LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Gnaeus), A New Local Metal Band, And Much More!!

With the first full week of June now in progress, let's clear out most of our backlogged news stories, along with two lead items: A LOCAL CONCERT ALERT for later this month, and first, a new addition to our Sault Ontario band links, so here's what you should know!

We have a new local metal band to add to our band links, and they are Kraken Mara, a new progressive metal band from Sault Ontario featuring a pair of familiar faces! Kraken Mara marks the return of former Late & Loud guitarist Brendan Christie & bassist Benn Garside after a two year public absence from local music, with the guys being joined by guitarist Jacob Valois, who's new to the Soo's scene, but used to play in the Wawa bands The Palm Trees and Exiled Earth. No sign yet of a lead singer or permanent drummer, and while Brendan sang lead for many Late & Loud songs and for the short lived Hydra's Teeth, it's not clear if they immediately intend on adding a singer. Kraken Mara have been active since at least April (apologies for the delay), and the band is apparently already recording their debut EP, as per their Reverbnation page, with bands like August Burns Red, Animals As Leaders, and Dream Theater cited as influences.

Harbouring the closest similarities with Brendan's inactive solo project, Kraken Mara eschews his and Benn's recent classic/speed metal influences in favour of progressive & djent metal, and there's a lot of promise so far on the three songs posted on Reverbnation ("Chimera" and a two parter named "Grand Machinations"), with strong, crushing, and technical guitar work, but live drums would be an asset, and the production could be beefier on the earlier songs. Very promising band to start, so hopefully we hear much more from Kraken Mara soon, and see above for more on them!

Next up, here's that LOCAL CONCERT ALERT, as local post punk quartet Gnaeus will return to the stage on Saturday, June 18th when they open for Whitehorse, Yukon folk project Old Cabin at LopLops Lounge! After a couple of months off, Gnaeus should have a strong set in store as they near the release of their debut CD "Meditations" (more on that soon, hopefully), so prepare yourselves for their garage punk originals in two weeks! Touring in support of their 7'' vinyl disc, Old Cabin (fronted by Saultite Jona Barr) should get a great reception in their long awaited return to our neck of the woods, so if you want some well written and performed folk rock, don't miss Old Cabin later this month! The other opening bands include local/Ottawa indie rock project Great Chamberlain and The Dirty Princes, a power pop quartet from Sudbury who I don't recall from past local shows. Nice diverse lineup, so keep everything in mind for June 18th at LopLops!

Promoted by Ears & Eyes Online's Jackson Reed (the brother of Old Cabin's Jona Barr), this 19+ show has a $10 cover charge, and doors will open at 8:00 PM. For more details, visit the above links, and hopefully this is a strong show for fans of folk, indie, and alternative rock, with Gnaeus bringing a dash of punk to the proceedings as well!

Finally for today, here's six assorted shorter news items from the last while, and as usual, these are in alphabetical order by artist or venue name:

