Defunct Local Band Profile Series: Halfway Loaded

It's now time for this month's Defunct Local Band Profile, again letting us spotlight a randomly selected local metal, hard rock, or punk band from the past and all of their publically known accomplishments therein! This month's band didn't get too far off the ground despite a lot of promising videos, but their existence did portend bigger things for their singer and lead guitarist, so here's what you should know on them!

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Halfway Loaded

Hometown: Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario

Genre: Hard Rock

Lineup:

Justin Grayson (Fort Creek, Tattoos & Scars), vocals
Shane Biron (Fort Creek, Tattoos & Scars), guitar
Ryan Mazzapica, guitar
Jesse Gottwald, bass
Dylan Newman (Mustang Sally), drums

Audio/Video: While Halfway Loaded never played a true public concert, they had a surprising amount of rehearsal and jam session videos online. Their Facebook page has over a dozen performance videos, including some acoustic videos of Justin & Shane foreshadowing their later work in Tattoos & Scars, while a handful of acoustic covers with them and Ryan also made their way to Shane's YouTube channel (later re-appropriated for Tattoos & Scars). Bands like Thriving Ivory, Slipknot, Oasis, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Saving Abel, Pop Evil, and Seven Mary Three were covered on video, but here's the full band covering The Stone Temple Pilots' "Plush"!

Info/Analysis: Publically launching in November 2016 under the name Too Far Gone, Halfway Loaded were seen at a handful of open mic nights at Coch's Corner in late 2016 but otherwise made their brief presence known from their aforementioned rehearsal and jam videos, not helped by their members largely being unfamiliar from past local bands at the time. After playing a private event in June 2017, their announced a planned name change to The Twin City Saints in August, but that never visibly went through. The band continued posting cover videos and photos of their gear through January 2018, but updates largely ceased afterwards, with the band citing life & work commitments for their lack of posts that October, and further postings were only made to promote Justin & Shane's new acoustic side project Tattoos & Scars and their brand new southern hard rock group Fort Creek in mid-2019.

While the pandemic delayed Fort Creek's debut as a public act until 2021, they have superceded Halfway Loaded in every way, and it's great to see that Justin & Shane finally got a live band off the ground! Halfway Loaded were certainly less southern rock-based than Fort Creek, but the similarities are obviously there, and while Justin & Shane now have more recognizable bandmates, Ryan, Jesse, and Dylan were talented components of the earlier group, who had a good and melodic handle on modern hard rock, and would have been an asset on local stages in the late 2010s! Follow Fort Creek and the recently relaunched Tattoos & Scars to see what Justin & Shane are up to nowadays!

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I hope you guys liked this month's Defunct Local Band Profile! This series will return on or around October 10th, and we have quite a big band to be randomly selected for next time, namely local acid jam/power pop/hard rock trio The Din! Look for that next month, and stay tuned for more news and notes on the site tomorrow! Thanks everyone!

A New Video From Mike Haggith & Much More Recent News & Notes!!

(Updated at 6:12 PM) Before we begin, I wanted to give our belated condolences to the family & friends of Soo Profile Magazine founder and publisher James Mancuso, who passed away on August 20th of last year at the age of 58. You can read his obituary at this link, as well as The Sault Star's article about him, and he was survived by his wife Pon, his mother, two brothers, and other extended family. The Soo Profile was published from July 2009 until July 2019, and was available to read for free at various local businesses. Covering local history and culture in a way other publications weren't doing in the 2010s (especially post-Townies), the magazine occasionally intersected with The Sault Metal Scene, notably via late 2010s cover stories on local musicians like Greg Simpson, Ric Datson, and Tammy Hill. In it's early years, I even sent in concert listings for them to include in issues, for which I thank James for the early exposure!

Beyond the Soo Profile, James lived a full life, including a stint as an English & art teacher in Taiwan, establishing the Mancuso School of Fine Arts locally, and working in news video production in Halifax. Sadly, The Soo Profile has not continued production under a new publisher, and their website's domain name has expired, but you can still see covers and issue fragments from their decade-long run on their Facebook page. I didn't know James well, but he was a kind and talented person in multiple avenues, and he is definitely missed by those that met and worked with him. R.I.P. James!

