More New Interviews From Sev's Cellar On The Borderline Radio!!

Let's continue our look at radio show episodes from new local internet station The Borderline today, starting with more episodes of Mike "Sev Micron" Severin's musician interview series Sev's Cellar! Two weeks ago, an hour-long episode was posted where Mike interviewed Rising Tide guitarist Liam Seymour, and it actually starts with a solo performance of "Malaise" by Liam's blues/country rock band The Barn Board Trio. Effective unplugged rendition, especially for genre fans! The interview proper begins about 6 minutes in, and as best as I can gather, this was recorded before the pandemic lockdowns began. Here, Liam discusses his current band projects (including his live work with Jay Case), his musical inspirations, memorable concerts he's played at and seen (even Gianni Gagoots come up!), his favourite original songs, and his future plans, among other topics.

Songs played mid-interview include The Barn Board Trio's "Home" & "Chase You", and his solo original track "A Minute". Entertaining listen for fans of Liam's prolific local work, and you get to know him better with all of the light personal questions (which appear to be a Sev's Cellar staple), though the backing incidental music could get a little loud. The insights about Gianni Gagoots were fun to hear, especially knowing how strange their live shows could get (I don't think they ever fully let on to that on social media!) Liam didn't go into great detail about his work with Dustin Jones & The Rising Tide, but never fear, as Mike also interviewed frontman Dustin Jones for another hour-long Sev's Cellar episode last summer, which should fill your punk quotas! Like with Liam's episode, this interview is preceded with a song, in this case, Dustin and The Rising Tide's own "Molly Malloy".

The interview proper begins about 5½ minutes in, and you can hear Dustin talk about his beginnings as a musician, the videos he posted of him performing with his children, his favourite songs in the past & present, his original run with The Inner City Surfers, the sounds incorporated in his bands, memories of touring, the effects of the pandemic on concert venues (as of June 2020), future goals, his work with Tidal Records and Mission Control Studios, The Rising Tide's new album recording sessions, and more. As well, The Surfers' "Never Ender Bender" and The Tide's "Sorry Sunday" & "Lost & Found" are played in full during the runtime. This is another solid interview, helped by Mike clearly knowing Dustin for a while before this, and you get a lot of good personal insights along the way, despite occasionally loud backing incidental music (including, oddly enough, a Brian Wilson interview layered with this interview!)

Dustin doesn't give away too many scoops regarding his current local bands, but he did confirm that the pandemic did slow down progress on The Tide's new album, which may go without saying. Still, you will learn a lot about him and his past local music work here, so be sure to give it a listen above! Finally for now, I wanted to briefly note that Mike also interviewed former Papa Fogals Chair guitarist and Soo native Andy Chillman in this episode from last year. While P.F.C. weren't a local band (their hometown of Thessalon is outside of our coverage range), and most of the musical discussion is regarding his folk/indie rock solo work in London, Andy does discuss Sault Ste. Marie a bit regarding his upbringing, gigs Papa Fogals Chair played here, and his continuing regional connections, plus his continued love of metal music also comes up, even if his current music is very far away sonically.

Andy has expanded his range and talents very well in the past two decades, and he's a game interviewee with good answers, so be sure to hear his episode and much more from Sev's Cellar above! That's all for today, but stay tuned for this month's YouTube Channel Profile next and more news when it rolls in! Thanks everyone!

New Videos From Tidal Records & Local Punk Musicians!!

Ending a surprisingly busy month at the SMS with a post every day in April 2020, we have some new videos to look at today, with a heavy emphasis on Tidal Records-affiliated artists, so here's what you should know!

We'll start with a huge collaborative cover of The Beatles' "Hey Jude" featuring numerous local musicians to help support the fight against COVID-19! Sort of an epilogue to SooToday's Come Together YouTube concert last week, this at-home cover features many of the same musicians that took part in that event. 3/5ths of Dustin Jones & The Rising Tide take part from afar here, with only Liam and Marshall absent, and other familar faces on the roster include Jay Case (who leads off vocally), Frank Deresti, Tracey Hilderley, and Huckster alum Sean Halliday, among many others. The recording quality is uneven, but seeing all of these talented musicians working together like this is great to see, and donations to the Algoma COVID-19 Response Fund & the Sault Area Hospital Emergency Fund are more than welcomed. Check out the full cover below!



