News & Updates From Two Sault Michigan Hard Rock Bands!!

For today's second post, we're catching up on some recent news from two Sault Michigan hard rock bands (incidentally, ones with two ex-band members in common now), so here's what you should know on both fronts!

We'll start with the latest from local hard rock/classic metal trio Tarnished, so what's new from them? Almost two weeks after their new studio single "Lightswitch" was aired on Rock 101's Scott Cook In The Morning, the band proper will appear in studio on The Sault's Rock Station's weekday morning drive show tomorrow at 8:00 AM! It's not a true "concert", but apologies for the short notice, they only announced this earlier today on their Facebook page, both in writing and in this "Reel". Tarnished are no strangers to local radio, having appeared on Rock 101 and classic hits station Eagle Radio 95.1 (which rebranded as Bridge FM in April, FYI) in the past, but it's always good to see Scott give some love to original rock bands in the Twin Saults! The only chance you ever really get to hear local bands on 101.3 FM is during his shows. Tarnished will be interviewed tomorrow morning and will also perform a mystery acoustic song.

Hopefully things go well at WSUE tomorrow morning, and if you're able to tune in on your FM dial or via the free internet stream, the interview is slated for 8:00 AM midway through Scott Cook In The Morning! Tarnished's next true concert will take place at Byce's Michihistrigan Bar & Grill in Gould City (90 minutes southwest of here) on Saturday as part of the Michihistrigan Rendezvous festival there, and Chris Leask & Ron Suchey from Rhythm & Brews will return as the guest rhythm section, like they did at The Merch last month. Gould City is beyond our coverage range, as a 90 minute drive from the Soo isn't quite "local", but keep it in mind if you're up for the poker run, music, and everything else! For reference, Manistique hard rock duo Fyrbird (who play at the regional Kewadin Casino lounges often) are the Friday headliners there. Hopefully everything goes well at the Rendezvous this weekend, weather permitting!

Lastly, remember how Tarnished won an AI generated music video for placing third at the Rock Recovery Battle of the Bands in Alpena in March? Well, the video is complete and was posted to the band's Facebook page on Saturday! I can't embed it here due to Facebook content matching the audio, despite it being for Tarnished's own song, so click here to watch it. Made by the crew at the Traverse City-based podcast The South Of The Straits Show, the video is for "Lightswitch", and features an AI-generated hair metal band performing in concert, and interacting with each other and the singer's girlfriend, and some vehicles are driven too. AI still has many limitations, but it's interesting to see what they cranked out here!

Next up, here's the latest news and notes from fellow local hard rock band Exit 808, so what have they been up to in the past couple of weeks? On May 29th, they posted jam session photos onto their Facebook page, where they revealed the surprise addition of rhythm guitarist Will Robbins to the band, replacing Nathan Webber. A reason for Nathan's departure wasn't announced, but note that the band never acknowledged Melvin and Isaac's exits either. After leaving Tarnished, Nathan co-founded the former Double Jack last fall, but was last credited in band materials in March. Hopefully nothing bad happened, and that we see him back out there in due course! This leaves drummer Jackie Moon as the only member of Double Jack's original lineup left in Exit 808. As for Will, I am not familiar with him at all from past local bands, but hopefully he fits in fine long-term!

If you want to see how Will slots in with Exit 808, you can now do so, as videos from his debut with the band are available to watch on their Facebook page! Normally, I'd wait to cover these until this weekend's concert previews, as they return to a truly local stage on Saturday in Kinross, but there's enough videos here where we don't have to be stingy. These all come from their set on Saturday at Drewpalooza 2, a public birthday concert/mental health fundraiser in Republic (20 minutes west of Ishpeming), so odds are most local fans didn't take the 3+ hour drive out. These videos were all filmed by attendee Angie Hood, and give us our first look at Exit 808 since adding ex-Infathom frontman Dillion Semasky as their joint lead singer, while fellow vocalist Amy Beach's son Blaze Beairl is still filling in on bass (if he has joined permanently, they haven't 100% confirmed it). Angie shot four videos, and while all are sadly vertical, what can you see here?

They include covers of Def Leppard's "Let It Go", Nazareth's "Hair Of The Dog", and (believe it or not) Tone Loc's "Funky Cold Medina", but embedded below is their rock cover of Eminem & Rihanna's "The Monster". The latter obviously makes good use of the joint male/female singers, but on the other three songs, "Let It Go" had them sharing vocals about 50/50, and the other two had Dillion on lead vocals with Amy backing. Sounds good to me, and while the balance of having two dedicated singers together like this may need more dialing in, Amy and Dillion seem to pair well, and Will's guitar work sounds solid enough! Give Exit 808's new videos a watch above & below, and don't miss them in Kinross on Saturday!

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