• Gabriel Pesek of the metal website The Burning Beard reviewed local doom trio AlgomA's recent vinyl split EP with Saskatchewan's Chronobot yesterday at this link. He didn't give a score, but he positively praised both band's halves of the split as "a solid introduction" to newcomers, especially compared to the tech/death metal that he's tended to see come out of Canada. Not a bad review, so give it a look above!
• Local hardcore punk quintet Destroilet's cover of The Rebel Spell's "Murderers" (originally seen on last year's "Fed Up!" split CD) is going to be included on an upcoming Rebel Spell tribute album called "Rebels Sing"! In memory of late frontman Todd "Serious" Jenkins & with proceeds going to his family, the massive 30 song compilation will include songs from such locally familiar bands as Propagandhi and The Royal Red Brigade, among many others. This is great to see, so pre-order your copies of "Rebel Sings" above!
• In a surprising find, the message board for defunct local bar/concert venue Foggy Notions (now Coch's Corner) is still online and available to check out! The forum was lightly used for about 6 months between 2003 & 2004, and features some discussions relating to local metal & punk bands and concerts at both Foggy's and beyond. It's an interesting read for local music fans who were around the scene 12 or so years ago, so check it out above, and it's now in our message board links on the SMS!
• The original crash band, Sykotyk Rampage, have released two more free "albums" to their Reverbnation page! One is entitled "Alarm Alarm" and was posted in April (apologies for the delay), while the other is "Kock Block Rock", which went up this past Wednesday. Featuring 11 & 12 songs each, these are full of Sykotyk Rampage's irreverent & improvised "blue Chinese metal crash punk", so give them and much more a listen above!
• In a new posting on local musician/Gore Street Cafe co-owner Sam Decter's blog The Tinderbox, he revealed that local punk/grunge solo project Telephone & Address will be putting out an album called "Are You or Have You Ever Been?" through his new local label BGP Tapes, which strongly hints at putting out new material from local artists on cassette tapes. It's unclear what this means for Chris' yet-released albums "Monster" & "The Early Tapes", but remember that Sam & Chris briefly planned to collaborate as a band under the similar name Are You Now? or Have You Ever?. We'll let you know when more is elaborated on!
• Vancouver "apocalypse rock" trio War Baby have been added to the lineup of Six, Two, Oh.'s punk rock bingo event at The New American Pub on July 12th! Despite being an out of town band (the show is late in their summer tour of Canada), they are currently listed as the opening act, behind the debuting local band Gianni Gagoots. War Baby's punk-influenced, fast paced aggression should be a nice addition to this concert/bingo night next month, so keep their local debut in mind for then!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and notes this week! Thanks everyone!

Two Inactive Local Bands, New Grunge/Alternative Covers, And Some Deleted Links!!

Let's keep our recent busy stretch going at the SMS with another news post, but what's on the docket this time around? Along with some link deletions from the site, we also have new covers from a pair of inactive & linked grunge/alternative bands, but first, we have some bands to consider as now likely inactive, so here's what you need to know!

I've opted to move two linked Sault Ontario metal bands to our inactive band links, those being local hardcore/death metal acts March Into Regression & With Blood Builds Character. Neither has issued a public update since last summer, and most of their personnel have been busy in other projects lately (Ray Cowan & Christopher Neveau in Unbound, Josh Stephney in The Bear Hunters & Giwakwa, Jeremy Hannah with solo indie material, and Tyler St. Amour in Social Suicide), so both bands seem to be on the backburner, or worse. As you may remember, March Into Regression (formerly Bring The Misery in mid-2011) was relaunched by drummer Travis St. Amour last June with a new larger lineup & a looser jam feel for shows in Laird & at The Rosie, but they were essentially succeeded by With Blood Builds Character in July, who featured the same lineup (minus Josh & Travis), though all of March Into Regression's last members played in some form at W.B.B.C.'s only gig last August in Laird. Note that M.I.R.'s return last year coincided with Travis' return home from college last spring, but I've heard nothing about a similar resurrection of either of these bands in 2013 (at least, not yet.)

Despite the informal nature of their shows, I thought both March Into Regression & With Blood Builds Character had a lot of promise (their originals proved that), and I hoped that one of the bands would last longer than they did locally, but at least most of the guys are keeping active in the local scene. Best of luck to Jeremy, Josh, Ray, Christopher, Dan, Tyler, Travis, and other ex-members in the future, and here's hoping we see more from them all shortly!

Next up, a pair of inactive projects from local musician Dann Pichette have some new audio uploads to check out via his YouTube channel on Friday! One is a cover of The Beatles' "I'm Not Sleeping", which is credited to his old grunge band No Arrow (though Dann played all instruments on the track), and while I'm not a scholar of Beatles material, Dann did seem to put in a good sound and effort on this cover, even if it's not that heavy! The vocals are somewhat punk-inspired & listless, but it gives it vibe similar to that of Dann's later SBD work. Check out his "I'm Not Sleeping" cover below!