Next up, if you're a friend of veteran local punk musician Mikey Hawdon on Facebook, you may recall seeing his (more or less) daily series of "Quarantunes", where the Fairmounts frontman & Inner City Surfers drummer covers songs on vocals & ukelele in videos on his personal Facebook page. As best as I can tell, these have not been shared publically on his band pages, hence why I haven't featured them until now, but last night, local promoters Live705 shared Mikey's 46th "quarantune" video on their Facebook page, so I feel comfortable sharing that one. This is an 82 second cover of "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" from Monty Python's Life of Brian, which is a great message at this confusing time, and Mikey projects a nice optimistic feeling with this cover too! Give it a look below, and if you're his friend on Facebook, go see his other 45 "quarantunes", including a number of collaborations with friends!

We'll next go from a former Rising Tide member to a current one, and while he didn't take part in the "Hey Jude" cover above, guitarist Liam Seymour does have a new at-home concert set to check out! This was live-streamed on his personal Facebook page on Sunday, and almost simultaneously shared on Tidal Records' own Facebook page, so it's good to go in the public sense. Liam did warn viewers about issues with the stream, so expect frequent audio drop-outs. After an initial instrumental jam, Liam's set (which is shorter than his April 5th live-stream) includes renditions of The Barn Board Trio's "This Big City", Jerry Reed's "Amos Moses", Junior Brown's "Highway Patrol", Marty Stuart's "Branded", David Wilcox's "Downtown Came Uptown", Johnny Bush's "Whiskey River", The Weeknd's "Earned It", another instrumental, and Steve Earle's "Copperhead Road". The surprise Weeknd cover aside, blues & country renditions seemed to be the theme of the evening.

The constant audio drop-outs are very unfortunate, as the streaming quality is otherwise fine and comprable to his April 5th show, but this eclectic selection of songs you don't hear covered every day should be of interest to many readers and fans! Give it a watch below, and stay tuned for more updates from him and The Tide as they roll in!



We'll close today outside of the Tidal umbrella with the latest video from local/Elliot Lake alternative/punk solo project Ashoka At The Show (courtesy of the 184Films YouTube channel earlier today), and it's an acoustic cover of Pennywise's "Alien". The camera's obviously mirrored (the Blackhawks logo on his shirt gives it away), but the cover's solid, and he does this Pennywise classic justice in this form, so give it a watch below!



That's all for today, but stay tuned for a new news post to kick off the month of May tomorrow! Thanks everyone!

A Big Concert Postponement, New Facebook Live-Streamed Concerts, And A New Original Song!!

Another new news post is here to check out on this Monday morning, and it includes a prolific local musician's newest track, a couple of new hour-long Facebook live-streamed concert sets, and leading off, long awaited clarification of the last April concert we had in our concert calendars. With all of that said, here's what you should know!

The last domino has finally fallen for this month's local hard rock/punk concert calendar, as the First Jason-headlined show at The Canadian Nightclub has been postponed from Sunday, April 26th to Sunday, September 27th. The announcement was made on Vintage Games 'N Junque's Facebook page last night, due to their owners' promotional involvement via Steel City Events, who were to have also put on the cancelled Steel City Nostalgia Fair at month's end, where First Jason frontman Ari Lehman would have been the guest of honour. You can probably guess why it was postponed, alas. It is not immediately clear if a rescheduled Nostalgia Fair will take place that weekend too, but organizers had previously hinted on Facebook that they were "working on a little something different for September". In any event, the big change aside from the new concert date is that there will now be a pre-concert meet & greet at 6:00 PM, so if you want to meet the first Jason (Voorhees) without a VIP package, there you go!

The Facebook event page has not yet been updated with the new date, but if anything changes regarding admission, the meet & greet, or the openers, we'll let you know. It's great to get some clarity as to this highly anticipated concert, and while there are still questions to answer, hopefully things are much calmer re: COVID-19 in 5 months time! Before we move on, check out this video from Vintage Games 'N Junque's Facebook page where Ari himself hypes up the new Soo date! Short but sweet promotion once again, so give it a look below, and fingers crossed everything works out!



Next up, here's a new live-streamed Facebook concert video from local/Thompson, Manitoba alt-hard rock musician Mike Haggith! Entitled "#LockdownLive", he first teased it on Saturday with this short video plugging it (citing boredom from being locked down & off work for why he's doing one of his own), and the main event streamed on his Facebook page yesterday evening. Running for just over an hour, Mike's songs in order include "The Nature of the Times", "Communique", the new-to-Facebook "Back Away Slowly", The Din's "Missing", "MorningStar" (which may be his next formal single), "This Potato May Be Used As A Flotation Device", a cover of The Foo Fighters' "Times Like These", "The Best You Never Had", and "Out Of My League". The video also features some updates, including that Mike's planned CD release concert at LopLops on May 15th is "probably not going to happen at this point", and a rescheduled date would be sought, but the album proper will still be released on schedule next month.

