LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Banned), Recent Pixo Control Activity, And Much More!!

Believe it or not, this is our first news post since Friday, partly due to my own schedule and a slower general news spread in the fall, but with October now upon us, and Halloween approaching closer and closer, that will definitely change! To start our news catch-up, we have a bunch of assorted recent notes, an apology-laden write-up on a local band's September activity, and to kick things off, LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS for next month, so here's what you need to know!

Kinross, Michigan hard/classic rock trio Banned have confirmed two new regional concert weekends for next month! The guys will return to The Runway Bar in Hessel for the first time in three months on Friday, November 14th & Saturday, November 15th, while they'll make their first appearances at the Dondee Lanes in Sault Michigan of 2014 the following weekend (November 21st-22nd), so if you've been hoping for some new non-Kewadin gigs from the Traynors and Wayne in our area, there you go! These shows were confirmed on Banned's Facebook page on Sunday, and join upcoming dates in Drummond Island, Gould City, and Engadine over the next few months, plus previously announced Kewadin Casino gigs. Banned's Hessel and Soo shows next month are both 21+ affairs with no announced cover charge, and while they'll be on at 9:00 PM at The Runway Bar, their Dondee shows have an earlier start time of 8:00 PM.

For more details, check the above links! It's great to see Banned continuing to rock some consistent dates (and add some new non-Kewadin dates to their fall schedule), so stay tuned for more, and if you're up for the trip, go see Banned in Drummond Island next weekend!

Next up, have you been wondering why we haven't covered The Pixo Control on here yet this fall? To be completely honest, I hadn't seen much from them since The Emergency Festival, but blame my Facebook news feed for not posting what they did last month on my wall, as I just realized yesterday that we missed two unique concerts of theirs over the past month. In the midst of songwriting, the local alternative hard rockers played a set at the Soo's first annual Pridefest on September 7th at The Roberta Bondar Pavilion alongside solo sets by Ryan Seabrook & The Wild Iris' Jake Rendell (source here), before joining local indie acoustic trio K.I.C.K. and other artists at the MS Norgoma (yes, the boat-turned-museum) on September 19th for the second annual 46th Parallel, Music, Art & Media Festival, even making the poster. Very unique setting that you can check out courtesy of Local2's video coverage of this cool event (though The Pixo Control aren't featured), while Pridefest is a great cause itself, and it's awesome to see the LGBT community coming together for an event of this calibre in the Soo!

Still, the fact that we missed a month's worth of updates from The Pixo Control is inexcusable, especially for such a promising young band (let alone one of the few "heavy" bands in the Soo with over 1,000 Facebook likes), so our sincere apologies for what we missed over the past month! I'll try my best to make sure we're more on top of their news and notes, and hopefully we see the guys on the local stage again soon! Stay tuned for more! 

Finally for today, here's eight assorted shorter news items from the last little while, and as usual, these are in alphabetical order by artist name:

