LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Parabol & Soundcheck), Plus More Assorted News & Updates!!

I know I'm behind for a number of things on the site, so let's kick off a hopefully busy week with some assorted recent updates, a new (if short) video, and leading off, a pair of LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS!

Local classic/hard rock cover quartet Soundcheck will return to Reggie's West on Saturday, August 17th when they play at the fifth annual Ride for ARCH! While not listed on the Facebook event page, the performer lineup for this year's Algoma Residential Community Hospice fundraiser was posted on the motorcycle rally's Facebook page proper back on June 26th (apologies for the delay), which confirms that Soundcheck will be playing at 5:00 PM on this day for an hour-long set outside of The Reggievelt on Korah Road, before heading inside for a proper nighttime concert at 9:30 PM. This will be Soundcheck's second straight year playing at this event, which will feature a street party with local vendors to help send off the bikers for this year's rally, so see above for full non-musical details! Bands after Soundcheck this year will include country cover quartet (and fellow 2018 performers) Bone Yard as the 9:30 PM headliners, with classic rockers Flathead Ford at 8:00 PM, ...

...and blues rock trio The Dell Brothers (a.k.a. The Paul Dellavedova Band) at 6:30 PM, while two more 2018 returnees (acoustic country duo The Bearded Lounge and folk/classic rock veterans The Algo Rhythms) will open at 3:30 & 2:00 PM respectively. In fact, only Stone Orchid and Amanda Jeffreys are not back from last year, so if you liked that event, here you go! The indoor Soundcheck set at 9:30 PM is a 19+ affair, but everything else seems to be FREE & ALL AGES, fees assoiciated with the bike rally aside, and of course, ARCH donations would be heavily accepted. Visit the above links for more details on all of the action in almost two weeks!

Next up, local Tool tribute band Parabol will play a solo headlining concert on Saturday, October 12th at Soo Blaster! For a local headlining concert with no openers or visible frills beyond who's performing, it's very interesting to see a venue the size of Soo Blaster hosting Parabol alone like this, but if you know Parabol's faithful and massive Tool tribute show, you'll know they'll fill the room as much as possible! No word on if Parabol will rush to learn songs from Tool's long awaited new CD "Fear Inoculum" in time for this show, but they have the skills to do so! Featuring 705Live (not Live705) behind the soundboard, admission for this 10:00 PM & presumably 19+ concert will be via $5 tickets or $8 at the door. While not available yet, advance tickets will be on sale at Soo Blaster, through Parabol members, at Case's Music, and (believe it or not) at Myers Chiropractic Clinic at 143 Great Northern Road.

In scope, this could be Parabol's biggest local concert yet, so if you love John, Steve, Al, and Anthony's tribute to the progressive metal masters, don't miss out on all of the action in two months' time! Visit the official Facebook event page for more details as they roll in!

Also today, here's a brief video hyping up the huge Muddfest concert at The Dreammaker's Theater at the Sault Michigan Kewadin Casino on November 1st, courtesy of the Meridian Entertainment YouTube channel. In this case, the video features Tantric frontman Hugo Ferreira (the video proper is a still image) giving an 11 second plug for their set that night, with no mention of the other bands on this stacked lineup, aside from Saving Abel in the video title. Fans of the Kentucky hard rock band and their big hit single "Breakdown" should give it a listen below, and get tickets at this link!



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

• As briefly alluded to in yesterday's "Where Are The New Albums?" post, local alt-punk trio A Dire Setback strongly hinted on their Facebook page on Saturday that their debut album is currently being mastered... in New York. Very intriguing news, we'll have to see how things continue to progress for their long awaited CD, so see above for more info as it rolls in!
• Local indie/punk quintet Northwest have shared photos and videos from their road trip to Timmins last month for the Rock on the River festival onto their Facebook page! The photos are of great quality, but note that the videos are live streams of The Trews' set that same night, and as such, are not embedded here, as this wasn't a local concert. I do like The Trews (especially "So She's Leaving"), hopefully they play here down the road!
• Destroilet drummer Matt Waples has relaunched his graphic design company (previously known as Sonigraphix Design Solutions) under the new name Underdog Grfkdzn Co. A reason for the name change wasn't announced, but the new Facebook page features a very professional looking portfolio outlining his extensive work in this field, including many high quality concert posters and band logos. I can't say I'm a fan of the vowel-less corruption of "Graphic Design" in the new name, but it's great to see Matt's company back up, so give them a look above, and our link is corrected on the site!

