LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Spun), Soundcheck Concert Preview, And More News & Notes

Here's our final news post of the year, so what will you find here? Big updates from a local punk band, some assorted recent news and notes, and a preview of the final hard rock show in the Soo this year, but first, here's LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS for next month!

Marquette hard rock cover quartet Spun will make their way to Sault Michigan for the first times in 2018 when they hit The Satisfied Frog again on Friday, January 26th & Saturday, January 27th! After a busy first year for the Nudge. successors both here and out west, Spun will be making their first Soo stops since rocking the same venue two weeks ago. This talented outfit have already became fast favourites for Frog patrons in the past year, and hopefully next month's shows are the first of many there for Spun in the new year! As usual for their local gigs, these concerts will take place at 9:00 PM both nights, you must be at least 21 years old to attend, and there are no announced cover charges. Spun' hard rock covers should be a great way to warm up next month, so keep these in mind for in four weeks' time, and visit the official Facebook event page for more details!

Next up, here's (surprisingly) our only hard rock concert preview for New Year's Eve, making this our last preview of 2017, as Sault Ontario classic/hard rock cover quartet Soundcheck will cap the year by headlining at The Esquire Club for their New Year's Party TONIGHT! This will be the Mourning Wood successors' first show at this west end venue in about a month and a half, and will also be the second time that they've played a New Year's Eve bash, doing the same at The Rednecks Saloon last year under their original moniker Nameus. (FYI, Obsession played The Esquire Club last year.) Given that this is a New Year's bash, expect frills like extra food and drink items and party favours and the like, as bars often go all out to ring in a new year, so mind that when you notice that the admission fee is $20. However, Soundcheck noted on their Facebook event page that admission includes your ride back home, and while I don't know specifics of that promotion, it's nice for those that need it after a night of partying!

As you might expect, this is a 19+ concert and a 9:30 PM start time is advertised. This should be a fun concert to end the year with, especially as it's your best bet for a hard rock show tonight in the area, so check the above links for more details, and hopefully some public videos of theirs turn up!

Also today, here's the latest from local punk rockers Redundant, who have been very quiet since their set-turned-solo performance at Rock 4 Autism in May, so what's new to report from their camp? First, they're expanding to a quartet, as they announced the addition of guitarist Yannick Casavant to their lineup via their Facebook page on Christmas Eve. I'm not overly familiar with Yannick musically, but I believe that he has band experience going way back, and hopefully he fits in nicely with Justin and the White brothers going forward! His local debut with Redundant is to be confirmed, but the guys made a huge announcement on Facebook the next day, as they've apparently been added to the lineup for the Vans Warped Tour's final stop in Toronto on July 17th! If The Rising Tide can play the long running punk festival tour, why not Redundant? I haven't seen a formal lineup announcement yet, but this will be a huge opportunity for the guys, and hopefully we hear much more from Redundant in 2018!

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

• I have unfortunately deleted Eclipse frontman Curtis McKenzie's solo project from our active band links due to it's Facebook page being taken down at some point in the past few months, and I don't believe there is an alternate page elsewhere. This seems to imply that Curt has shuttered his 2017 solo activity, which is very disappointing, as his shows at The Vape Escape and elsewhere seemed to be going well! Hopefully we see him back out there (with or without Eclipse) in the near future!
• A benefit concert has been announced to help local resident Joni Radford's battle with breast cancer, which will take place on Saturday, January 13th at The Canadian Nightclub. While a performer lineup hasn't been announced at press time, Jack Spades frontman J.D. Pearce commented on the Facebook event page that they have a "couple (of) rad bands so far." Stay tuned for updates on this benefit when bands are publically confirmed for it, and our best wishes are with Joni at this difficult time!
• In an addendum to the drumkit dive incident during Stegadeth's set at the Guy Thiffault Memorial Concert on Wednesday, Live705's Facebook page has shared the multi-camera video of what happened, as filmed by Id Iota's Christian Lemay, presumably for future Shaw TV content. I won't embed the video here out of respect to the nature of what happened and to not single out anyone publically any more than social media already has, but Live705 have indicated that Case's Music and the person responsible have stepped up to help reimburse or replace broken gear. Hopefully things will move forward and upward into 2018!