For the record, I am leaving the release party in our concert calendar until it is officially called off by Mike or the provincial government, but things aren't looking great for it. It's clear Mike is relatively new to the live-stream arena, but it adds an authenticity to the proceedings, and his vocal and guitar ability is still as clear as day in these acoustic performances, including four songs from the new album! However, I too was hoping to see his cats. Stay tuned for more on the CD, it's release party, and perhaps future live-streams, but here's #LockdownLive to watch for yourself!



Also, here's another recent Facebook live-stream concert, this time from Rising Tide/Barn Board Trio guitarist Liam Seymour, who performed this live on his personal Facebook page yesterday afternoon, with his label Tidal Records publically sharing it on their Facebook page after the fact. Compared to many of the covers-heavy live-streams to pop up as of late, this one is full of covers you wouldn't expect, and even a few Barn Board Trio tunes, so what does Liam have to offer in this hour+ video? In performance order, he tackles Ace's "How Long", David Wilcox's "Downtown Came Uptown", The Barn Board Trio's own "Broken Footed Brewer", Dada's "If Tears Were Balloons" & "The Ballad of Earl Grey and Chamomile", Waylon Jennings' "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?", and Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Call Me The Breeze", before changing guitars for his covers of The Black Crowes' "Hard To Handle" (or by Otis Redding if you prefer), Sixpence None The Richer's "Kiss Me", ...

....The Barn Board Trio's "This Big City", "Till I Get Back Home", and their not-yet-released "Run From Home", Free's "All Right Now", and Paul McCartney's "Maybe I'm Amazed". Liam's been a familiar and talented sight locally for years, and while much of his recent band work has diverted from his old high school cover videos when he had longer hair, he has developed his talents and range really nicely, and his singing effortlessly fits whatever he's playing! Liam did tease a drumming stream of some kind as well, but for now, give his vocal/guitar performance a watch below!



We'll close today with a new solo original song from local hard rock musician Tym Morrison's YouTube channel, entitled "Number of the Beast"! No, this is not a cover of the Iron Maiden classic, this is firmly in line with Tym's current Christian beliefs, but it is still a metal tune. Interestingly using the same free trial program that The Isolation Sessions recently used, the song proper has a deliberate pace and serious tone, but it's well composed, and Tym gets some guitar solo time in there, so fans of his should definitely like this song! Give it a listen below, and stay tuned for more updates!



That's all for today, but stay tuned for part 3 of our WLS0 9O.1 FM retrospective series next! Thanks everyone!

Castle Concert Video Showcase, Plus An Album Teaser Clip!!

Today's post is mostly devoted to some new videos from a recent concert that prolific local concert filmer Chris Paci uploaded to his YouTube channel earlier this week, but we also have an overdue album teaser video to round things out! We'll start with Chris' footage, which comes from September 28th's Castle-headlined concert at 180 Projects, though no word on why it took two weeks to post the videos online. He also filmed videos at last week's Moon Tan show at The New A, but we'll save those to feature in an upcoming post. Chris posted six videos online, 4 of which coming from the headliners' set, with the Juno-nominated San Fransisco doom metal trio featured playing their songs "Temple of the Lost", "Blacklands", their set-closer "Total Betrayal", and as embedded below, two songs played in succession, namely "Down In The Cauldron Bog" & "Black Widow". For reference, 180 Projects did not appear to make use of their projection screens at this concert.

Solidly performed by this dark and powerful trio, albeit with muffled vocals and a somewhat barren-looking setup for the stage, but fans of Castle's occult-flavoured doom metal will be right at home! I wish I could have attended this show, but we had family visiting from out of town that night. Check our Chris' Castle videos above and below!



Chris' other videos from this show come from the local openers, with one each being uploaded from their sets. One is of local doom metal trio AlgomA playing most of their song "Electric Fence" from their vinyl split EP with Chronobot, albeit filmed from a corner angle rather than in front of the band like with the Castle clips. Fans headbanging can get in the way, but the vocals come through clearer on this Boyd-sung original, and AlgomA fans will definitely want to see the devastation below!



The other video from this concert comes from new local funk/improv hard rock band Gianni Gagoots, marking the first public footage of them performing, so what do we know now? First off, the band has added a second guitarist, namely Boatload Killers/Sailor's Tongue alum Liam Seymour, who has the comedic Italian stage name "Blanci Mangia-Cake". Nice pick-up, Liam's a solid musician with a diverse range of genres under his belt, and he previously had enlisted Gianni Gagoots drummer Frank McCormick for his solo set at Rotaryfest as well! Also, we can now 100% confirm that percussionist "Bergio The IceBurg" (a.k.a. "Enzo Scanganatts") is indeed an actual band member, though I can't confirm his actual identity as of this writing. If you like your hard rock with conga drums, prepare yourself! This video indicates that Gianni Gagoots are an instrumental band with no microphones in sight, which is locally unique, even without accounting for their sound.

