Irish eyes are definitely smiling upon the calendar this year, as with St. Patrick's Day falling on a Friday this year, it means the concert calendar is quite stacked, so be sure to check out your favourite nightclubs' and venues' online pages & schedules to see if bands are playing, let alone if they will have St. Patrick's Day themes. However, the weather gods are not smiling upon the Sault Ste. Marie area, with a winter storm watch currently in effect from late tonight through Saturday morning, with up to 3-8 inches of snow expected, so if you are at all concerned that a band or St. Patrick's Day party will be impaired by the impending storm, keep tabs on their online accounts for further details, as things can easily change.
Due to the amount of scheduled hard rock/punk concerts this weekend, I'll save the Bone Yard, Scarkazm, and Tym Morrison shows for tomorrow morning's post, and maybe anything that falls into our lap beforehand. Now, let's start with three Friday-only shows, including the big one this weekend, as Muskegon, Michigan hard rock mainstays Pop Evil will make their long awaited return to the Sault Ste. Marie Kewadin Casino TOMORROW NIGHT when they headline at The Dreammakers Theatre! This will be Pop Evil's seventh local concert, sixth at the Soo Kewadin, first since their outdoor gig with Buckcherry back in August 2019, and their first here with touring bassist Joey Walser in place of Matt DiRito. Of course, Pop Evil have loads of familiar rock radio hits, including "Breathe Again", "Eye Of The Storm", and "Survivor" since their last local date alone, so fans should be in good hands tomorrow!
Support bands include Phoenix metalcore band The Word Alive and Seattle metalcore quintet Avoid, and while both are more aggressive than Pop Evil by rule, their fast rising takes on the subgenre shouldn't be avoided tomorrow night! A presentation of Allstar Promotions, this 8:00 PM & all ages concert is actually a big deal on a wider scale for Pop Evil's sake, as it is both the full kickoff show for this tour, as well as the day that their new album "Skeletons" is released, so get your copy while it is hot off the presses! Tickets run for $29.50 USD (up from $25 at their last Dreammakers Theatre show in 2018), and limited seats in the left and right sections are still available, albeit in the back three rows only. If you want any seat that you can get, or want standing room only admission, click here, call 1-800-KEWADIN, or visit the in-person box office. For the record, this concert has no overt St. Patrick's Day ties in the promotion.
Pop Evil have been very good to Sault Ste. Marie in the past decade+, and with their upbeat, high energy brand of modern hard rock still going high on the Billboard Mainstream Rock charts, they should be in fine form with a huge crowd to match tomorrow night! Visit the official Facebook event page for more details, and for a preview, here's Pop Evil live here!
Next up, local blues/hard rock quartet Project 906 will return to The Islander Bar in nearby Hessel TOMORROW NIGHT! Their first trip to The Islander Bar (almost an hour south of the Soo) since Halloween weekend, tomorrow's festivities will definitely be St. Patrick's Day-themed, including a traditional corned beef/boiled cabbage dinner if you are so inclined beforehand, plus multiple Irish-themed drink specials. Project 906 themselves will bring the rock as usual, and they should deliver entertaining hard rock covers and select originals for Mackinac County fans tomorrow!This is a one-nighter due to or resulting in Gary Hatch's show there on Saturday, and be advised that The Islander Bar will actually close for nearly a month starting on Sunday (the venue didn't say why, but renovations seem likely)
Tomorrow's concert has a 8:00 PM start time, no cover charge, and a 21+ age limit. Between this show and Scarkazm in the Soo (more tomorrow), hard rock fans in the eastern U.P. will have some solid options for St. Patrick's Day, so don't miss out, and for a preview of Project 906's Hessel gig tomorrow, here they are live a few months back!
Lastly for this preview post, we'll head north to Sault Ontario, where debuting local skate punk trio Hails and folk punk/extreme metal solo musician Chase Wigmore will join forces for a special concert/art exhibition TOMORROW at The Art Hub at Spring! Named the "Full Circle Rock & Roll Spectacular", this event is being held at the former Big Brothers Association property at 504 Queen Street East, and it is being held as part of the Fishbowl Festival and, within that, Hails frontman Brenton Ellis' own art exhibition named Full Circle, which celebrates "connectivity & continuity". Remember, if you've seen any of Brent's recent concerts or him at events where sale of his artwork occurred, you'll know his painting talents and this should be a good showcase for his visual art endeavours! Hails feature Brent alongside Vanity First's Mikhal Muto & Keeghan McAllister (yes, Vanity First is still active) and shouldn't be far off musically.