That's all for now, but stay tuned for our retrospective post on everything that went down in the local metal, hard rock, and punk scenes in 2017 later today! Thanks everyone!

Local Punk Video Showcase (Part 3)

After forgetting to get another one of these up last week (my sincere apologies for that), here's our third local punk video showcase post, as we continue to get up to speed regarding archived punk concert and band videos on YouTube! Remember, we're only featuring videos from channels with less than 50% SMS-relevant content, to save larger channels for our formal YouTube Channel Profiles. Now, here's some more interesting punk videos from local shows and talent!

We'll start with one of a few assorted local punk videos from the channel of YouTube user Jamie Penno, whose uploads largely aren't of local shows, but he still has some interesting content from the mid-2000s! This video is of the defunct local indie/punk quartet Bondar playing their song "6 Hours" at their debut concert at The Speak Easy at Algoma University in August 2006 (as advertised in this SooToday article at the time), and though the visual quality is not good at all, you do get some good music! Amusingly described as featuring three men (future Lion Ride bandmates Marco Pedalino, Mark Rand, and Marc Muto) and a Guy (Thiffault, ex-Nebraska Arms), Bondar didn't last too long locally, but if this video is any indication, they had an upbeat and lively sound that would be reminiscent of Guy's later band work especially! The audio is muffled though, and the video itself is extremely blurry and dark, so you don't see much. It'd be interesting to hear more from Bondar (especially given that their MySpace page has long since been deleted), but give this video a look!

Next, here's a music video from local/Toronto indie punk favourites Treble Charger, that being for "Hundred Million", the first single for their last CD to date, 2002's "Detox"! Memorably featuring in-video cameos by Avril Lavigne and members of Sum 41 and the Swollen Members, this song/video topped MuchMusic's Countdown that October and won two MuchMusic Video Awards the next year. It's definitely more indicative of the punk sound that the band had in the last years of their original run, and I admit that I prefer Treble Charger's punk songs (partially because they're what I heard moreso when I was getting more into aggressive songs), so I really dug "Hundred Million" at the time! The video's energy and attitude lives up to that, but I will give an advisory warning though, as Gob frontman/current Sum 41 guitarist Tom Thacker does moon the camera near the end of the video. Multiple channels have copies of this video, but here's the largest of them, and look for more Treble Charger videos in this series to come!



Moving back to prolific local punk musician Mikey Hawdon's extensive YouTube channel, let's take a first look at one of his earliest local bands, that being the late-1990s punk trio Tha Bombed Squad! (Yes, "The" is spelled like that on each video.) In January 2008, Mikey posted no less than 16 videos of this band in action from assorted concerts between the summers of 1997 & 1998, all among his first uploads there. Featuring Mikey on drums alongside future Lion Ride/Detroit bandmate Brenton Ellis on vocals & bass, and guitatist Pat Suriano, you guys may also remember Tha Bombed Squad from their appearance on the 1998 compilation CD "Local Steel". The videos include five from a March 1998 show at the old Union Hall (now The Grand Gardens), four from a July 1997 show at The Ramada Inn (now Comfort Suites), three each from a June 1998 show at the original Bay Street Foggy Notions and at an undated jam session, and a cover of The Descendents' "Coolidge" at the Roberta Bondar Pavilion in August 1997.

Including covers of everyone from NOFX to Unwritten Law (along with assorted originals like "Two Four"), the video quality on these is obviously not great (coming from a late 1990s camcorder), but the filmer(s?) got good angles of the band in action, and the concerts seem to have great crowds for their upbeat skate punk sound! Not as refined as members' later bands, but this was over 15 years ago, things have only improved with age. Search Mikey's channel linked above (or scroll right to the bottom of the videos tab) to see Tha Bombed Squad in their heyday, and here's the guys covering The Descendants (followed by their original "Wasted") at Foggy's in 1998!