This uniquely named quintet have fun in this clip, which showcases an improvised jam hard rock sound, with funk and punk influences radiating through the song (title unclear, if they do even their songs.) It'll be interesting to see what Gianni Gagoots do next, as they definitely stand out among current local hard rock bands, but check out their 7+ minute video below, and stay tuned for more on them, perhaps including if we can confirm Bergio's full identity!



Finally for today, here's an admittedly overdue teaser video for local post-punk quartet Gnaeus' debut CD "Meditations"! Posted to their Facebook page on August 9th to promote it's then-new release and online outlets through which you could buy it, it features some brief audio samples from the album and some neat effects to phase in the eye-less Pompey of Rome logo, but after 25 seconds, the video runs with just a blank screen for almost 5 minutes. Accident, or an intentional opportunity to meditate? Debate amongs yourselves, but apologies for the delay in featuring this on the site, check it out below, and do buy "Meditations" on iTunes and/or Amazon!



That's all for today, but stay tuned for weekend concert previews next! Thanks everyone!

YouTube Channel Profile Series: adamscovers' channel

It's now time for this month's YouTube Channel Profile, our monthly look at 1-3 randomly selected YouTube channels with at least 50% of their videos being relevant to local metal, hard rock, or punk concerts, in order to spotlight their content and material! We had originally planned to look at the YouTube channel #TrebleCharger, an auto-generated channel of Treble Charger studio tracks, but none of the videos work for me for unclear reasons (their links weren't pulled, they just don't play.) Instead, we've replaced it with the next closest alphabetical channel (punctuation precedes A on YouTube), and this has some solid recent cover performances from a few years back, so here's what you should know!
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adamscovers (http://www.youtube.com/adamscovers)

Owner: Village Media videographer and local musician Adam Gualtieri

Channel Timeline: Launched on April 22nd, 2011; Videos posted from that December through March 2014

Channel Summary: Adam's channel is (with one exception) devoted to at least 6 performances that he and fellow local musician Liam Seymour (The Boatload Killers, ex-Sailor's Tongue) made during sets at Superior Heights Collegiate & Vocational School when both were students there in the early 2010s, with both alternating guitar & bass duties. 13 of Adam's 14 videos are from Superior Heights sets, all with varying & uncredited drummers (one likely a teacher), including covers of the likes of Foster The People, Phillip Phillips, Traffic, Gnarls Barkley, and Mumford & Sons. The extra video is of his own solo composition, "Questions Without Answers".

Why Should You Watch: This is a solid channel to check out for fans of hard and classic rock covers from two up & coming talents (if they had a band name, it's not credited), and if you're a fan of Superior Heights and Dunnplugged events, this is a good source with multiple camera angles! Also, "Questions Without Answers" is a solid original, if rough and not "heavy", and it's a nice showcase of his talent! Note however that this channel hasn't been updated in a year, possibly due to Adam's graduation and resulting lack of further sets there. As well, a cover of Shinedown's "If You Only Knew" has since been privatized for unannounced reasons.

Our Recommended Videos To Check Out:

Communication Breakdown Cover♫: Among Adam's earliest uploads are three videos from a Superior Heights set circa February 2012, where he, Liam, and a drummer covered The Beatles' "Helter Skelter", Alice In Chains' "Rooster", and (as embedded below) Led Zeppelin's "Communication Breakdown". Adam only sings lead on "Rooster", with Liam tackling lead vocals on the other two, and while both have good voices, Liam's range is quite impressive, as fans of The Boatload Killers will attest, especially on the Zeppelin cover! Like on later videos, all three also make use of multiple camera zoom, post-effects, and titles., and they're a solid showcase of Adam & Liam's talents, and are among the heaviest videos on this channel!



December Cover♫: The next month, Adam posted videos of him, Liam, and (I think) another drummer covering Boston's "Smokin'", Foghat's "Slow Ride", Led Zeppelin's "The Ocean", and (as embedded below) Collective Soul's "December", which took the guys into more of a classic rock spin compared to their last uploads, which were focused on indie and folk rock. The only video from this day that was made black & white in post-production (despite being the newest of the four songs, ironically), this is my favourite demonstration of Adam's singing on the channel (Liam sings lead on the other three), and all are predictably good for their age at the time!



