YouTube Channel Profile Series: Rodge MacGodge & Dave Bayles

It's now time for this month's YouTube Channel Profiles, as we again check out randomly selected YouTube channels whose content is at least half devoted to local metal, hard rock, and/or punk artists/concerts! This month, we drew two channels due to the first only having nine very similar uploads, and I'd only want to feature two videos here without getting too repetitive as to the video formatting, so a channel with even less footage was picked to round things out with an extra video. Here's what you should know on both sides of the border!

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Rodge MacGodge (http://youtube.com/@rodgemacgodge)

Owner: Former Swampgut guitarist Rob MacDonald

Channel Timeline: Launched on March 26th, 2011; Videos uploaded from May 2012 through April 2014

Channel Summary: The de facto official YouTube channel for inactive local "shield rock" duo Swampgut, Rob uploaded nine original songs of theirs here during their original run together, some credited as being on their unreleased(?) album "Ghosts Of The Electric Coast". All nine videos are just the songs with a static images or slideshows for accompaniment, often original artwork by singer/drummer Frank McCormick or nature photography

Why You Should Watch: This channel is worth checking out for fans of Swampgut, obviously, but if you weren't familiar with them, you'll find a nicely varied slate of hard rock with psychedlic jam elements, and while it's largely very lo-fi, there is something there! Note that this channel did not see resumed usage during Swampgut's 2020-2021 revival, with all new material recorded during that time being exclusive to their Bandcamp page.

 Our Recommended Videos To Check Out:

Swampgut - As Old As These Hills: Rodge's first, longest, and most viewed video is for their song "As Old As These Hills", an extended hard rock jam featuring him and future Gianni Gagoots singer/drummer Frank McCormick (if other performers guested here, as was common for their reunion era, they aren't credited). Playing along with a slideshow of outdoor pictures by a shoreline, this is a fun number that packs a lot of styles and variance into its 10+ minute runtime, and it'd have played well in concert!

Swampgut - Factory Falls: Visually and sonically, one of the more distinct songs on offer is "Factory Falls", a bluesier number recorded in 2010 about a factory collapsing (you may recognize some local imagery with the slideshow but I don't think it's about a legitimate incident). A slower, more deliberate song that shows off some effectively deep vocals, I won't say that it's better than their more freewheeling jam rock songs, but this song is a good example of Swampgut's range!

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Dave Bayles (http://youtube.com/metalfu)

Owner: Northern Michigan resident Dave Bayles

Channel Timeline: Launched on January 23rd, 2006; Videos uploaded from that day until January 2012

Channel Summary: In between a gag movie trailer and a clip of his cat grooming his dog, Dave uploaded three videos of legendary hard rock band Kiss' outdoor headlining concert at the Sault Michigan Kewadin Casino in July 2007, though unfortunately, all have a runtime of just 30 seconds. One features Paul Stanley smashing his guitar at the end of a song (look at that pyro!), while the two with identifiable songs are "God Of Thunder" and most popularly, their cover of Argent's "God Gave Rock & Roll To You", with an impressive 83.000+ views. The audio quality is not good on any of these clips, but you have to remember that this was 2007 and digital/cell phone cameras were not what they are now. You can find longer and clearer videos from this show elsewhere, but Dave had a good view of Kiss in action, and most commenters were just happy to see footage uploaded from Kiss' first local concert!

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I hope you guys liked this month's YouTube Channel Profiles! This series will return on or around May 26th when our next randomly selected channel will be that of active local punk trio Vanity First! Look for that then, and for more news and notes on the site net week! Thanks everyone!

Defunct Local Band Profile Series: Swampgut

Happy Thanksgiving Day to all of our Canadian readers! Today, we have this month's Defunct Local Band Profile, continuing our monthly spotlight of local metal, hard rock, and/or punk bands who are no longer active, but deserve a modern day spotlight! As usual, bands are randomly selected each month, and this month gives us a wildly varying but firmly locally inspired band that you may recall from two different runs over the past decade, so here's what you should know on them!