Now, today's post features new videos from two familiar sights & some more news, but we'll start with local/Thompson, Manitoba solo musician Mike Haggith's fourth #LockdownLive after-show, which live-streamed on his Facebook page on Sunday night! As teased in this video to promote what to expect for this episode, the 33 minute video starts with us meeting Mike's cat Artemis, before discussing what went down in #LockdownLive X the previous day, and addressing the share contest where whoever shared yesterday's live-stream the most would pick a song that Mike has to cover on #LockdownLive XI on Saturday. This time, the video was shared 593 times, and the winner with 181 shares was Re:Born frontwoman Elly McWatters for a second straight week! Mike called her to announce the winner again, and she nominated "Sugar Daddy" from the musical Hedwig & The Angry Inch, specifically mentioning the Neil Patrick Harris version at the Tony Awards.

The amusing discussion about how Mike will approach this cover is worth a listen alone, so we'll have to see how things look on Saturday! Mike also lets Elly pick a song from "If Ever Comes The Day" to perform to help end the video, and she chose "Take Back The Moon", but commenters also requested "2145", so he ended up playing both, before wrapping the video and teasing the next #LockdownLive and possible changes to the share contest. Entertaining and informative video all around, so give it a look below, and stay tuned #LockdownLive XI on Saturday night!



Speaking of Re:Born, I was contacted via e-mail recently by that band's original lead singer Robert Nevitt, asking if I'd be interested in featuring some recent videos that he's posted on his personal Facebook page. These haven't been publically shared elsewhere, but as Robert asked, that's appropriate consent to feature them here! Since we last saw him on stage with the now defunct Big Mistake (their Facebook page was taken down, in any event), he has posted three videos of him covering songs for 45+ minutes, karaoke style, which you can watch here, here, and embedded below. I won't give these a blow-by-blow recap given how they were uploaded, but it's great to see Robert staying busy and keeping his solid vocals sharp! In the video below, you can hear him cover The Tragically Hip, The Barenaked Ladies, Rehab, Otis Redding, The Isley Brothers, Elvis Presley, Seven Mary Three, AC/DC, and Lynyrd Skynyrd, among many others there and above.

Unless you saw one of his few live appearances with his old bands or at The Soo's Got Talent 2018, you may not be familiar with his vocal style, but he has a nice melodic tone and good grit when need be, and he definitely has a diverse range of material that he can do, so his karaoke videos at home are definitely worth checking out above and below!



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

• Sault Michigan hard rock band Tarnished did not play a live-streamed concert on Facebook at all last week due to Alex and Josh moving their at-home live-stream setup to their regular recording studio, as per their Facebook page on Thursday. They plan to announce more details this week, which will reportedly involve full-band live-streams of some kind, so if you've been curious to see Nathan and Gary take part too, keep the above information in mind!
• I have deleted local recording sudio Scholomance Studio from our "Other Sault Michigan Metal Links" due to the closure of it's Facebook group, and there are no equivalent pages to replace it with. Launched by Werehold Records founder Jason Mills back in 2014 towards releases by label acts, the studio was primarily active through 2015, and was one of the presumed casualties of Werehold's closure in 2018. Look for new music from Jason in his current project X's & Y's soon, hopefully!
• I have deleted Sault Ontario live event sound company Twin City Sound & Entertainment from our "Other Sault Ontario Metal Links" section due to the deletion of their Facebook (and only online) page. Led by then-Mourning Wood bandmates Terry Eaton & Steven Flint, Twin City Sound worked assorted concerts from at 2014-2016, including the 2016 Speak Easy Battle of the Bands, but updates were slim to none in the late 2010s, even before Steven left Soundcheck. Hopefully we hear more from both guys soon! 

That's all for today, but stay tuned for this month's Defunct Local Band Profile on the site tomorrow! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Peril), New Videos, And More Updates!!

It's time for another new news post for your Monday afternoon, so what's in this post? Fallout from a recent event with some hard rock representation, new videos from each side of the border, and to lead off, LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS concerning a pair of rescheduled dates in the E.U.P., so without any further adieu, here's what you should know!

Traverse City, Michigan classic metal trio Peril will return to The Rapids Lounge at the Sault Michigan Kewadin Casino for shows on Friday, August 31st and Saturday, September 1st! The shows were announced on Friday in a comment reply on Peril's Facebook page, and are not on Kewadin's entertainment page at press time. This fan favourite group will be making their first appearances at the Soo Kewadin branch in just over a month, but these shows actually appear to be re-schedulings, as they were announced in the comment thread for the cancellation of this past Friday & Saturday's shows there! We covered them on the site when first announced, but I admittedly forgot to note their cancellation (due to unspecified "scheduling conflicts") during last week's concert previews, which I do apologize for. That said, the shows will take place in four months' time on their new dates, so don't miss Peril at the turn of September! Expect 9:00 PM start times, 21+ age limits, and no cover charge. See the above links for more details!

