Resignators/Side FX Preview, Concert Updates, And Much More!!

Before we dive into videos and updates from last night's Shinedown concert, here's some more recent news and notes to touch on, including major updates for a show originally scheduled for this weekend, another impending farewell for a talented local musician, and much more, but first, here's a preview for a concert tomorrow featuring a debuting local band (and check out our Bushplane Musical Madness II review in the post below this one!)

In a special Tuesday night concert at The Roosevelt Hotel, a new local hard rock band is among the openers for Australian ska punk septet The Resignators TOMORROW NIGHT (and yes, I mean that Australia!) Ska-punk fans should really enjoy The Resignators from what I've heard, as they have an energetic and fun blend of classic punk, Jamaican rhythms, and horn instruments, so you won't be lacking for a ska experience tomorrow! The local openers include the live debut of The Side FX, the new local hard rock band featuring Garden of Bedlam drummer Derek Turner, his ex-Papa Fogals Chair/Sulfur bandmate Mike Bird on bass, SooToday's Rob Speers on vocals, and Alex Walls on guitar, and be there tomorrow to check out their diverse hard rock covers set! It also helps if you've missed Papa Fogals Chair since their last reunion gigs, as you'll get a partial reunion tomorrow, which should be cool! The other opening band is local punk trio The Northern Tragedy in their second show in four days, and their fast-improving live show and solid originals should attract a good response themselves!

Admission is $10 for this 19+ concert, though if you bring your already-purchased ticket for August 19th's Airbourne concert (which is also a J.D. Pearce-booked concert headlined by an Australian band), your entry fee will be halved to just $5, so keep that offer in mind! A 9:00 PM start time is advertised, and for more details, visit the official Facebook event page! If you love ska & punk, you can't miss this show, and the debut of The Side FX should be really notable as well, so keep it in mind, and while I don't have a "metal" video from the bands, hopefully something will come out from the show this week!

Next up, here's the latest changes to Frightlight's next concert, their benefit for bassist Mike "Eddie Fright" Gingras' upcoming short film "The Kid Who Made The Face"! First, the show has found a new location, following it's quiet removal from The Algonquin Pub earlier this month for still unannounced reasons. It will now take place at The Roosevelt Hotel (which is also where the Bunchofuckingoofs concert was moved), which should work out as a familiar venue, but the date has also changed for this event. Originally scheduled to be held this Saturday, it has been postponed to Thursday, August 1st (possibly due to a scheduling conflict), making this Johnny Pints' 8th promoted Thursday concert on the old Rosie metal nights' usual day! The show also had one more change, as out-of-town headliners Sanitarium are no longer listed for the show, likely due to the date change, as they are on tour. It's not every day that a Brazilian metal band has a chance to come to the area, but maybe they'll come back up here at some point!

All of the above changes were confirmed on Thursday on the Facebook event page, but everything else about the show is the same. Featuring Frightlight's first set with Eddie Fright in 9 months, local punk trio Redundant, and The Bear Hunters' first show after Josh Stephney's move to Brampton, this 19+ event has $5 admission, which will get you a guaranteed credit in the finished movie! Keep this show in mind for August 1st to support Eddie/Mike's filmmaking and local metal & punk music!

Also in the news, you know the Oddzfest 2013 Metal Mash-Up at The Oddfellows Hall on Friday that will mark local death metal singer/guitarist Josh Stephney's last show in the Soo? Well, it'll be a farewell for one of his bandmates as well, as Bring The Fallen/Giwakwa bassist Nolan Rainville is also moving after this show. My source is his personal Facebook page yesterday, but I wanted to get word of it on here in case something more public didn't come out by Friday. Nolan didn't go into details about his future plans, but he has worked out of town in the summers in recent years (which coincided with breaks for his bands), so this could be a permanent extension of that. Nolan's a very skilled bassist, as we've seen in his 2008-2011 Bring The Fallen tenure and his shows this year with Giwakwa, and he'll definitely be missed in the area! I wonder what will happen with Giwakwa though, as half of their lineup is moving after Friday's concert, but hopefully Chris & Chris keep the band alive, as they have a good thing going!