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Swampgut

Hometown: Batchewana Bay, Ontario

Genre: "Canadian Shield Rock"

Lineup: (This information may be incomplete, especially regarding their early-mid 2010s run. Let us know if you can fill in any blanks! Advertised guest performers from their 2021 album are not listed)

Frank McCormick (The Rising Tide, Gianni Gagoots), vocals/drums
Rob MacDonald, guitar

Audio/Video: Swampgut's primary surviving media from their comes from their Bandcamp page, where they released their self-titled debut album for $5 in February 2021 and four prior "jam room sessions" demos. From their original run, anything posted on MySpace is definitely unavailable now, but Rob's YouTube channel (as "Rodge MacGodge") features nine original demos with a variance of sound inspirations and eclectic names. Here's one of their heaviest originals, "Red Rock Blood"!

Info/Analysis: Not to be confused with the Sault Michigan-area metal band Swampghas, Swampgut formed circa 2010 and made early noise with their hybrid of funk, psychedelic, and hard rock original songs on MySpace and YouTube, but activity was slower after 2011, and it's unclear if a musician search that year added new permanent members. The band fell inactive circa 2015, before Swampgut was revived in November 2020, getting heavily promoted on on Frank's visual arts Facebook page. This return was short lived but impactful, with their self-titled album release in February 2021 being their final public act before falling inactive. Swampgut's unique blend of genres, strong Northern Ontario geological inspiration, and a loose, experimental approach suited Frank & Rob well, and while vocals were often heavier than the songs called for, don't bypass the funk rock action that Swampgut brought to the table!

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I hope you guys liked this month's Defunct Local Band Profile! This series will return on or around November 10th for a look at another randomly selected local hard rock band, namely 2016 hard rock supergroup Heavy Head. Look for that then and for more news and notes on the site as October rolls along! Thanks everyone!

New Videos From Heavy Lies The Crown, A Surprise Full Concert Upload, And Much More!!

At press time, I haven't heard of any 100% confirmed hard rock concerts in the Twin Saults and area for this weekend, but I will definitely let you guys know either tomorrow or on Friday if anything crosses my radar! In the meantime, today's post features some assorted recent updates, a surprise new full concert video from an artist you may not expect, and leading off, some new videos from a recently prominent local metal band!

St. Ignace, Michigan progressive metal quintet Heavy Lies The Crown posted two new solo playthrough videos onto their YouTube channel in the past week, so what can you see in these? One features guitarist Ted Olson playing "Time Diffuser" (or something else, as he put it) alongside the original recording, and this captures his performance across multiple camera angles. Solid and technically sound as you might expect from this very talented axe-slayer, so check out Ted's well-edited and performed rendition at the above links! Embedded below is singer Brandon West's own solo playthrough (singthrough?) video, this time tackling "A Hell Bound Heart", f.k.a. "Thing #1". Like Ted's video, post-production editing was done to spice things up, including some fade transitions and mirroring, along with the multiple camera angles, but the same basic idea is here, just vocally rather than on guitar.

Again, a solid and well edited performance that may help satiate some demand to see Heavy Lies The Crown live, and it'd be neat to see something similar from the other members of the band go online at some point! Give Brandon's video a look below, and check out more from H.L.T.C. above!

Next up, here's a mild diversion while news is slow: A near-full video of legendary comedy musician "Weird Al" Yankovic's concert at The Dreammakers Theater at the Sault Ste. Marie Kewadin Casino in June 2007! This may seem out of left field for the SMS, but Weird Al has covered hard rock and punk songs multiple times in his long career, some of which are staples of his live setlist. To keep the SMS on relative brand, I'll only link to songs in our genre range here, but kudos to the Weird Al Concerts YouTube channel for posting this on Saturday! Touring in support of his 2006 album "Straight Outta Lynwood", Weird Al's set began with that album's polka medley "Polkarama!", which featured brief yet amusing vocal/accordion covers of the likes of Weezer, The Killers, and Velvet Revolver, while his very first proper song is "Canadian Idiot", his parody of Green Day's "American Idiot".