Next up, here's some new videos, starting with a clip from Sault Ontario/St. Catharine's grindcore trio Shit Liver's current Hitting the Fan tour of Canada, as posted to their Facebook page on Sunday! Filmed while on the road to Winnipeg (where they play tonight), this 20 second video features frontman Josh Penno reflecting on how good it is to be back on tour, before the guys abruptly revive a bridge-crossing tradition that you may recall from their prior national tour run. I won't spoil it, but it's a fun shock to the system, so check it out below, and stay tuned for more!



Also today, here's a new video from Sault Michigan classical metal project Theatre of Night's Facebook page, as shared from keyboardist Craig Harrison's personal Facebook page yesterday! Described as a "late night jam session", this features guitarist Steve Giles and an uncredited bassist and drummer in the midst of an instrumental performance (Craig isn't visibly playing, as he filmed the video.) The drummer looks like Erik Sales from their Christmas tour, but the bassist definitely isn't Scott Andringa. In any event, the performance is solid, and might this be leading to more live band work from Theatre of Night? Give it a look below!

Finally, I wanted to acknowledge some recent press coverage on the first annual Twin City Tattoo Convention at The Tech's gymnasium on Saturday night, which as you may recall, featured local hard rock singer/guitarist Tym Morrison as one of the musical performers! While we did cover this on the site when first announced last month, I forgot to include it with our previews of this past weekend's shows of Tym's, which I profusely apologize for. I guarantee this won't happen next year if there's hard rock acts playing at year #2! In fact, Tym was the only musical performer from this weekend photographed for Riley Smith's Sault Online article on the convention, and you'll get a nice write-up on the convention, it's motivations and aims, and what was seen and expected across the weekend. SooToday's Darren Taylor was also on hand with photos of his own, and while Bearded Lounge frontman Greg Simpson is pictured (with ink) in one shot, no musical performance pictures made the cut.

It looks like the Twin City Tattoo Convention was a hit for it's debut installment, and while I myself don't have any tattoos at present, there are some great designs and artists out there that deserve the attention, so hopefully this comes back in 2019! Maybe a local comic book convention isn't too far off now? That's all for today, but stay tuned for this month's Defunct Local Band Profile tomorrow! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Id Iota & Tym Morrison), Oh!No Concert Festival Updates, And More!!

Here's another new news post to check out on this Tuesday afternoon, so what's on tap? Some shorter assorted stories from recent days, a video remembering and hyping up past and future installments of a concert festival, and LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS for the spring, but we'll start with one on SHORT NOTICE and a related apology!

Former Caveman Morrison frontman Tym Morrison will return to Mark's Breakfast Plus for a special matinee concert TONIGHT, after previously playing there yesterday! Profuse apologies for the short notice (and for missing last night's concert), Tym only announced them via his personal Facebook page yesterday at supper time, with a Facebook event page that listed the shows as being on February 12th and 13th being taken down after the fact. These will "mark" Tym's first shows at the Market Mall restaurant since the end of February, and if you're up for some skilled (if late notice) acoustic hard rock classics, be at Marks TONIGHT! While we're in the business, Tym will also bring his acoustic solo act to The Tech on Saturday, April 7th for an afternoon set during the first annual Twin City Tattoo Convention, which will definitely be a unique showcase for his material! Tym will be playing before acoustic country duo The Bearded Lounge and blues veterans The Swamp Cats that day.

TONIGHT'S (and yesterday's) Mark's shows are 6:00 PM matinees with no announced cover charges or age limits, but mind the locale, while the Twin City Tattoo Convention may or may not have age limits and cover charges, so check the above links for full details therein. Time-wise, he's on at 12:30 PM, with The Stray Cats at 3:00 PM and The Bearded Lounge headlining at 6:00 PM. Whether you want some imminent supper-time music or want to rock out amongst local inked brethren, Tym's staying busy! Don't miss out, here's Tym live, and apologies again for missing last night's Mark's gig! We'd have plugged it here had it received advance notice!