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

Last Month's Poll Results, Link Updates, And This Week's Classic Video!!

It's the 18th of the month, so it's time to reveal the results from last month's poll at the SMS, but before that, I'm just letting you guys know that we're posting details on next month's poll separately from this post due to the size and content of the discussions relating to it this month, so we have some extra stories at the end of this post. You'll see full info on our new poll(s) later today, but for now, remember that I posed this question to you guys last month: What was your favourite local metal concert of 2011? 32 votes, down from the two half year polls, but still a respectable amount of feedback, and I thank you guys for voting over the past month! So, here are the final results:

The Dayglo Abortions at The Rosie on June 16th (6 votes, 19%)
Garden of Bedlam at The Canadian on December 26th (4 votes, 13%)
Sneaky Pete at The Rockstar Bar on April 8th (4 votes, 13%)
Woods of Ypres at The Roosevelt Hotel on March 10th (4 votes, 13%)
Other (3 votes, 9%)
Helix at The Rockstar Bar on December 3rd (2 votes, 6%)
Skull Fist at The Canadian Nightclub on November 6th (2 votes, 6%)
Napalm Death & Shit Liver at Feedback on October 15th (2 votes, 6%)
Half Past at The Rockstar Bar on October 22nd (1 vote, 3%)
Garden of Bedlam at The Roosevelt Hotel on July 21st (1 vote, 3%)
The Bear Hunters at The Oddfellows Hall on July 20th (1 vote, 3%)
Unleash the Archers at The Roosevelt Hotel on June 4th (1 vote, 3%)
Farewell To Freeway at The Roosevelt Hotel on May 12th (1 vote, 3%)
Sewer Swampstravaganja at The Oddfellows Hall on April 9th (0 votes)
Lion Ride at The Rockstar Bar on April 9th (0 votes)
Dead and Divine at The Oddfellows Hall on April 29th (0 votes)
Fuck the Facts at The Roosevelt Hotel on May 9th (0 votes)
Garden of Bedlam at The Rockstar Bar on June 17th (0 votes)
Smeltzer at The Oddfellows Hall on August 12th (0 votes)
Caveman Morrison at The Rosie on December 9th-10th (0 votes)

What do you guys think? In ascending order, I'm probably most surprised that the Garden of Bedlam's shows in June & July finished so low in the polling, as both of those concerts finished in the top 3 of their respective half-year polls for 2011! However, they still placed high for another show. The rest of the results for the bottom 12 in this poll weren't terribly surprising given the vote dropoff and their prior results in our half-year polls. For the three-way tie for 6th with 2 votes each, I'm especially surprised that neither Skull Fist nor Napalm Death saw a higher vote total, given how big their 2011 shows here were (and their 1-2 finish in the second half-year poll), but Helix finished where I expected. "Other" came in 5th with 3 votes, and though I can't speak for what people had in mind, I wonder if any of those votes were for the Fatality/Immersed show at The Rosie last summer? It scored multiple votes in our second half-year poll, and I regrettably forgot it for the final poll, which I sincerely apologize for! The three-way tie for second place with 4 votes each saw Garden of Bedlam's CD release show and Sneaky Pete's debut finish high like I predicted, but I am surprised that Woods of Ypres' last local show doubled its vote count from the first half-year poll! Increased posthumous praise for the late David Gold, or just a coincidence of who votes? Interesting nonetheless, and it was a great show!

But the winner (like in the first half-year poll), with 6 votes & about 19% of the total, was the Dayglo Abortions-headlined 20th Rosie metal night from last June! Anyone that was there knows how big that show was, and from the talented local openers to the huge and lively crowd, it was proof that The Dayglo Abortions are hardcore punk legends and need to come back to town A.S.A.P.! Hell, I bought a framed print of the poster from this show, so even I know it was a huge event! Thanks to everyone who voted, and cast your votes in our current polls on your left if you wanna, as we're talking all about them in our post later today!

