LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (The BAG), Weekend Concert Previews, And More!!

Before we begin today's post, I wanted to offer our deepest condolences to the family & friends of Saliva guitarist Wayne Swinny, who passed away yesterday at the age of 59 after suffering a brain hemorrhage while on tour, as per the band's social media accounts. Visit your preferred music news website for more details. Local fans will remember Wayne from his set with Saliva at Muddfest at The Dreammakers Theater at the Sault Michigan Kewadin Casino in November 2019, where they shared the stage with Puddle of Mudd, Trapt, Saving Abel, and Tantric in a huge concert for fans of 2000s hard rock and nu metal bands. Wayne was the last remaining original member of the Memphis-based Saliva, who had five top 10 singles on the Billboard Mainstream Rock charts in the early-mid 2000s, with "Always" going #1 on the Alternative Songs chart in 2002.

When I went to find videos of Saliva's local set in 2019 (mostly seen at this link), I actually stumbled across a video that I had not featured on the SMS during our coverage of the fallout from Muddfest, so we'll touch on that at post's end, as we do have a handful of weekend concert previews to look at. As for Wayne, he was a solid guitarist and a good & friendly person from all accounts, and I have a lot of fondness for Saliva both from some of their big hits (especially "Always") and their association with WWE in the 2000s, recording various wrestler and pay-per-view themes. R.I.P. Wayne!

Before we look back at Muddfest, here's some hard rock concert previews for a relatively quiet final weekend of March 2023, starting with a SHORT NOTICE LOCAL CONCERT ALERT, as Sault Ontario metal trio The BAG will return to The Esquire Club for one night only TOMORROW NIGHT! Apologies for the short notice, the band only announced this concert via their Facebook event page on Monday, though they did acknowledge that the show was on late notice there. According to The Esquire Club's concert calendar for the first quarter of 2023 (as seen here), veteran classic rock trio The Cloud Bandits were supposed to play there this weekend, but pulled out for unannounced reasons, including the advertised Saturday nighter. The BAG are not playing Saturday due to The Esquire Club's first ever three person team pool tournament, which presumably runs into normal band time.

The BAG have gotten good receptions so far with their Esquire Club dates, and hopefully there's more of the same TOMORROW with their hard rocking originals and covers! This is a 9:30 PM event with no cover charge and a 19+ age limit as usual. Visit the above links for more details, and for a preview, here's The BAG live at The Esquire Club!

Also this weekend is local funk/hard rock cover band The Wyld Stallyns' advertised return to Shooters Downstairs Lounge for one night only THIS SATURDAY NIGHT! Be advised that neither the band nor venue have visibly plugged this show on their Facebook page in the past week (not all that shocking on the Stallyns' end), but the show has been advertised since the beginning of the month on this concert calendar poster on Shooters' Facebook page. This will be The Wyld Stallyns' first show since their Searchmont gig three weeks ago, and their first stop at the Dennis Street nightclub since their "no repeat weekend" in January (no word on if they'll try something similar on Saturday). Despite the lack of recent press, hopefully Rob, Christina, Jesse, Alex, Derek, and Josh(?) have a great night of varied but often heavy covers in store for fans! This is a one nighter due to or resulting in Dorian Grey's show there tonight, as noted on the poster.

Saturday's festivities have an 8:00 PM start time as usual for Shooters, no cover charge, and a 19+ age limit. Visit the above links for more details on The Wyld Stallyns' show this weekend, and here they are live!

Let's close with that newly discovered Muddfest video that I teased when discussing Saliva guitarist Wayne Swinny's passing above, as a 6 minute video of the three topline bands on November 1st, 2019 (ie. not Saving Abel and Tantric) was uploaded to the YouTube channel of DJ Bizick of Super Sounds By Bizick fame (catch him hosting college nights at Shooters on Thursdays) on November 9th of that year. Why did this get missed for over three years? My only theory is that it was unlisted for a time and when he made it public, it was too old to come up early in my 2020s searches for Kewadin videos on YouTube, as "Kewadin" is a regular search inquiry there. DJ Bizick primarily posts videos on hockey cards & slot machines on his channel, but at Muddfest, he filmed (in performance order) California alt-hard rock quartet Trapt playing their biggest hit "Headstrong", Saliva playing "Click Click Boom", ...

...and headlining Kansas City alternative/post grunge quartet Puddle of Mudd playing both "Psycho" and "She Hates Me". None are full songs, but you get a decent sampling of established hits from all three bands! DJ Bizick was not close to the stage but he did zoom in for Puddle of Mudd, and his sightlines were good, helped by decent audio on his camera, so fans should be into these! Honestly, Saliva sound the best of the three bands here, helped by Bobby Amaru's vocals holding up better than his tourmates, so give DJ Bizick's Muddfest video a look below, and apologies again for this being so belated to be featured on here!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and notes on the site in the days ahead! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Candlebox), The Rad Zone Updates, And New Videos!!

Let's get a new news post up on this cold Friday night, and it includes some new videos, big updates from a fan favourite retail establishment with many ties to the local music community, and leading off, a big LOCAL CONCERT ALERT for next year! Here's what you should know!

Seattle grunge/alt-rock notables Candlebox will make their local concert debut on Saturday, April 18th, 2020 when they headline at The Dreammaker's Theater at the Sault Michigan Kewadin Casino! One of the biggest alternative hard rock bands of the 1990s thanks to hit songs like "You", "Simple Lessons", "It's Alright", and of course, the Rock 101 staple "Left Behind", their familiar and hard-edged brand of original music should be more than welcomed to the local stage in the spring, so don't miss out on this one if you can help it! Potential opening acts have not been announced at press time. Tickets for this all ages, 8:00 PM concert go on sale on Friday morning at this link, at 1-800-KEWADIN, and at the in-person box office, and they will start at $30. If you've ever wanted some big name 1990s grunge or alternative bands to roll through, this is definitely a nice change of pace, so visit the official Facebook event page and the above links for more details!