Also, Dann also uploaded this cover of Syd Barrett's "Octopus" (credited to his most recent local band project, alternative/grunge trio SBD) onto YouTube as well! Featuring bassist Brad Griffith on drums in place of Shane Triplett, this is in line with many of SBD's live covers (lots of early Pink Floyd/Syd Barrett songs), and it shows more originality and a closer link to their sound than The Beatles one arguably did, so I like it more on that basis alone! Check out SBD's new/old Syd Barrett cover below!



Finally for today, here's some notes on deleted links leading from our recent layout changes. One deleted page was that of Andrea Gosselin Photography (who did lots of local concert photography and the photos for Garden of Bedlam's latest album), as her website is currently unavailable. No word on why this happened, but with no indications of it being temporary (or replacement pages), I've deleted it from our links... at least for now. The other deletions are inactive local metal-relevant message boards, as the forums for both defunct hard rock band Renderware & the former regional music webzine Northern Rocks Magazine have been taken down by their respective hosts. No reason was publicized for Renderware's forum, but the Northern Rocks forum was a casualty of the migration of old Forumer-hosted boards to the newer Yuku platform, similarly to why the old Sault Music Scene forums were taken down. It can be saved & completely migrated if requested by March 21st, but seeing as the magazine hasn't been produced since mid-2009, the odds are extremely slim. (I really wish the magazine was still around though, it had great content and a great purpose!)

With these closures, we're down to 5 active local metal-relevant message boards that I know of (Woods of Ypres & Gates of Winter's forums, Freq's Music Planet, SooNet Musician Central, and the 705 Video Magazine forums), but the 705VM boards are currently down (possibly due to spam issues), and only Freq's Music Planet has been otherwise maintained in the past year. This seems odd to see the dropoff, but maybe social media is diminishing the need for forums? I think there's still a place for message boards (even if my own attempts failed), and hopefully more will pop up soon!

That's all for now, but stay tuned for more news and notes shortly! Thanks everyone!

A New David Gold Article, New Page Designs, And A Now-Inactive Local Band!!

Let's get another news post up at the SMS, so here's what's on tap for this Wednesday! We've got a great new Sault Star article with local connections, a band's likely descent into inactivity, details on a relaunched local site with metal aspects, and an acknowledgement of recent Facebook changes, so here's what you need to know!

A new article on late Woods of Ypres frontman David Gold has made The Sault Star! Entitled "Solid Gold" and written by Jeffery Ougler, I presume it's in yesterday's paper, but you can click here for the online version. The article largely features comments from David's mom Esther Gold, though Dismembertainment's Rich Moreland (who's promoting Saturday night's Ypres Metal Fest) is also briefly interviewed. In the article, Esther talks about the time between David's last text to her and when she heard about his passing, how the family is adjusting, her efforts to keep the Woods of Ypres name alive, opening her home to bands to stay at for concerts David was connected with, his songwriting ability, and much more, so definitely give the article a read for some nice and heartfelt comments! I still feel really bad for her, and I can't imagine how hard it would be to lose a child right before Christmas, it just seems unfair. Jeffery also gives deserved plugs to the planned "A Heart of Gold" Woods of Ypres tribute CD (though it's title & complete track listing aren't given) and both David Gold memorial concerts (specifically the Ypres Metal Fest this weekend at The Canadian), which is awesome to see, as every bit of press helps!

It's also briefly noted that Bossy's Pub N' Grub (seconds from The Canadian) now has tickets for the Ypres Metal Fest, which has not been mentioned elsewhere in terms of ticket locations, but keep that in mind! This is a great article, and though they credit Toronto as Woods of Ypres' home base despite having formally relocated here in 2008, it's well researched, very long, and gives some awesome press to all the David Gold tributes on the horizon! Check it all out at the above links (or read yesterday's paper), and stay tuned for more on all of the above topics soon!