Next up, here's a couple of new shows regarding local alternative hard/indie rock quartet Id Iota, who will make their long awaited return to the local stage for the first time since May at three upcoming shows this spring! To start, the guys will join drone rock trio Pointless for a joint concert at LopLops Lounge on Friday, March 30th, in what will be the Soo debut of Id Iota's still-unrevealed new bassist, as well as an early live appearance for Pointless with Id Iota's own Dustin Goodall on bass in place of the relocated Jordan Leach. Nice to see both bands back on stage, and this should be an interesting style contrast at LopLops at month's end! If you can't be at that show, both bands will also join forces at the same venue on Saturday, May 19th when they open for Sudbury garage rock trio The Almighty Rhombus, whose contemporary and lively sound is well suited to the venue, and they should attract an audience along with the locals in May as well!

For the former, a $5 cover charge, 19+ age limit, and 9:00 PM start time are in effect, and while online advertising for the latter has not commenced, I imagine all three will translate to that show except for maybe a higher cover. Id Iota have been busy in studio since last year working on their first full length album, and have teased that we may see it this year finally, but look for originals from it and some surprise covers at these two shows, and remember, Pointless are fronted by Bill Priddle of Treble Charger fame! Visit the March 30th gig's Facebook event page and above for more details, and stay tuned for more from Id Iota!

Next up, here's a retrospective video from/teaser for the Oh!No Music Festival in nearby Leeburn, Ontario, courtesy of co-promoter/AlgomA drummer Jamie Vincent's YouTube channel yesterday! The 2 minute clip features high quality footage from the Robbie's Church-held festival from Six, Two, Oh., as set to "The Sweat of a Hero" by Sudbury punk trio Lightmares (who were on last year's bill), though to my knowledge, the full footage from the cameras used here, let alone with original audio, isn't publically viewable yet. In this video, you'll see performance footage of every single band or solo act that played last year (even DJ Seith), and it's well edited, letting us see everything without giving much away! The video's end implies that the Oh!No Festival will return to Leeburn on Friday, September 8th, and while I don't think the logo at the end is anything more than a new Oh!No logo, there are more questions. Who's playing this year? Will it be at the church again? Will the ground rules change? Keep tabs for more details, and look back on last year below!



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

• In a post on their Facebook page yesterday, The Canadian Nightclub indicated that they were looking for bands to play at the venue and upstairs at The Upper Deck Lounge (adding "WE PAY! YOU PLAY!"), as well as a mention that they are "looking at hosting a battle of the bands in the near future" with "great prizes". It'd be great to see a new battle there, not to mention more bands playing regularly at this fan favourite venue, so see above to inquire on how to play at The Canadian in either setting!
• Local punk/metal quintet Jack Spades and sister punk trio Stegadeth will both be heading out to Meyersburg for this year's Spiderfest on Saturday, July 14th! Both bands will be playing on night 2 of the annual punk/extreme metal festival, where they'll open for such past local performers as The Ripcordz, Random Killing, and The Union Thugs. Jack Spades have spoken very highly of the Spiderfest experience in the past, and here's hoping both bands deliver a knockout blow again this summer!
• Former That's Chester drummer Ric Datson (now of Bone Yard & Mojo fame) is featured in the cover story of the new issue of The Soo Profile Magazine, featuring interview remarks from him and an outline of his musical, professional, and charitable endeavours. Very entertaining interview that paints a quality picture of Ric in varying facets, and it's well worth a read at the above links and/or at participating local merchants!

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

The Next Local Battle Of The Bands, Plus One More Toystock Video!!

In our second post of the day, we're mostly focusing on a big event taking place early next year, but we also have one final video from another recent multi-band event to close things out. Give everything a look below, and also check out the first of this weekend's Sault Ontario concert previews in the post below this one!

For the first time in over a year, Sault Ontario will see a full battle of the bands on Friday, February 20th at The Rednecks Saloon! Hosted by new local sound company Twin City Sound, this will be the first formal battle of the bands (Soo Band Roulette aside) since November 2013's Viva La Battle, so if you've missed this sort of event, you'll want to take note! Promoters have revealed that the battle will take place at 8:00 PM on February 20th, and it will feature 10 bands, which would be the largest one day battle in recent memory if that holds up, but spots to compete are available on a first come, first serve basis with no holds, so if you or your band want in, message promoters Steven Flint & Terry Eaton through the Facebook event page A.S.A.P.! To sum up the criteria, each band will have a 25 minute set, and there will be house instruments supplied for bands to use (to ensure a level playing field), though individual requests can be made if you want something more personal.

