Michigan COVID-19 Updates & Concert Cancellations, Plus Sault Ontario News & Notes!!

Here is our 80th straight daily post at the SMS, and it includes some assorted recent news and notes, details on an ambitious project to catalogue local music history (something readers should all care about), and leading off, the latest updates on the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in Michigan. Here's what you should know!

On Tuesday, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer lifted the state's stay-at-home order, and if you want to read into the minutia about that announcement, there's plenty of articles about it on state news websites. The Sault Evening News outlined what you can and can't do now in this article published yesterday, and sadly, concerts as we know them are still prohibited for the time being. Indoor gatherings of more than 10 people and outdoor gatherings of more than 100 are still not allowed in Michigan, and even if something were to be booked, social distancing measures of 6+ feet remain in effect. The announcement doesn't change anything re: restaurant and bars in the Upper Peninsula and Northern Michigan, which were previously allowed to open with appropriate social distancing measures and can still do so (the rest of the state can open these businesses on Monday.) As for casinos, the closure of Michigan casinos until June 12th actually only applies to those under state jurisdiction.

Specifically, this means that tribal casinos (like the Kewadin Casino branches and Bay Mills in Brimley) could begin re-opening this past weekend, but both appear to be exercising caution, as both have clearly announced on social media that they will also remain closed until June 12th. The short term future of concerts at these casinos still doesn't look good, and they took another hit on Friday, when Kewadin formally cancelled the Tripp 'N' Dixie show at The Rapids Lounge in the Soo on June 13th, as per that show's Facebook event page. Also, Kewadin's website's entertainment page has announced that "all events are temporarily postponed until further notice", which covers any concerts booked through at least the Fourth of July. As such, I have removed Tarnished's Signatures Lounge dates in the Soo on June 18th & 24th from our calendar, as well as Highway 63's Northern Pines Lounge shows in St. Ignace on July 3rd & 4th.

As such, our Sault Michigan calendar is now empty until the rescheduled Black Label Society concert at The Dreammaker's Theater on August 8th, but if I was a betting man, I wouldn't be gambling on the new date holding up, alas. Stay tuned to the SMS and your preferred Michigan news source for further details on the coronavirus pandemic and it's effect on concerts as they roll in!

Next up, let's move to Sault Ontario, where Rotaryfest music director Shaun Antler is working on a big project, specifically to catalogue and archive a list of as many local bands as possible. The project was covered in this Sault Star article by Brian Kelly on May 28th, and began in  conjunction with Rotaryfest's Rewind anniversary stages two years ago, but recently resumed work during the COVID-19 pandemic. Shaun plans to wrap up things by the end of the month and share her results with the Sault Ste. Marie Museum, with plans to create a music exhibit at the museum in the future using her data. This is definitely a daunting project, especially when trying to catalogue and cite information on local bands before social media. I've given 2005 as my cutoff for reasonable online materials before, but as websites close and overhaul their layouts, that gets harder too. If you can help Shaun add bands or musicians to her database, message her at santler@shaw.ca!

A handful of SMS-relevant bands are cited in the article as needing member information, such as Free Beer, Smeltzer, and Them. I have helped Shaun with this project, and while members of those bands have been covered on the SMS in the past, social media aliases and common names may be tripping up some of her leads. I hope to send her some more info shortly, but contact her above if you want to help out! Finally for today, here's three assorted shorter news items from the last while, and as usual, these are in alphabetical order by artist or event name:

• This probably goes without saying, but this year's Algoma Ride For Autism (scheduled for June 20th) has been cancelled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Organizers confirmed this on their Facebook page on Tuesday, but they do hope to bring the event back in 2021. This is SMS relevant because live music has been a staple of the charity motorcycle rally's festivities, including a run of annual sets by local punk veterans Redundant. Hopefully the Ride does return next year, it's a great event for a great cause!
• Local guitarist Michael McCormick is looking for a singer for his current hard rock band project, who take inspiration from bands like The Foo Fighters, Halestorm, Metallica, and Poison. Specifically, he wants someone with "good frontman skills", but singing ability isn't necessarily his primary concern. I'm not familiar with Michael musically, but his post is attracting interest, so message him at this link or via his Musicians Wanted Facebook group post on Sunday for more details! Just use common sense given the pandemic.
• Had an active social media account existed for them, I would have recently moved Bear Hunters guitarist Mitch Sirie's solo project The Sorrow Fields to our inactive band links. This project last saw a public update via Mission Control Studios' Facebook postings on their unreleased debut album's sessions in January 2019, and Mitch's personal Facebook page (which saw occasional Sorrow Fields updates) was quietly taken down in recent months as well. Hopefully nothing bad happened, as Mitch is a very talented musician, and I hope we'll see The Sorrow Fields and Bear Hunters' long-gestating albums on sale down the road!

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

Updates From Bring The Fallen, Browbeat, Turner Up, And Woods Of Ypres!!

In what is shaping up to be our biggest month since last summer on the SMS, we have lots more updates to share today concerning five local bands, including a band's new name & page, the newest video footage of a local band in action, another band's Warped Tour quest, and one more band's departure from an upcoming concert, but leading things off today is some big news from a prominent local classic hard rock band! Here's what you need to know!