With both Josh & Nolan saying farewell to Sault Ste. Marie THIS FRIDAY, you have all the more reason not to miss this show! Featuring their last shows with Bring The Fallen, The Bear Hunters, and Giwakwa (plus Shit Liver, Haggith, James Watterworth, and the return of Crimson Crusade), admission is FREE for this ALL AGES show if you wear local band merchandise, and click here for more details! Stay tuned later this week for our preview of this show, and come out to see Josh & Nolan live one last time!

Finally for today, here's three assorted shorter stories from the last little while, and as usual, these are in alphabetical order by band name:

• Ex-Caveman Morrison bassist Dutch Vanderploeg rejoined his old band on Saturday night at The Roosevelt Hotel to fill in (presumably) for James White, as per his personal Facebook page yesterday. He apparently also handled lead vocals on some songs late in the night to help out frontman Tym Morrison, who was ill that night (and on his birthday too, which is bad timing.) Hopefully the show went well though, and hopefully Dutch will turn up in a new band at some point!
• Late & Loud successors The Hydra's Teeth posted a new Facebook-exclusive jam session video onto their Facebook page on Saturday! Entitled "Cinderella Red-Dress", it has the classic metal vibe that fans should like, but it features neither vocals or new guitarist Anthony Orazietti. Check it out above, and note that they've already hyped that they have 8 originals, "almost half-way to our first album." Keep that in mind!
• Along with recent studio updates, local thrashers Pillory posted a new video of frontman Robert Sartini recording vocals for their song "Cringe At The Cross" on Saturday, and he puts in a much more aggressive snarl than I remember him having at their live debut last fall! Good sign, but hopefully we'll get some new shows soon to help get their momentum back, and check out the new video above!

That's all for now, but stay tuned tomorrow for some Shinedown fallout and (if all goes well) this month's YouTube Channel Profile on the late David Gold's channel! Thanks everyone!

News From Woods Of Ypres, State Of Misery, Rock 101, And Kid Rock?!

Hey guys, how's everyone doing? I have some more news to share as we inch closer to tonight's Woods of Ypres concert, and they're leading off today's post with some more big news from them! Also, we have some interesting notes concerning State of Misery's lineup, Rock 101, and a recent campaign to get a notable performer to play in Sault Ste. Marie. Now, to the news!

Woods of Ypres are the focus of an article in today's issue of The Sault Star! Entitled "Out of the woods? Band banks on record deal for big things", the article is by Sault Star writer Brian Kelly, and features excerpts of an interview with frontman David Gold! David talks about Woods of Ypres' signing with Earache Records, what took the band so long to sign with a label, the recent press the band has received since signing with Earache, the future, and more! The article mainly deals with Woods of Ypres' label signing, though it does refer to the band's recent history and briefly plugs TONIGHT'S concert at The Roosevelt Hotel. It's a nice article that gives Woods of Ypres some much needed local press, but I noticed a lot of minor errors in terms of grammar and spelling, oddly enough. Apparently, the band includes "Joey Violette" rather than Joel, "The Bearhunters" are opening for Woods tonight (No space between "Bear" & "Hunters"?), and the article even accidentally mislabels David Gold's last name as "Wood" on one occasion. Aside from those, the article is really good, and it concisely details Woods of Ypres' recent news in an effective way!

Check your mailboxes or store shelves for today's issue of The Sault Star to read the article, but if you don't get or read it, you can check out the article online at this location! Good stuff, watch out for them tonight!

