Let's continue our fallout from this year's Rotaryfest in today's post, and with public videos and coverage of the two closing bands on Stage 1 (so far) dealt with yesterday, we'll start today with the third-to-last band on Saturday, namely classic rock veterans Mustang Heart! Their third straight and eighteenth overall appearance on Stage 1 (a record for the post-2000 festival format), these videos come courtesy of keyboardist Vito Tassone's solo Facebook page, which he uses to plug Mustang Heart and his own adult contemporary solo music. Five public videos of their set can be seen here, three being shared from relative Connie Tassone Mazzuca's personal Facebook page, where she (vertically) filmed covers of Honeymoon Suite's "What Does It Take", Journey's "Stone In Love", and Styx's "Babe". These aren't badly shot, and the audio holds up, but the vertical angle from this far away isn't ideal.
Vito's other two videos are posted directly to his page, and were filmed by an uncredited attendee from a closer, more central vantage point (and shot horizontally!), with the covers being of "What Does It Take" again and, as embedded below, Mustang Heart's apparent set opening cover of Van Halen's "Jump" (complete with the "1984" instrumental beforehand), which features guitarist Lorenzo Fabbri on lead vocals. While not as hard rock-focused as some of their local cohorts, Mustang Heart deliver a fun time when they take the local stage, and there's a reason why they've only missed Rotaryfest once since 2004, so classic rock fans will enjoy their lively covers linked above & below!
Right before Mustang Heart's set on Saturday evening, fans saw the Stage 1 debut of local classic/hard rock cover quartet Generations, but while we're on the subject, we have two news items to note from them. Firstly, you may recall that they also played at Jay's Piston Broke Pub on Friday in a one-nighter, but the entire band wasn't idle on Saturday night. Instead, their predecessors Jus' Chillin returned to play that night in their first show since February! This implies that singer Valerie Powley was unavailable for one reason or another that night, so the guys decided to make due and bring their old guise back for a one-off (Tex Riviera from local country cover veterans The Ride was credited as a guest musician for this show too). Hopefully that went well for all involved! Remember, Jus' Chillin were not a hard rock-focused band, Generations (who took over their Facebook group) developed more of that since adding Valerie.
The other big news is that Generations have parted ways with guitarist Brandon Ruch, as announced by drummer Tony Santoro on their Facebook group on Monday. Brandon's exit is 100% amicable and was prompted by "a busy summer schedule and prior commitments", but Tony praised Brandon's work with Generations and noted that he hoped to jam with him again in the future. Brandon had been Jus' Chillin's final guitarist in their last concerts earlier this year, but had sat out Generations gigs in the past, as seen above with Smokehouse's Michael Yurich filling in on guitar at The Esquire Club in April. Michael did the same at Rotaryfest on Saturday (I'm unsure about the Jay's show on Friday), and you can see him with Generations on Stage 1 via three videos shared to their Facebook group courtesy of attendee Angela Wilcott's personal Facebook page!
Her videos include this song with Michael on vocals (I couldn't match the lyrics to anything... maybe it's an original of his?), Miley Cyrus' "Flowers" with Valerie on vocals, and as embedded below, The Tragically Hip's "Blow At High Dough" with bassist Pierre Anthony on vocals. Angela had a nice and close spot to capture Generations and Michael rocking out, and everyone performs strongly, though I'd never have expected to see Valerie sing Miley Cyrus. Give these a watch above & below, and look for a late notice show from Generations in this weekend's concert previews!
The only other public videos that I know of from Saturday's Stage 1 program are from party rock cover quintet Encore's lead-off set, and you can head to their Facebook page to see their covers of Gordon Lightfoot's "Sundown" and The 4 Non Blondes' "What's Up" (an oddly popular cover choice among local bands). Nothing heavy here, but Encore (featuring ex-Tripod The Dog bassist John Amendola and ex-Obsession drummer Rich Trevisanut) have loads of talent in their ranks! Dipping back to night #2 on Stage 1 on Friday, newer local classic rock cover band The Way Backs posted two videos on their Facebook page of them covering Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" and the spiritual song "Down By The Riverside". Definite change of pace, but seeing as this band originated from the local production of the musical Million Dollar Quartet, you know that it wouldn't be quite on par with other bands that day.
We'll close by noting that the uncredited Sault Star photographer got pictures of both Stage 1 band Bookclub and Stage 2 headliner Rusty McCarthy on Friday that you can check out at this link. Solid shots as usual, but it is still kinda odd seeing members of The Inner City Surfers on the main stage (not because they don't deserve it, just for its long-time covers focus). We'll have more from Rotaryfest in the days ahead, but stay tuned for a non-Rotaryfest news post next! Thanks everyone!
