The End Of Hammerspace, New Videos, And Lots More!!

Here's another news post to kick off this Thursday with, and it has a lot of assorted stuff from the last while that we're finally getting on the site for you guys to check out! Today, we have a band breakup to mention, along with this week's classic video, a handful of assorted shorter stories from the last little while, and a new video discovery of a metal performance from a few years back, so here's what you need to know!

It looks like Sault Michigan metal quintet Hammerspace have disbanded again. An official statement hasn't been made to that effect, but posts are made by band members in a thread on the band's Facebook page last month that say things like "the band is broken, time to start anew" and "I had fun while it lasted." That comment thread got very personal & detailed, and I don't wanna bring anything bad to light, but a partial reason for Hammerspace's demise appears to be band members moving out of town, with only John Bergeron & Tim Podoba not mentioned as leaving by the spring. This appears to end Hammerspace's second local run, which didn't amount to much beyond some song postings, though fans are sure to remember their 2010-early 2011 run best of all, which featured a number of notable local concert dates. I enjoyed Hammerspace and thought they'd make it further than they did locally, but hopefully the guys stay active in music in the coming years, as there's a lot of talent there! Best of luck to John, Justin, Denny, Paul, Tim, and the other former members in the future, and if anything new comes out on Hammerspace or their members, I'll try to have it here!

Next up, here's an interesting find of a local band playing something heavier from a few years back! While doing research for an upcoming feature post, I came across a video of a Sault Michigan band named The Right Reverends playing two songs at a 2007 Battle of the Bands at Sault Area High School! The band featured singer/guitarists Robert Quinn & Tim Hall and drummer Mitchell Leon, who I believe was in the short lived death metal band Hands of Betrayal the following year. In this video, which YouTube user fishstix7711 posted online in February 2008, The Right Reverends covered Bob Dylan's "The Man In Me" before playing what sounds like an original song named "Puppies" that definitely leans in a metal direction! It doesn't start until 4:52 into the video, and it's not too long, but it has a good sense of humour about it, even if it's nothing too technically amazing! I'm not sure whatever happened to The Right Reverends, but this is an interesting video from 5 years ago, so give it a look below if you wanna!



Thirdly for today, here's three more assorted shorter stories from the last little while, and as usual, these are in alphabetical order by band, musician, or post name:

• I've updated our 2008 Case's Music Battle of the Bands Profile to note that "Best Bassist" winner Nathan Bouliane (then of the high school division champions Stillbroke) will also be at next month's Humane Society Battle with his new band The Moves, along with putting more emphasis on Behind Society drummer Josh Hatherley's later battle experience with The Glass Statues and Late & Loud. Nothing major, but I thought I'd mention them!
• Ex-Bring The Fallen guitarist Dan Souliere is looking for musicians for a new local metal project he's hoping to launch in the fall when he moves back to town. He has a drummer already for the project, and he sounds like he's already taking this new band very seriously. If you're at all interested in possibly trying out come this fall, then get more details via Dan's post on Friday at the Musicians Wanted Facebook group!
• The fourth band for March 30th's Lust Boys concert at The Canadian Nightclub has been confirmed, and it's a new band named Pools of Booze! More specifically, they're local punk band T. Rex Manning in a one-off set without frontman J.D. Pearce (likely similar to Late & Loud's turn as General Striker last year), though a reason for J.D.'s absence isn't known. My source for the addition is this show's Facebook event page, and don't miss out!

And finally, here's this week's classic video! With them playing two different concerts this weekend, it made perfect sense to focus this week's classic video around local hardcore quintet As It Stands, and with it almost being a year since this video's filming, it's as good a time as any to put this on YouTube! This comes from one of As It Stands' out of town concerts last year, when they headlined a hardcore concert at The Coach & Horses in Windsor on March 26th, 2011. Attendee Jo-Ann Chayka filmed this video of the band playing their song "Conception" that night, and posted it onto Facebook the next day. It's a solid performance with good audio quality (Justin Pregent's very quiet clean singing aside), but the lighting is very dark and red, almost like it's in Virtual Boy-vision. It's a nice video though, and it's nice to see local bands making waves in Southern Ontario like this! This video was originally posted onto Facebook at http://facebook.com/photo.php?v=10150174364083274 and NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IS INTENDED!!! All credit for this video goes to As It Stands and Jo-Ann, I'm just trying to share this performance with a wider audience like it deserves! It's a solid video of As It Stands, so give it a look below, and go see them at The Rosie & Speak Easy this weekend!

That's all for now, but stay tuned for more news, hopefully some concert reviews, and my "Woods V" review shortly! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Sativa Rose), Stillbroke & Elipzis News, And More!!

