Monday, July 8, 2024

Tarnished News & Updates From Late Last Month!!

For a second straight day, here's a single-band post from the E.U.P., as Sault Michigan classic metal/hard rock band Tarnished have been very busy in the past two weeks+, so what have they been up to as of late? Just two days after they were interviewed on Rock 101, the guys got another local FM radio interview on June 14th, this time on Bridge FM, the local classic hits station that was rebranded from Eagle Radio 95.1 in April. WUPN isn't a full rock station, but they have featured Tarnished on the Rise N' Shine Morning Show in the past, and that's where they were interviewed that day by host and station owner Tim Ellis that morning at 9:30 AM. It took over a week, but they posted a "Reel" of them covering Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It" unplugged in studio on June 23rd! Note that we're staring at the back of Parker Talentino's head throughout, but I assume space concerns are to blame there.

Alas, the video itself is horizontal, but rather than upload it as a normal embeddable video, they opted to pillarbox it as a "Reel", so while nothing's cropped as a result, the video is now tiny. Definitely not ideal, but this glam metal classic is effectively acousticized, and I hope that the interview proper went well! The following day, Tarnished hit the road for Gould City (90 minutes southwest of the Soo) to perform again at the outdoor stage at Byce's Michihistrigan Bar & Grill, and photos from that night were shared to Facebook! Since Josh Fair opted to give up drumming in favour of guitar, we never quite know what form Tarnished will take for live gigs unless they specify in advance, but for this show, they called in Rhythm & Brews/ex-Highway 63 drummer Ron Suchey to guest with them again, though he did not drum on every song. Josh returned to the kit (perhaps reluctantly?) on at least two songs, while frontman Alex Traynor drummed while singing on at least one.

At least in what was posted, Parker played bass (no sign of Chris Leask). Three videos from that night were uploaded from June 19th-20th as "Reels", so while I can't embed these short vertical videos here, they include covers of The Beastie Boys' "(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!)" and The Surfaris' "Wipe Out", while the other one has Alex shredding Van Halen's "Eruption". At least on the latter, the vertical framing isn't a problem! Ron drums on the Beastie Boys cover, while Josh drums on "Wipe Out" with mid-song assistance from Ron. Josh is also behind the kit on "Eruption", albeit adding drum hits that weren't there on the original solo. Each "Reel" sounds heavy and lively while they last, and it looks like a good time was had by all! In their next "Reel" on June 22nd, Tarnished uploaded a "throwback to 2012". If you were expecting a throwback to Alex's then-local band Banned, you may be disappointed though!

This is actually a short cover of Anna Kendrick's "Cups" from the 2012 movie Pitch Perfect, which Alex sings while "playing" a plastic lemonade cup. Cute video, and Alex does get some good percussion out of it! On the 25th, Alex was back (in "Reel" form!) to thank their fans for giving their new single "Lightswitch" 1,000 streams on Spotify, and in the fastest time yet for one of their original songs, which is definitely encouraging news! There's much more from Tarnished to come, specifically from the past week, but let's close with a video that I can embed, namely a reaction video to "Lightswitch" by Leigh Spencer of the British YouTube channel Iridium Rock & Metal Reviews from that same day! After some initial confusion as to which band member is the lead singer based on the available credits (it's Alex), it is nice to see that Leigh's first words after he first took his headphones off were "I really liked it!"

Praise was also given to the melodies, smooth vocals and driving beat, and Leigh continued to boast about the song when it completely ended. "Lightswitch" made its way across the Atlantic via a viewer suggestion, and it's always neat to see local music find a receptive audience in a far flung locale like this, so hopefully Leigh helped expose Tarnished to even more fans in the UK and elsewhere! Check out the full reaction video below, and stay tuned for more from Tarnished on the site soon! Thanks everyone!


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