It's now time for this month's YouTube Channel Profile, posted a day early to make room for weekend concert previews, especially given the returning Northern Vibe Festival. This monthly feature series looks at 1-3 randomly selected YouTube channels from our subscriptions, in order to spotlight them and their public content for potential viewers and subscribers, and as usual, channels must have at least half of their public videos devoted to local metal, hard rock, or punk artists/concerts. Our channel pick for this month lets us take a trip over a decade back to one of the biggest hard rock bands to come out of the E.U.P. (and their singer solo), so here's what you should know!
rubbs001's channel(http://youtube.com/rubbs001) Owner: A relative or close friend of former Nixxon Dixxon/current Rhythm & Brews singer Brandon Carr (the channel is focused around him but the descriptions lead me to believe he didn't run it)
Channel Timeline:Launched on December 18th, 2006; Videos uploaded from March 19th, 2009 until April 2nd, 2011
Channel Summary:All of the videos on rubbos001's channel star Sault Michigan hard rock singer Brandon Carr in some fashion, mostly via videos from concerts at The Northern Pines Lounge at the St. Ignace Kewadin Casino by his most prominent band, late-2000s hard rock quartet Nixxon Dixxon. Other videos include a comical lip sync of Billy Idol's "Dancing With Myself", a solo acoustic cover of Lady Gaga's "Poker Face", Brandon performing "Dentist!" in Sault High's 2010 production of Little Shop Of Horrors, and two takes of him singing at that year's International Idol competition. Why You Should Watch:This is definitely worth a watch for fans of Brandon's local music work, especially during Nixxon Dixxon's late-era peak, and you also get a good look at what he was up to artistically beyond the band at the turn of the 2010s! However, there are other sources for full-band & better quality Nixxon Dixxon videos of this era, like YouTube user myangels1266's channel. Also, note that no videos are featured here from Nixxon Dixxon's pre-2009 activities, despite the 2006 launch date.
Blood Pollution: The only video of Nixxon Dixxon performing a full electric song with the whole band here is also from the June 2010 St. Ignace show, where they covered Steel Dragon's "Blood Pollution" from the movie Rock Star. Also featuring 415E/Rhythm & Brews guitarist Chris Hubbard and London Gentlemen alum Jake LaLonde (now of the Nashville country rock band Miller Holler), it's nice seeing Nixxon Dixxon again, even if the video is a little grainy, and seeing as they disbanded a couple of months later, it's even nicer to have this online! Very talented young group, they deserved more!
Simpleman: In June 2010, Brandon was one of 29 local singers who competed in the third annual International Idol vocal talent competition at The Soo Theatre, with the winner of the 14-and-over division getting to open for Meat Loaf on the closing night at Kewadin Casino's 25th Anniversary Summer Festival the following month. Brandon lost to local singer Kellan Perron (read more about the winners at this link), though Nixxon Dixxon played that day on the second stage anyway, as well as on the main stage on night #1. Uploaded twice to rubbs001's channel at different lengths, Brandon was filmed covering Shinedown's version of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Simple Man", with Brandon matching the vocal tone of the cover, if not Brent Smith's range. Solidly done and well filmed for the time, and hopefully we'll hear more from Brandon musically soon with one band or another!
I hope you guys liked this month's YouTube Channel Profile! Next month in this series, our random selection has given us a doozy of a channel to spotlight, namely Mike Haggith Music, the official channel for the prolific local alt-rock musician, which has a LOT of ground to cover from the past decade, so look for this on or around September 26th, and for weekend concert previews on the site next! Thanks everyone!
With some Tesla videos likely forthcoming (and who knows if more Shinedown videos turned up), let's keep things rolling with a showcase of videos from Rotaryfest's main stage at Clergue Park last weekend! As has become a recent trend, Local2's Mike Caruso was on hand to film almost all of the bands for Local2's YouTube channel, exploiting some multiple camera angles and good weather for some great clips! Posted last week, Mike filmed all of the bands from all three days except Coverfly (though they're featured on non-Rotaryfest videos on the channel), and the odd absence of Fusion videos didn't maintain, as I believe Fusion broke up in the past year. Note as well that Mike also filmed a handful of Second Stage bands (though not Sailor's Tongue), and each video features 15 second opening and closing titles crediting the videos as part of a series named "Everything Sault with Mike Caruso", although there's no host segments or features connecting them as such. The videos are also all letterboxed, yet the post-effects aren't, so why is there a letterbox at all?