Finally for this punk video showcase is this short live clip of local/Toronto Celtic punk quartet Dustin Jones & The Rising Tide live in Scranton, Pennsylvania in July 2012 during a stop on that year's Vans Warped Tour! Awesome to see the guys making fans in the U.S., including YouTube user 4kidneys, who shot this 58 second video of the guys playing the end of their song "Molly Malloy", and despite the length, it's a solid video of this entertaining Celtic-flavoured original! It's just a shame it's not longer. Give it a look below, and remember not to miss The Rising Tide's return in December!



That's all for now, but stay tuned for weekend concert previews in the coming days! Thanks everyone!

Destroilet, Music Depot, And Woods Of Ypres News, Plus This Week's Classic Video!!

The news keeps rolling in, and we have some interesting stuff to share today, but first, here's what to look out for through the weekend! Tomorrow, we'll preview this weekend's metal/hard rock concerts, and on Saturday, we announce the winners of the first four March Mayhem 1st round matchups and launch the next four for you to vote on, and by the day (maybe earlier), we'll unveil our next CD review! Now though, here's today's news!

A third local band are trying to qualify for an Ernie Ball Battle of the Bands slot on this year's Vans Warped Tour, and it's old school hardcore quintet Destroilet! As in the campaigns for Frightlight & Garden of Bedlam, Destroilet also want to earn enough votes to qualify for a slot on an upcoming Canadian Warped Tour event, where they can compete against other bands for big prizes, but there's one big difference: They don't want to play the Warped Tour's stop in Mississauga, which is what Frightlight & Garden of Bedlam are going for. Instead, Destroilet are hoping to make it on the July 16th stop in Montreal at Parc-Jean Drapeau! Why? I'm not sure, especially given that the field of bands is larger and have more votes, but maybe Destroilet didn't want to compete with the other local acts. Still, Destroilet on the Warped Tour anywhere would be awesome, so vote for them today! Click here to vote, and if you haven't registered for a Battle of the Bands account yet, do so, it won't kill you or cost you a cent. They only have 13 votes, come on guys, help them out! They deserve it, especially with their raised profile of recent months! Vote today, and for reference sake, Firefox 4 DOES allow the media player on Battle of the Bands pages to work, so you can check out "End Me" and "H.D.M." no matter what!

Next up, here's an odd question: Have you ever found a brand new video of a band because you made a typo? Well, because of that, I found two new videos of Woods of Ypres from their current East Coast tour, all because I accidentally typed "Wood of Ypres"! Luckily, someone made that error in the title of a video, so that was a cool find! These videos come from their show at L'Hemisphere Gauche in Montreal last night, which was coinicdentally the release date for the re-release of "Woods IV: The Green Album"! YouTube user xes1978 uploaded these earlier today on their YouTube channel, and they're of the band playing "The Shams of Optimism" & "Crossing The 45th Parallel" and "Everything I Touch Turns To Gold (Then To Coal)"! Good quality audio on these, though the angles should have been more varied, as I don't believe the camera panned to Joel Violette once. The videos are dark too, but again, there's that nice red ambiance that makes things look pretty good. Nice to see this footage as well, check the above links for more! I'll embed one of the videos here, so check out their performance of "Everything I Touch Turns To Gold (Then To Coal)" below!



Next up, here's some news from local music store Music Depot! Located at 137 Gore Street (close to the old GLOW location) It's a popular spot to get instruments, lessons, and gear, but only earlier this month did they launch an official website! We've known about their Facebook page since last month, but now, they have a website at http://www.saultmusic.com/, so what should you know? You can see the guitars, basses, drumkits, amplifiers, and mixers for sale, though some of the product tabs aren't active yet. You can't buy items through the site, but you can find pricing information and basic details on most listed items, as well as be diverted to their pages on Facebook and eBay. Many of the additional tabs and sections aren't finished yet, but in time, I'd expect spots for lesson info, used items, and product lines to pop up. Check the above links for more from Music Depot! While we're on the subject of music stores, I've edited the details for Sault Michigan music store Steve's Music, which has moved from 126 Ridge Street to 557 Ashmun Street, not far from the other music store across the river, Grooves Music. I'm not sure why they moved, or even when it happened, but to be fair, I don't hear a lot on Steve's Music, so maybe I've just been misinformed for a long time. If I hear some new stuff on them, I'll have it here!

