SHORT NOTICE LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (River Witch) & This Weekend's Concert Previews!!

You know today will be our third straight day with two posts? Busy stretch, partly cause of special feature posts, and partly cause there's a lot of news lately! Just as a preview, tonight's news post (which will go up in the afternoon) features two major new concerts, a huge departure in a local hard rock band, the final addition to a notable upcoming concert, and that same band's newest member, so you'll wanna stay tuned for all of that! Now, to today's topics, as we mostly focus on previews of this weekend's metal and hard rock concerts, including one cancellation, but first, here's a SHORT NOTICE LOCAL CONCERT ALERT!!

Sault Michigan hard rockers River Witch are back with a concert taking place THIS SATURDAY! The local quintet that evolved from Blind Baby last summer will hit The Merchant's Bar on Saturday night to lay down some hard rock tunes for their local fans! Apologies for the short notice, these were only just announced last night, and recent show updates have been their only posted news on their Facebook page since November. This show has a 9:00 PM start time, it is 21+, and there's no announced cover charge. For more details, visit the official Facebook event page! It's nice to see River Witch back out there, I was wondering where they'd vanished to! I still don't know how they sound, but for more on them, check the above links, and if you need something to do this Saturday, The Merch isn't a bad place to be at all! While I'm on the subject, I've restored all 8 of River Witch's previously announced Rapids Lounge concerts to the SMS concert listings, as the band ARE playing next weekend at Kewadin Casino, despite the deletion of River Witch's concerts from Kewadin's entertainment page. This same thing happened with Monkey's Uncle's shows there, confirmed concerts were deleted but not cancelled. So they ARE on, but if I hear anything different, I'll let you guys know!

Let's stay in Sault Michigan for another show, as a recently prominent local metal band return to the stage TONIGHT for a St. Patrick's Day metal assault! Progressive metal quartet Hammerspace will return to one of their favourite stomping grounds, Zim's, for a night of hard hitting heavy metal for a Thursday night show! With lots of originals & covers in store and a lot of talent to go around, a trip to Zim's shouldn't be out of the question for you Michiganders tonight! This show has a listed 9:30 PM start time, you must be 21 to attend, and there is no announced cover charge. For more details, visit the official Facebook event page! Sounds good to me, hopefully they tear it up tomorrow! Check out the above links for more, especially to stream their original material, as I have yet to see videos of the band in action. Also, while we're on the Hammerspace subject, they'll make their first ever trip out of town for a concert on April 27th in Topinabee, Michigan in the Lower Peninsula, click here for more details!

We have two more Sault Michigan shows to talk about, but they're a bit later so we can keep a rough chronological order. Before I launch into the Sault Ontario metal shows, I want to note a cancellation, as Tym Morrison will NOT be playing at The Big Cheese tomorrow, or for the forseeable future. Tym told me that The Big Cheese had lost it's liquor license, which is connected to the cancellations, including any possible future dates there until it's re-licensed. That sucks, but you can see him next Friday at The Eagles Club though, so mark that on your calendars!

Now, to Sault Ontario shows, and first, a unique local hard rock band returns to the stage TONIGHT at the latest Roosevelt Hotel punk night! Fresh off their return to the stage last month at The Rosie, "the original crash band" Sykotyk Rampage will be back there to headline tonight's punk night, and are sure to leave an impression with their very original brand of music! Featuring almost two dozen albums in their discography, and a good sense of humour, you won't wanna miss them tomorrow night, and check them out at the above link for a sound like none other locally! Also on the bill: Montreal pop punk band Skepsis, a month after they originally planned to play here. Though not hard rock, they have a high energy punk sound that will be sure to win over some fans tomorrow night, and check their page linked above to give them a listen! Finally, cello punk rock trio RedD Monkey will open things with their own hard hitting brand of punk, with a classical twist, in a prelude to their massive 12 band all ages headlining concert next month! Sounds like a diverse and entertaining night of music, and all for no cover either! This concert will also be 19+, and everything starts at around 9:30 PM! For more details, visit the Facebook event page!