By my count, Mike filmed 6 hard rock covers at this year's Stage by local bands, and I've saved two for another post to both keep this one from getting too long (conveniently, both videos features a cover of the same band, hence why I'm holding those ones.) Now, let's look at the first 4 hard rock/metal covers from this year's First Stage at Rotaryfest, and check the above links for the non-metal/hard rock covers filmed for Local2, and check out our Oddzfest 2013 Metal Mash-Up review in the post below this one!
We'll go in chronological order starting on Friday, July 19th with local party/cover rock quartet Obsession, as their filmed video was a cover of Heart's "Barracuda"! Mike credited this as their first Rotaryfest appearance "in their present form", and like the past videos of Obsession that I've seen, they have a lot of talent , and Valerie Powley's vocals are impressive and rangy as ever! I've never seen Obsession live, but I remember regretting not coming early for their Toystock set, and I'll have to make a point of seeing them one of these days, as they can definitely pull off some entertaining hard rock renditions when the time calls for it! Note as well that Mike added some post-effects to this video, including some kind of sparkle/brighness effect on the members from the closer camera, and the video fades out before the song fully ends. Check out Obsession rocking "Barracuda" at Rotaryfest below!
Also on the Saturday night was co-headlining local hard rock band The Suicide Kings, whose Local2 video features them covering Three Days Grace's "Animal I Have Become"! This is one of the songs that they played with guest bassist Brandon Uhl (ex-Limelight), so how did he fit in? Pretty well, and I like the fuller sound with Steven Flint & Mitch Sirie sharing guitar duties, but this song isn't a great fit for Mike Gaetano's vocal range, which is odd considering how good his higher register singing usually is. Solid stuff all around though, and this is a good preview of The Suicide Kings' planned quintet expansion and full-time bassist search, so check out The Suicide Kings & Brandon Uhl covering "Animal I Have Become" below!
We'll close this post with the Saturday, July 20th lineup, starting with this video of local classic/hard rock quartet Griphook covering Billy Squier's "Lonely Is The Night"! Featuring guitarist Brian Oja on lead vocals, his range suits the track well, and the guys all seem to have this cover down pat with a good energy and rock sensibility, and hopefully there's more video floating around from their shows last weekend (including 3/4ths of Griphook's turn as The 7 Year Itch later that night.) Note as well that this video also cuts off slightly before the song's actual end. Check out Griphook's "Lonely Is The Night" cover below!
The last video for today comes immediately after Griphook's set, and it's of local classic rock cover quintet Mustang Heart covering Bon Jovi's ballad "Thank You For Loving Me"! (You may remember that their Local2 video last year was a cover of Van Halen's "Jump", so a hard rock cover isn't unheard of for them.) Interspersed with images of happy couples and weddings, and some crowd waving action, it's a solid rendition of the original, and Lorenzo Fabbri's deep clean vocals work well, but fans of Bon Jovi's old hair metal stuff probably won't take to it as much. Check out Mustang Heart's Bon Jovi cover below, stay tuned for another Mustang Heart hard rock cover in an upcoming post, and click here to see Mike Case's Rockers covering another Bon Jovi song ("Who Says You Can't Go Home") on the Friday lineup! Even if it's a country track, the students did a good job!
That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and notes this week, including hopefully some Tesla fallout, more Rotaryfest videos, and much more! Thanks everyone!
It's time for another local metal video showcase! I have enough videos to fill out a post devoted to just newly uploaded videos, in this first post of two today! So we have some new live videos from a defunct local band, a jam session clip, and this week's classic video, but first, here's the latest installment of a recent vlog series from a local band!
Yes, the Woods of Ypres tour vlogs are continuing deeper into Ontario from their most recent tour, as frontman David Gold has uploaded part 1 of their vlog from the Barrie concert onto his YouTube channel! In this vlog, we see the band's exit from Sudbury (and their attempts to map a route on their GPS), the band's hunt for breakfast, lots of drivetime footage, the tense moments brought on by fatigue, an interesting vehicle following the band's van, initial venue confusion in Barrie, what Evan Madden bought at an area music store, and even a Muslim moment that night! Interesting stuff, though if you're expecting concert footage, it's not online yet. Part 2 of the Barrie vlog isn't up yet, which should contain most (if not all) of the used concert video from The Foxx Lounge, but I'll have that when it gets uploaded! If you wanna check it out, the link for part 1 is below, give it a look! Stay tuned for the rest when it's posted!
