LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Gnaeus & Project 906), As It Stands Updates, And Much More!!

Here's a surprise second post on this Saturday, as we have a SHORT NOTICE LOCAL CONCERT ALERT to tackle for TONIGHT, with new videos to boot! To round things out, we have one more new show coming up next month, a big posthumous release of an unreleased EP, and some assorted recent notes, so here's what you should know!

We can officially confirm and call TONIGHT'S Project 906 show, as they'll be playing at the local chapter of The Highland Clan Motorcycle Club's annual Summer Bash! Apologies for the short notice, we didn't call this as a show during our weekend concert previews as we weren't positive on if it was a public event, with Project 906 guitarist Joe Jenkins confirming that it was this morning. Taking place at 235 Magazine Street (minutes from The Satisfied Frog), this event follows a poker run from the HCMC that is ongoing as of this writing, so hopefully that's a hit as well, and Project 906 should deliver a solid set at the Summer Bash TONIGHT! While this may seem like an atypical concert for Project 906, remember that Joe's old band Exiled played a few motorcycle club events during their 2014 heyday, including one from the Highland Club. Note as well that the Facebook event page doesn't credit any events going on tonight (let alone Project 906's set), but the band's Facebook page announced their involvement earlier this week.

A 7:00 PM start time is in effect for TONIGHT'S Summer Bash, which has no announced cover charge or age limits, but have both in the back of your head just in case. For a preview, here's three new jam session videos, courtesy of Project 906's Facebook page in recent days! The videos are covers of Nena's "99 Red Balloons", Philip Sayce's "Morning Star", and as embedded below, Billy Squier's "Lonely Is The Night", and they sound good, but Billy's vocals can be hard to make out over heavier stretches, and Joe is often obscured by a pole in the jam room. Solid all the same, so check them out above & below, and don't miss TONIGHT's Highland Clan bash!

Next up, here's another new show, as local post-punk quartet Gnaeus will indeed hold their CD release show on Friday, August 5th when they officially launch "Meditations" with a headlining concert at The Rockstar Bar! A rare appearance for Gnaeus at The Algonquin Hotel, this is a fitting locale for the guys to launch their long-awaited debut CD, and while they have yet to reveal prices for physical copies, have cash on hand to get yours! In a reverse from the following week's "Give In To The Din" release show at The Tech, alternative hard rock trio The Din will return the favour as openers on the 5th, while indie rock quartet K.I.C.K. will open the proceedings on August 5th with their own skilled originals! One could call this a rescheduling of April's cancelled Summer Bash concert that Gnaeus and K.I.C.K. were supposed to play before the venue's renovations scuttled it, but it's not advertised as such.

There's no announced cover charges for this 19+ show, which will begin at 9:00 PM on August 5th, but make sure you bring money for both your copy of "Meditations" and for any potential admission fees. It's great to see Gnaeus finally announce their CD release show, and with them and The Din flipping roles for another release party a week following, it's a big month ahead for new local album releases! Visit the official Facebook event page for more details, and stay tuned for updates!

Also, remember how defunct local hardcore quintet As It Stands were recording an EP in July 2011 that was never released prior to their 2014 dissolution? Well, the band has finally unveiled the tracks recorded that year, as per their Soundcloud page, so fans can finally hear what would have been their third & final EP! The apparently self-titled release was recorded at Metalworks Studios in Mississauga with producer Kevin Dietz, and while the posted tracks are raw & off the floor without final mixing, As It Stands felt it was time to finally let fans hear the songs. The tracks are "A Sinking Sinner", "Embay the Terrible", "Oh Herm, Herm Delish", their cover of Blink-182's "Stay Together For the Kids", and "One Less Than Wayne Gretzky", so click each link to hear each song! For reference, this confirms that the songs that As It Stands recorded at Stereo Soul Studios in 2009 and in Stoney Creek in 2010 were not intended for this particular album. This is a FREE posting, and at least at the moment, is not being formally sold.

It's not clear if As It Stands' earlier studio recordings (including their mid-2000s EPs "The Re-Occurring Nightmare" & "Kill The Music, Save The Children") will see a re-emergence too, as the band teased in April, but it's great to finally hear the 2011 recordings in full! These capture As It Stands at full strength and intensity from their arguable peak as musicians, and if you loved A.I.S. during their run, do yourselves a favour and check out their unreleased 2011 EP above, and hopefully there's more to come! Also, here's the Facebook preview video that the band shared prior to the Soundcloud unveiling, featuring a late snippet from "Embay the Terrible"!

