Another Local Metal Video Showcase!!

(UPDATE, 8:02 PM) Before we get into this post, just letting you guys know that Victoria, B.C. sleaze rockers The Lust Boys (who were scheduled to headline at The Canadian TONIGHT) will not be playing, as their tour vehicle broke down in Marathon 5½ hours northwest of town. As a result, Late & Loud will now headline tonight's concert with Dirty Virgin & Pools of Booze opening, without a fourth replacement band. The new start time is 9:00 PM, and the cover charge has been halved to $5. Disappointing news for sure, but hopefully The Lust Boys can play here soon, as they have a good fan base here! Hopefully I'll see you guys there!

Now, let's squeeze in one more all-video post for March before the month ends, so below resides a bunch of newer videos relating to the local metal scene! For fairness, given these videos' types and lengths, we'll put these in alphabetical order by artist or channel name, including this week's classic video, a new music video/original song, and a new audio demo, but first, here's some new live videos from a young local band!

Remember last month when we covered new videos posted by a young local rock trio from Hawkplugged (formerly Dunnplugged) performances at Superior Heights Collegiate & Vocational School? Well, YouTube user (and likely band member) adamscovers posted 4 more videos from a recent Hawkplugged set onto his YouTube channel on Tuesday, including covers of Collective Soul's "December", Foghat's "Slow Ride", Boston's "Smokin'", and (as embedded below) Led Zeppelin's "The Ocean", so check them out! Each video also features some post-production transitions and zooms, though the Collective Soul cover is in black & white, presumably due to the song's slower nature. I still don't know anything definitive on this band, but despite the new videos mostly skewing towards classic rock, I'm more impressed with them! The guitarist has a surprisingly good vocal range, and these guys are definitely talented playing these covers, but hopefully we'll learn more about them soon, cause they are definitely a promising band to watch! Check out this band covering Led Zeppelin's "The Ocean" below, and see more from these guys at the above links!



Next up, here's the latest video & song from local electronic/hard rock project Candle Hour! Well, this is technically credited to frontman Hugh Stephens under his own name (and it's being sold as such on iTunes), but the video says that he's "otherwise known as Candle Hour", and it's posted on the band's Reverbnation page too, so I'll plug it as if it's a Candle Hour track! Posted earlier today, it's entitled "Azetta", and it's a softer instrumental track that appears to be in memoriam to his late grandmother, who shared this song's name. It's set to a 1902 silent movie named "The Little Match Seller", and it does add to the song's depressing yet touching mood. It's not Hugh's heaviest original song, but it accomplishes exactly what it's supposed to do, and it's worth checking out, so give Candle Hour/Hugh's new song "Azetta" a look below, and see much more of his video work at the Candle Hour YouTube channel!



Also new to YouTube is a new audio jam session recording from former Bring The Fallen guitarist Dan Souliere's YouTube channel! Last fall, you may remember some videos that he posted of jam sessions with Brantford drummer Nick Misurka, which were shot not long after Dan moved to Southern Ontario. Well, while we wait for his return home this summer, he posted this new 8+ minute audio recording on Monday of him and Nick jamming, and it sounds pretty good! If that's Dan singing, his vocals have definitely improved, and they sound like they have good chemistry, but I wish this was an actual video. It's good stuff though, so check this new recording out below!



And finally, here's this week's classic video! I had a couple of videos in mind to tie in with performers this weekend, but to spread things out, I'm dipping into the local archives for a combination video from the original crash band themselves, Sykotyk Rampage! The Humane Society battle of the bands openers were the subject of one of our classic videos last year that featured a combination of 6 short videos from a 2009 jam session in "The Cave", and this week's upload is very similar to that... just shorter. Five very short videos (four of which were 17 seconds or less in length) were filmed and uploaded to Facebook by attendee Keri Beckett after a jam session on June 12th, 2007, back when the band just a trio (bassist Brian Cattapan hadn't joined yet), and when they were still online, I downloaded them for posterity. Now that they've been deleted from Facebook, I've combined all five ("Jam Night", "Paul & Shane", and a "Solo" video for each band member) into one 95 second long video with an attempt to make each clip flow into the next in the video. NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IS INTENDED!! All credit for these clips goes to Sykotyk Rampage and Keri, I'm just trying to share this footage with a deserving wider audience and return them to a public audience!

These clips are actually of decent quality compared to our last combo classic video of Sykotyk Rampage, though the red lighting was overpowering, so I tried to mute it a bit after uploading. If you like Sykotyk Rampage, you should like this short look at the band from 5 years ago, so check it out below, and go see Sykotyk Rampage rock The Grand Theater before the battle of the bands on April 20th!



That's all for now, but I should see you guys at The Canadian Nightclub TONIGHT, with my review of that and "Woods V" tomorrow! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Still Of The Night & Frightlight), Plus New Videos & "Woods V" Reviews!!

I wasn't expecting to have another post so soon, but when news hits, you've gotta capitalize on it! Today, we have some more "Woods V" reviews, some new videos from some young local musicians, and starting things today, LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS for shows next month and THIS WEEKEND, so here's what you need to know!