Next up, this is a surprise, as some brand new videos of defunct Sault Michigan hard rockers Nixxon Dixxon are now online! These come from frontman Brandon Carr's dad Chris' YouTube channel, and you may recognize this channel for hosting some older music-related videos featuring Brandon, including two Nixxon Dixxon live clips. Well, Chris uploaded some brand new videos over the weekend of either Nixxon Dixxon or Brandon solo, including acoustic videos of the band covering Godsmack's "Touche", Pop Evil's "100 in a 55", and Shinedown's "Crow & The Butterfly" (a full re-upload of an earlier video), plus one of the full band covering Steel Dragon's "Blood Pollution", as well as Brandon's American Idol audition video (you'll never guess which song) and the full version of his International Idol cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Simple Man" (also a full version of an old video.) Check out the above links for the new videos! It's great to see new footage of Nixxon Dixxon, and the solo Brandon videos too! I miss them, and these are further proof of their talent beyond their years! The videos are centric around Brandon given who uploaded them, but he is a very good singer, and I hope he's doing well out in California! I'll show you Nixxon Dixxon's cover of "Blood Pollution" below, but check the above links for more!
Now, here's a very brief new video from Brimley hard rockers Half A Man, and it features frontman Erik Rintamaki and drummer Mikey Bishop jamming! Uploaded on Monday to the band's official YouTube channel, this video's black and white & stationary, and only focused on Erik while playing a very heavy riff. You can't see Mikey, but his drumming comes out clear as day, especially the cymbals! The video only clocks in at 56 seconds long, so I can't say too much, but it's a heavy sounding number, and I hope to hear a full version with vocals and bass soon! Check the video out below, and more at the above links!
Finally, here's this week's classic video! With so many bands taking the stage this weekend, I had numerous bands to pick from for a video to upload, and for this week, I settled on Lion Ride! They have a ton of videos online that aren't on YouTube, so it was tough finding one to post onto the SMS' YouTube channel, but this one should pique your interest! This comes from Lion Ride's show at The Foxx Lounge in Barrie on October 30th, 2009, and it's of a Halloween-inspired performance of their opening two songs from that show! Always big Kiss fans, the band decided to dress up as Kiss frontman Paul Stanley for this Devil's Night show....yes, the whole band! They didn't just all dress up as Paul, they each donned a different costume that he wore on a different 1970s or 1980s Kiss album cover, ranging from "Hotter Than Hell" to "Crazy Nights"! And even though guitarist Marco Lion and then-bassist Diamond Brent Panther wore "unmasked" era Paul Stanley costumes, they still had the Starchild facepaint! Fun idea, especially given that the Kiss Battle of the Bands was still upon them, and they fittingly kicked this performance off with their cover of Kiss' "Strutter", before playing their original "Lock Me In"! Good performance, though "Lock Me In"'s audio is staticy.
Filmed by an attendee and uploaded onto Facebook the next day by frontman Mikey Lion, you can view the original video at http://facebook.com/video/video.php?v=178525067992. NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IS INTENDED! All credit for this videos goes to the original filmer, Mikey, and the rest of Lion Ride for all their hard work, I'm just exposing this video to a wider audience! Plus, how often are you gonna see a video like this? Because both songs are full and have a clear divide, I split the video in two for the upload, so click here for "Lock Me In" or visit the above links, and here is Lion Ride (as Paul Stanley) covering "Strutter"!
That's all for now, but I have a new news post featuring a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT later tonight, so stay tuned for that! Thanks everyone!
I'm close to clearing out old news stories, I can feel it! I only have a handful left after this post, thankfully, so we can focus more attention on the GarageBand Profile Mini-Series, and of course, our 3rd Anniversary which is on SUNDAY!! I have three things to unveil, so you'll wanna be around for that, I'll bet! But for today, let's get to five local metal stories/videos that you guys should be aware of!
Firstly, let's discuss Rotaryfest Second Stage headliners Garden of Bedlam, who are still in studio recording their first full length album! In the last few days of backlogged news, I haven't been keeping you guys up to date on how the recording's going, so here's lots of updates on that front! Producer Miguel Gauthier has been keeping everyone up to date from the sessions at Stereo Soul Studios on his Facebook page, and here's some highlights! The guitar recordings with Josh Belleau were nearing completion as of Wednesday, and were apparently so heavy that the high distortion was making the speakers chirp like birds! On June 21st, Miguel was comparing Josh's guitar tones to a "chainsaw ripping through your dental work." Good sign! And, Miguel gave Garden of Bedlam credit for starting that earthquake that we felt locally too! Once guitars are finished (if they're not already), Buzz hits the studio to lay down vocals, and I promise to keep on top of that for updates on the SMS now that I'm not so piled with news! Remember, follow Miguel on Facebook for studio updates as they come in!