Next up, here's three recent link changes to our "Other Local Metal Links" section (for links with a local metal relevance that aren't in other categories), and all are due to Facebook group/page deletions. One is for the short lived (and possibly never completed) Sault Ontario recording studio Dungeon Studio, which (I think) was ran by ex-Time of Ruin guitarist Mike DiPasquale circa 2008 before he moved to Alberta. Their Facebook group was deleted within the last year, and with no alternate page, I've deleted it from our links, but hopefully we'll hear more from Mike musically at some point! Also, the more recent local recording studio Dimension Studio recently had it's Facebook page deleted, though other pages still exist, including it's website which is now linked here. I hope Brendan hasn't closed up the studio, as his work was pretty good, but I'll keep you posted if I hear anything! Finally, Destroilet/Belmonts drummer Matt Waples' graphic design company Sonigraphix Design Solutions had it's Facebook group deleted recently, but I just replaced it's link with it's still active Facebook page, so keep an eye out for more of Matt's excellent graphic design work! Stay tuned to the SMS for more link updates if we hear of anything that needs a fix!

And finally, here's this week's classic video! With their late addition onto Sunday's Brat Attack-headlined punk concert at The Canadian Nightclub, it made sense to tie in this week's video with local death metal quartet The Valentine's Day Massacre... only anything of theirs is too recent yet. However, frontman Steve Rhodes' other band State of Misery have some older videos still that deserve a wider audience, including this video from their first ever live concert! This comes from just the second Roosevelt Hotel metal night on December 9th, 2010, and it's of State of Misery's original (and current) lineup playing their original songs "Don't Break The Silence" and "Bitch"! Note that the former song is included incomplete, so I left the two songs combined into one video. This was filmed by a concert attendee off of the webcam on frontman Steve Rhodes' laptop (according to Facebook comments on the video), and Steve would post it on Facebook two days later, making it one of the oldest live concert videos of State of Misery in action. The band sounds about as heavy as you'd expect, and their skills are clear, but the audio quality isn't. When the band play, the sound gets very scratchy, which I can't correct in post, but I was able to adjust the video quality itself from what was originally posted on Facebook at http://facebook.com/video/video.php?v=464742236395.

Before uploading, I fixed the mirror effect on the video (I have no idea why it was backwards when uploaded), and I also cropped the dimensions to remove the white support beam on the floor, as it cuts off the far left of the view for most of the video. Hopefully now, it looks better and focuses more on what's essential: State of Misery! NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IS INTENDED!! All credit for this video goes to State of Misery and the original filmer, I'm just trying to share this video with a deserving wider audience! Scratchy audio or not, it's a nice early look at this talented young local band, so give it a look below, and don't miss The Valentine's Day Massacre on Sunday night at The Canadian!



That's all for now, but stay tuned for all of the details on this month's polls later today! Thanks everyone!

Lots Of Assorted News And Notes From The Last While!!

This is our 25th post of the month already, and at this rate, we could approach last month's post record at this rate! Today's post is largely comprised of older stories that got pushed aside in recent weeks, but is well worth discussing! This includes a cool SMS concept logo, the latest from Lion Ride & Beyond The Surface, some new pages, and kicking things off, a new video! Here's what you need to know!

Veteran local musician Phil Temperao has uploaded a solo song onto his YouTube channel! Unlike the older jam session videos that usually featured him and Dennis Porter, this is a solo song that bears little resemblance to the older Meatplow (or whatever they'll be called next) videos. This is just a song named "Rain" under the project name "Sebastien 6". It features Phil on all instruments save for the lead guitar, which is actually provided by his brother Jose (a.k.a. Jose Wailz), who you may recall as Phil's old Amethyst bandmate! Compared to the more aggressive and industrial tinged songs from the full band, "Rain" is a lighter track that is still hard rocking, and shows off Phil's singing range. The guitar work's solid, but the song can be a bit repetitive, and if you prefer the material from the live videos with Dennis contributing, "Rain" may be slightly underwhelming in tone. It's a solid track though, and it's accompanied with some good shots of Phil and outdoor nature pictures. Recorded at Greentown Digital Studios this year, there's apparently more coming from this solo project, so keep an eye out! Check the above links for more, and here's "Rain"!