Now, we get back to local metal news, and we have some good stories today to keep you guys in the know for the Labour Day weekend, and before we get that going, I wanted to let you guys know that today's LOCAL CONCERT ALERT will NOT be the lead story because I have three threaded stories, with that a part of the thread, so if I mentioned it first, everything would be out of whack. You'll see in a second, so first, we have a lineup change in a notable local band, and we'll go from there!

Sault Ontario hard rockers Stillbroke have announced the return of former bassist Nathan Bouliane to the band, replacing the departed Kyle McKey. Nathan was Stillbroke's original bassist upon their local debut in 2008, notably playing with them at that year's Case's Music Battle of the Bands, where they won first place in the high school division! Nathan will likely be a very familiar sight to local music fans, from his past bass and guitar work in bands like Lorax, The Outside Lights, Moncton, The Crossed, As It Stands, and in the pre-Stillbroke group known as The Jesters! The news was broken on the band's Facebook page, but their MySpace page and band photos have not been changed to reflect this yet. Nice to see Nathan back in a local band, especially a heavy and talented one like Stillbroke! He's a very good bassist, and here's hoping that Stillbroke are back on stage very soon, cause it's been almost six months since we've last seen them live! I've also heard an intriguing bit of news about Stillbroke as a band, but I'll wait for word from them before saying something here.

Now we thread the stories, as we discuss some big news from a local concert venue! You may know that Nathan Bouliane has a lot more under his belt in the local scene besides being a band member, as he's the owner of concert promotion group Bonology Lights & Sounds, and now, the event manager and P.R. man at GLOW Nightclub! Wait a minute, didn't GLOW become The Other Place, and then become Nite-Life Dance Club? Yes it did, but now, they're reverting back to the GLOW name, or "GLOW Re-Invented" as they've been referring to it! Looks like there's some dislike for the old names of this long running Gore Street bar and concert spot on the Facebook group, but if I remember correctly, the original GLOW period saw more success than the later names did. The bar's currently closed, presumably for renovations, with a September 17th re-opening under the GLOW name being hyped. So to get ready for the re-opening and to get details on goings on there for when it re-opens, click here!

Remember, this venue has a good recent history for bands and concerts, no matter the name, and though bookings weren't as frequent for heavier shows under the Nite-Life name, we did get Bring The Fallen and Out Of The Mouth Of Babes for Algoma Hope4Haiti there, and AC/DC tribute band Who Made Who, not to mention the bands who played there before under it's old names! So don't let appearances fool you, metal will be back...

... no sooner than September 18th, a day after the re-opening, as here is that LOCAL CONCERT ALERT!!! New local hard rock trio Sativa Rose will play outside of Foggy Notions for the first time when they take the stage at GLOW on September 18th for a night of metal covers! You can tell by this poster that the booking was made before the name change announcement. The Facebook event page hypes a 10:00 PM start time, you must be 19 to enter, and there will be a $3 cover charge. Should be fun, I've enjoyed the YouTube videos I've seen so far, maybe I can squeeze in to see them that weekend! Depends what night I see Caveman Morrison. For more from Sativa Rose, check out their live jam night videos at this location, and I'll have more on them as I hear it!

There, those three threaded stories are now out for you guys to check out, now for something completely different, courtesy of Sault Michigan hard rockers Elipzis! While in Grand Rapids this weekend for shows in the area, they appeared on the TV show EightWest on area TV station WOOD TV 8, and the video is now online! It features hostesses Rachael Ruiz and Terri DeBoer talking with Elipzis frontwoman Rachel Kiger about the band, how they formed, and what they've done so far as a band! Aside from accidentally getting Chris Webster's name wrong (they said "Chris Weber"), it's a good interview, nothing mindblowingly shocking, but well handled! Afterwards, Elipzis played their original song "6 Shots", in what could be the first video footage of Elipzis online! Good stuff, I like this song and it's heavier qualities1 Great on them getting this exposure, and I like how they actually plugged their concerts on-air too! Check out Elipzis' appearance on EightWest immediately below!



And finally, I wanted to alert you guys to a local music forum that just launched this year, but isn't getting a lot of attention. Local news website SooNews.ca launched a local music scene section onto their official forum in February of this year, and I can see why it's flown under the radar compared to other local music forums and message boards. In the last 6 months or so that it's been active, it has only managed to gather 12 threads with 4 total replies. I know it can take time to get a solid userbase on a message board, but this could really stand to be punched up, don't you think? Getting a following like the 705 Video Magazine doesn't happen overnight, so I recommend registering and keeping this active! Forums are useful and can create some nice discussion if well handled, so if you want to help the SooNews.ca Local Music Scene forum, click here and post something! Note that you'll need an account to post, but it's free and asks nothing strange in order to get one.

That's all for today, but be on the lookout for more local metal news and updates very soon! Oh, and stay tuned by Tuesday for our latest local metal CD review, as we take a look at Sykotyk Rampage's newest album, "Bella Disgusta"! Thanks everyone!