13 minutes into the 76 minute video, you can see Weird Al perform "It's All About The Pentiums", his parody of the rock remix of Puff Daddy's "It's All About The Benjamins" (the rock remix had Rob Zombie and Dave Grohl on it, so yeah, I can't ignore the inspiration!) Tenth filmed from this set is a 17 minute medley of assorted parodies that weren't performed in full on this tour, which is as good a way as any to witness his wide depth of covers in a short time! Within, he does perform "Bedrock Anthem" (The Red Hot Chili Peppers), "Pretty Fly For A Rabbi" (The Offspring), and "Gump" (The Presidents Of The United States Of America), among other songs. Immediately following, he performs "I'll Sue Ya", a style parody of Rage Against The Machine songs, while the last heavier detour is "Smells Like Nirvana" (parodying "Smells Like Teen Spirit, obviously).

For a 15 year old recording, these videos hold up really well, with the filmer getting solid audio from a near-front row vantage point, so don't let the age of the recording scare you off. Weird Al sounds great in these performances, almost album quality, and his energy and costume changes are excellent. Give the whole concert a watch below, there should be multiple things here for your musical and/or comedy tastes, and click here for SooToday's coverage of Weird Al's local concert proper!

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

 

• I have moved Sault Ontario "shield rock" duo Swampgut to our inactive band links due to a year's inactivity. The band has not issued a public update since releasing their self-titled album on Bandcamp on February 19th of last year, and while their lack of a proper social media page outside of there may not help, singer/drummer Frank McCormick's related visual arts page on Facebook hasn't had an update in longer still. Swampgut was active from 2011-2015 before coming back in late 2020, culminating in the album release, and hopefully this isn't the last we hear from Frank & Rob!
• I have removed inactive local metal band Unbound (a.k.a. With Blood Build Character version 2.0) from our band links due to the quiet deletion of their Facebook (and only surviving online) page at some point in the past year. Successors to State of Misery, Unbound are sadly best known for the passing of their original singer Justin Fratpietro before they could even publically launch in January 2013, and their only concerts took place in Justin's hometown of Thunder Bay in his memory, before falling inactive that spring. Unbound didn't have much luck, but hopefully Ray, Christopher, Kevin, and Nick are doing well nowadays!
• While they have not publically elaborated on the release of their teased EP, local punk quartet Vanity are already back in studio, revealing on their Facebook page yesterday that they were recording a song at Mission Control Studios, complete with photos of the band tracking their parts there. Very cool to see a young band like this already working at Mission Control, and we'll let you know when more comes out on this song and/or the EP!
  

 

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

New Paid & Free Local Album Releases, New Videos, And More!!

We're back with a new news post on this Sunday morning, including a look back at an almost 20 year old cover song from a local band from a major film soundtrack, recent videos from a prominent active band, and leading off, two sudden album releases, one free and one paid! Here's what you should know!

Revived local "shield rock" duo Swampgut have quietly released a proper self-titled debut album! Posted to their Bandcamp page on Friday, this confirms the vague hand-written teasers from vocalist/drummer Frank McCormick's visual arts page, and it features 11 songs, some that were previously available via the Bandcamp "jam room sessions" and elsewhere. The Bandcamp posting clarifies some of Frank & Rob's musical roles, while also confirming related personnel, including former 12 Gauge Ready bassist Dave "Beano" Barrett as a guest on two songs, and Oh!No co-owner Alex Moore as the "non-sinister minister of information". The album was recorded at Spiderpotty Records (I presume that's their home studio) and mixed by AlgomA bandmates Boyd Rendell & Kevin Campbell at 62nd Chamber Productions, who also provided sound effects. Nice to see them at it again!