We have another concert this weekend that I only just found about today, and if you've missed Whitesnake since their headlining concert at Kewadin Casino last August, then good news, as the next best thing is coming to Sault Ontario THIS SATURDAY! Toronto-based Whitesnake tribute band Still of the Night will rock The Canadian Nightclub on Saturday for a good long night's worth of Whitesnake classics, and even some David Coverdale-era Deep Purple, from what I can tell! I apologize for the late notice on this show, I only just heard about it on a radio ad on Rock 101 this morning, and The Canadian's Facebook group didn't acknowledge this concert until this afternoon. Details on this show aren't too prevalent online, but I believe a 10:00 PM start time is likely, you must be 19 to attend, and I'd expect a cover charge of around $5. Check the above links for more details! Late notice or not, The Canadian is always a good bet for bringing in talented touring Canadian tribute bands, and Still of the Night fit that mold well! Jon Munroe's singing isn't a perfect match for David Coverdale in his prime, but they have the sound down pretty well, and if you love Whitesnake or classic 1980s metal, you'll definitely not wanna miss this show on Saturday night! For a preview, here's a Still of the Night promotional video featuring clips of a few of their Whitesnake renditions!



Also in new concerts, remember last week when I alluded to a planned fundraising concert at The Canadian Nightclub that briefly had a Facebook event page before it was pulled? Well, I don't know what happened then, but it appears to still be a go, so here's the current details! As Frightlight frontman Johnny Pints revealed on the Musicians Wanted Facebook group yesterday, the band has scheduled a special all-ages fundraising concert at The Canadian on March 4th to raise money towards a tour vehicle, so Frightlight can do some tour dates and "bring the fright" to other cities. Depending on the number of bands, the show will run until 11:00 PM on that Sunday, with an undetermined start time. Currently confirmed to join Frightlight at this "Dead In The Van" event are local hardcore quintet As It Stands, classic metal rockers Late & Loud, Desbarats metal band Inhuman Methods (nice to see them increasing their local presence!), and Business Suit Trappers guitarist "Evil" Greg Callaghan in a solo set. More bands are to be confirmed, so contact Johnny at the above links for details if your band wants in on this event! Full details are expected to be released next week, so we should hear more on admission prices and times then, but I can confirm that the show will be licensed in addition to the all ages element.

Frightlight (and Fitswitch) have always been good for supporting causes at fundraising events, and they deserve the support to raise some funds towards some tour dates, so hopefully a huge turnout is there in March for this show! Depending on the size, this could be similar to notable concert events like the Rock 2 Roll skatepark fundraiser from the summer of 2008 at The Canadian, but we won't know the full scale of everything until next week. It sounds very promising already though, and you can definitely pencil me in to attend and support Frightlight! Stay tuned for more updates as they roll in!

Thirdly today, here's a recent discovery I came across on YouTube that you guys might be interested in. Yesterday, a YouTube user by the name of adamscovers posted three live cover videos onto his YouTube channel from a recent Hawkplugged (formerly Dunnplugged) performance at Superior Heights Collegiate & Vocational School, and two of the videos are hard rock covers! The newly posted videos (which joined a Foster The People cover from last month) are of covers of The Beatles' "Helter Skelter", Alice In Chains' "Rooster", and (as embedded below) Led Zeppelin's "Communication Breakdown", so click each link to check them out! I don't know the performers in the videos, but there's three likely Superior Heights students playing in this band, and I assume one's name is Adam. They're definitely talented, though I find the verse singing on "Rooster" was a bit forced, and the zoom effects on the videos are well edited to emphasize certain band members! I'm curious to learn and hear more from these guys, so check out these new Hawkplugged performance videos above, and here's their cover of "Communication Breakdown"!



Finally for today, here's a few more reviews of "Woods V: Grey Skies & Electric Light" to check out! Last month, "merginator" of the metal blog Headbang or GTFO gave Woods of Ypres' last recorded CD a 4.5 out of 5 in a lengthy review, calling it an "emotional roller coaster" and "definitely fulfilling", while only knocking the song "Career Suicide (Is Not Suicide)" for being boring. It's a nice and well-worded review, so click here to check it out! This past Friday, Rob Liz from the metal site That Devil Music gave an overall favourable review to "Woods V", though the postmortem nature of the review definitely seemed to throw things on a loop. He called the CD "an audio painting full of styles and colours" and termed it "the band's masterpiece", while complimenting the Type O Negative influences and the album's haunting effect. Another solid review with lots of personal reflection, so check it out at this location! Lastly for this chunk of reviews, John Roach from the metal website Xplosive Metal gave "W5" a favourable review of his own last month, calling it a "must-buy" for doom metal fans that was worthy of purchase regardless of David Gold's death, while also complimenting David's vocals & the album's symphonic elements. Definitely another nice review, and it's great to see the first reviews of "Woods V" skewing positively, so check out his review by clicking here, and stay tuned for more "W5" CD reviews soon!

That's all for today, but I should see you guys at The Roosevelt Hotel TONIGHT for the 42nd Rosie metal night! Thanks everyone!

Two New Local Bands And More From Local High School Hard Rock Bands!

