Weekend Concert Previews & Three Assorted Other Stories!!

Hey guys, it's that time again! Well, it's actually a shorter post than I'm used to, but I gotta get the weekend concert previews out of the way, and I have some assorted smaller stories to share too, so it's not a horribly small post either! Let's start with your local metal concert previews for this weekend!

Two metal shows to my knowledge each in both of the twin Saults this weekend, and we'll start in Sault Ontario, when Caveman Morrison frontman Tym Morrison takes the stage tomorrow night and Saturday night at Coch's Corner! If you're craving to hear some great covers of your favourite metal, hard rock, and other-genre songs in an intimate acoustic setting, you'll wanna be there this weekend! Both of Tym's shows start at 10:00 PM, and if you know his shows, and Coch's Corner's inviting environment, you'll know this will be well worth attending! No admission price either, just bring beer money, or maybe order some food, the guys there make some good grub too! And yes, it's 19+. Get more information at this location! As always, a Tym Morrison show will be worth attending, especially with the recent lack of Caveman Morrison shows (possible reason for that coming up), but head on down to Coch's and chill out to some great music this weekend, you won't be sorry! Check out more from Tym Morrison's solo and Caveman catalog at his official website!

The other two metal shows this weekend that I know about enough to report come courtesy of Sault Michigan hard rockers Nixxon Dixxon! The rising young stars return to The Bird across the river this weekend on the very same days and times as Tym Morrison's upcoming concerts: 10:00 PM Friday and Saturday! No admission price to enter that I know of, I believe there's a 21+ age limit. As usual for Nixxon Dixxon shows, expect a great night of hard rock and metal covers and some high quality originals from a band that will surely be one of the area's finest bands in the coming years, as long as they keep on with what they're doing! For more from Nixxon Dixxon, including photos, concert listings, and more, visit their official MySpace page! Go see them if you can this weekend, you'll have a good time! And if not, no worries, they'll be at Kewadin Casino next weekend! For a video preview, here's Nixxon Dixxon covering the Metallica classic "Master of Puppets" from their most recent New Years Eve show!



And now, three assorted updates to help clear out some smaller stories from my newsdesk...or the internet equivalent of a newsdesk. These are in order by band name!:

• If you've noticed a new band on the band links on the left of the page named April Eyes, that's actually not a new band. That's the new name for Lorax guitarist Mitch Sirie's solo project, which was previously called By The Gods. It doesn't look like much else is different, but check Mitch's stuff out! His solo stuff is surprisingly solid, I'd love to see April Eyes play a show if he got some other musicians together! After all, music described as the product of prog and death metal raping folk and indie rock can't be all bad!
• Bad Side's return to the concert scene is being bolstered with another upcoming concert! Not local, but worth mentioning, and it is closer to here! The local classic hard rockers will be a part of L3 Lucky Lake Live, an three-day-long August concert festival in Muskegon! No word on what day they'll be on (click here for as much details as I know), but notable bands like Pop Evil and Sponge will be among the performers! Great to hear that they're on another show, fingers crossed there's a local one too sooner or later!
• You guys wondering where Caveman Morrison have been in recent weeks? Well, it appears there's been a band member changeover. According to a Facebook status update from him yesterday, Social Play frontman Dutch Vanderploeg has officially joined Caveman Morrison! Click here for my source. Presumably he's replacing Rick White on bass, but the band have not made an official announcement concerning a lineup change. Looks legit, but when something 100% verified comes out, I'll let you all know!

That's all for this quick post, my next update will include news on an upcoming new local music webzine (not mine!), assorted news on Doom Cannon, the Downtown Showdown battle of the bands, Mike Libertoski, and more! Stay tuned!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Lion Ride & Riot! By Night), Assorted News, And A New Summer Concert Festival?!

Happy Easter Monday! It took a bit of searching, but I cobbled together enough stories for a packed new post on The Sault Metal Scene! Today, I have some new songs from a pair of local metal solo projects, some fallout from Garden of Bedlam's latest show, a new local concert festival, and leading off, three LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS!!