The first battle of the bands to feature a panel of judges since the Rockstar Bar Battle in April 2013, they'll be judging bands based on their enthusiasm, crowd engagement & response, originality, and skill of the band's members, and while original songs are not mandatory, making covers your own will play into the scores. The judges will be Midway frontman Paul Leclair (who you may also know as the president of the local chapter of the American Federation of Musicians union), battle co-promoter Terry Eaton (also well known from his work with Asylum Country & Mourning Wood), and.... yours truly, making this the third battle of the bands that I've had the privilege of being a judge for. As such, expect our coverage of this battle to once again be impartial to all competing bands, and I will not play favourites! An unspecified cash prize awaits this battle's winning band, and though more specific prize details have yet to be announced, we'll let you know when more is publicized on that front!

Signed up bands will have to pay a $100 registration fee to compete at the battle, but like at 2013's Rockstar Bar Battle, bands will get 10 tickets to sell for the event on February 20th, and as each ticket costs $10, you'll make your money back if you sell all 10 of the tickets! That will be the likely cover charge for the battle as well, and as The Rednecks Saloon is a bar, this will be a 19+ event. As for what bands you can expect to see, the field's wide open (especially given the gap between battles over the past year+), but local grunge/hard rock favourites Haggith have already shown visible interest in hopping aboard. All we can really say otherwise at this point is that bands affiliated with Twin City Sound and/or the judges won't be playing, but given the talent in this city, a full field of 10 bands should be easy to attain! In case you're wondering, there is another battle of the bands coming in March, and we'll address that on the site tomorrow, so stay tuned for that as well!

For full details, including complete information on the battle of the bands' rules,. sign-up criteria, and more, click here, and apply A.S.A.P. to ensure you or your band are among the 10 competing bands come February 20th! I'm excited to be a part of another battle of the bands, and even if I wasn't judging, it's been far too long for a new battle in Sault Ontario (especially following the cancelled Rock For Dimes battle), so be sure to stay tuned for updates on the first 2015 battle of the bands in the city in over the next 2 months! SIGN UP NOW, BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE, and stay tuned for news on the March battle TOMORROW!

We'll close this post with the last of the known public Toystock videos, courtesy of Mike Case's Junior All Stars, who did cover Joan Jett's "I Love Rock & Roll" last month in their set! The student youth band was filmed for their entire set by YouTube user dtwalker79, whose daughter Hannah is one of the band's singer/guitarists. He also filmed Mike Case's student bands at other recent events such as Toystock 2013 and Rotaryfest, and I'll look through those videos in the coming days too so we can see if they have any hard rock covers in those! Filmed at a generally stationary camera angle (though it switches to a closer view of the lead vocalists for the last 9 minutes), the lighting here isn't much and only lights up a few members very well, but the audio's solid! The Joan Jett cover is 18:29 into the video, and in order, the All Stars also covered songs by Hot Chelle Rae, One Direction, Icona Pop, Serena Ryder, Katy Perry, Miranda Lambert, and Bob Dylan.

Mike Case's Junior All-Stars are developing their musical talents and live stage experience well, and it's great to see them have a successful set for a second straight Toystock, though I concede that most of their cover selections aren't my thing. It will be interesting to see where the kids go from here, but for now, here's their complete Toystock 2014 set at The Canadian last month, and we'll let you know if dtwalker79 has any other hard rock covers!



That's all for now, but stay tuned for Sault Michigan weekend concert previews and full current details on March's battle of the bands TOMORROW! Thanks everyone!

VM Radio's Pilot Stream Info, Plus More Recent Updates!!

With a new week in full swing, there's news and notes to touch on now that we're fully out of the Halloween weekend, and hopefully everyone had a fun time seeing The Brains last night! Today, we have plenty of assorted recent updates, and first, your first chance to sample a new network of regional radio stations, so here's what you need to know!