 

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

• New local improv hard rock trio Gianni Gagoots have been added as the final openers for the Castle-headlined concert at The New American Pub on September 28th, as per the official Facebook event page. Solid choice for their second live concert appearance, so don't miss them late next month at The New A!
• Ex-Bankshot/12 Gauge Ready guitarist Lucas Schmiedendorf (a.k.a. Sal Velinus) is looking to form a new local band, and while he enjoys melodic punk and ska, he doesn't mind dabbling in folk or country. He has friends in mind for said band, likely a drummer and bassist at the moment, but he'd like to find musicians that could play guitar, horns, keyboard, or perhaps even a female vocalist. If you'd be interested in trying out or jamming with Lucas, message him at this link or via his Musicians Wanted Facebook group post from Tuesday!
• We have regrettably removed defunct local hard rock bands Meant To Last and These Sins of Time from our band links due to the quiet deletion of their Facebook pages, which were their only substantial online pages (both have surviving Twitter pages, but neither has enough to warrant linking them on the SMS.) These were the two recent hard rock bands from local singer Alexa LeClair, who is a talented artist, and hopefully she can get a band going with greater success in the future!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for much more news and notes next week! Thanks everyone!

Local Punk Video Showcase (Part 5)

It's been far too long since our last one of these, so let's finally get a new local punk video showcase up on the site, our fifth in total! Like before, this will take a look at four punk videos from local artists and concerts, and though we're sticking with similar bands from past installments to balance things out, there's some very solid videos to share today! Including live concert footage, studio material, and a jam session clip, read on below for this newest showcase!

We'll start with a trio of videos from veteran local punk musician Mikey Hawdon's YouTube channel, specifically of his very successful punk quartet The Inner City Surfers! Though two of them (both uploaded in August 2006) are credited to this band, they're just of Mikey jokingly singing along with The Fresh Prince of Bel Air's theme song and Paul Simon's "You Can Call Me Al", and they're a fun light view from this channel's early days! Featured below though is (surprisingly) the only Surfers concert video that I could find on Mikey's channel, which comes from their last headlining gig at Foggy Notions (now Coch's Corner) on March 15th, 2008. The show was notable as one of the last concerts held at Foggy's during it's original run (then-owner Patrick Casey closed shop at month's end), and though the venue returned the next year under it's first of three new owners, the Surfers never returned for a show there to my knowledge.

The video itself is of The Inner City Surfers playing their song "Never Ender Bender" as filmed on a tape camcorder from a high side-stage angle, and though the video quality isn't fantastic, it does capture a great crowd and a nice energetic rendition of one of their classic originals! The Surfers were a frequent band at Foggy's on both Bay & Queen Street through 2008, and though I was 2 months away from legal drinking age when the original era ended, you can feel the energy of the old run even here, and I bet fans miss those days! Give this video a look below!



Next for this all-video post, we'll take a look at Mikey and Surfers bandmate Dustin Jones' current band, the Celtic punk favourites Dustin Jones & The Rising Tide! Uploaded by YouTube user KelFable on November 3rd, 2011, these are presumably from the Maritimes leg of their tour dates that fall (if these were uploaded shortly after the show), though I can't verify the exact location. Her videos are mostly of covers, including The Tide putting their own spin on The White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army" & House of Pain's "Jump Around", plus a snippet of their own self-titled original "Rising Tide", though all of these videos are incomplete (the latter running at just 23 seconds.) Embedded below though is Kel's longest video, a cover of Ben E. King's "Stand By Me", and while these covers are all against type for their genres, they're well done and effectively converted to their existing sound without much issue!

Aside from being mostly incomplete, these videos suffer most visually, as the lighting is poor and honestly makes it hard to make out the guys at points, but it's definitely Dustin and The Tide. The audio's solid though, so give these D.J.R.T. videos a look above and below, and remember not to miss their local return next month!



Third for this video showcase is a jam session clip from YouTube user Jamie Penno's channel, and this will be of particular note for fans of the defunct local punk band Bankshot, as it features that band's guitarists Christian Pasiak & Lucas Schmiedendorf! Uploaded in January 2007 and apparently filmed in a church, this features the guys jamming an acoustic punk song that appears to be an original song about a girlfriend always on one's mind, but I can't place the name or original band. The lighting is awful, but the audio quality is good, if you can get past the background talking, so give this solid jam clip from Bankshot's guitarists a look below!



We'll close this post with local/Toronto indie punk favourites Treble Charger, and I knew when we started these punk showcases that we'd have to at least address YouTube copies of their studio albums. I won't ignite any debates about buying music here, but fans should know that all of Treble Charger's albums are easily available online, and pretty much all of their studio albums can be streamed on YouTube, so if you're on the free side of the issue, you're covered! If you actively stream songs there, the best channel for Treble Charger albums is that of Fletcher Holland, who has uploaded four of their five studio albums (1995's "Self Title", 1997's "Maybe It's Me", 2000's "Wide Awake Bored", and 2002's "Detox") there, though their 1994 debut "nc17" isn't featured, and none of the albums there are grouped into playlists. I highly encourage buying these albums to support Treble Charger's work, but give YouTube a whirl if you want a free stream, and here's the first song from "Self Title", that being "Morale"!



That's all for now, but stay tuned for weekend concert previews on the site tomorrow! Thanks everyone!