As for Chase, this will be a rare pandemic-era live concert set from him, but will this lean more to his recent metal studio work or his past unplugged folk punk live sets? Come out tomorrow to find out! This all ages event has a 7:30 PM start time, and admission is $10 or "pay what you can", and if you are so inclined, tickets are available at this link. If there are St. Patrick's Day themes tomorrow, then they go unsaid in Facebook promotion. Should be a fun evening for punk fans and art aficionados alike, so visit the above links for more details, and here's one of Chase's recent acoustic videos!
That's all for now, but we'll wrap up the St. Patrick's Day weekend hard rock concert previews on the site next! Thanks everyone!
News has somewhat been slowing down as of late, but here's a full news post to check out on this Tuesday evening, including a new performance video and some assorted recent stories. Leading off are details on physical copies of a local punk veteran's recent album exploits that may or not be belated for the SMS, so here's what you should know!
This may fly under the radar unless you know frontman Brenton Ellis personally, but he is (still?) selling his acoustic punk solo project Slumshine's 2021 EP "Slumlord" on cassette tapes, as well as tape copies of his inactive punk/alternative duo These Magnificent Tentacles' EP "Surfacing..."! Brent definitely released Slumshine's vowelless debut "SLMSHN" on tapes in 2019, but he hasn't posted on that project's Facebook page since 2021 despite playing live at Fringe North last year, and never promoted an active sale of "Slumlord" on tapes there. However, I saw that Brent (a.k.a. B.G. Ellis) would be selling art at the Fishbowl Festival's flea market at The Klub at the Pall Mall on Queen Street East on Sunday, and in his teaser picture, there were cassette tapes! Not having any of Slumshine's tapes yet, I went down there and bought "Slumlord" and "Surfacing", which he charges $10 apiece for.
Brent is an accomplished painter & visual artist, so he hand-designed the art on his tapes, rather than use the Bandcamp cover art in a cropped or stretched form factor. On "Slumlord", Brent creatively gave the tape reversible artwork and liner notes, and while side A has "Slumlord" as seen on Bandcamp, side B (with reversible referencing artwork) has five bonus tracks named "Reversible Straightjacket", "Doubt For Life", "Prelapse", "Into The Inferno", and "Breeze Of The Sun". This is the sort of thing that I'm surprised Brent doesn't advertise, as it could boost sales of the tapes if people knew that Bandcamp only had 6/11ths of the story! Be advised that the "side A/B" labels fell off of my copy very easily, so have a glue stick handy. As for the These Magnificent Tentacles tape, it is less ornate for packaging and details, and has no bonus songs, but it uses thicker liner notes & promotes their Tidal Records affiliation.
What I didn't buy there was what appeared to be the original "SLMSHN" album on tape, distinguished by abstract painted liner artwork (as showcased in the Bandcamp copy's cover art), but at the time, I just took them for alternate art of "Slumlord" rather than a separate older album. If I described this accurately, then silly me, and hopefully Brent is selling his art again soon so I can grab that tape also and see how different/similar it is to the digital copy! Definitely keep an eye on when/where Brent will be selling art (or playing live) next to see if you can buy his recent albums on tape, and while copies of "Surfacing..." seemed limited, the Slumshine albums were well stocked. See above for more details!
Next up, let's take a brief detour to Sault Michigan for a new video from local classical metal band Theatre of Night's YouTube channel last week! A newly filmed live rendition of the Christmas carol "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen", this is their first true performance video uploaded here featuring new bassist Luke Bernard, and he and the rest of the band are sure dressed for the occasion here! No videos from their abbreviated (and non-local) Christmas tour last year surfaced online, but this may help make up for that, if a few months late to really be seasonal. Filmed at their own space named "The Cave" (related in name only to Sykotyk Rampage's jam room), it looks like Theatre of Night pulled out all of the stops to give this video the presentation of their live concerts, complete with full staging and light/smoke effects, and it comes across very well in this video. I wonder if they filmed any more songs like this at the time?
