LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Soundcheck) & Weekend Concert Previews!!

Before we begin this weekend concert preview post, just a heads up that Sault Michigan hard rock cover trio Nate's Chow are not playing at The Merchant's Bar on Saturday anymore, as per this updated concert calendar that removed the gig (but added three more Merch shows for later in the year that we will look at in an upcoming post). A reason for this Saturday's cancellation wasn't announced, but we'll have more on their returns soon, as they'll be back before you know it! Now, here's what you should know for most of this weekend's pre-Sunday hard rock concert previews for this weekend, starting with SHORT NOTICE LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS!

Local classic/hard rock cover quartet Soundcheck will return to Jay's Piston Broke Pub for concerts TOMORROW & SATURDAY NIGHT! Apologies for the short notice, these shows were only confirmed on members' personal Facebook pages yesterday, and have not been publically announced on their (nor the venue's) Facebook pages at press time. TOMORROW & SATURDAY's shows got an AI-generated poster on personal accounts again giving their name as Soundcheck 7.3, which has still not been publically corroborated on the band's social media accounts, but it does promise "live classic rock" and "timeless hits" that are "always loud", among other promotional taglines. The shows will mark Soundcheck's second weekend at the former Reggie's West with new bassist Dan Beaupre, and he has finally been confirmed to have also joined their sister band Separate Wayz, as per a live photo and a "Story" from their Facebook page.

If you Hollow fans have missed this reunion of Dan & Terry so far, then keep TOMORROW & SATURDAY'S Jay's shows in mind! These are not promoted as "epic crossover" gigs with Separate Wayz, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Nicole won't pop in. Also, no word if the song used to soundtrack said AI poster (Three Days Grace's "Just Like You") is a teaser of their planned sets. Both of this weekend's shows are at 9:30 PM with 19+ age limits and no announced cover charges. Visit the above links for more details, and for a preview, here's Soundcheck (7.3?) live a few years back!

Next up, let's head a half hour or so east of town to Echo Bay, where local southern hard rock trio Bone Yard 225 will headline their Elks Lodge #535's "End Of Summer Bash" on SATURDAY NIGHT! Last seen at the Bruce Mines Fall Fair even further east on Highway 17, this Saturday's show will send out the summer (which officially ended on Monday) in style with a night full of classic, hard, and southern rock favourites from "the dirty three", and while I'm not sure if there any other frills or perks to this event, the music may be all you need. If you'd rather see Greg, Alex, and Warren in city limits, they'll be rocking Beck's Bar next Saturday. The Elks Lodge in Echo Bay is located at 96 Church Street off of the old Highway 17B, and admission is $15 via the hosts on the Facebook event page or at the door. There is no stated age limit, and the show starts at 8:00 PM. See above for more details, and for a preview, here's Bone Yard live in concert last year!

Also on SATURDAY NIGHT is the latest concert from local promoters Underground Events SSM, as Ottawa extreme metal bands Salem Trials and The Jenova Projekt will both make their first stop in the Soo at Blaster Powerhouse! The former's brutal brand of deathcore and the latter's sharp metalcore sound will be a solid complement on Saturday, so don't bypass what will be a devastating one-two punch for metalheads at the former Soo Blaster this weekend! Local support will come by way of space/hard rock duo The Spaceship Opening and party metal trio The Apocalypse Afterparty (kinda sorta making up things after dropping out of the 94Fatso show there last month). Neither is gonna do much yelling or growling, but they're both talented bands, so don't be late! Promoted by A.A. bassist Mikhal Muto, advance tickets are still on sale for $25 at The Rad Zone or through members of the local opening bands.

Admission at the door will jump to $30 for this all ages concert, which is slated to have doors opening at 8:30 PM. The Saturday timing is certainly advantageous for Mikhal and all involved performers, so if you love brutal extreme metal, this show will deliver the goods! Visit the official Facebook event page for more on this stop on the Ottawa bands' Heavy Is The Head Tour, and for a preview, here's Salem Trials live!

Finally, let's head south to Sault Michigan for the latest concert from Soo Tang Records, as local hardcore punk trio Viscera will headline another concert in the basement of Pizza Hut on SATURDAY NIGHT! Now named "Sault Slaughter" on the new poster, this concert will again pair Viscera with touring Michigan bands, but one fewer than we realized, as Marquette "ghostcore" band Particle Thrower dropped out of this concert, as per Viscera's Instagram page on Sunday. A reason for their withdrawal was not announced, but hopefully nothing too serious happened, and that we see Particle Thrower make the 3 hour drive east in the future! Possibly due to the short notice, they were not replaced on Saturday's bill, but there will still be two touring acts here, namely Grand Rapids death metal quartet Life Sentence and Marquette progressive deathcore quartet SilentLife, both in their local debuts. Three bands worth of extreme metal and hardcore punk sounds like a fun way to spend your evening if you wanna head to Pizza Hut!

Doors open at 7:00 PM with a $15 cover charge, and this show is absolutely all ages. Visit the above links for more details on all of Saturday's action, and for a preview, here's a new video of Viscera live! This was uploaded to frontman "Blind" Bob Quinn's personal Facebook page before being shared onto the band's Facebook page by drummer Mitchell Leon on September 3rd, and it features vertical (alas) video clips of their gig at Three One Three On Ashmun last month set to live background audio with some grainy filtering in post-production. No attempt to sync the audio, but it's an effective sampler with some neat panning camera angles of the action at the former Back Door, so give it a watch for yourselves below!