As Swampgut are a studio-only project, releasing this during the pandemic won't come off as limited, so to speak, but it does appear to be a digital exclusive, with the album running for $5 (or more) in download copies. Yes, you can stream the whole thing for free there as well. It looks like Swampgut are getting their second run going on the right foot, and this is an early front-runner for this month's CD review at the SMS! Buy or stream Swampgut's true debut album above, and stay tuned for more from their camp!

Next up, let's stay in the realm of new album releases (albeit completely free in this case), as prolific local folk punk/metal musician Chase Wigmore has posted another free "album" to his YouTube channel! Basically an EP given it's 20 minute length, this is entitled "Ruins Of Life", and is credited mononymously under his last name. This appears to be one of the acoustic albums that Chase has teased on social media, but don't worry, this is basically an acoustic black metal release, with all of the manic guitarwork and shrieking vocals you could ask for. If you happen to like bands like Impaled Northern Moonforest, you'll be right at home with "Ruins Of Life"! Like his last few "album" releases, this is not for sale, but give Chase's new batch of original tunes a listen for free below!

Also, let's head to Sault Michigan to complete our look at local hard rock band Tarnished's TikTok video uploads so far! As of this writing, nothing new has been uploaded in the past month, though whether this is due to their focusing on recording their single or another factor is not for me to say. In any event, I still cannot get the TikTok video embed code to work on the SMS. On January 12th, frontman Alex Traynor starred in this non-musical video about paying it forward after his car got hit in a minor accident, while two days later, we got to see bassist Josh Fair's dog Barkley having a play date (very cute!) A January 17th slideshow video celebrated Tarnished hitting 200 TikTok followers, and the next day, we got to see their improvised quarantine recording studio in a surprise location, plus a hint from Alex towards something coming up tied into The Mandalorian, details forthcoming.

After a fourth installment of their series "A Note In Review" (with help from Barkley) on the 20th, uploads slowed to a crawl, including a video of Alex & Josh making ice cream (for real) on the 28th, and lastly, a video from February 7th of the guys working on their new single "SDR&R" in studio alongside producer Ryan Nicklas, with Alex playing guitar & drums in the clip. No sign of Nathan in any of these videos, but hopefully Tarnished continue posting entertaining content on TikTok when time and inspiration allows!

Finally, here's another song from local/Toronto indie/punk veterans Treble Charger that was exclusive to a compilation, and was not on one of their five studio albums! Many readers will be familiar with FUBAR, the 2002 Canadian mockumentary film about two metalhead best friends shotgunning beer and dealing with life's highs and lows. Myself, I didn't love the movie, but is has a strong cult following, and it led to a sequel and TV series. The original film had a companion soundtrack CD named "FUBAR: The Album", largely featuring covers of Canadian classic and hard rock bands by contemporary bands, interspersed with short audio clips from the movie. Most of the songs weren't in the film, but the soundtrack was well advertised at the time. Readers may best recall Sum 41 (as Pain For Pleasure) covering Helix's "Rock You", but many familiar bands like Gob and Sloan submitted covers for the CD.

Treble Charger themselves covered April Wine's "Roller", and it's done relatively faithfully to the original, which is a staple of Canadian hard rock in the 1970s, and you go get to see Greig hit some high notes that their originals didn't call for! Nothing too drastic to report otherwise, if you can picture punk-era Treble Charger covering "Roller", then you'll know what you're getting. "FUBAR: The Album" is not on Spotify, but thanks to YouTube user dfbhcf, you can hear their April Wine cover embedded below!

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

LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Tarnished & Tym Morrison), Plus A New Addition To Our Band Links!!

Here's a new news post on this Saturday afternoon, devoted to two topics: SHORT NOTICE LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS as we ease back into live concerts post-lockdown (again), and a long belated addition to our Sault Ontario band links! Here's what you should know!

