing/creating music as a whole without being directly tied to Molten Imp.

It's good to see that Molten Imp are still working behind the scenes, even if the wait for new released music continues into 2024's second quarter! I do apologize for the delay in writing about Molten Imp on the site, the cryptic posts don't have a lot to latch onto when earmarking topics for upcoming SMS posts and they have always been easy to fall through the cracks, but hopefully Boyd's doing well and that we hear much more from him in the near future! If I did/said something wrong, I do apologize!

We'll close today with new videos from local southern hard rock trio Bone Yard 225, and while I usually share new videos in conjunction with weekend concert previews for convenience in promoting tradtional shows, I'll buck that today because these are from their Thursday jam night hosting duties at Reggie's Place last week! In a rare TikTok-exclusive video from Bone Yard, they shared this video of Alex and Warren being joined by four guest jammers (including a saxophonist!) to play a blues song that I couldn't identify. Is it called "Waiting"? Shockingly, the video is horizontal, but for one reason or another, it was put in monochrome & with some sort of visual filter, and it only captures 44 seconds of the performance. I've never had luck embedding TikTok videos on the SMS, but click here to check it out, as it has a good groove! Embedded below is a video from Reggie's Facebook page on Thursday, so what can you see here?

The video sees Greg and Alex joined by guest singer/keyboardist Joey Damasco for a cover of Bryan Adams' "Summer Of '69", and while I'm no fan of Bryan Adams, this is a lively cover that relatively seamlessly incorporates keys! Joey's vocals are not super rangy but they work for this song, and while the video was shot vertically, at least the filmer captured everyone in frame. Check it out below, and remember to join (or even replace?) Bone Yard 225 at their next jam night at Reggie's this Thursday!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for this month's Defunct Local Band Profile next! Thanks everyone!