Today's post is devoted to two topics: LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (one on SHORT NOTICE) from one musician over the coming months, and a big change to our defunct local band links on the site, so here's what you should know on this Saturday morning!
Local classic/hard rock singer/guitarist Tym Morrison will return to Misty's Fifties for matinee concerts TODAY and every two weeks into June! Apologies for the short notice on TODAY'S concert, we only heard about it earlier today via Tym sharing a Facebook event page covering the dates earlier this week. Of course, Tym debuted at the 658 Second Line West bar/restaurant back in December, and played sporadically there ever since, though a planned Wednesday nighter on Valentine's Day was quietly cancelled for unannounced reasons. Clearly, that wasn't a bad sign for Tym's relationship with Misty's, as he'll be back for more acoustic hard and classic rock favourites TODAY at 4:00 PM and then on these Saturdays to come: March 2nd, 16th, and 30th, April 13th & 27th, May 11th & 25th, and June 8th & 22nd. All of these shows are presumed 19+ events with no cover.
For the record, two of these gigs could tie in to holiday plans, as the March 16th show is the day before St. Patrick's Day (as it's a Sunday this year, many nightclubs may have events on the 16th instead), while the March 30th show is on the Easter long weekend. Tym is no stranger to weekly or bi-weekly events at the same venue like this, so don't miss out on all of the unplugged action starting TODAY at 4:00! Visit the above links for more details, and here's Tym live last year!
Next up, in advance of a big change that I'm making to the band links on the SMS, I'm starting by making a big one for an opposite reason. Since the SMS began in 2007, a big source for band pages for research and linking purposes was MySpace, as anyone around the local music scene in the 2000s will be well aware, but it (for all intents & purposes) died a slow and painful death starting with its forced redesign in 2010, which deleted all blog posts & biographies from accounts. I kept certain bands linked from MySpace on the basis of their hosted music/videos and pictures for history and information, if not necessity, as MySpace may still have been this band's fullest/only presence online. Eventually, a botched server migration forced all music on hosted accounts to be unplayable, and photos hosted there have slowly winnowed away too, leaving just captions with nothing viewable. Even the MySpace home page seems to have not been updated since 2022.
MySpace was very important to the SMS originally, and a lot of internet-using readers from the 2000s will have fond memories of it for personal use and for band pages, but unless intentionally looking up old bands, current usage of it died in 2010 and just got worse and worse (Destroilet did try to work around the 2010 redesign but they were a rare exception), with then-current and new bands looking to Facebook and elsewhere for their social media promotion. Quite frankly, linking old local bands via MySpace pages in 2023 is nearly useless, so I've decided to remove the remaining bands from our links that are only here because they didn't have surviving pages elsewhere and I clung to MySpace for this long. As such, these local bands are no longer linked on the SMS: 2wo Man Baand, A Fall From Innocence, Bring The Fallen, Despised Eyes, Foothill Road, Free Beer, Infrastrate, The Last Warrior Of Rock, Nebraska Arms, The Pisstanks, Renderware, ...
...Route 69, Smeltzer, and Stealing Kisses. From Sault Michigan & the E.U.P., I have also deleted 7/47, Absolute, Analog Deficiency, Clownsack, Condemned, Hands Of Betrayal, Lower S.E.S., Nixxon Dixxon, The Pick-Me-Ups, Shift, and Twisted Manikin. Just to be clear, some of these bands did have activity into the 2010s on now-deleted social media accounts or without launching new ones (i.e. Clownsack's 2011 CD "Funny Farm", Bring The Fallen's 2013 reunion concert & EP, Free Beer's return as Sarah's Valley, and Foothill Road's pandemic-era original song), but unless I have missed something, none of these bands have an extant social media presence elsewhere that has content worth linking to in 2024 for research/historical purposes. If I find something that I forgot about or didn't see before, or if one of these bands decides to reunite, I will absolutely re-link the band(s) in question.
Still, deleting these pages cleans up our links a good amount, and we'll fill them back up in no time, so stay tuned for more on that in the near future! That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and notes on the site next week! Thanks everyone!
Before we get into this post, we have the public go ahead to say that Soundcheck will be featuring guest singers Elly McWatters (ex-Re:Born) and Valerie Powley (Generations) for their short notice show at The Esquire Club TOMORROW NIGHT! Regular singer/guitarist Cameron Oliver will be on vacation out of town, and thanks to him for posting this in comment replies on our Facebook page this morning, as the band/venue hadn't publically confirmed anything prior! Both Elly and Valerie have great voices, and with Valerie helping out TOMORROW, could fans get a mini-encore of their show last year featuring most of Obsession's lead singers? Cameron will be present for tonight's Soundcheck show before he hits the road.