We have a new-ish band to add to our active local band links, and they are relaunched "shield rock" duo Swampgut! Not to be confused with the defunct Sault Michigan metal band Swampghas, this is the studio project led by former Rising Tide/Gianni Gagoots drummer Frank McCormick and collaborator Rob MacDonald that you may recognize from their initial active run from circa 2011-2015. I will admit, I didn't include Swampgut in our primary coverage in their first run because their music didn't seem to skew towards hard rock, but in listening to their material on Rob's YouTube channel once again, there's enough of a variance there where I probably should have covered them actively then. My belated apologies, so let's make up for lost time! Listed as being from Batchewana Bay, Swampgut describe themselves as blending "many styles including rock, psychedelic, and funk music."

Swampgut don't have a dedicated Facebook page, but Frank has promoted their relaunch on his visual arts page since December. Nine songs (some long, many themed after the Soo region) can be heard on Rob's YouTube channel linked above, while three "jam room sessions" can be heard on their new Bandcamp page, which were uploaded as "albums" with a "name your price" payment option, though given the strong hint Frank made on his Facebook page with this image containing apparent album track listings, there may be more up their sleeves than on a quick glance. Note that the second session featured guest performers "Kev & Boyd" (no last names, but you can infer likely candidates from there.) This may fit in with Frank's post in December hinting that "this time, the Others will be summoned", so are "the Others" guest musicians? Time will tell, but Swampgut are somewhat cagey online with who does what on their songs (I can't find any public mention of instrument roles.)

The music on offer so far from Swampgut has a very varied spread of hard rock and trippier, eclectic elements that can be hard to sum up succintly, but if you liked Frank's work with Gianni Gagoots, or took to old local bands like Sykotyk Rampage, you should find solid entertainment value here. Strong performances, if having somewhat lo-fi recording methods, and I'd be curious to see what Swampgut have in store for their revival! Check out their 10 minutes-long original "As Old As These Hills" below!

Next up, here's some SHORT NOTICE LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS, and now that we're out of the Ontario lockdown, Sault Ontario's first hard rock gig of 2021 will see veteran local guitarist Tym Morrison return to Reggie's Place TOMORROW as their first Sunday matinee performer since re-opening! Apologies for the short notice, this concert was only announced via it's Facebook event page on Monday. After his Motley Market series ended last fall, Tym made his first modern-era appearances at the newly re-opened downtown Reggie's in December with two shows in four days right before the lockdown, including another Sunday matinee. It's great to see Tym back at one of the few concert venues willing to host local music during this screwy time, albeit with obvious social distancing measures in effect, so go check out his hard & classic rock, and covers TOMORROW!

This is a 3:00 PM event with no cover charge and a likely 19+ age limit, but wear your mask and be mindful of Reggie's capacity limits and social distancing measures to keep you and them safe. For what it's worth, I don't expect that this is the start of a weekly engagement for Tym at Reggie's, as their Sunday matinee has always had a rotation of acts, but we'll let you know when Tym does return. See above for more details, and here he is live!

Lastly, Sault Michigan hard rock band Tarnished (minus Nathan) will do an encore of last week's matinee gigs at Crooked Music on Ashmun Street with special weekday matinee performances there on MONDAY & WEDNESDAY! Again, apologies for the short notice, these dates were only announced on their Facebook page on Wednesday, and only in one sentence of that post. Those same days this week saw Alex & Josh bring back their Biggby-era acoustic show to the downtown music store, and they appear to have went well to get re-booked this coming MONDAY & WEDNESDAY, so look for more hard rocking hits from two members of Tarnished then! Like this week, these are 12:30 PM matinees with no age limits or cover charges, but please respect Crooked Music's social distancing measures. See above for more details, and for a preview, here's a new video from this past Wednesday!

Posted to their Facebook page that night, this is of Alex & Josh covering The Scorpions' "Rock You Like A Hurricane", albeit in black & white, and only 44 seconds of the first verse and chorus. Solidly done acoustic version while it lasts, and Alex hits the right vocal notes throughout, so give it a look below, and see much more in colour on MONDAY & WEDNESDAY!

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