It's not often where we base an entire post around bands from and around a local high school, but hey, this post kinda just fell into place like that! Today, we have no less than TWO new local bands (one brand new, one newly found), plus videos of the latter and another recent video from a high school performance of a hard rock cover. So let's get back to school with this post, and check out this morning's post (below this one) for news on a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT for THIS MONDAY, Sykotyk Rampage's next albums, and news from Sativa Rose, The Sugar Island Festival and Sneaky Pete guitarist Mario Carlucci!

We have a new local band to announce today, and their name is Social Suicide! They're a new local "death punk" trio who just launched their Facebook page this morning. The band members include Unleash The Blackened Sky/ex-Fountain of Betrayal bassist Tyler St. Amour on vocals & bass, Anthony Boudreau on guitar, and Keeghan Rosso on drums. Should be interesting to see Tyler fronting a band for a change! I'm not familiar with either Anthony or Keeghan's musical work, but from what I understand, they both attend Superior Heights Collegiate with Tyler. According to their Facebook page, their influences include bands from The Misfits & NOFX to Pantera and Amon Amarth, all good signs for their sound! Social Suicide apparently have at least 4 originals already in the works, along with covers. Now, when can we see this new young band in action? Apparently, Social Suicide want to jam and rehearse this summer, play at Superior Heights functions over the 2011-12 school year, then debut for actual concerts in the summer of 2012. Sounds like a good plan, that way they get lots of experience and practice in before their debut! I'll be interested to hear Social Suicide when samples or video are posted, and as soon as any band updates roll in, I'll have them here! Become a fan at the above links!

And in case you're wondering what this could mean for the future of Unleash The Blackened Sky, well... I don't know either. What I do know is that the band has not issued an official Facebook page update in over a month (not since the name change from Bring The Misery), the lineup posted there is now 2/5ths outdated (Steve Rhodes is still listed, Daeson Lesage still isn't), and I heard that drummer Travis St. Amour (Tyler's brother) is planning to move out of town for college later this month. Put together, it doesn't sound too good, but who knows what could happen. If I hear more, I'll let you guys know!

Next up, how's about another older local band with a local high school connection? If you went to the former Sir James Dunn Collegiate in the 2007-08 school year, you may remember seeing a Kiss tribute band made up of Grade 11 students at the old Dunnplugged concerts that they had! Yes, even high school students can pay homage to the hottest band in the world! Named Creatures of the Night, the band featured then-SJD students Andrew Addante on lead vocals/guitar (as Paul Stanley), Mike Gualtieri on bass (as Gene Simmons), and former Sindicate bandmates Nick Rhodes on lead guitar & Keith Gagnon on drums (as Ace Frehley & Peter Criss.) Active from the fall of 2007 through the fall of 2008, the band mostly played at Dunnplugged events during that school year, though they did play a 2007 Christmas concert there as well. We have a bunch of video glimpses of Creatures of the Night in action thanks to YouTube users soundguyjoe and Adam Gualtieri (Mike's brother?), who've uploaded six videos of the band from varying shows at their respective YouTube channels, so check their channels linked above to give the videos a look!

What do I think of them? Well, I'll say that for a high school production, the Kiss ambiance and lighting are good on the later videos! The costumes are hit and miss, with the occasional lack of costuming or wigs being really visible. Soundwise, it's an big contrast: The music is really good, especially from Keith Gagnon, but the vocals are not on that same level. Andrew doesn't have the volume or range to pull off songs like "Detroit Rock City", though he does do noticeably better on songs like "Strutter". Talented guys though, I wonder if they're still active in any musical projects? Nice to see some Kiss love like this from locals, so they're definitely worth a look! Here's soundguyjoe's video of Creatures of the Night playing "Strutter", but check the above links for much more from this former local Kiss tribute band!



Finally, while we're on the topic of bands with students at Sir James Dunn, you may know that the Sault's newest high school Superior Heights was formed out of a merger between the old Sir James Dunn and Bawating schools. Sir James Dunn was well known for it's Dunnplugged series of concerts (even producing CDs of the student's original music), and it looks the like Dunnplugged continued with Superior Heights last year! Well, it's now renamed "Hawkplugged" (referencing the school's team name, the Steelhawks), but last year, it was apparently called "Funnplugged" (fun + unplugged.) I prefer the current name, but no matter what name it was under, Dunn/Funn/Hawkplugged has given us some talented young musicians, and here's a newer example! This comes from an outdoor Funnplugged performance circa October 2010 outside the Sir James Dunn building (which was Superior Heights last year), and it's of an unnamed and uncredited student band covering Rush's "YYZ"! Interesting choice given it's complexity, but the band do an admirable job tackling a Rush classic! Sounds a bit empty, but the three guys have clear talent!

Anyone know who's in this band, or if they were named? It would be interesting to find out, cause I can't place the members offhand. Still, give this Funnplugged cover of "YYZ" a look below, and thanks to the Superior Heights YouTube channel for the upload!



That's all for now, but we'll definitely have a wider expanse of topics in our next post! Stay tuned, and enjoy today's post, Eagles and Steelhawks!