Next up, as Woods of Ypres continue their North American tour, a couple of reviews from one of their shows out west have started to pop up online! Two separate reviews from Woods of Ypres' show at The Biltmore in Vancouver are now online on a pair of metal websites, and here's what you should know! Hellbound.ca's Kyle Harcott glowingly praised Woods of Ypres, despite a relatively short set, even saying that it was the "best show of the year"! The photos aren't of great quality, but he details the experience of the show well, and even notes that the band played a NEW SONG as their encore! Apparently, it was an instrumental, but I'd love to hear it! Click here for Kyle's complete review! Also at the show for review purposes was Mule Hughes from Difficult Music, who evened out his review to talk a bit more about the openers than Kyle did and spent a bit less time on Woods. He enjoyed the concert though, and I found it amusing that David Gold admitted on stage that they were the least heavy band of the night! Also a good read, click here to check it out! Stay tuned for more updates from Woods of Ypres' current tour!
Thirdly today, some updates to local internet radio station Energy Rock Radio! Ryan McQueen and company have been making more changes lately, including a brand new page design (again) and the addition of new genre streams for classic rock and urban music, so now, if you don't want wall to wall metal, you have options! However, the thing that caught my attention the most was a post on Energy Rock Radio's Twitter page from June 28th, which says, and I quote, "We have made the final decision of 2010. In that being strictly "Creative Commons" tunes(unsigned) on our server, as well as talk radio. bCm". Posts on Ryan's personal Facebook page indicate that this is a "new direction" and was plugging that we should tune in to "support unsigned bands and material from all around our world." There's no official word beyond that, but it's interesting that Energy Rock Radio is going this route. Was there outside pressure to not play material from signed bands, is this the safe route in case that happens, or is Energy Rock Radio just championing unsigned bands more out of good will? No matter what, it's still a great station, and it will give you an excuse to discover new bands by listening! Click here for more on this station, I'll have more updates as I hear them!
Closing this post are two new local metal-relevant videos! And first, we have a new performance clip from Nixxon Dixxon frontman Brandon Carr. Just Brandon alone in this one, and I'll explain why. YouTube user rubbs001 uploaded a video onto their channel of Brandon covering Shinedown's version of the Lynyrd Skynyrd classic "Simple Man" at The International Idol Vocal Competition Series that was held on June 6th at The Soo Theater in Sault Michigan! Presumably, he entered in the 14-and-over class of this competition to find talented local singers. A local musician named Kellan Perron won for that class, taking home $600, studio time, and opportunities to perform live in concert and stage productions! Nice work, congratulations to Kellan! It'd have been cool to see Brandon win though, I've always liked his singing, and he compensated for his range by adding grit and heaviness to "Simple Man" that didn't ruin the song at all! Check out the 89 second clip below, and more Nixxon Dixxon/Brandon Carr videos at this location, including one of Brandon as the dentist in a live production of Little Shop of Horrors!
Finally, I'd like to share a video I uploaded the other day. Remember The Sexual Vigilantes, the Toronto-based comedy metal band featuring locals Curtis Faux and Brenton Ellis from Detroit? Well, I noticed the other day that their lone video on YouTube, and many classic Lion Ride videos from their "glam" days, were suddenly made private for unexplained reasons by the uploader. I'm not gonna throw that person under the bus by singling them out, there must have been some reason for making them private, but it left the general audience without any Sexual Vigilantes videos! The video in question was a live performance by the band (with Mikey Hawdon and Mark Rand as guests) playing "Motorbike The Song" at Foggy Notions in December 2007, and to at least partially make up for it's unavailability to the general YouTube user, I've uploaded the studio version of that song to The Sault Metal Scene's YouTube channel! Catchy goofy little hard rock number, it shows their sense of humour and talents in equal amounts! Check it out below, and here's hoping Curt and Brent bring the band home for a show some day!
That's actually probably all for today! My news cache is almost cleared out, so unless some huge story comes out later, I don't think I'll have a new news post until tomorrow! But before that, stay tuned around midnight for my next installment of our GarageBand Profile Mini-Series, where we take a look at Lee Maines' solo projects! Stay tuned for that, my Phatstick concert review (I'll see you at Foggy's tonight or tomorrow!) and much more real soon!