Next up, I wanted to note a band that we're now considering to be inactive on the SMS, that being the Sault Ontario metal band once known as Meatplow. While we're not past the year's inactivity threshold that we count on the SMS, their Facebook page was deleted within the last few months, and with no real band updates for many months as it is, I'm comfortable in saying that they've probably went inactive. As such, I've replaced their link on here with their Facebook group, and they're now in our inactive Sault Ontario band links. Meatplow were a newer project from former Amethyst drummer Phil Temperao and assorted other members that had been active off and on from roughly 2009-2011, and though a name change and recorded material were hinted at in early 2011 videos on Phil's YouTube channel, nothing was ever publically announced to expand on said news. Info on Meatplow was always lacking, but their videos shown a lot of promise, especially on their industrial-tinged earlier videos, and Phil impressed me with his singing and drumming, so hopefully he, Dennis, and Mike will reactivate the project down the road, or at least stay in music. Check out more from the band once known as Meatplow at the above links!

Thirdly, the 705 Video Magazine is finally back online, and if you've missed the old Sault Music Scene website, then you'll like this! In it's last forms, the 705VM was just a general forum with a connected Facebook page, but now, they have a full website again, and along with sections on local extreme sports and general news/reviews, it has a full music section with profiles & reviews on bands local and non-local alike, just like The Sault Music Scene used to have! Profiles on the Ypres Metal Fest, Frightlight, The Harsh Heads, As It Stands, and Destroilet are featured, among many others, so click the above links to check them out! Note that they mostly featured very basic bio information and don't appear to be newly written with analysis of the bands, but maybe with time. There's even some interviews with a metal relevance, though none are with a local band. A store is also coming soon, and despite the focus back on an old Sault Music Scene-esque style, the 705VM forum is back too! It's newly relaunched with a new layout, format, and sub-boards, so you'll need to re-register, but at least it's not locked to non-members like some of their older forums were! That said, the old metal-centric board from there is gone, but there's still music-centered ones to talk bands and shows with!

With the changes, I've edited the link in our local metal message boards section to reflect the new forum URL, and because it's now separate from the 705VM website itself, I've added that to our "Other Local Metal Links". It's great to see the 705 Video Magazine go back to the future for their new look and focus beyond Facebook, and I hope this takes off like the original Sault Music Scene did! Same for the forum, as it's seen so many looks, names, and states lately, and I hope this current form lasts for the long term. Check it all out, and stay tuned for more local metal plugs from the 705VM as they come in!

And finally, just a note on something I'm sure that all of you guys are more than aware of by now, but most (if not all) Facebook pages have been upgraded to the new "Timeline" format, presumably to achieve consistency with the Timeline profiles that Facebook has been rolling out to personal Facebook accounts. Yes, this is mandatory, just like the MySpace & YouTube profile changes. As such, the timeline features a new two-column layout with a large cover photo, new placements for subsections and mentions/postings, and there's an emphasis on creating a timeline for whatever your page is for, so while it's not easy to see every single thing you've ever posted, you can go back & add things (like a discography or important events) if you so chose, which would help to connect the dots and accentuate your history and happenings. Nothing's being directly deleted from your pages with the change, but you may want to edit them to re-accentuate or promote certain aspects of it. I don't find that the Timeline profile is perfect, but it's not terrible, and I've tried to make the SMS' Facebook page look nice with the new format, including a cover photo of our logo with numerous local band members inside it. It's an adjustment, but hopefully you guys can take on your band pages and make them look great!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for news, concert previews, and feature posts shortly! Thanks everyone!

Sykotyk Rampage Concert Preview, Woods Of Ypres Updates, And More!

Good afternoon metalheads! Hope you guys enjoyed my review of "Brace For Impact" by Detroit yesterday! If you haven't read it, it's the post immediately below this one! Next review is in just under 4 weeks when I finally take a look at the newest album from Sykotyk Rampage, who return to the live scene tomorrow for this concert we're going to preview! Stay tuned afterwards for more assorted news stories!