Lonely Is The Night Cover♫: Joining the now-private Shinedown cover from a pair of April 2012 uploads (Adam's last of a heavier or classic rock nature), this cover of Billy Squier's "Lonely Is The Night" is his most viewed overall, and it improves visually on older videos by featuring multiple camera angles (the angled one of old, and one in front of the stage), plus cleaner zooming. Strongly done again, with Liam's singing fitting nicely, and both he and Adam handle guitar & bass duties well! No word on if Adam and Liam still do any collaborative music work, but it'd be nice to see the two of them pick things back up in some form!


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I hope you guys liked this month's YouTube Channel Profile!  Next month in this series, we'll be looking at two channels, as the first randomly selected channel only had two distinct type of videos, so we randomly added one more to fill it out. Next month, we'll be looking at Skeyes of Seven frontman Cory Murchison's YouTube channel (featuring three videos from his older band Sense of Truth's debut show, plus a solo track) and YouTube user WhiskeyBar1's channel (featuring a Winkstinger concert video), so watch for these on or around July 22nd! That's all for now, but stay tuned for a new news post later today! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (The Suicide Kings) & New Videos!!

Before we get into the poll updating and such, we're going to clear out some backlogged news from this past busy weekend (personally and computer issue-related, it is what it is.) Most of these relate to new YouTube postings, but we do have a SHORT NOTICE LOCAL CONCERT ALERT, so here's what you need to know!

Fresh off of their set opening for Anvil this past weekend, local hard rock standouts The Suicide Kings will make their first ever appearance at Sault College TOMORROW as the entertainment at a fundraiser event! Apologies for the short notice, I only just heard about this show late last week, and it got lost in the shuffle until now. They'll be playing at Odeno, the college's new lounge and bar that replaced The Outback last fall upon completion of the Health & Wellness Center that it's inside, and this (I believe) will be the first ever public hard rock show to take place there since it's opening. The event itself will be a benefit event for Sault College's Social Service Worker/Native Specialization program and their upcoming project & scholarships to connect Aboriginal youths to community role models to help build sustainable relationships, which is a nice cause for sure, so come on out to support it! Admission is $5 in advance and at the door, it is an ALL AGES event, and it has an early start time of 6:00 PM. For more information, check the above links or click here!

This show flew under the radar in many respects, but it is for a good cause, and fans might be curious to see how Odeno compares to The Outback as a concert venue, so keep it in mind for some mid-week hard rock action from this talented quartet! For a preview, here's The Suicide Kings live at Rotaryfest last summer!



Next up, we have another newly posted video from the Heaven & Hell concert at The Essar Centre in March 2007! Courtesy again of filmer Duane Roy's YouTube channel, this went online on Sunday, and it features the end of their set, specifically the last seconds of their song "Heaven & Hell", before closing with their full encore song "Neon Knights" (both from their eponymous 1980 album released as Black Sabbath.) The same video quality as before is on this clip, so there's not a lot to look at, but the sound's good, and it's a nice reminder of my favourite Steelback/Essar Centre concert to date (on a musical basis; Kiss' presentation can't be topped.) Check out Duane's new/old video below!



Also today, here's some new videos from local all-female hard rock quartet The Danger Cats! The girls launched an official YouTube channel last week that already features three videos from their two Docks Riverfront Grill gigs three weeks ago! One is of their cover of The Spice Girls "Wannabe" (with Paula Panther on lead vocals), while the other two (both from the same separate show) feature bassist Jamie Jaguar on vocals, and they're covers of The Runaways' "Cherry Bomb" and, as embedded below, AC/DC's "Big Balls"! The filmer had a nice close angle of the action, and the crowd sounds into everything, but it does look like there was an auto-focus setting put on them. The audio's pretty good too, and it's nice to get some solid quality footage of the girls' Docks debut weekend, so check out these new videos above, and here's their AC/DC cover!



Finally for today, remember the Superior Heights student cover trio featuring Sailor's Tongue guitarist Liam Seymour, singer/guitarist Adam Gualtieri, and an uncredited drummer that often covered hard rock material? Well, the first live recording of theirs in 8 months is now up on Adam's YouTube channel! An audio-only upload, this is a cover of Mumford & Sons' "Little Lion Man", but while it's not a hard rock cover, it is well performed and melodic, and it is nice to see them playing together still! Solid audio quality too, so check it out below, and stay tuned for more from Adam & Liam!



That's all for today, but stay tuned for last month's poll results & this month's poll details later today! Thanks everyone!