Before everyone opens their presents under the Christmas tree, here's a new news post on this Friday morning, and it includes a new concert video, some assorted recent updates, and leading off, new details on a major album re-release for you classic punk fans! Here's what you should know!
As you may know by now, the long-anticipated vinyl reissue of defunct local punk band Room 206's 1994 album "2 Innies & An Outie" was officially released on Wednesday! Remastered and pressed on vinyl by veteran local punk musician Mikey Hawdon's new local boutique label Soolebrity Records, pre-orders for Saultite customers can be picked up at The Rad Zone, and surprisingly, there are limited copies for sale for $40, so there must have been less than 206 pre-orders, which is all that will be made. Unless I have missed something, there is not a digital streaming/download copy of the album (at least, not yet). I definitely pre-ordered one in the summer and I finally have the album in my possession (copy #72), making up for the fact that I've never seen a cassette copy of it in the wild. Elements of the album's contents have made their way to Facebook already, but what can I glean from it?
If you didn't see the photo teasers on the Mike's Lunch Music Facebook group, the album comes in a plastic sleeve with the information sticker in the bottom right, and inside, you get a sheet with a collage of band photos & documents on one side, and lyrics, credits, and liner notes on the other, as well as a Soolebrity Records sticker. The remaster-specific information includes the credits for the bonus covers of Room 206's "Good Enough" & "I'll Be Around", which feature Mikey himself on vocals & guitar and his Inner City Surfers bandmate Dave Bahun on lead guitar, plus No Use For A Name/Face To Face bassist Matt Riddle (no, not the wrestler), and mixer Scott James from Greyskull Records on backing vocals. Goldfinger's Darrin Pfieffer drums on the former and No Doubt's Adrian Young drums on the latter, which also features Surfers/Rising Tide frontman Dustin Jones on backing vocals.
As for the record proper, it is in a nice translucent gold vinyl, and confirming prior photos, all ten songs are on side A. There is no side B, it's completely smooth and does not have it's own label, which does strike me as odd given that "2 Innies & An Outie" was originally on a cassette tape (unless that was single-sided too?). It's great to finally have the Room 206 vinyl remaster for myself, so visit The Rad Zone A.S.A.P. (well, after the holidays) to see if they have any copies left in stock, and look for our review next week!
Next up, here's a new live video of local garage/hard rock quartet The Uncanny Valley during their Rockstar Bar debut back in August! For one reason or another, the video of this song (their new original "Fumbling Through") was only just posted to their YouTube channel on Monday, marking their first video there in over a year and their first from a public concert (their Rotaryfest video is on a separate personal YouTube channel). Our best look yet at The Uncanny Valley's current lineup, the video prominently shows a keyboard on stage, though I have not seen footage of them making use of that instrument yet, let alone which band member plays it. The song proper is solidly composed with more of a southern rock bent and a deliberate pacing, so it should play well with fans, but the bright & warm stage lighting isn't optimal for viewing the band. Give their new live clip a watch below!
Finally for today, here's three assorted shorter news items from the
last while, and as usual, these are in alphabetical order by artist
name:
Wyld Stallyns
bandmates Jesse Cook & Jonas Gasperas are looking for a bass player
to join their current band, and while they play all genres, "funk is a
must". It is not clear whether this search is to fill a vacancy in The
Stallyns (who featured Ben Garcia on bass after becoming an electric
band this summer) or not, but note that they have not been seen live
since August, pandemic acknowledged. If you want more details, message
Jonas at this link or via his Musicians Wanted Facebook group post from Tuesday!
Former
local rock bassist Nathan (Jonna) Bouliane is back home in Sault Ste.
Marie through early January, and he has his equipment on hand if any
local musicians with studio recordings want to record a music video
while he's in town, as per the Musicians Wanted Facebook group last week. Nathan has extensive work in film production via his own
McBully Productions imprint, most recently via the video for Ottawa folk
musician Almyr Jules' song "Don't Go", so message him here or above if you want any details on possibly shooting a video with him!
I
have removed 2011-2012 Sault Michigan hard rock band Swayze Train from
our inactive band links, as their last surviving online page on Reverbnation
doesn't have enough surviving band info to warrant an informative
inclusion (their Facebook page has long since been taken down). The
bridge between fellow early 2010s local bands Electric Motor Fish and Toast, Swayze Train had a talented lineup, and hopefully Melissa, Mike, Scott, Tony, and Tyler are doing well!
That's all for today, but have a Merry Christmas, and we'll see you guys with more news and notes on the site soon, including this month's YouTube Channel Profile on Sunday if all goes well! Thanks everyone!