Now, today's post otherwise looks at this weekend's remaining weekend concert previews, a couple of new videos, and leading off, a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT, as Sault Michigan hard rock trio Tarnished will play their first show of the year on Saturday, February 24th when they return to The Fraternal Order Of Orioles Nest in Kincheloe! This will be Tarnished's second appearance at Nest 311, having headlined the Orioles' New Year's Eve party this past December, and clearly that went well for them to get re-booked already, let alone without any apparent ties to club events! For the record, the order's Facebook page hinted that Tarnished would be back in February, but we didn't hear a date until Tarnished gave it themselves on their Facebook page yesterday. Expect this to be an 8:00 PM event next Saturday with no announced cover charge and a 21+ age limit.
As for the Orioles Nest, it is located at 4916 West Curtis Street in Kincheloe, which is only a 20 minute drive south from Sault Ste. Marie. Fingers crossed that Alex, Parker, and Josh have a solid encore for fans at this somewhat atypical locale next week, and visit the above links for more details!
Now let's dive into the remainder of this weekend's hard rock concert previews, specifically via two Saturday nighters that had advance notice, starting with veteran Sault Michigan blues/hard rock quartet Project 906's return to The Strongs Tavern in nearby Eckerman TOMORROW NIGHT! After a three month winter break, this will be Project 906's first show of 2024 and their first at The Strongs Tavern in over seven months, which is a very unusual gap for them given how often they've played there over the years. Hopefully their hard rocking array of covers find another solid audience out in Eckerman tomorrow night! Expect an 8:00 PM start time, 21+ age limit, and no cover charge. Visit the above links for more details, and for a preview, here's a brand new video of Project 906 live! This is from an undated Strongs Tavern show from no later than July 2023, unless there was a private gig since that I was unaware of.
The 31 second clip (as uploaded to their Facebook page two weeks ago) sees Project 906 and an uncredited guest singer covering Rage Against The Machine's "Killing In The Name". A good (if very overplayed) song gets a strong rendition from what we see here, so check it out below, and don't miss Project 906's first show of the year tomorrow!
Lastly for known hard rock concerts this weekend, we'll head north to Sault Ontario, where newer local hard rock quintet HeadFirst will rock Shooters Downstairs Lounge for the first time TOMORROW NIGHT! After exclusively playing at Reggie's in recent months (aside from Toystock), this newer quintet will finally spread their wings to some other nightclubs this month, with Shooters first up tomorrow for new and existing fans alike. Hopefully Red, Raine, Liam, Claire, and Anthony leave a strong first impression on a new (to them) venue tomorrow with their hard rocking and classic covers, along with their current original material! A one nighter due to Shooters' DJ nights on Fridays, tomorrow's concert has a 9:30 PM start time, no cover charge, and a 19+ age limit. Visit the above links for more details, and for a preview, here's HeadFirst playing "The Walk"!
We'll close today with new videos from newer local pop rock cover quintet Bourbon Blue, whose general setlist isn't heavy enough to make our full coverage, but they'll be no strangers to many readers. Bourbon Blue are basically the successors to the short-lived 2021 cover band Lockdown, with singer/guitarist Jules Cote, vocalist Nicole Ambeault, and guitarist Randy Russell now joined by ex-Band Camp Rejects bassist Ryan Bell and new drummer Alvaro Scheid (replacing Turner Up/Settle For Silver alum Brent Royer). Yes, you'll also know Jules and Nicole from The Soo Fighters and Nicky & The Southpaws. In between their recent drummer switch, Bourbon Blue kept gigging with guest drummers, one being Soundcheck's Glen Thomas during their shows at Jay's Piston Broke Pub over the Christmas weekend (this was the same weekend where Double Down's Ric Datson drummed with Soundcheck in lieu of Glen).
Glen had fourteen videos shot and uploaded to his YouTube channel from one of his two gigs with Bourbon Blue, and while most don't cross our genre radar (hewing closer to Jules' old band Cherry Crush), the two newest videos are SMS amenable, including covers of The Interrupters' "She's Kerosene" and (as embedded below) Poison's "Talk Dirty To Me". Strong renditions that clearly attracted a good crowd to the floor, and while they don't lean heavier in setlist contents, Bourbon Blue can effectively add some rock to the likes of Miley Cyrus and Bruno Mars where need be, so don't bypass Glen's other dozen videos! Check out Bourbon Blue above & below, and they'll be at Reggie's tonight & tomorrow!