That's all for now, but stay tuned for a new news post next! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Salem Trials) & Videos From Maddy's Mighty Mutts' Family Fun Day!!

With this being the quietest concert weekend in a month or so, we have some extra time to tick some more items off of our backlog, so here's a new news post on this Friday afternoon, and it includes new videos and related updates from a recent fundraiser event. However, leading off is a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT of a very heavy persuasion for next month!

In the newest concert announcement from local promoters Undergound Events SSM, Ottawa deathcore quintet Salem Trials will make their local debut on Saturday, September 26th at Blaster Powerhouse! A brutal and intense batch of original songs will be in store next month from this very heavy group, who definitely caught my attention from the off, so keep their gig at the former Soo Blaster in mind! Another Ottawa-based quintet (metalcore band The Jenova Projekt) will play Sault Ste. Marie for the first time next month, and while not ad relentless, they have an appealing hard-edged sound that reminds me a bit of Demiricous on some songs, and it will be good to have them on stage here also! Local support will come by way of space/hard rock duo The Spaceship Opening (more on them soon) and sporadically seen party metal trio The Apocalypse Afterparty, featuring promoter Mikhal Muto on bass.

While The A.A. missed out on the most recent rap show at Blaster, this will put them in slightly closer musical range to let their double bassed, guitar-devoid brand of music find a receptive audience! This all ages concert will have doors opening at 8:30 PM, and advance tickets will be on sale soon at The Rad Zone and via the local openers for $25 (the door charge will jump to $30). Sounds like a brutal concert to me, and it trends heavier the longer it goes, so visit the official Facebook event page for more details!

Next up, some videos from last week's Maddy's Mighty Mutts Family Fun Day concert at The Roberta Bondar Pavilion have made their way online! Though the exact lineup order was never released, between 9 and 11 acts graced the stage for this dog rescue charity fundraiser on this Wednesday (which is still odd timing to me, especially given its 8 hour runtime). You can see some of what took place that day on the Facebook event page, where promoter Paige Dennie posted videos of four acts there on the "Discussion" thread. The earliest of her videos is of local hard rock quartet 5 Dollar Bribe covering Wheatus' "Teenage Dirtbag", though the video only runs for 35 seconds and was shot vertically (sadly, all of Paige's videos are vertical and short). I'll be honest, I hate "Teenage Dirtbag", but 5 Dollar Bribe play it well from what I can detect, and Jayce's vocals don't wear on me like on the original, so that much is of note! Give their video a watch below!

I wanted to note re: 5 Dollar Bribe too that local classic/hard rock cover band Separate Wayz shared a "Story" on Facebook of 5DB playing during their soundcheck. Why was Separate Wayz present when they weren't playing? Well, singer Nicole Thibodeau was the "friend" (friends?) teased to be guesting with TNT (Soundcheck's Terry Eaton n' Travis Sharpe, the former also in Separate Wayz) here, and Separate Wayz also posted a "Story" of her and TNT covering "Dreams" by Fleetwood Mac at the Family Fun Day. Alas, "Stories" self-destruct after one or two viewings, and are short/vertical videos anyway, so all I can do is tell you about them, but hopefully TNT went over well under the tent! Terry and Travis would perform more with Nicole this past weekend on the road, and I'll talk about that in an upcoming post. Travis was also teased in some event marketing to be guesting with Bone Yard 225 frontman Greg "The Ranting Rockstar" Simpson on this day, but he does not factor into Paige's video from Greg's set.

While being shot vertically doesn't matter for a solo musician, Paige's video runs for only 11 seconds, and it features Greg's slowed down cover of Kiss' "Rock & Roll All Nite", which is a staple of Bone Yard's "uncorked" sets, and The Bearded Lounge's concerts prior. We don't hear much, but if you like Greg's laid back take on this Kiss staple, you'll like what was filmed, as seen below!

Also filmed for the event page was (former?) Dodge This singer/guitarist Jason Taillefer, who had his keyboard ready again here, and Paige filmed him covering Coldplay's "The Scientist" for 21 seconds. Like with "Teenage Dirtbag", I must confess that I don't like Coldplay at all, but Jason at least sings this a little deeper and more matter-of-factly, and he is a talented multi-instrumentalist, as Phatstick fans will be well aware! The last of Paige's videos comes from this concert's co-headliner, namely former Haggith/Eclipse frontman Curtis McKenzie (Bone Yard 225 played last on this evening). Paige filmed him covering Collective Soul's "December", but for one reason or another, this 21 seconds-long instrumental clip can't be embedded on external websites, even though everything else in the post from that day can be. Facebook has been iffier lately re: videos randomly being unembeddable, even with no copyrighted music, so yeah, it's something to juggle at present.

What we hear sounds good, but again, no singing. Embedded below is a video of Curt at the Family Fun Day, but this was actually uploaded by Beck's Bar's Facebook page, with a hard-coded caption slapped on it in post-production to hype Curtis' matinee concert there this past Sunday. Obviously, the caption limits my ability to relevantly use it for concert preview purposes around here, but on this video (also of him covering "December" from a closer vantage point), we do get more of an actual verse with singing, and while I do think Curtis should lower his voice a tad, it's well done for what was filmed! Give it a watch below, and see more from Family Fun Day above!

That's all for now, but stay tuned for another likely news post later today! Thanks everyone!