With Irish drinking songs planned, Sykotyk Rampage are bound to entertain along with the other bands tomorrow, and I'll be there! I'll have a review, photos, and a video up tomorrow night, so stay tuned for all that! For a preview, here's (fittingly for St. Patrick's Day) Sykotyk Rampage playing their signature song "Drinking On The Weekend" from last year!



Staying at The Roosevelt Hotel, the music keeps coming through Saturday, as Browbeat return there for their second weekend set of shows since their return last month! The local hard rock trio featuring some very talented local musicians will be back to lay down some of their entertaining originals and covers for the Rosie faithful tomorrow night & Saturday night! A 10:00 PM start time is listed, there will be no cover charge, and as always for The Rosie, you must be 19 to attend. For full details, visit the official Facebook event page! Dutch and the guys in Browbeat deserve more attention and fans than they have, especially with the work they've put in, so check them out and if you like them, make it out to see them this weekend! I hope to be there one of the two nights, likely Saturday, so keep an eye out in case I head back to the Rosie! Check the above links for more details, and for a preview, here's Browbeat playing their original song "Days Gone By"!



Two more shows in Sault Ontario on the heavier side of things, and these are different shows in the long line of Turner Up concerts! Why? Because this time, they're going to have an opening band! Yes, before the classic hard rockers take the stage tomorrow night and Saturday night at The Rockstar Bar, they will be opened up by local progressive rock quartet Machines Dream, featuring bassist/keyboardist Brian Holmes of Gates of Winter fame! Interesting mix of styles, but both bands are quite talented, and hopefully the Turner Up faithful will respond well to Machines Dream! Of course, Turner Up themselves will have loads of classic and newer covers that get heavier as the night goes on, so make sure you get ready for them as well! Everything starts at 10:00 PM tomorrow night and Saturday night, there is no announced cover charge, and you must be 19 to attend. For more details, visit the official Facebook event page! These concerts should be fun, especially with the double band appeal, so make it out for some great live rock music if you can! Check the above links for more, and for a preview, here's Turner Up covering Guns N' Roses' "Mr. Brownstone" at The Rockstar Bar two months ago!



Finally, we close today's preview post back in Sault Michigan, where a frequent local sight returns from Cheboygan to rock out for their Saultite fans! Yes, rising hard rockers The Darwin Project will roll through The Satisfied Frog this weekend for a pair of high energy rock shows tomorrow night & Saturday night! Like their usual local concerts, both shows will have 9:30 PM start times, 21+ age limits, and no announced cover charge. For more details, as always, visit the Facebook event page! If you miss them this weekend, they'll be back at Kewadin Casino in two weeks, luckily, but go see them tomorrow or Saturday if you can! They always deliver an entertaining show full of their very good hard rock tracks, and with a new CD out to purchase, now's better than ever to see The Darwin Project live! Check the above links for more, and here's one last preview video, of The Darwin Project playing their original song "Do You Want It?"



That's all for now, but I have a huge post coming this afternoon, as I outlined at the start of this post, so stay tuned for that later today! Thanks everyone, and I'll see you guys at The Rosie tonight!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Nudge & Hammerspace), Concert Updates, And The SMS On Reverbnation!!

We're kicking off February in style with a packed news post, including possible upcoming concert, an official lineup change for another upcoming show, and a big SMS related story, but first, here's a bunch of LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS!!!

Marquette hard rockers Nudge have announced TEN more local dates this year at The Satisfied Frog! A frequent sight locally, Nudge will be back at The Frog for Friday and Saturday shows THIS WEEKEND, April 29th-30th, August 5th-6th, September 23rd-24th, and November 11th and 12th! Each show will be preceded by a Thursday solo acoustic set by frontman Danzo McCracken, so if you're interested in chilling out with some acoustic rock, head to The Frog on the Thursdays before the above dates! Incidentally, thanks to Danzo for telling me about these concerts, as my usual source for their shows (their MySpace page) isn't updated. However, their full concert schedule is listed on their Reverbnation page, so there's a good online source! Looks like all of the above dates have 10:00 PM start times with 21+ age limits, and there is no announced cover charge for any of the above shows. For more details, check out all of the above links! Nudge are a talented hard rock band with good handles on their material, and they're absolutely worth checking out, first and foremost, THIS FRIDAY AND SATURDAY! I'll keep you all posted!