Next up, we have some sad, if not entirely unexpected news from a Sault Ontario retail mainstay, as local record (et al) store The Rad Zone and it's attached Hole In The Wall Bookstore will be leaving The Wellington Square Mall at the end of the month, with plans to move to a new location in 2020. If you follow local news media, you may be aware of announced plans to heavily restructure the Trunk Road complex into a modern strip mall (source here), which left the future of the mall's non-Food Basics tenants in doubt. It's not 100% clear whether The Rad Zone is leaving on their own accord or if they weren't part of the mall owners' future plans there. Paul "Monk" Muncaster has owned The Rad Zone (née Radical Records) for 32 years, including the past 17 at this location, but he does plan to move the store elsewhere next year, location and re-opening date to be announced. For what it's worth, their secondary "Rad Zone 2" location at Vintage Games 'N Junque on Queen Street East seems to be unaffected by these developments.

That said, before the big move, The Rad Zone is having a 2 week closeout sale starting tomorrow and running through Friday, November 29th, with most used items running 50% off, new items 40% off, and VHS tapes for 99¢ each, not counting consignment items. Visit the official Facebook event page for full pricing details. This is disappointing news, but hopefully Monk, Mel, Evan, and crew find a great new location next year, as we need a great record, gaming, skateboarding, collectible, and book store here, and they fill that niche exceedingly well, while also being great supporters of local musicians. Best of luck all around, and get down to The Rad Zone while you can!

We'll close today with new videos, starting with the last upload from Christopher Paci's footage from Muddfest at the aforementioned Dreammakers Theater in Sault Michigan on November 1st, namely his clip of opening Kentucky hard rock quartet Tantric playing their song "Down & Out." It's not as well known as "Breakdown", but it's a catchy enough rocker, and it's well filmed like the rest of Chris' Muddfest videos, so give it a look below, and see much more at his YouTube channel!



Finally, here's a brand new original song from local hard rock/metal solo musician Tym Morrison's YouTube channel yesterday, entitled "Street Preacher"! If you know Tym personally at all, you may be aware that he has embraced Christianity in recent months, and while this song does retain his heavy music background, the lyrics definitely have a (positive) religious bent. That said, I can barely hear his singing in this recording, but the music holds up and has a solid chugging riff, plus a quality solo. Give it a listen below, and don't miss Tym at Gliss tomorrow evening!



That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and updates on the site soon! Thanks everyone!

Muddfest Concert Video Showcase!!

In arguably my all-time biggest gaffe in the history of our weekly concert previews, I completely forgot to preview the Muddfest concert at The Dreammakers Theater at the Sault Michigan Kewadin Casino on Friday. November 1st! I profusely apologize for missing such a big concert, there is no excuse on my end, though in hindsight, I am surprised at the lack of social media buzz given the lineup that was here just this month, featuring five bands with big rock radio hits in their heyday for just $29.50 a piece! Brought to us by Allstar Promotions, the social media reactions that I have found seem to be positive, and hopefully this and the same company's recent country shows did well overall! That said, it took a while for us to cover videos from the show, as I have only found one YouTube user who shot videos that night (the ever-generous Christopher Paci), and he only completed his uploads on Saturday. Thanks to him once again for all of his hard work! To keep this post at a reasonable length, we'll touch on his video of opening Kentucky hard rock quartet Tantric in an upcoming news post.

We'll start today with Chris' videos of headlining Kansas City alt-rock/post grunge quartet Puddle of Mudd in their local concert debut, who were filmed playing their songs "She Hates Me", "Famous", "Psycho" , "Drift & Die", "Uh Oh", "Control", "Go To Hell", and as embedded below, their set-closer "Blurry", albeit an extended version with a faster jam to wrap things up with. Chris has a nice and close angle to the left of the stage, and Puddle of Mudd sound solid enough overall for fans, but Wes' voice is definitely straining on heavier songs. Give their videos a look above & below!



Next up, Chris filmed three videos of Memphis nu-metal quartet Saliva (also in their local concert debut), as they played their songs "Your Disease", "Ladies & Gentlemen", and as embedded below, "Click Click Boom". Now, this show came just a day or two after it was announced that ex-frontman Josey Scott was returning to the band (source here), but Bobby Amaru was still behind the mic on November 1st, and he's honestly a fine fit, even having a bit more of a raspy edge to his voice, so don't let recent news scare you off of the current(?) lineup. Check out Chris' Saliva videos above and below!



The middle band at Muddfest was California alt-hard rock quartet Trapt in their first local show since opening for Hinder here in 2013. Chris shot four videos of their set, including of their songs "Stand Up", "Contagious", "Still Frame", and as embedded below, their biggest hit & closing track "Headstrong". Trapt seem to have tuned down compared to their heyday, but the songs still hold up and have good energy, so give those a look too!



Finally for today (Tantric are coming soon!), Chris filmed Mississippi hard rock quintet Saving Abel playing their songs "Addicted" and, as embedded below, "The Sex Is Good". This was Saving Abel's fourth local stop and first since the Superior Festival in 2015, and their sound has really held up for fans of their post-grunge-tinged original attack, especially given the four year wait. And yes, it looks like they and Trapt swapped places from the poster. Give their videos a look above and below, and thanks again to Chris for all of these!



That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and notes this week, and apologies again for neglecting to preview Muddfest on the site! This was a huge show full of hitmaking hard rock acts, and hopefully they all come back out way! Thanks everyone!