That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and notes over the Family Day long weekend! Thanks everyone!
Before we begin this weekend concert preview post, just a heads up that this weekend's Double Down concerts at Jay's Piston Broke Pub have been cancelled due to "unfortunate circumstances", as per their Facebook page on Monday. The band has not elaborated as to why they have withdrawn, but hopefully all's well in their camp! Double Down will be replaced at Jay's by two different bands, namely online page-less dance rock cover trio All Over The Map (featuring Pointless alumni) tomorrow and pop rock cover band The Sidekicks on Saturday night, so keep these changes in mind for your weekend concert planning!
This post otherwise looks at most of the weekend's hard rock concert previews, but due to the amount, we'll save our preview of Project 906 and HeadFirst concerts for tomorrow's post. We'll lead off in Sault Ontario with a SHORT NOTICE LOCAL CONCERT ALERT, as joining their already announced gig at The Esquire Club TOMORROW NIGHT, local classic/hard rock cover quartet Soundcheck will indeed be playing there on SATURDAY NIGHT too! Apologies for the short notice, I only learned that Soundcheck (well, most of them) were indeed playing on SATURDAY via personal Facebook postings earlier today, and they nor the venue have publically confirmed anything. From what I can gather, Soundcheck originally were only advertised for tomorrow because singer/guitarist Cameron Oliver will be unavailable on SATURDAY (I'll hold on why given that things aren't publically stated but it's nothing serious).
Despite their ample experience playing jam nights without him, Soundcheck have reportedly found a ringer! Again, I'll hold on revealing the guest singer's identity here because
there hasn't been a public announcement by Soundcheck or The Esquire
Club, but the singer is a known commodity who has fronted bands in the
past. We'll update this if a public confirmation is made, but this
singer is very talented, so Soundcheck are in good hands for the night!
Tomorrow's show with Cameron and SATURDAY'S show without him are both
19+ affairs with no cover charges and 9:30 PM start times. See above for more details, and for a preview, here's Soundcheck
live!
Next up, let's head to St. Ignace, Michigan, where Traverse City metal trio Scarkazm will return to The Northern Pines Lounge at their Kewadin Casino branch TOMORROW & SATURDAY NIGHT, but that's not all from them in the first quarter of 2024 in our area! Scarkazm posted Facebook event pages for currently scheduled shows through early May on their Facebook page (albeit still insisting on giving each individual night its own event page), and they will be back at The Rapids Lounge at Kewadin's Sault Ste. Marie branch on Friday, March 29th & Saturday, March 30th! On both accounts, this weekend's shows and next month's will be Scarkazm's first of the year at either E.U.P. locale, so hopefully Adam, Dave, and Jeff will kick off 2024 on the right foot tomorrow and/or Saturday for their Yooper fans! You can take in their hard rocking covers and originals at 9:00 PM with no cover charges and 21+ age limits, as usual for their Kewadin gigs.
Also, I do profusely apologize, as Scarkazm are actually playing TONIGHT (as in, RIGHT NOW) as well, marking the second straight year that they've been booked to play a special Thursday nighter during the the Labatt Blue UP Pond Hockey Championships at nearby Chain Lake (the St. Ignace Kewadin hosts some events during the weekend). I caught this in time last year, but alas, not in 2024, but I hope to be more on top of things next time! Hopefully Scarkazm have a great triple header in St. Ignace, so see above for more on this weekend's shows and next month's in the Soo, and here they are live in concert last year!
Today's other preview is of a one-nighter on SATURDAY NIGHT, namely Sault Ontario southern hard rock trio Bone Yard's return to Gateway Casino! As usual for their gigs here (and at the Water Tower Pub), this will be an unplugged concert (or as they like to call it, "uncorked"), so if you want to take in some acoustic covers and/or miss The Bearded Lounge, head downtown to Sault Ontario's casino for all of the action! If you'd rather see Bone Yard with electric instruments, they don't have a traditional concert that's not acoustic booked until next month, but you technically don't have to wait that long, as tonight was actually the beginning of a new weekly jam night series that Bone Yard are hosting at Reggie's Place! Bone Yard are no strangers to the conceit, and Reggie's was looking into doing the jam night thing last year with the now-defunct Nostalgic Band, so this should be a good fit!