Tomorrow night, Sault College, in association with this year's Scotties Tournament Of Hearts, are holding a Battle of the Bands as part of the festivities for the tournament! As you may remember, private auditions were held on January 21st at The Outback at Sault College, where local bands with at least one Sault College student competed to fill one of four spots for this battle, the first local one since the Kiss battle in December! Each band will play a half hour of music, and when all is said and done, the first place band will leave $750 richer! Second place wins $500 and third gets $150. As I hinted above, Sykotyk Rampage are one of the four bands competing tomorrow night, in their first live performance of more than two songs since October at The Outback! Bringing their unique brand of hard rock to the masses once again, Sykotyk Rampage are the only metal act on the lineup tomorrow night, though there's no shortage of talent! The other bands are, in alphabetical order: local classic rockers Blackwater, local rock band Middle of Nowhere, and indie rockers Nebraska Arms! Though not metal, all three bands have large fanbases and should put in great performances tomorrow night!

Admission is FREE to all area post-secondary students, so bring your Sault College, Algoma, or LSSU IDs tomorrow night! Guests are welcome if accompanied by a student. I don't know if there's an admission price for non-students without guests, they haven't said if there is or if it's restricted. Doors open at 8:00 PM, the battle commences at around 10:00 PM! The battle will be held at The Heartstop Lounge, which is the bar/lounge area in The Soo Curlers Association Curling Rink on Anita Boulevard (on Northern Avenue past Alexander Henry Collegiate.) It is 19+, so make sure to be of age! It's great to see another battle to give local bands a chance to show their stuff, even if only four bands are competing. One might look to the Kiss Battle results to predict a winner, as Nebraska Arms were finalists, while Sykotyk Rampage and Middle of Nowhere were not, but this is a whole new ball game! Don't count Blackwater out either!

And of course, being a metalhead, it's great to see Sykotyk Rampage back on the scene! Will we hear songs from "22"? Who knows, but it will be another fun set from these guys! I'll be there, best of luck to them and all the bands! To preview what to expect, head to their Soundclick page to hear hundreds of songs from their back catalog! And here's a video for one of their signature songs, "Drinking On The Weekend"!



While we're on the subject of videos, here's two that will interest Woods of Ypres fans on a more lighthearted level! Both come courtesy of frontman David Gold's YouTube channel. Firstly, he uploaded a video where he shows where he's storing the ideas for the band's next album, "Woods V"! I won't spoil anything, just watch it. Is this how all bands come up with song ideas?



Keeping with the kinda offbeat tone, here's the other video! Have you ever thought to yourself "I wish washing my car was more metal?" Here's how to make it metal: Put Woods of Ypres decals on your car and blast "The Northern Cold" while you run it through an automatic car wash! And boom, even the car wash becomes a headbangable exercise! Check it out!



Next up, some local music forum related updates. If you're a casual viewer of The705Scene forums, and you noticed that the forum selections aren't popping up, you're not alone. Looks like admins are disabling casual views of the forum at present, so if you want to read without posting, you're gonna need an account. Luckily I have one, so it won't impact any news from The705Scene still making it to the SMS as I hear it! Just figured those of you without accounts might want to know. The other updates come from the new forum for local metallers Caveman Morrison! Lots of activity and new topics there, among the more noteworthy ones: Caveman Morrison are available for special gatherings and parties, they've been trying to get bookings in St. Joseph Island, and they are learning songs from bands like Slayer, Living Colour, and Kiss! Check everything out, and join the discussions, at this location!

Two more quick topics to get to today. Remember when I mentioned that Nixxon Dixxon's weekend dates at the end of the month at Kewadin Casino conflicted with concerts already scheduled featuring Peril? Well, something did indeed give, as Peril moved that weekend's shows to Kewadin Casino in St. Ignace. But if you were hoping to see Peril that weekend, don't worry, they'll be back at The Rapids Lounge on the March 12th weekend! And finally, a new DJ for Energy Rock Radio has been announced, and it's none other than "Castle Farms" author Duane Roy! I guess his radio exposure on Rock 101 has led to some great positive heights! Congratulations Duane! And yes, I will review "Castle Farms" on the SMS, school and general SMS activity have been consuming a lot of my free time. Soon though!

That's all for now, next post could be this month's preview of two more out of town bands with local members! Or it could have my review of tomorrow night's Sykotyk Rampage show! OR, it could be another news/preview post. Or a combo? We'll see how things shape up, but you guys will get one of the three next! So keep on the lookout!