• Local death metal rockers The Bear Hunters have confirmed that the booklet for their debut album "Eternal Hibernation" will have lyrics for each song. Great news for fans, especially if some find it hard to discern Nik's growling, so keep that in mind for the release next month! Our source is the band's Facebook page on Saturday.
• Local goregrind solo project Crucify The Whore will apparently join fellow local metal bands AlgomA, Bad Back, and The Apocalypse Afterparty in Toronto on October 16th for their "Northern Horde" concert there, marking C.T.W.'s Southern Ontario debut as well. This is a huge opportunity for Tyler, hopefully everyone shows Toronto what the Soo's made of! Our source is The Apocalypse Afterparty's Facebook page.
• Local post-punk quartet Gnaeus have begun a new studio recording session of some type, as per their Facebook page's newest photo on Sunday. Just an outlet to record a new original song or two, or is this something more? We'll let you know if we hear anything!
• Local promoter J.D. Pearce's promotional Facebook group is already teasing some 2015 concerts, including a new Dayglo Abortions show in May, his involvement in co-promoting the second annual Das Bunkerfest (more on that in our next news post), and in a surprising development, a full Fistmagnet reunion show in June?! If you enjoyed Garry's guest turn with Destroilet at Hardcore Homecoming, you'll definitely want to pay attention, so stay tuned for updates! No word yet though on next month's teased Whiskey Shits concert.
• A local musician named Jordan Leach is looking for a singer, guitarist, and drummer for a new downtown-centered punk band that he's starting. He'd prefer a female singer, and it's assumed that he's the bassist in the band, who would cover some indie and metal songs as well. Practices would be between Friday & Sunday, and if you're interested in trying out, message Jordan at this link or via his Musicians Wanted Facebook group post on Monday!
• I've deleted the short lived Redundant predecessors The Quims from our inactive band links due to the recent deletion of their Facebook page for unannounced reasons. Active briefly in late 2010, The Quims had planned to play "raunch hillbilly redneck rock n' roll", but fell inactive before forming Redundant as a more typical punk band the next year. Stay tuned for more from the Redundant camp as we hear it!
• In case you saw recent live videos of That's Chester at a private wedding gig in the Elliott Lake area and were hoping to see them on the site, then I can't help, as drummer Ric Datson had to pull them from his YouTube channel due to copyright complaints. Disappointing, but maybe he can try posting them on Facebook? For reference, the videos were covers of Supertramp and AC/DC songs.
• I've replaced the link for defunct local goregrind trio Tomgrindy in our inactive band links due to the quiet deletion of their Facebook page, but luckily they're still on Reverbnation for all you Blood Shed Productions fans! We won't get into the details of their split and falling out though.

That's all for now, but stay tuned for another news post far sooner than this one was, and for this month's "Where Are The New Albums?" post TOMORROW! Thanks everyone!

Three New Local Metal/Hard Rock Acts & Three New Reverbnation Pages!!

Before we get to news as usual, I wanted to wish you guys a happy Remembrance/Veterans Day. Pay respect to your veterans today and wear your poppies with pride! Now this isn't something we see often, but I actually have THREE newly discovered local metal/hard rock projects to share with you guys in this second post today! We have a local solo artist, a brand new band, and a "mystery" project that we could use info on to share, as well as some local Reverbnation pages never featured before on the SMS, so let's get right to everything! We'll go through each new band in alphabetical order.

The first new local act that I discovered recently is a local solo artist named Mike Haggith. Originally from Windsor, Mike has a long history in both solo and band work dating back to his early work in the late 1990s. He's primarily a guitarist, but also supplies bass and vocal tracks on his original material. His band credits include such Windsor-based groups as The Thorns and S.C.A.R., among many others. I won't go into too much detail on his specific bands, as they aren't locally based, but Mike is personally based out of Sault Ontario at present, and continually records and releases solo material along with his bands. This may seem surprising by volume, but Mike has recorded and released over 100 albums since 2005 in his different projects! Over 40 of these are solo albums, but I should note that I don't believe most of these have been sold as "albums". I'm not sure how distribution of most of them was accomplished, but I only see one ("Ace" from 2009) for sale on any of his pages. I think his albums are distributed similarly to the albums from Sault Michigan solo artist Mike Libertoski, but I could be wrong. Mike's local connections are overshadowed by his Windsor past, but his Reverbnation page does indicate that he is among the artists who work with fellow local musician Mike Cliffe's Audio Fumes venue, and it lists an upcoming solo open mic performance at The Outback at Sault College on Wednesday!