Like with Soundcheck's Thursday jam nights at Jay's, I will not be treating Bone Yard's jam nights as "concerts" for our purposes due to their unpredictability by design, as guest musicians can heavily sway what fans will hear, either from atypical song choices or from outright replacing the house band. At least here, no regular band members will be sitting out on Thursdays, but still, keep these in mind if you want to jam with/in place of Bone Yard! As for Saturday at Gateway Casino (which traditionally does not host live music on Fridays), expect a 9:00 PM start time, 19+ age limit, and no cover charge. Visit the above links for more details, and for a preview, here's some new videos from Bone Yard's Facebook page! These come from their traditional concert at Reggie's this past Friday, with one featuring them covering Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train" as their set closer (technically a birthday-influenced encore).
The live-stream also includes the tail end of The Tragically Hip's "Blow At High Dough" at the very beginning. Alas, this is vertically shot, but believe it or not, the other video from this concert (uploaded early the next morning) is not! It's rare indeed to see Bone Yard filmed horizontally in an official upload, but that's what we get here in this 2 minute clip of them covering Don Henley's "Dirty Laundry", and doing so with a gritty hard rock edge that the original lacked! Normally, I'd have jumped all over the longer Ozzy cover to embed here, but I can't resist this one being in landscape orientation, so give both a watch above and below, and don't miss the "uncorked" Bone Yard show on Saturday!
That's all for today, but stay tuned for our HeadFirst and Project 906 previews (and more) next! Thanks everyone!
Here's a new news post on this Wednesday morning, which features some new-ish videos, details on a new interview tat a local band conducted with a brand new outlet, and leading off, LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS on both sides of the border, so here's what you should know!
Iron Mountain, Michigan classic/hard rock cover quintet Oz will make their local concert debuts on Friday, March 1st and Saturday, March 2nd when they hit The Rapids Lounge at the Sault Ste. Marie Kewadin Casino! While new to our coverage, Oz have been rocking venues in the western and central Upper Peninsula (and northern Wisconsin) since 2012, and deliver a wide ranging, crowd pleasing array of classic rock covers that include a healthy dose of heavier songs that should keep hard rock fans engaged. Be sure to check Oz out, they have no shortage of videos online from their gigs! As usual for Rapids Lounge gigs, these are 21+ affairs with 9:00 PM start times and no cover charge. Time will tell if Oz become favourite recurring bands at the Soo Kewadin like Peril, Scarkazm, and Fyrbird, but be sure to check the official Facebook event page for more on their local debuts next month!
Next up, let's head north to Sault Ontario for the latest from newer local hard rock quintet HeadFirst, who have confirmed new dates at Jay's Piston Broke Pub on Friday, March 29th & Saturday, March 30th, as well as Saturday nighters at Shooters Downstairs Lounge on June 1st & August 17th! These concerts are 9:30 PM, 19+ gigs with no cover, as usual, but they actually weren't announced by the band or either venue at press time, rather in an interview that HeadFirst took part in with a new local blog last month! This was for Who's Who In The Soo, a new local interview site launched by Sarah Vikken, who you may recognize as the former
marketing & communications director of the Sault Area Arts Council,
as a jewelry and craft maker with Vixxen Studios, and from her
semifinal run as a singer in The Soo's Got Talent in 2022, among other artistic pursuits.
This blog is
intended to cover "the stories of the people of Sault Ste. Marie" and
will likely not focus solely on musicians, but HeadFirst are indeed
first for Sarah's first long-form article, which went up on February
1st!Formatted like a news or magazine article, this interview was
conducted with the full band, and Sarah goes into some surprising detail
that other local band interviews don't! The article goes into how HeadFirst met (it helps that singer Red
Jettison and bassist Claire Jeffrey are actually stepsiblings), their
musical backgrounds (drummer Anthony Boudreau's old metal band Exploring Detritus
is briefly mentioned here), their individual and band-wide musical
influences, what the members would change about Sault Ste. Marie, and what their future plans are. Notably, HeadFirst revealed that AC/DC, The Tragically Hip, and Bachman-Turner Overdrive influence their sound, with a Rolling Stones-influenced attitude, which all pairs well with their set.