Let's get our first news post of the month rolling before it gets too late, and it's half devoted to weekend concert previews (one being a SHORT NOTICE LOCAL CONCERT ALERT), and half to big updates on an upcoming album re-release. Now, here's what you should know!
Local classic/hard rock solo guitarist Tym Morrison will return to Reggie's Place for another early matinee concert THIS SUNDAY NIGHT! Apologies for the short notice, Tym only announced this show via it's Facebook event page on Monday. After a three week break from public concerts at any locale, this will be Tym's first stop at the downtown Reggie's in about a month, and while I don't know if the scheduling is intentional, this is the third straight month where Tym was booked to play there on the first SUNDAY of said month. Should we be expecting him back there on January 2nd? Time will tell, but Tym's diverse and deep setlist of rock favourites and out-of-genre selections should go over well with Reggie's patrons and fans alike once again. Tym will be on at 3:00 PM THIS SUNDAY, there's no cover charge, prepare for a 19+ age limit, and vaccine passports are still mandatory for events like these.
And as usual, please honour and respect Reggie's social distancing and public health measures to ensure everyone's safety, especially with the rise in case counts in the district and the new omicron variant emerging. Visit the above links for more details, and here's Tym live!
Next up, here's previews of shows this weekend that had plenty of advance notice (though I do apologize for not getting this preview up until just now), as Marquette, Michigan hard rock cover quartet Spun will play their second and final E.U.P. concert weekend of 2021 when they rock The Northern Pines Lounge at the St. Ignace Kewadin Casino TONIGHT & TOMORROW NIGHT! Announced by the casino in the summer, fans may have seen the Nudge. successors at The Rapids Lounge at Sault Ste. Marie's Kewadin branch three months ago, ending Spun's three year break from shows in our neck of the woods. It's great to see Spun back already, and hopefully the guys deliver more crowd friendly hard rock hits for Mackinac County fans tonight & tomorrow! These are 9:00 PM gigs with no cover charges and 21+ age limits.
Again, please be mindful of public health measures from the casino/lounge and do your part to mask up where needed & make sensible choices so no one leaves sicker than when they arrived. Visit the official Facebook event page for more details, and here's Spun live a few years back!
Let's head north to Sault Ontario to finish this post via big news on a highly anticipated album re-release! As we mentioned on the SMS back in May, veteran local punk musician Mikey Hawdon's new indie label Soolebrity Records were working on a remaster of early-mid 1990s local punk band Room 206's 1994 album "2 Innies & An Outie", limited to just 206 copies exclusively on vinyl records. You can get full details from this YouTube trailer for the remaster. Without social media accounts for Soolebrity Records or Room 206, public updates have been minimal since, but Mikey revealed on his personal Facebook page on November 24th that the remaster is finished and if you pre-ordered one, your copies can be picked up at The Rad Zone starting on December 22nd! This was shared to the Mike's Lunch Music Facebook group through The Borderline, so there's a public source for the details.
If you live out of town but pre-ordered a copy, Mikey probably contacted you by now, but message him on Facebook or through soolebrity@gmail.com if you have any questions, or want to order any of the remaining copies (they run for $40, but this is a limited time print run of only 206 records). As far as I know, you can't buy a copy from The Rad Zone, I believe they're just where pre-orderers will pick the album up. The pictures that Mikey shared with the post confirm the cover artwork (the above image is a Photoshop recreation) and track listing, which won't be a surprise if you have the original tape, but non-album songs "Good Enough" (from the "Punk: The Next Generation" compilation CD) and "I'll Be Around" are the bonus songs recorded by modern day supergroups. Intriguingly, the vinyl records are in a translucent gold colour, and they crammed all ten songs onto one side.
No word on if the other side of the disc is repeats, nothing, or something else entirely, but I'll be able to find out for myself in 19 days, as I absolutely pre-ordered a copy of "2 Innies & An Outie", and unless something really unforeseen happens, it will be our 150th monthly CD (well, album) review on the SMS later this month! We'll keep you guys posted with more on this long awaited Room 206 remaster when it comes out, but see above for full details, and look for more news and notes on the site soon! Thanks everyone!
Before we get into the meat of today's post, just a heads up that today is Bandcamp Day (where Bandcamp waives their roytalty cut on music sales), but this year, a number of local musicians have pledged to give today's earnings to the Sault Area Hospital COVID-19 Emergency Fund. Wonderful cause, and you can click here to see the full roster of artists taking part, including local punk trio A Dire Setback and the first two bands we're talking about below! One's brand new, one has a new EP, and to wrap things up, we have big updates on a surprise classic album re-release. Here's what you should know, and buy local on Bandcamp today to help a great cause!