And finally, here's this week's classic video! As always, I'm tying in the video with a band or performer at an upcoming concert, and in this case, it's River Witch drummer Ivan Schliska! Along with his more active recent work with River Witch, Ivan's long been a member of the hard rock trio Scofflaw, who've been rocking the area since 2007, despite sporadic band updates. We don't talk about Scofflaw much on here because they don't advertise many of their plans or shows, so I often don't hear about them, but I try my best! With that said, I found one video of Scofflaw in action, so here's what you should know! The band uploaded a video from a likely jam session onto their MySpace page on September 17th, 2008, as filmed by an attendee. It's of the band playing what appears to be an original song named "Love Destroyer", and it's not a bad performance, though there are elements I'd like to see corrected. Jeff Barnes' vocals seem to be too low, the song seems a bit too straightforward at points, and the location of the performance is mostly VERY dark, with only bassist Barney Gravelle being reasonably visible. Good stuff though, they have a grungy sort of unpolished feel that I don't see too much of from bands across the river, and it has a catchy element to it!

NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT OR HARM IS INTENDED WITH THIS VIDEO!! All credit goes to Scofflaw and the original filmer, they did all of the hard work! The original video can be seen at http://myspace.com/scofflawband/videos/love-destoyer/43013670. I want this video and Scofflaw to get more deserved attention, they could use it! With all of that said, enjoy Scofflaw's performance of "Love Destroyer" below!



That's all for today, but stay tuned for previews of this weekend's concerts tomorrow, along with March Mayhem updates, more news, and our next CD review in the next while! Thanks everyone!

Sykotyk Rampage Concert Review & Garden Of Bedlam's New Song!!

Hey everyone, it's time for our next concert review, as for the first time ever, I'll share my thoughts on a Roosevelt Hotel punk night! Stay tuned afterwards though for how you can check out another new song from Garden of Bedlam's forthcoming full length album, but now, here's the review!

As yesterday was St. Patrick's Day, the Rosie was decorated in green and shamrocks for the occasion, and yes, green beer flowed throughout! Opening the festivities for this punk night was local/Toronto classical/punk trio RedD Monkey, who were about as good as I've ever seen them! Their mix of fast paced punk rock with a cello is always a unique sight, and they delivered soem good rocking material last night! Along with their original punk tunes, they brought back their "cello rap" sound to open and close the set, even throwing a cover of Limp Bizkit's "Break Stuff" in there, which was unexpected! Their energy was very good, and Steve Mozarowski's voice hit all the right notes, even with his on-stage banter! Solid punk set from them, and it's nice to see them play for a bit longer than I'm used to! After them were Montreal pop punk band Skepsis, who put in a solid set of their style of music, though I'm admittedly not a fan of pop punk. They had good energy and seemed happy to be playing in town! They are a talented band, and it showed on the songs they played, though Collin Steinz's singing was hard to make out for some reason. Not my thing, but they put in some good stuff, all things considered, and they fit well in this show!

The main event was "green Irish metal crash punk" quartet Sykotyk Rampage, who were right in the St. Patrick's Day theme, with members donning either St. Patrick's Day-related hats or dyed green hair! This was the first time I've seen them live in a year, and luckily they didn't appear to lose a step from then, although I did miss Curious George at his usual placement in front of the drumkit. Musically, in case you don't remember, Sykotyk Rampage's songs are made up at recording sessions, then re-learned for live performances, and the style of them is widely varying and very original. You have to hear them to get it, but I appreciate their sound, which is tailor made for drinking! They broke out drinking songs like "Drinking On The Weekend", "Drinking Problem", "and "Called In Dead" last night, including a well received cover of Flogging Molly's "Fuck You, I'm Drunk", which seemed to sum up the night well! Other "sykotyk" tunes like "Dolly & Valium", "Sex Toy, Oh My Baby", and "Lowest Of The Low" made the cut last night, with Paul and Dirk Becker's unique styles of singing giving voice to the material! The band played as well as I could expect for this harsh brand of music, but their stage arrangement seemed very cramped, and Brian Cattapan wasn't as animated on stage as I was previously used to seeing.

