Musicians Unite Fallout & Videos (Part 2!!)

In today's post, let's continue our fallout from the Musicians Unite fundraiser concert for Mary Jo Jenkins at Bird's Eye Outfitters on March 22nd! We'll pick things back up with local hard rock band Exit 808, whose guest musician-laden set last month was also captured for guest singer Molly Escherich's Facebook page via two different videos. One is a longer alternate take of the band (plus Molly, guest guitarist Joe Jenkins, and guest bassist Bob Libick) covering Evanescence's "Bring Me To Life", confirming here that co-lead singer Amy Beach did start the song before Molly took over lead vocals. While it is good to see the full rendition on video, let alone horizontally shot, I'm not embedding it here because it was still pillarboxed into vertical dimensions, making the video tiny, and I'll never quite get how that happens. The other video was uploaded in full landscape dimensions, and it's their rocked-up cover of Rihanna & Eminem's "Monster", so what is there to see?

Once again, Amy started the cover before ceding the floor to Molly, with co-singer Dillion Semasky obviously handling the Eminem parts. This atypical cover has become a regular in Exit 808's sets, and they do a good job with it, and while Molly does have some unsteadiness early, she puts her vocal range to good use here! The angled view to the stage's right gives a unique perspective of the proceedings compared to other videos that I have came across too, so check the new Exit 808 + Molly videos out above & below!

Next up, we'll stay with Molly for a second, as clips from her three between-bands acoustic sets were included in a Facebook video of her own! Unfortunately, it was uploaded as a "Reel", complete with a hard-coded caption at the bottom, so it is vertical, unplayable in background tabs, and unembeddable on the SMS. The "Reel" features a few clips from the day's events, including Molly covering Eddie Rabbitt's "Driving My Life Away" and Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down" (she does have range!), shredding with About:Blank guitarist/Other Guys bandmate Nathan Webber (I don't know if this was during the band's set or hers), and playing the bass during her final set, while clips of the two aforementioned Exit 808 videos were also included. My complaints about "Reels" aside, this is a well done teaser of what Molly has to offer musically, and given her age, she has a very bright future ahead, so click here to see the whole thing!

While photos from their set were posted to their Facebook page, local hard rock quartet Dirty Musky did not post any of their own videos. The only public one that I have seen is in a comment reply on Project 906's Facebook page from this post on March 24th, which captures Dave, the Blackwoods, and Jamie covering The Barenaked Ladies' "The Old Apartment". Nice to see a Sault Michigan band covering The Ladies, and the 30 seconds-long clip is lively and melodic while it lasts! I can't embed videos posted directly in Facebook comments here. As for Project 906 proper, they were very central to Musicians Unite, given that guitarist Joe Jenkins is Mary Jo's husband, so their family were definitely feeling the good vibes and well wishes at Bird's Eye! Unfortunately, singer Billy Bernier was on vacation during the show's timeframe, so 906 called in the aforementioned Amy Beach and Dillion Semasky to fill in on vocals for their set, 

Project 906's Facebook page posted a (sadly vertical) video of them covering Candlebox's "Far Behind" with Dillion on vocals, and yes, frequent guest hand drummer Brian Duford was also performing here. The minute-long clip was shot at a good angle despite the orientation, and Dillion really nails the vocals! Project 906 fans will have nothing to worry about on this cover despite Billy's absence, and you get a good view of everyone rocking out while it lasts, so check out this cover for yourselves below!

Finally, the other known public Project 906 video comes from Amy's Facebook upload of official photographer John Bullman's media from Musicians Unite, this time capturing the band, Brian, and Dillion again covering "Far Behind". What are the odds that both John and the band's own filmer would capture the same song? While still vertical, John's video is arguably better thanks to a higher quality camera, a slightly longer run-time, and a closer angle of the stage, especially to Dillion's benefit. Compare and contrast both of Project 906's Candlebox covers above & below!

We'll have more videos and fallout from Musicians Unite, particularly from About:Blank's set, in an upcoming post, so stay tuned for that and more on the site soon! Thanks everyone!