We have a new band to add to our Sault Ontario band links, namely These Magnificent Tentacles, the new Tidal Records-signed project from Slumshine/ex-Detroit frontman Brenton Ellis and former Vol. frontman/Pixo Control bassist Steve Edwards! As of this writing, T.M.T. are a two man studio project (not that they can play normal concerts yet anyway), with Brent on vocals, rhythm guitar, and bass, and Steve on lead guitar and drums. These Magnificent Tentacles publically launched earlier this week via their Facebook page, and released their debut original song "The Abyss" today on their Bandcamp page and on Brent's new YouTube channel. Mixed by Kyle Whittaker at Strange Pumpkin Studios
in St. Catharines, the song is available for purchase for $3 (or more) on Bandcamp. "The Abyss" is not easily pinned down by genre (Bandcamp lists it as an acid, garage, indie, punk, and skate rock song), but if it's representative of the band, they'll definitely fit our coverage!
Brent's vocals firmly pin this one into genres we actively cover, but the song proper is deceivingly upbeat otherwise, and very different from what you tend to hear from local bands nowadays. The song is well performed overall, and it'll be interesting to see what These Magnificent Tentacles have in store next, but give the lyric video for "The Abyss" a watch below!
Next up, we're not done with new material from Brent-led projects, as his acoustic punk solo act Slumshine released their new EP "Slumlord" to their Bandcamp page yesterday, a day earlier than advertised! Their first paid release since their debut "SLMSHN" tape almost two years ago, "Slumlord" is on sale for $5 or more., and it features six tracks, though their newly released song "Believe In Hugs" is not one of them, and two songs that did make the cut run for under 40 seconds. No word yet on the previously teased cassette tape release for album #2, but given the short run time of "Slumlord" and the missing original, is Slumshine looking at releasing "Believe In Hugs" on a second digital EP, then putting them both on each side of a tape? Just hypothesizing on my part. Without reviewing the EP just yet (maybe later this month?), what does "Slumlord" offer musically?
"Slumlord" comes across as more experimental and varied than "SLMSHN" did, including via the two short tracks, added post-production effects, and more electric instruments, with only one of the four full tracks being 100% acoustic. It's great to see Brent staying so busy right now, especially at this stage of the pandemic, and buy or stream Slumshine's new and old material above! Also, the title track was also uploaded on Brent's YouTube channel, but we just featured it's Facebook video here on Wednesday.
Finally, this is a topic that I've definitely been aware of for a few months now, but I held off on discussing it until things went unequivocally public, and here we are: Early-mid 1990s local punk band Room 206's 1994 debut cassette-exclusive album "2 Innies & An Outie" is being re-released on vinyl later this year by veteran local punk musician Mikey Hawdon's new locally-focused independent label Soolebrity Records! Note the Princess Theatre-inspired logo, nice touch! If you know Mikey well, you'll know that Room 206 were a highly influential band for him as a young music fan, and this is a labour of love to give their original cassette tape a proper remastering, which Mikey had done at Drive Studios in Toronto. Room 206 are represented here by Totally Confused alumni Mike Yorke (vocals/guitar) and Al Watson (drums) alongside Mikey's Inner City Surfers bandmate Brad "Example" Lacell on bass.
Initial public details on the re-release can be found in the video embedded below, courtesy of Mikey's YouTube channel, featuring an intense announcer telling us about Room 206 and what to expect from the vinyl copies. They will have all eight songs from "2 Innies & An Outie", plus two newly recorded bonus tracks, which were both Room 206 originals that never saw a studio recording at the time. Here, they'll be covered by guest musicians, including the other three members of The Inner City Surfers plus members of No Doubt, Goldfinger, No Use For A Name, and Movin' In Stereo (exact lineup roles to be revealed). Note that Room 206's song "Good Enough" (from the "Punk: The Next Generation" compilation) was not on the original tape. If you're interested in buying a vinyl copy of "2 Innies & An Outie", contact Mikey Hawdon at this link A.S.A.P. to pre-order your copy for $40!
If you do want Room 206's album on vinyl, act fast, as there will only be 206 copies printed (naturally), and given the limited and special release, the $40 price tag is understandable. A release date or potential digital copy weren't specified either, but remember that we are still in a pandemic, and things can easily be thrown out of whack. I love the idea of bringing a classic album like this back, and if that ends up being the raison d'etre for Soolebrity Records, then I hope the Room 206 re-issue is a huge hit to encourage more releases like this! Get more details on the band and vinyl below!
That's all for today, but stay tuned for this month's Defunct Local Band Profile on the site by Monday! Thanks everyone!