Overall though, for the sound Sykotyk Rampage provide on stage, they delivered as good of a set as I expected! There were of course numerous songs I'd like to have heard on stage, like "Take A Bite", "Long Way Down My C**k", "He Drinks", and any of the old "Wanga Danga" tracks, but with a 23 album back catalog, omissions are more than expected. They won't be everyone's cup of tea, but their brand of "crash music" will find fans among you punk rockers and metalheads, so give them a chance and see if you can appreciate their original brand of music! Of course, St. Patrick's Day fit well for their drunken madness too, so that ambiance is also nice! Check out my photos from last night at this location, or visit The Sault Metal Scene's Facebook page! And yes, I do have a video, so here's Sykotyk Rampage playing their song "Sex Toy, Oh My Baby"!



One more note today, and it's courtesy of Garden of Bedlam! They've been keeping busy recently, including booking a new out of town concert date on June 11th in Thunder Bay, and launching a campaign to get on this year's 15th annual Ernie Ball Battle of the Bands at this year's Vans Warped Tour! As in last year's campaigns by Lion Ride, Sykotyk Rampage, and many more Canadian bands, Garden of Bedlam are hoping to earn a slot on the Battle of the Bands at one Warped Tour show this summer, specifically the Mississauga stop on July 15th at The Flats at Arrow Hall. If successful, Garden of Bedlam could not only play at The Warped Tour in Mississauga, but could compete a chance to record a 3 song EP with producer Matt Squire and a $15,000 Guitar Center shopping spree! Another local band's getting on this again too, I'll tell you about them soon as well, but click here to vote for Garden of Bedlam! You MUST register a free account to vote, but it's a painless process, trust me. They need the support, they only have 27 votes at present (over 1,500 out of the top 10 for Mississauga), so let's band together and get their votes up! Check the above links for more, and did you notice there's something...."new" in the music player?

It's a new studio quality song from Garden of Bedlam, more specifically, "Three Days"! That was the song about the Kiss Battle of the Bands from 2009, and now you can stream it on their Ernie Ball Battle of the Bands page at this location! Note that if you're a Firefox user like myself, the player might not load (it doesn't for me), so I recommend opening their Battle of the Bands page on Internet Explorer to hear the new song. What do I think? Again, I'm holding my complete thoughts until my planned CD review of "Everything Will Die", but if you liked "Three Days" live, your feelings won't change! Check the above links for all that's new from Garden of Bedlam!

That's all for now, but stay tuned for our new poll, which launches TONIGHT! Thanks everyone!

More Lion Ride News, Possible New Shows, The Local Radio Situation, And More!

Hey guys, hope those of you who went enjoyed last night's Stillbroke show at The Rockstar Bar! I couldn't make it, but it sounds like it was a good concert, and there's lots more where that came from tonight and tomorrow! My last post has all you need to know on the metal side of things for the area this weekend, hopefully all the shows have good turnouts! But now, it's news/updates time, and we'll start with lots of new stuff concerning Lion Ride!

Remember when I said they were in the voting for a chance to play at the 14th Annual Ernie Ball Battle of the Bands in Toronto on July 9th at The Vans Warped Tour? Well, if you remember correctly, the top 100 would be the bands from which The Warped Tour would select competing bands. As of 4:44 PM today, Lion Ride are in 95th place with 74 votes, and are just 10 votes out of 86th. First place is a Toronto band named Majesty with 4,431 votes. VOTE FOR LION RIDE TODAY!!!! The more votes they get, the more odds that The Warped Tour will put them in the Toronto segment of the battle!

But that's not all when it comes to voting contests that Lion Ride has recently entered. Listen to this for a hypothetical: Imagine SLASH guest starring on a Lion Ride song. Not kidding either, it could happen! A new online contest called "Your Next Record With Slash" has been launched by Guitar Center in co-operation with the Velvet Revolver/ex-GNR axeman, and the winner will get a laundry list of cool prizes, and Lion Ride have entered! If they won, they would get to record a 3 song E.P. produced by legendary producer Mike Clink, of which Slash would write and perform on the single! They'd also get a management development deal with "The Collective", their single would be put on iTunes, plus they'd get a worldwide distribution deal with Tunecore, $20,000 worth of gear and endorsement deals, the opening slot on Slash's upcoming tour, and an editorial feature in Guitar World Magazine!