The band plans to put out original music "once we get a following", and they hope to release a music video "in the next few months". Sarah also filmed HeadFirst playing their original song "The Walk" as the first video for the Who's Who In The Soo YouTube channel, and surprisingly, this marks the first public video of the band that is shot horizontally and features them playing a full song. This bluesy hard rocker is played proficiently and with ease by this fast-rising quintet, with Red introducing everyone midway through, so give it a look below, and kudos to Sarah for a solid and revealing first interview that you can read at this link, and see above for more on HeadFirst's upcoming Shooters & Jay's gigs!
Finally for today, let's take a trip 23 years back in time for a newly uploaded video of local/Toronto indie/punk band Treble Charger live, in arguably their most seen television performance ever! On March 4th, 2001, the band was in Hamilton at Copps Coliseum (now the FirstOntario Centre) for that year's Juno Awards (hosted by Rick Mercer), where they were nominated for Best Single and Best Rock Album. Treble Charger lost both awards to Nelly Furtado and The Tragically Hip respectively, but they got their moment in the sun, as they played their Juno-nominated single "American Psycho" on stage! In the Junos' last year on CBC before a 16 year run on CTV, a national audience got to see Treble Charger at the "Wide Awake Bored"-era peak of their popularity, and it's neat to finally see this pop up on YouTube! The visuals are fuzzy given the VCR quality, but the song is faithfully performed with good energy as you'd hope!
Despite getting at least one Juno nomination out of all of their albums except "nc-17", Greig, Bill, Rosie, and Morris/Trevor were never able to to snag a Juno of their own. Perhaps if the album that Treble Charger had started working on in the late 2010s ever gets finished, we could see how it does commercially and with critics, let alone at the Junos. Thanks to YouTube user Scorpionsblackout 82 for posting this last month, and give it a watch for yourself below!
That's all for today, but stay tuned for weekend concert previews on the site next! Thanks everyone!
For today's SMS post, let's continue playing catch-up with local/Barrie crossover thrash band Spades GT's activity in the GTA, so where did we leave off last month? Well, we had caught up to November 18th in the timeline, the date in which the former Jack Spades were among the openers for Random Killing at The Lion Pub & Grill in Newmarket, but before then, their Toronto show opening for Anvil at The Rockpile earlier this month was reviewed by Joe Taylor of Blast Toronto for this article, titled "Like Father Like Son" (Anvil drummer Robb Reiner is Spades drummer Tyler Reiner's dad, of course). Joe praised Spades GT for their short and fast originals that reportedly got at least two attendees in wheelchairs to stand up, and he noted that Spades "have the right rocking attitude to take them to the next level". Nine photos from their set are also included, and while James doesn't get much love there, Joe got some good shots!
Solid article on both Spades GT's account and for the other bands on this night, so click here to read it for yourselves! On November 24th, they posted this picture on their Facebook page to prove that physical copies of their new album "Sewer City Radio" were in stock at Sunrise Records in Barrie, which is encouraging, though no word on if somewhere in the Soo has CDs for sale. Planned gigs opening for The Dayglo Abortions in Barrie and Niagara Falls in early December ended up being cancelled due to Dayglos frontman Murray "The Cretin" Acton's ongoing recovery from colon cancer surgery, but there are hopes to rebook the cancelled dates this year. Hopefully Murray heals up as planned, it'd be great to see them back on stage, let alone maybe back to the Soo at some point? To make up for the Barrie cancellation, Spades GT booked a replacement all-local (to Barrie) show at CW Coop's on December 1st.
If you believe their Facebook page, this is Spades GT's last hometown show "for a while", and it saw them joined by guitarist Daniel Horton's other band The Fast Life and more regional bands (including fellow Random Killing openers G.F.U.). While no recap "Reel" was posted from the Newmarket gig on November 18th despite being hinted, they did post one from the Barrie concert! My disdain for the permanently vertical, short, and unembeddable "Reels" format is no secret, let alone the raw & unedited footage we're not seeing here, but the "Reel" features lots of clips of the bands that night, setup/arrivals for the show, and some lighter moments, like Dan playing piano(!) and frontman J.D. Pearce shopping for sunglasses. Backing audio tracks used are The Fast Life's original "Jameson" and Spades GT's own "XS". I wish this wasn't a "Reel", but there's good and fun stuff for fans to see at this link!