Reports of Turner Up's demise have been exaggerated, and I can now confirm that they are still together! Their last lineup did break up, but founding member Robert Brown and drummer Scott McClurg are in fact moving forward under the Turner Up name, with some big changes in place! Scott confirmed the details here with me via e-mail this morning, so there's my source if nothing new shows up on their Facebook pages beforehand. Firstly, the band has parted ways with singer Krista Marshall, guitarist Len Ward, and bassist Jeff Gray. Without public word, I won't state reasons why here, but nothing hinting towards bad blood has came to me over the past few days, so take that for what you will. Best of luck to Krista, Len, and Jeff though, they're all talented performers! With that said, the band has officially added singer KT Antler and guitarist Kyle McKey to the band. KT has made some waves in recent years for her original solo work, and I can vouch that she's a very talented singer! Kyle's well known as Stillbroke's former bassist, but his resume includes everything from Sailor's Tongue to Asylum Country to Rob & Scott's old band Lois Lane, effectively giving Turner Up and Lois Lane the same lineups, minus vocals!

So this officially makes Turner Up a quartet, with Robert moving to bass, though I should note that there will be a lot more instrument flexibility in this lineup than we're used to. Robert and Kyle can both play bass and guitar, while KT, Scott, and Kyle all have singing chops, so make note of that when you go see them next! Speaking of which, all of their prior dates (booked during their last lineup's run) are intact as scheduled, so your first chance to see Turner Up V4.0 will be NEXT WEEKEND on April 1st and 2nd at The Nicolet Tavern (they had this weekend off already prior to the lineup changes.) There is one exception though, as their planned weekend set at The Canadian Nightclub next month has been moved up two weeks from April 22nd-23rd to April 8th-9th. Aside from that, the only differences will be the band's lineup, so check our concert listings on your left for more! So remember, Turner Up have NOT BROKEN UP, but their look and sound will be different next time you see them! Thanks again to Scott for the news, and apologies for any past misinformation. I do my best to make sure things sound correct, but sometimes, multiple sources will have conflicting views on the same topic. I'll work to improve on that!

Next up, here's the latest lineup news for April 9th's massive Sewer Swampstravaganja all ages concert at The Oddfellows Hall! Firstly, here's some good news and bad news. The bad news is that Bring The Fallen have officially dropped out of this concert, which has long been rumoured. The good news is they're not breaking up, as frontman Josh Stephney confirmed on the Facebook event page's wall that they were "taking a break" while they write some new material. At least they're not breaking up, despite the rumours that didn't sound all that promising. Still, if it's true that they're merely laying low to write some new stuff, I can't wait to hear it! With that said, they haven't been replaced on the lineup, and at least at present, the organizers are going with just 11 bands, with a new concert start time of 3:45 PM. As such, the lineup's been amended again, so here's what's changed! Five of the bands were been bumped up one slot on the bill to reflect the new start time, though a couple got better promotions than others. Shit Liver got moved from 5:15 PM to 6:45 PM, while Frightlight catapulted from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM! The start times for Sativa Rose, The Bear Hunters, and RedD Monkey are unchanged, and only one band, Late & Loud, got pushed back in the order (from 6:45 PM to 6:00 PM.) For full current details on this show, click here!

Thirdly today, here's the latest news from local hard rock trio Browbeat, or should I say, Browbeat 101! Yes, they have altered their name by adding "101" to the end (allusion to Rock 101, maybe?) to avoid confusion with the defunct Italian metal band of the same name. I honestly wouldn't think it's a big deal when the other Browbeat is broken up, but at least this way, members won't sue or complain if they catch wind of the local Browbeat! With that said, the newly rechristened Browbeat 101 have launched a brand new MySpace page following the deletion of their old pages, which you can now check out at this location! It's pretty sparse at present, but updates are forthcoming, including audio recordings featuring the full current lineup, so stay tuned for that, and more! I still don't think they needed to delete all their pages, but this isn't a new concept for Browbeat 101 or for their past names, so I'm used to it! Stay tuned for updates!

Finally for today is some more new Woods of Ypres video footage! Two videos from Saturday's concert in Halifax at Coconut Grove were posted on YouTube this past weekend, and you can check them out at YouTube user ImpaledBman's channel! The same user posted videos of the band from a concert in Halifax from May 23rd, 2009 as well, the link above will point you in the right direction to check those out as well! The new videos are of Woods of Ypres playing their songs "Your Ontario Town Is A Burial Ground" and "A Meeting Place & Time", and they're actually of very good audio quality! Everything's clear, these are some of the best sounding live videos I've seen so far from the current Woods of Ypres tour! The videos are dark, and heavily centered on Joel Violette and Shane Madden due to the filmer's placement, but it's more of a natural lighting. Don't judge the image on the video below before watching, that's auto-brightened by YouTube and it won't look that distorted when watching it. Good stuff, check out the video of "A Meeting Place & Time" below, and get more at the above links!



That's all for now, but I have more news to share very soon, and yes, our next CD review will be up by the end of the week ("Against The Seasons" is the leading candidate!) Thanks everyone!