Now all that just sounds awesome, but it will never happen to Lion Ride unless we all support the cause! You have until April 30th to vote for your favourite bands in this contest for the right to get all these cool prizes, and of course, the E.P. with Slash's guest spot! Hopefully, of course, your votes will go to Lion Ride! To vote for Lion Ride for all of this awesome stuff, CLICK HERE! I don't know the criteria for who will "win", I'm assuming it's the highest voted band, but I can't say for sure. Also, if it counts for anything, the fan who votes the most between March 5th and 31st will win a Slash autographed guitar, so there's more incentive to vote! Keep in mind though, you can only cast ONE VOTE PER BAND PER DAY. Still, let's show our support, wouldn't it be cool to see Lion Ride ft. Slash? CLICK HERE TO VOTE, DO IT NOW, DO IT DAILY!!!!

Next up, might Out Of The Mouth Of Babes have new shows coming up? If you look at their MySpace page, they list two shows this spring, including one April 20th at The Oddfellows Hall, and another on May 6th at Foggy Notions, the latter of which apparently also includes Bring The Fallen. Now I haven't seen any announcements of either of these concerts anywhere else, not on Facebook, not anywhere. Sometimes when a band lists a new show on MySpace alone, I feel confident about reporting it as confirmed, I'm not so sure on these two though. So I'll wait for second word before I confirm these as official local concerts, but keep them in mind! It'd be great to see OOTMOB back live, all you old fans of As It Stands should take notice too!

Now, back to the local radio situation, and it appears all the attempts to make Sovereign Communications bring back the fired 99.5 YES FM DJs (including Bad Side's Melissa Krahnke and Jason Mapes) have not worked. And now, there's not even Tim Ellis in the mornings, as 99.5 has replaced the old "Soo Morning Crew" with "Kidd Kraddick In The Morning", a nationally syndicated radio show out of California. I really don't agree with YES FM's site calling this "the new Soo Morning Crew in town" when I doubt Kidd Kraddick has ever even been here, but hey, it's all business, they wanna hype this and get people to listen. But Tim and John Gilbert are still on the job, and apparently so is Rock 101's Scott Cook, who's now listed on YES FM'S personalities page! I don't listen to YES FM enough to know how he handles being on this type of station, but he's never sucked before, so he'll do fine! I half expected that Sovereign would use existing DJs to fill in the gaps from the ones they didn't rehire, and looks like I guessed right!

Still, this is a contientous issue for many, especially YES FM lovers and fans of the old "Soo Morning Crew", and the 2,249 members of the "Boycott YES FM" group are still pissed. But now the comments are mostly critical of Kidd Kraddick. I'm a "Scott and Brian" listener in my mornings, so I can't comment on Kidd's show, but even if he's good, people don't like change, and the Soo Morning Crew as we knew it were really good, so I can see why people are mad. I notice that group member Johnny Lewis has been pushing people to e-mail the FCC to file complaints on the supposed local monopoly, and it wouldn't hurt! Click here, look for Johnny's posts, and e-mail away if you want to bring this to the FCC's attention even more! Remember, the sale still isn't final. I know this isn't on the surface a metal story, but considering that it involves members of Bad Side, and now a Rock 101 DJ, it's worth discussing!

Also, just as an aside, if I had to replace Timmy and Lissa and all them with a nationally syndicated show, no way around it, I'd have gotten The Bob & Tom Show, which now has no local outlet with The Bear's demise. It may not fit YES FM's demographics, per say, but it was a very popular show locally, often very funny, and now we can't listen to it on normal FM radio here. Plus, it had listeners who would follow to 99.5 to listen to it, so on that level, it'd make more sense to pick up than a show that has never aired up here before. Just thought that was worth bringing up. I've been contemplating writing an editorial opinion piece on the SMS about the local radio situation for us rock/metal lovers, seeing as we only have two stations that air heavy music now (Rock 101 and WLSO on occasion), so I was thinking about discussing what I'd like to see happen in the future in terms of FM rock radio in Sault Ste. Marie. It may not happen, but it's something that I'd like to discuss!