In one more early December concert exit, Spades GT dropped out of the West Queen West Punk Fest (Vol. 2) in Toronto on December 8th, where they would have joined bands like Armed & Hammered and G.F.U. on the bill. The band cited work commitments for at least one band member as why they pulled out, but hopefully things went well at The Parkdale Hall otherwise! In a huge concert announcement for 2024, it was announced on December 15th that Spades GT would be opening for British hardcore punk legends The Exploited and California hardcore punk veterans Total Chaos at Lee's Palace on September 12th (later postponed a day to the 13th). Seeing a show like this announced nine months in advance is not typical for the SMS, but it reportedly sold out well in advance already, so you know this will be a big deal this fall! Bassist James Roy Daley teased the announcement of this concert in a "Reel" the day before.
When we pick things back up for Spades GT on the SMS, we'll be heavily focusing on a performance and interview that they recorded in Brantford in December, and if you're impatient, you can check everything out at this link before our write-up hits the site hopefully sooner rather than later. Stay tuned for all of that, and for more news and notes soon! Thanks everyone!
It's now time for this month's Defunct Local Band Profile, where we once again shine a spotlight on a local band of the past, in other to promote their run and media to modern day readers! For the first time in 2024, we're heading to Michigan for this month's randomly selected band, and while they heyday was over a decade ago, they will be familiar to many E.U.P. readers from their run at the turn of the 2010s. With all of that said, here's what you should know on them!
Audio/Video: A covers-only band, Free Refill's MySpace page once indicated that they covered bands like Queen, Motley Crue, Green Day, Blink-182, Metallica, Skid Row, and Kiss. Between videos being deleted/made private and the degradation of MySpace over the past 12+ years, the only verifiable live videos that I can find in 2024 of Free Refill come from YouTube user amourdete's channel, featuring their original five-piece lineup at an outdoor gig for the annual Sidewalk Sales in Sault Ste. Marie in August 2009, where they covered AC/DC's "Back In Black", The White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army", and as embedded below, Pearl Jam's "Even Flow". The quality is not spectacular, but it's good to have these around!
Info/Analysis: Launching in 2007 among then middle/high school students, Free Refill were among the better known acts in the crop of teenage rock bands that emerged in the E.U.P. in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Updates and official posts from the first half of their run are in short supply nowadays (thank you, MySpace), but you may recall seeing them at The Sugar Island Music Festival, Kewadin Casino's 25th anniversary festival in 2010, and at numerous community and school events, including at least two battles of the bands. Their lineup remained relatively stable throughout their run, aside from guitarist Tyler Wall's departure in late 2009, reducing Free Refill to a quartet. The band's last public postings were about their second place finish at a talent show at Sault Area High School in February 2012, and Free Refill quietly dissolved that summer, with multiple band members leaving the area for college.
Between the three extant videos and my recollections of Free Refill's local run, I can say that they were an entertaining band with a good range of covers and well developing musical skills, especially for their ages! Picking songs that really suited Mary's vocal range seemed to be a recurring point, but given members (especially Devin) have been up to musically downstate in the past decade, Free Refill was a good starting point that showcased some rising talent to an appreciative local audience!
I hope you guys liked this month's Defunct Local Band Profile! We'll head north to Sault Ontario for our next installment of this series, when our next randomly selected band will be 2015-2016 & 2022 death metal band Kaepora Gaebora, a.k.a. Exploring Detritus! Look for that on or around March 10th, and for more on the site next week! Thanks everyone!
Before we begin this post, just a heads up that local classic/hard rock cover quartet Soundcheck were slated to play at Shooters Downstairs Lounge tomorrow night (a show that they nor the venue had publically announced before today), but it has been cancelled due to half of the band falling ill, as per drummer Glen Thomas' personal Facebook page. Hopefully everyone gets better soon, it's unusual to hear of Soundcheck cancelling a date, though maybe this explains why they dropped out of jam night at Jay's yesterday? This post otherwise concludes this weekend's concert previews, along with a new event announcement and some assorted updates, so here's what you should know!
Local classic/hard rock cover quartet Silent 9 will return to The Esquire Club for concerts TONIGHT & TOMORROW NIGHT! Their second and third concerts of 2024, and first at The Esquire Club since that venue's Halloween party last fall, these will be the the band's first gigs in a run of monthly weekends at the Second Line West locale running through May. If you're up for Jess, Ryan, Paul, and Steve's hard rocking cover array, you know where to go this weekend! As usual for their Esquire Club stops, expect 9:30 PM start times, 19+ age limits, and no cover charges tonight and tomorrow night, and if you can't make it, Silent 9 will be back here on March 8th & 9th. Don't miss out on Silent 9's concerts this weekend for some fan friendly and often heavy covers, so visit the above links for more details, and for a preview, here they are live at The Esquire Club for Halloween last year!