We are 7-8 months out from this performance being timely, but the performance itself is solid and accurate to last year's studio revision, and fans of Theatre of Night's metal versions of Christmas classics should be right at home with this rendition 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 name:
In a rare public acknowledgement of their status, Gates of Winter guitarist Bryan Belleau revealed in a comment reply on the Woods of Ypres Fanclub Facebook group on Saturday that the Sault Ontario progressive death metal band "didn't officially disband", but life caught up to them and took them "in different directions", though the guys still talk daily. Bryan noted that "Gates 2" (their unfinished album "Perihelion") "may exist at some point" in the future. Gates of Winter have been inactive since the spring of 2018 after working on the new album since 2010, and they haven't played live since 2008. Fingers crossed that we haven't heard the absolute last from them!
Local indie punk quintet The Northwest's song "Shoreline" was featured on the February 25th episode of the CBC Radio One series In The Key Of C, where host Craig Norris spotlights rising Ontario musicians each Saturday at 5:00 PM. According to the show's Facebook page, The Northwest were the last of 12 bands played on that episode. If you missed the live airing on 89.5 FM (which is easy, as the band only announced that they'd be on that morning), the episode will likely come to the CBC Listen mobile application in time, though at the moment, the newest playable episode is from January 7th. Hopefully The Northwest got lots of new fans here!
I have moved St. Ignace, Michigan metal guitarist Ted Olson's solo project to our inactive Sault Michigan band links. The Heavy Lies The Crown axeslayer has not issued a public update to his solo Facebook page since posting a picture of his headless guitars in November 2021, though of course, he has been more than busy since with H.L.T.C. in studio and in concert. Follow the band for more on what Ted's been up to in the past year+, but hopefully he resumes solo work down the road!
That's all for today, but stay tuned for St. Patrick's Day weekend concert previews and more on the site in the days ahead! Thanks everyone!
Before we get into today's post, just a heads up that local southern hard rock trio Bone Yard & their sister band The Bearded Lounge have cancelled their Shooters Downstairs Lounge shows last night and tonight due to an illness affecting 2/3rds of the band, as per Bone Yard's Facebook page. It was already known that they'd have had special guest sitting in this weekend, possibly related to The Bearded Lounge subbing in for Bone Yard at The Water Tower Pub last week, but I don't know specifics. Shooters are instead hosting music video dance parties this weekend, and Bone Yard plan to return for their first shows in a month next weekend at Jay's Piston Broke Pub. I hope everyone gets well soon!
Today's post is otherwise focused on recent videos from some familiar faces on both sides of the border, plus the latest from a prominent local solo musician, and let's lead off with this month's Mikey & His Uke cover video, which was posted to the project's YouTube channel last week! In a partial diversion from Mikey Hawdon's usual punk cover choices, he tackled Billy Idol's "Rebel Yell" this time out, with Mikey on guitar (and ukekele at first) as usual. For this cover, the remotely filmed all-star band includes Bowling For Soup frontman Jaret Reddick, Steel Panther guitarist Russ "Satchel" Parrish, Buckcherry bassist Kelly Lemieux, his former Goldfinger bandmate Darren Pfieffer on drums, and Arkells keyboardist Anthony Carone. This cover comes through nicely and everyone handles their instruments with zest, and Jaret's singing is a good match! It'd have been amusing if he had did Motley Crue though (when did they become classic rock?)
Visually, the difference in musician placement and camera angles adds variety to the proceedings too, especially Kelly's unique perspective, and while it's a shame that Satchel's video was shot vertically, at least they mirrored it rather than letterboxing it. Yes, Mikey is playing guitar in front of the arcade games at Soo Blaster, which is a nice touch! Solid stuff as usual, so check out the newest Mikey & His Uke cover video below!
Next up, here's the latest from local/Barrie alternative hard rock singer/guitarist Mike Haggith, and while major updates on the public resumption of his original music post-move are still forthcoming, he's hardly been idle! In a post on his Facebook page on Tuesday, Mike announced the formation of his own indie label MorningStar Records (named after his song "MorningStar", and an imprint he has used for Thompson-era solo releases), which he calls "a record label, minus the label". The idea is that musicians record their music where they want for as long as they need, and then become an "affiliated artist", not a signee to the label, so Mike wouldn't own your music. He'd host the material on the planned website, sell it, list the artist there with a biography and updates and whatnot, with physical albums made to order (presumably via Kunaki, which Mike used for recent solo albums). This way, costs are kept down and the artist retains as much control and independence as possible.