And finally, if you see a copy of The Soo Profile magazine at a local establishment this month, you'll notice the presence of Woods of Ypres on the cover! Yes, they're the cover story in this month's issue, and you'll notice that the author is....me? Yeah, I've done some freelance work for them, I don't like tooting my own horn, but I've contributed to The Soo Profile a bit in recent months. But don't check it out for my work, do so cause it involves the Sault's own Woods of Ypres, who are the cover feature! It talks about the band's sound, past, and future, it's not a huge article, but it's pretty good! The more local press, the better! It is FREE at many local establishments, mostly restaurants, click here to find out where you can get The Soo Profile! Music aside, it's a nice magazine, discussing lots of local stuff and interests, you'll like it! It's now in the Other Local Metal Links too!

In my next post, I'll have new songs from a re-activated local metal band, and hopefully lots more! And maybe at some point soon, an opinion piece in local rock radio? You never know! I still have to review "Castle Stories", but school gets in the way whenever I try to give it a proper reading, damnit. Soon though! More news and updates are on the way real soon!

Short Notice LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS, Lion Ride News, And Lots More!

Happy Tuesday everyone! This weekend was already shaping up to be a pretty good weekend concert wise, but some recent concert announcements have added to that! As such, we have three LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS today! Stay tuned afterwards for lots of updates from the Lion Ride camp, new videos from a major show in 2009, and what may be another hard rock tribute band making their way here!

Firstly, Sault Ontario hard rockers Turner Up have scheduled a pair of new concerts for this weekend! This time, they'll be back at The Nicolet Tavern, the same spot that they rocked on Bon Soo weekend! Jam nights aside, these will be Turner Up's first shows since February 26th at Foggy Notions, and their first featuring new guitarist Jeff Gray (you may recognize him from Johnny Lunchbox, among other bands!) They'll be at The Nicolet Tavern THIS FRIDAY AND SATURDAY! I have not seen an announced cover charge, a start time of 9:30 PM is given both nights. Should be good shows, if you want some live hard rock covers, Turner Up will deliver the goods! Also, I should add that it's great to see The Nicolet Tavern booking heavier acts more regularly lately, and for you Americans, it's not far from the bridge, so that's convenient! Confirm your attendance by clicking here, and of course, sorry for the short notice, I just heard about this show today.

Speaking of shows I just recently head about, Sault Michigan's own Riot! By Night are also playing locally this Friday and Saturday! They'll be back at a familiar stomping ground, The Satisfied Frog, on both of those nights with a posted start time of 10:00 PM! The band's newest MySpace status update says "...guess they can't keep us down for long!", and good thing "they" can't! The more Riot! By Night, the better! They've been one of the most active Sault Michigan metal bands locally so far in 2010, and from what I've heard, they have the talent to back it up! I wonder when they'll finally post audio or video online? Hopefully they will soon, I bet they're good! So there you go Sault Michiganders, two more shows this weekend, and once again, I apologize for the short notice!

Now to some assorted news stories, and here's a proposal for you guys: How would you like to see Lion Ride play on this year's Vans Warped Tour? Maybe we couldn't help get Bad Side supporting Bon Jovi (sadly), but here's something very cool that we can try and build the support to vote for as well! Lion Ride have entered the 14th Annual Ernie Ball Battle of the Bands! Essentially, this will give dozens of unsigned bands the chance to play LIVE on the Ernie Ball stage at their hometown's Warped Tour in a huge Battle of the Bands! In Lion Ride's case, if they make the cut, they'd be playing the Warped Tour stop on July 9th in Toronto at Arrow Hall. Tons of prizes are up for grabs including a $15,000 shopping spree, recording a 3 song EP with producer Matt Squire, tons of skate gear and apparel, and much more from various name sponsors! But before any of that can happen, Lion Ride must hit the top 100 bands in the voting for the Toronto stop on this huge Battle of the Bands. Bands will be selected to play live based on musicianship, song writing originality, and crowd drawing ability, among others. (Yeah, I know this is generally seen as a "punk" festival, but Lion Ride have a punk mentality, they'll fit!)