SooToday parent company Village Media's new digital radio network VM Radio is now in it's pre-launch pilot phase, so we can now check out samples of each! Though originally planned for a September debut with 3 stations, it's better late than never, especially as there's actually 5 feeds, so what's available to check out? SMS readers will likely be most interested in VM Rocks, whose description says will feature modern rock, alternative, metal, and classic rock, citing bands like Gob, Seether, The Black Keys, and locals Garden of Bedlam & Jack Spades among it's playlist, so click above to hear the current stream! The other four stations include the previously announced VM Roots (for folk, roots, and blues rock), and in lieu of the originally hyped "Mix" station, VM Bounce (for hip-hop, dance, and club music), VM Indie (for indie, pop, and electronic music), and VM Y'All (for country music.) All streams are available to check out right now with less commercials than on terrestrial radio, but a full launch involving news and weather broadcasts is expected for later this week.

The idea of a full new network of local internet radio stations is a sound one, especially as Sault Ontario only has Country 104 and Kiss 105 for locally produced FM stations (and even with Sault Michigan stations, there aren't any FM indie or roots stations here.) Also, with Energy Rock Radio moving out west a few years ago, it's nice to have a full local internet radio presence based out of here again! For my own experience checking out the pilot streams of the stations, I've had no problems with the audio quality or speed of the playback, though the player's own page is very plain looking. For potential listeners of VM Rocks, today's rotation included artists like Big Wreck, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Steely Dan, Crash Karma, and ZZ Top, so it will cover a wide gamut of rock genres, with lots of Canadian content! That said, plans for potential programs or genre blocks with live DJs haven't been publicized yet, so I can't say with certainty if metal or punk fans will get a dedicated show on VM Rocks, but it'd be cool to see!

I'm very curious to see where VM Radio (and VM Rocks) go from here, including on if there will be other ways you can listen (i.e. through TuneIn Radio), so stay tuned for more updates on the full launch as they are made, be sure to check out all of the stations at the above links, and VM Rocks is now in our Sault Ontario internet radio/podcast links!

Finally for today, here's _ shorter assorted recent news items from the last few days, and as usual, these are in alphabetical order by artist, website, or company name:

• Local concert promoters Oh! Right Arm! Promotions have launched a sister promotional company named GFC Promotions that will specialize in shows outside of Sault Ste. Marie, specifically in Garden River like next August's Das Bunkerfest II, related private house parties, and perhaps future attempts at Echo Bay concerts? No word what "GFC" stands for, but like them above, and GFC Promotions are now in our "Other Local Metal Links"!
• In his latest local band search posting on the Musicians Wanted Facebook group on October 30th, local bassist Jordan Leach is now looking for a singer, guitarist(s), and drummer for a horror punk band he's launching, though "other interesting instruments" are also welcome. The band would mostly play originals with some covers. With Frigtlight's demise, there is a horror punk void now, so hopefully this takes off, and message Jordan at this link or above for more details!
• On his solo Facebook page on October 15th, Haggith drummer Mike Haggith revealed the tentative setlist for his upcoming 49th studio album "The Warinside", and while most of the 10 songs are new, the CD will apparently include a re-recording of his 2009 song "Lay My Body Down To Rest" (which Mike and The Din have played live recently.) Intriguing titles, so stay tuned for updates on this and his other upcoming solo plans!
• Though not a formal review of the show, a new SooToday article from Donna Hopper on Halloween costumes and parties in the Soo from this past Friday does feature photos of Frightlight's headlining set at The Algonquin Pub during frontman Johnny Pints' annual Halloween party (in colour too!), and they're excellent as usual, so click here to see them and all of the great costumes from Halloween 2014 at four different downtown bars!
• In the first finite info regarding this year's third annual Toystock fundraiser concert, promoters Maxx Entertainment revealed on their Facebook page yesterday that the event is still slated for Sunday, November 30th at The Canadian Nightclub, will feature 10 live bands once again for a roughly 10 hour duration, admission will be via a toy or food donation (money is accepted too), while the band lineup will be revealed shortly. Great to see Toystock back once again, and stay tuned for confirmation of this year's bands!
• Sault Band-O-Rama promoters, Mourning Wood bandmates, and local metal band alums Terry Eaton & Steven Flint have launched a new live event sound company named Twin City Sound that are available to book for various types of events, presumably including concerts (like Sault Band-O-Rama at the Primavera Hall on November 21st.) Though the "Twin City" name implies that they'll cover Sault Michigan too, nothing is explicitly stated regarding cross-border bookings. This should be interesting, and Twin City Sound are now in our "Other" links section!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and updates as November rolls along! Thanks everyone!