Mike claims to have had a vision of working with a label like this for over a decade, especially given the difficulties he met releasing solo albums in the past, not to mention existing label restrictions and commitments that musicians often run in to under contract. This is definitely an ambitious idea, but hopefully it takes off, as Mike knows what its like in the system and I know him well enough to know that he means 100% well to help other rising independent artists! The label may not be Sault Ste. Marie-based, but Mike is definitely getting the word out about MorningStar Records on local music-related Facebook groups/pages and has attracted positive local notice, with industrial metal solo project Molten Imp already revealing on their Facebook page that they plan to release a "double EP" through MorningStar "this fall". Stay tuned for updates on that front!
Outside of the label plans, Mike announced that his monthly Facebook live-streams will return on Tuesday, March 28th where he will interview Ryan Jensen of the Denver, Colorado alt-rock solo project Surrender The Tides. while Mike teased that he will be interviewed by Brian Tremblay on local internet radio station The Borderline's show Rock & Roll Heaven, airdate yet to be announced. Sounds like things are picking up for Mike in 2023, if not in the new album-centric ways many fans expected, so visit the above links for more on what Mike has going on at the moment!
We'll close today with a new video of local southern hard rock quintet Fort Creek's concert at Jay's Piston Broke Pub on Friday, March 3rd! We already touched on their "Give Me One Reason" cover shot by frontman Justin Grayson himself, but this one was filmed by attendee Katina King and uploaded to the band's Facebook page on Monday. It features the band covering Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Simple Man" (two days before guitarist Gary Rossington's death, for the record), and while the 87 second clip is obviously not complete, the landscape orientation and really solid audio quality help a ton to overcome the deep purple stage lighting! Check it out for yourself below, and look for more from Fort Creek soon!
That's all for tonight, but stay tuned for more news and notes on the site next week! Thanks everyone!
It's now time for this month's Defunct Local Band Profile, as we shine a light on another local metal, hard rock, or punk act from the past, as randomly selected from our inactive band links! This month's choice is a more recent solo act who had a lot of promise despite never being a live act, so here's what you should know on them!
Hometown:Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario/General Viejo, Costa Rica
Genre: Alternative Rock/Grunge
Lineup:
Kristien Woodcock, vocals/guitar
Audio/Video: Kush Wood released four studio singles to major streaming services like Spotify in 2020 & 2021, namely "Intent & Design", "Love Replace This", "Down The River", and "The Passage Way", while a separate original song named "Weathering Change" was posted to their Bandcamp page in 2016. Most of Kush Wood's media was otherwise posted to their YouTube channel, which mostly features solo acoustic covers by Kristien, though you can hear versions of unreleased originals like "The Shade" and "The Open Highway" here. A solid amount of covers that lean to 1990s alternative rock acts are also present, though his cover of The Stone Temple Pilots' "Plush" is a Soundcloud exclusive from their singer search. Here is Kristien's playing "Love Replace This" in one of his last YouTube uploads from 2020!
Info/Analysis: Launching the Kush Wood Facebook page in December 2015 while working in Costa Rica, Kristien originally put out solo cover recordings, but he did post two original songs to Bandcamp before the project went inactive after July 2017. After an almost 3 year hiatus, a now-long haired Kristien resurrected Kush Wood in March 2020 with a Patreon page and plans to release new originals on major streaming services. New songs and performance videos followed for the next year, but Kristien has only posted thrice since the spring of 2021, all to share posts not about Kush Wood. It's a shame that Kush Wood fell inactive again, as Kristien had a good thing going with well produced throwback originals that felt like a modern take on the grunge era, and in a town that had bands like No Arrow and Haggith, he'd have gotten a good reception had Kush Wood played live gigs!
Kristien also has a versatile range for melodic tones and grittier effects, and his songs adapt well to acoustic and electric styles if songs like "The Passage Way" are any indication, so hopefully we haven't heard the absolute last from Kush Wood! Give their originals and covers a watch/listen for yourself to see what you think!
I hope you guys liked this month's Defunct Local Band Profile! This series will return on or around April 10th with our second Sault Michigan profile of 2023, as our latest random selection is early-mid 2010s hard rock cover trio Power Slug! Look for that next month, and for more news and notes on the site this weekend! Thanks everyone!