Wouldn't it be cool to see Lion Ride play at The Warped Tour? They wouldn't be the first locals on this year's lineup (Dustin Jones & The Rising Tide already are confirmed, congrats to them!), but this would be huge exposure, especially if they do well in the battle aspect! But they can't do this alone, they need YOUR HELP! If you want to vote for Lion Ride to play in the Ernie Ball Battle of the Bands in Toronto on July 9th at The Warped Tour, CLICK HERE!!!!!! You must register for a free account, and you may only vote once a day, but let's show Lion Ride our support! I notice that a lot of bands are trading votes, which is a nice gesture, but let's see the fans show up to support Lion Ride too! I've already voted (and left a comment in the comment board), you all should too! CLICK HERE TO VOTE FOR LION RIDE!!!! Let's see them in the top 100, and hopefully The Warped Tour will choose the right band to move on! VOTE TODAY!!

But maybe you're asking yourself how Lion Ride can do all this when they apparently have no bassist? Well, frontman Mikey Lion did indeed confirm to me that Diamond Brent Panther left the bass position in Lion Ride in an e-mail today, but they do have a temporary replacement! The band have tapped Carmine Romano to fill in for the band's next run of Southern Ontario shows! You may recognize Carmine as the singer/bassist of the Kitchener hard rock band The Saigon Hookers, who are good friends and frequent tourmates of Lion Ride's! It looks like he's just a temporary member, but for what it's worth, Mike Indovina only drummed with Lion Ride at first on a temporary basis, and now he's a full member! So Lion Ride are hitting the road for a four show mini-tour with The Saigon Hookers next Wednesday, when they play shows in Burlington, Kitchener, Waterloo, and London over a four day span! You'll notice that their planned show in Montreal next Wednesday has been cancelled too. Best of luck to Lion Ride on their upcoming tour, hopefully they'll be back home real soon for a show! Oh yeah, VOTE FOR THEM TOO!

I actually have MORE Lion Ride news, but let's not go overboard yet, I'll have the rest in my next regular post! Now you notice how we've got hit with a bunch of tribute bands this year? Well, another one may be on the way, according to The Canadian Nightclub, and I stress may. In a recent Facebook e-mail, Mary Lou Johnston from The Canadian told members of it's Facebook group about upcoming tribute band performances in March, including Keep The Faith (the Bon Jovi tribute band) and "Mamakin" on March 26th and 27th. Now you may recognize "Mama Kin" as an Aerosmith classic, and fans of the former Hempfest will remember a Toronto tribute band named Mama Kin as one of the headlining bands last year. Now this makes the most sense out of any bands named Mama Kin that I've seen (and there are a few), but this band have conflicting dates on the 26th and 27th in Guelph and New York. Those two shows may very well have been cancelled, but I don't know for sure. If I hear any updates, I'll have them for you guys, but for the time being, I'll leave it off the concert listings.

And finally, over four months after the show took place, more video from November's Papa Roach concert is FINALLY online! YouTube user Rockinroll15 (a huge Kiss and Papa Roach fan) had uploaded five clips of the band's local show, including performances of the songs "Change or Die", "Last Resort", "I Almost Told You That I Love You", "Between Angels & Insects", and a double clip of "Getting Away With Murder" & "Scars"! The videos are from far back in the crowd, but the audio isn't terrible, and the video is clear of what it shows, it's just not close enough to the band to get them clear. Nice to see more video from the concert online, click on the above links to check out the videos! And I'll show you guys one of the clips, one of my personal favourite Papa Roach songs, "Between Angels & Insects"!



So what's on the horizon for the SMS this week? Tomorrow, it's our newest previews of out of town bands with local members (This month: Feral Noise ft. Tym Morrison, and Sadomasochism ft. Mikey Bishop!), and on Thursday, we'll preview all TEN concerts taking place on this busy weekend of local metal concerts! And somewhere in there, maybe after, the rest of the Lion Ride news too, and much more! Stay tuned everyone!