Lion Ride are coming back home! Yes, the local metal band will be back at The Canadian Nightclub on May 22nd, returning to the venue of their heartbreaking one-point loss at the Kiss Battle of the Bands! This time, they'll be front and center, headlining with opening bands to be announced. No cover charge has been announced yet, but the concert has a listed start time of 10:00 PM on May 22nd! On the Facebook event page, the band are hyping new songs to be played, so there's all the more reason to go! You can guarantee I'll be there, this should be one hell of a concert! It's been too long since Lion Ride were here, I know there will be a great crowd for them! As I hear more about this show, and of course, who'll be playing bass for them, I'll have it here! Click here for more info and songs from Lion Ride! (Also, what happened to the Garden of Bedlam-parodying poster for the show? That was funny!)

The other new concerts on the horizon are in the Sault Michigan area, with locals Riot! By Night hitting the road, slightly, for two shows I'd call local, and one that's a bit further out. They'll be heading to Rudyard and Barbeau, both of which are just outside of the Soo, for two shows later this month! They'll be at Dan's Place in Rudyard on April 17th (I thought that was someone's house in earlier RBN/Absolute shows there before, stupid me!), while they'll be at The Cozy Corners Bar & Grill in Barbeau (Nixxon Dixxon have played there before too) on April 30th! Finally, they'll be at Timmy Lee's in St. Ignace on May 8th, which is slightly too far for me to call "local", but keep that show in mind! Now none of these shows have a listed cover charge, but all are said to start at 9:00 PM on their official MySpace page, so you know a rough time to head out for them! Nice to see them expanding their reach, here's hoping for much more from them in the future! I'll keep you posted if I hear anything more!

Now we'll stay in Michigan for this very intriguing story that I came across on Kewadin Casino's website! Did you know that Kewadin Casino is celebrating it's 25th anniversary this year? Yeah, it opened way back in the fall of 1985, and in honour of the milestone, the casino is planning a three day summer music festival! Entitled "Kewadin Casino's 25th Anniversary Summer Festival", it's scheduled for July 22-24th, and will feature local and non-local bands, with apparent "national entertainers" headlining each night. It also lists stuff like "food eating contests", and more things that could go over pretty well! For as much info as they've announced so far, click here! Now there are no confirmed bands yet, but I feel comfortable mentioning this festival here because Kewadin Casino has a good track record for including hard rock and metal bands for shows at their various venues within, so I figure there'll be at least one metal band! This all sounds very ambitious and promising, but the prospect exists that this can become an annual event if it's successful! As always, I'll keep you posted!

Two more stories, and we're back in Sault Ontario for them. Firstly, Donna Hopper from SooToday has a review and photo album from this past Friday's Garden of Bedlam concert at The Canadian Nightclub! Entitled "Farewell Garden of Bedam. For now", it tells us stuff we've mostly heard already, and surprisingly lacks any mention of Half Past's set, but as always, the photos are top notch! I really like this shot of Buzz in silhouette, but there's a bunch of others at this location, so check them out! My neck still hurts from the show, it was an awesome local sendoff prior to their album recording sessions, but they'll be back! Oh yeah, check out their official website!

And finally, there's some new solo material online from a pair of Sault Ontario metal acts! Local guitarist Brendan Christie has a new song posted on his MySpace page, entitled "Into Oblivion", which is slower but the guitars are still heavy and there's some nice solo work! The piano adds to the song a lot, I don't know if that's Brendan's playing, but it's really good! The other new stuff comes from By The Gods, the solo project from Lorax guitarist Mitch Sirie! He uploaded two new demos, "Swept Away" and "The Only Road I've Ever Known" onto By The Gods' MySpace page, and I'm really impressed! Check out "Swept Away" especially, it's over 11 minutes of really good instrumental metal! I'd love to see Mitch get some other musicians together and make By The Gods a full band, at least I'd like to see it! Click on the links above to check out the songs!

That's all for now, expect a preview of Sykotyk Rampage's concert on Wednesday tomorrow at some point, along with my review of "Apocalyptic Vision" by Integrated System of Machines later in the week, and more!