Next up, we'll wrap up this weekend's hard rock concert previews at Tazzi's Cafe & Restaurant TOMORROW NIGHT, where local classic/hard rock singer/guitarist Tym Morrison will topline their special Valentine's Day weekend dinner! While Tym started playing occasional acoustic concerts at the Queen Street East cafe last summer, this is not a standard event, as it's a ticketed deal that you must reserve tickets for to attend, either by phone or in person. Attendees, presumably hoped to be couples given the occasion, will get Italian cuisine for dinner, plus pre-meal cocktails, and while Tazzi's hasn't publically indicated that Tym will be performing, he confirmed the gig via his own Facebook event page. Tym is no stranger to non-traditional gigs and venues, and he definitely has a lot of songs fitting a more romantic persuasion in his setlist, so if you are planning a date, this might be worth a look!
This presumably 19+ event has a 6:30 PM start time (dinner at 7:00 PM, Tym at 8:00 PM), and while this is a ticketed event, Tazzi's has not announced the price for attendees (given their entree prices, expect to pay at least $40 for a couple). Call Tazzi's or head there to book if you want to attend, see the above links for more details, and here's Tym live!
Also today, here's a surprise announcement: Jay's Piston Broke Pub is hosting a battle of the bands later this year! While there was one in Sault Michigan in November, this will be the first true battle of the bands in Sault Ontario since the NLFB Meltdown battle at LopLops in 2017, so that gap alone will make this a noteworthy event! The former Roosevelt Hotel did host the one-night Battle For The Blood (won by Winkstinger) back in 2012, but this is planned to be a multi-night battle on consecutive Wednesdays, not unlike the Rockstar Bar and VM Radio battles of the mid-2010s. We don't yet know the dates, scope, format, or prizes yet, let alone if it will have judges or be entirely fan voted, but the plan for the first place winners is for Jay's to match the band entry fees to come up with the top prize. Bands can register for the battle for $50 in person at the Korah Road nightclub, so do so A.S.A.P. just in case!
There are a lot of unknowns yet, not helped by the fact that Jay's only scarcely hosts bands primarily known for original music (granted, it was like that as Reggie's West too), but I am very curious to see how this shakes out, and after seven long years since we last saw an honest-to-goodness battle of the bands in city limits (not counting talent/singing competitions), think of the newer crop of local bands who could theoretically enter! Click here or above for more details on how you can enter!
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:
This can't be embedded here, as it's a "Reel", but local southern hard rock cover trio Bone Yard shared a "Reel" onto their Facebook page on January 25th of them playing the end of ZZ Top's "La Grange" at Jay's! The date wasn't given, but Bone Yard last played at Jay's over the December 1st weekend. Filmed/uploaded by attendee Marcy Catherine before being shared by the band, it's a fun clip (vertical angle aside) that shows Alex & Warren jamming on the floor with some attendees, so give it a look above, and don't miss them at Reggie's TONIGHT & TOMORROW!
In another "Reel" that I can't embed here, local alt-hard rock quintet Handsome Sandwich posted a brief video clip of them playing "Stick Up" at the Lower Town Brewery in Ottawa during their southeastern Ontario tour last month on their Facebook page! The impromptu open mic performance did not feature guitarist Mitch Sirie or bassist Rafael Medina, with former Generations guitarist Brandon Ruch filling in for Mitch (no word on why there were absences or if they extended to their proper concerts last month). Fun rendition that is well applied to unplugged gear, but why is this a "Reel"? It wasn't shot vertically nor cropped to fit, and look at the pillarboxing as a result!
Algoma University's music program's Facebook page has confirmed that Lake Effect frontman Frank Deresti and Pointless/Fuller drummer David Peredun will serve as the rhythm section for Treble Charger's reunion concert at The Machine Shop on March 7th! As such, they will take over for session bassist Darcy Yates & drummer Ian McKay in those roles. Bill Priddle has played with Frank at numerous gigs, and David is a member of his most recent live bands, so this will be a huge feather in their respective caps! Student bands, presumably all linked to the university, will open the proceedings for this music program fundraiser. Click here to get your tickets for what will be a huge night!
That's all for today, but stay tuned for this month's Defunct Local Band Profile next! Thanks everyone!