The other absolutely confirmed new concerts that I know of are also in Sault Michigan, courtesy of local metal quartet Hammerspace! You hopefully already know about their backup slot at THURSDAY'S Half A Man show at The Bird, but thanks to their new Reverbnation page, I can confirm an additional two concerts for the band in Sault Michigan at two venues we don't see too many concerts for. One will take place on February 10th (one week from Thursday) at Zim's, which is a relatively newer local concert spot on Ashmun Street that has hosted Hammerspace before at concerts we regrettably missed here. Two days later, they'll return to The Merchant's Bar on Spruce Street for another night of metal! This is a another venue that is slightly new to the SMS, but they have a good following and is well known in the area, so you never know what shows could pop up there either! Of course, with either venue, shows have proven hard to source, so let me know if you hear of anything going on there! Both shows appear to have 10:00 PM start times, 21+ age limits, and no announced cover charge. Check the above links for more details!

Sounds good, but before I move on to another topic, I should add a couple more Hammerspace notes. A day or so ago, the band officially launched a new Facebook page to replace their now deleted old page, and with their new presence on Reverbnation as linked above, I can confirm a few new band details! Guitarist John Bergeron is officially singing for the band now as well, officially replacing Kirk Labadie in that position. Their Reverbnation page confirms that they formed in late 2009, and that Half A Man guitarist Denny Breslin was briefly a band member as well. No mention is made of their past singers either. Three songs were posted on Reverbnation as well, but all are instrumentals. Good promising stuff though, they're heavy charging tracks that sound like they'd be pretty good in concert! Check out their pages, and stay tuned for updates on their show on Thursday, as part of the fourth annual I-500 Pub Crawl!

Speaking of the I-500 Pub Crawl, I have an additional update related to that event to kick off this paragraph of concert updates for this week. Now if you don't know, the Thursday before the annual I-500 snowmobile race in Sault Michigan is the famous I-500 Pub Crawl, where concertgoers, social drinkers, and I-500 fans can crawl area bars and have a blast! Concerts tend to pop up at some of the bars at "Pub500", and one looks like it will feature Charlevoix metal trio Peril! The band confirmed on their Facebook page they'd be playing in Sault Michigan this Thursday, but they have yet to announce or confirm a venue. Common wisdom would suggest a return to The Rapids Lounge at Kewadin Casino, where they'll be hitting at least six times this year, but until they confirm it either way, I won't list it as an official concert on here. Stay tuned though!

The other concert update that I have relates to another Thursday concert, this one being the next metal night at The Roosevelt Hotel! State of Misery are now confirmed as the replacements for Bring The Fallen, who dropped off of the show yesterday. Solid choice for a band, hopefully the short notice won't affect their performance! They'll join Desbarats death metal band For All That Is Lost and locals The Bear Hunters for this heavy night of death metal on Thursday! Stay tuned for more details in our upcoming concert preview post!

And finally, I have news on a brand new SMS page, and honestly, we should have been on here years ago. I'd like to officially announced that The Sault Metal Scene is now on Reverbnation! With the growth of local usage of Reverbnation in recent years, it only made sense for us to have a presence there, especially with some people's arguments that it's better than MySpace for band pages. I find it's easier to get concert news there, a number of prominent local bands are there now, and it has some cool advantages for bands and musicians, like online stores, press boxes, and the ability to get material on external pay music sites. For us, I don't know if we'll prominently update and focus on it as much as I'd like, but Reverbnation is still largely unknown to me as a "member", so I have to check around and see what all it offers and what we can do through there. I'll update you guys as to what we do next on and with Reverbnation, but I've officially "liked" a number of bands there, and I hope to get an audience going over there, so click here to check our page out, like it, add it, whatever you want to do!

That's all for tonight, but stay tuned tomorrow for our latest "Where Are The New Albums?" post! And remember, our draw for the $20 Rad Zone gift card ends TOMORROW NIGHT AT 8:00 PM! Click here, scroll to our contest status from January 26th, and add your name A.S.A.P. to enter if you haven't already! We randomly draw a name at 8:00 PM sharp tomorrow for the gift card, so stay tuned to our official Facebook page to see if you won! Thanks everyone, and good luck!