Mike Haggith's genre of music is described as "alternative/grunge/rock", which is about right for what he plays! Many of his internet pages, including ones on Reverbnation, Facebook, YouTube, Soundclick, and ImRadio feature many of his more recent solo songs recorded through his independent label Rotten Records, and I have to say, I'm digging a bunch of them! His style isn't too experimental, but he tries different things and different styles in his solo songs, and there's enough heaviness to go around! His singing voice is deep and in control, and his riffing and notation are pretty good! The production quality varies greatly depending on the album each song is from, so make note of that. On songs like "The Institution" and "The 113 Suite", he makes good use of heavy darker tones, and he also has some affecting slower songs too, like "The Day You Left Me"! But really, this is the kind of project that will have a little something for everyone, and you'll have to browse his pages to find a song that suits your preferences! I've done some cherry picking and found some favourites of my own, I recommend you guys check Mike's stuff out for yourself at the above links and see what's there! He's got some real talent, and maybe a review of his "Ace" album is in the cards for the near future!

Secondly, here's a project that I, frankly, know next to nothing about. In recent Google crawling for Sault Michigan concerts, I came across a project from across the river named Mugwort. Now, this page has very little to speak of. The page was launched in December 2008, there are seven friends, one wall post, and little else. I also know that mugwort is a type of plant, but that's all. There's just one thing that made this worth posting on the SMS: A song! This artist or band posted a song titled "Hunter's Moon", and it's honestly of good quality! Solid melodic death metal kind of tune, with decent production and good singing, and a nice orchestral tinge! The singer sounds a bit like Orb Hearthstone of End of Existence fame, but no musicians in this project are listed. Definitely check this song out, it's a surprising discovery, if nothing else! But who are/is Mugwort? The page is friends with Integrated System of Machines and Clownsack bassist Slappy, but does that mean anything as to the members? Mugwort's profile picture is also the profile picture used by "Andy Bord", a MySpace friend who also has many connections to local band members. Is Andy in Mugwort, or just a friend? If someone out there can help, e-mail me at robertfigures@hotmail.com, and check out the above links for more!

The final new band that we have today is the only band that is actually "new" in terms of when it was formed. They are The Quims, and they're a new band featuring three local music veterans, including Scary Uncles frontman Justin Langlois, Frightlight guitarist Rick White, and Browbeat bassist James White! A drummer is not listed as of yet. Justin and Rick teamed up in the defunct local bands Scattered and The Pisstanks, whereas the White brothers recently paired up in a recent incarnation of Browbeat, so they are quite familiar with each other! The Quims have a listed genre of "raunch hillbilly redneck rock n' roll", and list some interesting influences and likes on their Facebook page that suggest a grimy Southern influenced hard rock sound! Of course, we don't know for sure what they sound like yet, but as their newest wall post says, they're coming, be patient! I have a feeling that The Quims might be close in sound to The Pisstanks judging by the descriptions on The Pisstanks' MySpace page, but we'll have to see! Check out the above links for more, and I'll keep you posted as updates roll in from the Sault's new raunch n' roll band! And yes, The Quims, Mike Haggith, and Mugwort are now in the band listings on the SMS!

Closing today's post are three newly discovered pages on Reverbnation, that I discovered in the same browsing session that I found Mike Haggith in. Let's go through these quickly in alphaebtical order, as none have anything majorly different from their primary pages. The links to the pages are in each band's name.:

• I can't believe I never mentioned this on here, but local punk/metal band Destroilet are on Reverbnation! The page hasn't been updated in months, but they're there, so become a fan today! Little is there that we haven't seen before from their other pages, so keep that in mind.
• Sault Michigan hard rockers Elipzis also have a new Reverbnation page, which is updated! It lists them as being from the Sault & Grand Rapids, and it features photos, a bio, upcoming shows, and four original song samples! Nothing too different from their other pages, but become a fan today!
• Caveman Morrison frontman Tym Morrison has launched his own solo Reverbnation page as well! It features an updated biography, all 10 songs from his "Solo Project" album, and a bit more! This is the newest of the three pages, so become a fan and stay in the loop!

That's all for today, but stay tuned this weekend for more news, my Garden of Bedlam concert review, and more! Thanks everyone!