I have a bit more on Woods of Ypres to share as well, but I wanted to get this major story in first, as it relates to tonight's concert as well! Local death metal band State of Misery have announced the addition of bassist Devon Overman to the band. As a result, Kevin Dorazio is moving to rhythm guitar, officially making the band a quintet. Devon will make his live debut with State of Misery at tonight's show when they back up Woods of Ypres! My source is the band's Facebook page. This sort of confirms rumours from January that the band were adding a fifth member, though it could just be a coincidence that they actually did two months later, I'm not sure. I don't know much about Devon's musical background, but he did go to Bawating when I was still there, so I know who he is, for what that's worth. He can play guitar too, as pictured here (I couldn't find a shot of him on bass.) I don't know how Kevin will do on guitar either, but State of Misery know exactly what they're doing, and I expect they'll be as good as ever tonight and going forward! Remember, get your glimpse of the new 5 piece State of Misery lineup TONIGHT at The Rosie!

Now back to Woods of Ypres, as we have some new reviews of "Woods IV: The Green Album" to share! One comes from the website of internet radio station BrainGell Radio, where contributor justgotwicked called it "the most depressing album" he's ever owned. That said, he widely praised it for anyone who's open to anything and has went through a lot of emotional pain, and that he was thrilled to have something different in his collection! Not a bad review, click here to check it out! Also, Mat Davies from the metal website This Is Not A Scene gave "Woods IV" 8 stars out of 10, calling it "an organic, introspective pleasure" that was hard to just review without giving it the proper time and space. Shorter but worth checking out, click here to read it! Finally, Atanamar Sunyata from Metal Injection gave "The Green Album" 9.5/10, calling it "a masterpiece to my ears", along with a lot more high praise-filled statements for the band and album! Very nice to see this kind of attention, click here to see that review as well! Also, while I'm at it, remember to check out Woods of Ypres' Tumblr page to see tons of pictures and links from recent days concerning upcoming band events and "Woods IV", including many images relating to the themes and images of "The Green Album" (check page 2.) That's all for Woods news today, but I'll see you all tonight for their concert at The Rosie!

Fourthly today, Rock 101: The Sault's Rock Station have launched a brand new Facebook page! You may have been aware of their old Facebook group, but a page administrator hasn't posted on there since 2009, so it's nice to see a new freshly updated page that we can check out! The page so far features some photos from "Rock 101 Presents" concerts and some plugs for upcoming Rock 101 events, like on-air giveaways and Soo Greyhounds pre-game parties. Not too shabby, and I do want to thank whoever's administering the page for adding the SMS as a favourite page! Hopefully this page is maintained and grows in popularity, as it never hurts to have an updated internet presence or to connect with fans! Remember, not counting internet radio or Mackinac City-area stations, this is the only rock radio station in the twin Saults, so make use of it and get connected by listening on 101.3 FM, online at this location, or on smartphone applications like TuneIn Radio, which I use frequently. So "like" Rock 101 on Facebook today!

Finally, here's a campaign that's been making the local rounds recently to get a notable rock performer to perform in Sault Ontario! This month, many local music fans have been logging onto Eventful to demand that Kid Rock perform here, much like when we demanded that Kiss come here in 2009 through Eventful. Now, I don't think Kid Rock is running a fan-routed tour contest to get tour dates selected, but some local fans are sure giving this their all to get Kid Rock here, even launching a Facebook event page! As of right now, 980 fans have demanded for Kid Rock to play here, presumably at The Essar Center, which is a decent number! Albert Williams, one of the campaign's leaders, was interviewed on SooNews on March 4th before it's shutdown (more on that this weekend), so it's clear this is picking up steam! I'm a bit more skeptical that this would work simply because Kid Rock never guaranteed shows to high demanding cities like Kiss did, but hey, maybe Eventful or Kid Rock will notice! If you want to demand Kid Rock though, click here! I have to say, I'm not a fan of his last few albums, though I did like his earlier rap metal stuff, so at least if he came, there'd be stuff I'd like! This would be a big show if it happened, so keep an eye on it just in case. Remember, the link to demand him is above!

That's all for now, but I will see you guys TONIGHT at The Rosie for Woods of Ypres! Thanks everyone!