Next up, here's some long overdue news on young Pickford hard rockers Beyond The Surface. Firstly, they've announced that lead guitarist Eli Reilly is now be their full time singer going forward in addition to playing guitar, replacing Danielle Petingalo in the band's vocalist position. No reasons have been posted for Danielle's departure, but in all fairness, she hasn't been a credited member of the band since before I heard about them, so it just took a while for official confirmation. I don't know how Eli sounds vocally, but he can't sound too bad! With that said, the band have announced their next live gig, which will be part of a "spring concert" at Pickford High School on May 17th with the school band. I don't know enough about it to call it on the SMS yet as a "public concert", but keep it in mind, especially if you live in Pickford or attend Pickford High! They're a promising young band, and I am curious to hear how they sound in their current incarnation! Stay tuned for more updates at their Facebook page, and I'll try to stay more on top of them in the future!

Thirdly, here's a pair of new Facebook pages from some local metal bands! One isn't really "new", but I only discovered it a few weeks ago, so I gotta mention it. Sault Michigan hard rockers Intrepid (one of the many Guitar Studio rock camp bands) have had a Facebook page since August of 2009, and believe it or not, we've never mentioned it here! The page tells us some interesting details on the band from late 2009-2010, including a number of very brief and often ill-detailed statuses about their next shows, which ranged from local bars to talent shows to the Kewadin Festival! I'd have covered these for sure if I knew about them, but many were ambiguous and only hinted towards potential shows or gigs with no listed venue or date. The page also includes a bunch of live photos, though sadly, no concert video footage. Intrepid haven't updated this page since after a December talent show performance, but if you wanna get caught up on Intrepid, click here! The other news is that Sault Michigan classical metal project Theatre of Night have a Facebook page of their own, and though it only features synched news from their primary Reverbnation page, do check it out, as you'll still find out about their latest news!

Fourthly, do you want some new photos? How's about some new Lion Ride photos? Some professional quality photographs from around the time of their local show earlier this month at The Rockstar Bar are now online, including an extensive slideshow from photographer Jesse Nelson on his blog Family Tree Land! Loads of photos from before and after their concert, including the show itself, are included there, which are great quality but sadly unavailable in high resolution on the page itself. To view in larger and better resolution, click here to go straight to the original Flickr feed, you'll thank me later! Look out for cameos by members of some prominent local bands and a band member's mother in the front row, for example! The other photos will be coming soon from prominent local photographer Curt O'Neil, who's done some outstanding past work with Lion Ride concert pictures! This time around, he just did a formal photo shoot with the band, I think their first of this type with the current lineup. Though the fruits of this labour aren't visible yet, Curt did post one preview picture, and it's on your left, but click here for full resolution! Nice work, I can't wait to see more, so stay tuned for when they come online!

Finally, here's a cool little custom item I've been holding onto for a while! If you know me well, you'll know that I enjoy the art of logos, be they for sports, companies, or whatever, and I try to utilize appropriate designs in SMS artwork, logos, and page layouts. I'm not a professional, but I do what I can. That said, Destroilet drummer Matt Waples, who is a VERY talented graphic designer with Sonigraphix Design Solutions, sent me a concept for a new SMS logo last month based around the one we debuted in December. I thought now was a good time to share his work with you guys, as he deserves all the credit in the world for the work he does! I'm a fan of logo concepts on sites like Icethetics, so why not inject some of that here? If I remember correctly, I told Matt that this looked great, but it felt more like a Japanese action movie logo than a metal website logo, not that that's a bad thing. I find the M a bit fat and the flipped second S makes it look like "SMZ", but that aside, it's a damn good concept, and I appreciate Matt going out of his way to make this on his own free will! What do you guys think of it? Feedback is welcome, especially with the work Matt puts in! Check out his portfolio too at this location, outstanding work on logos and posters, and I added Sonigraphix to our Other Local Metal Links too!

That's all for now, but stay tuned for more news and notes very soon! Thanks everyone!