Another weekend is upon us for local concert-goers, and there's a decent amount of hard rock cover bands to check out over the next few nights, so let's start with SHORT NOTICE LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS!
Local classic/hard rock singer/guitarist Tym Morrison will return to Reggie's Place for one night only TOMORROW NIGHT! Apologies for the short notice, Tym only announced this gig via its Facebook event page on Sunday. Fans will have last seen Tym's unplugged classic and newer rock covers at Reggie's via a Sunday matinee last month, but this will be his first typical nighttime gig at the Queen Street East nightclub since October. If you've missed Tym in more traditional confines in both timeslot and venue alike, don't miss out on TOMORROW's festivities, and of course, if you can't come out for this one, Tym will be just down the road at Tazzi's next week. A one-nighter due to or resulting in the debuting Tannerite's show there on Saturday, Tym's array of acoustic hits are on TOMORROW at 9:00 PM with no cover charge and a 19+ age limit. See above for more details, and here's Tym live!
Next up, local classic/hard rock cover quartet Soundcheck will return to Jay's Piston Broke Pub for traditional concerts TOMORROW & SATURDAY NIGHT! Again, apologies for the short notice, we only heard about the SATURDAY gig via the venue's Facebook page on Monday, with the band's Facebook page only following suit earlier today. Yes, Soundcheck are also hosting tonight's usual Thursday jam night at the former Reggie's West, though remember that we don't cover jam/open mic nights due to their unpredictability. The reason why Jay's announced just the SATURDAY show is because that one has a Hawaiian theme, not unlike their 1980s themed show at the same venue at this same point last month. Whether this is going to become a monthly re-occurrence for Jay's and/or Soundcheck, I don't know, but if Soundcheck headline a different themed concert there on April 8th, you'll know these are doing well!
SATURDAY'S festivities will be a good excuse to break out your Hawaiian shirts and/or any tropical props that you may own, but as to how well Soundcheck's set could adapt to the theme... come out to find out! If you just want a straightforward classic/hard rock concert, come TOMORROW instead! Both gigs (and jam night tonight) have 9:00 PM start times, 19+ age limits, and no cover charges. See above for more details, and here's Soundcheck live with a summery cover choice from last year!
Now we'll move to hard rock shows that had advance notice before this week, starting with local southern hard rock trio Bone Yard's return to Shooters Downstairs Lounge for concerts TOMORROW & SATURDAY NIGHT! After cancelling their planned Reggie's shows in late February and subbing in their acoustic side project The Bearded Lounge for their Water Tower Pub show this past Saturday, these will be Bone Yard's first concerts in three weeks, and first at Shooters in a month. However, this won't be a standard weekend of just Bone Yard covers, as according to their Facebook page, the aforementioned Bearded Lounge will open both gigs! As such, these will be that duo's first ever Shooters dates as far as I know, so if you like Greg & Alex unplugged, don't be late either night! As well, the band has teased that they have "got a special guest sitting in with us", though they didn't reveal who the guest is or what they're playing.
Keep in mind that, if The Bearded Lounge (who are basically Bone Yard minus bassist Warren Reville) replaced Bone Yard on late notice last week, and are taking up part of their time this weekend, is this just their way of noting that Warren can't play this weekend either and the "special guest" is a fill-in bassist? Maybe I'm completely wrong, but the shoe fits in theory. We'll let you know when/if the guest is announced! Dual band setup aside, these remain 8:00 PM events with 19+ age limits and no cover charges. See above for more details on the southern fried rock action to come, and here's Bone Yard live at Shooters earlier this year!
We'll close today with a road trip to St. Ignace, Michigan, as Sault Ste. Marie hard rock quartet Rhythm & Brews will return to The Northern Pines Lounge at the St. Ignace Kewadin Casino for concerts TOMORROW & SATURDAY NIGHT! Barring something that was only announced on personal accounts and not on their public Facebook page (which has happened), these will be Rhythm & Brews' first shows of 2023, and their first advertised dates at the St. Ignace Kewadin since July of last year. With their stacked lineup of familiar faces from bands like Nixxon Dixxon, 415E, Clownsack, and Highway 63, fans can be assured of a solid weekend of hard rock covers despite this band's constant aversion to posting videos or audio of their shows (but in that way, it forces you to see them live for that!) These are 21+ affairs with 9:00 PM start times and no cover charges, as usual.
Hopefully Rhythm & Brews have a great weekend in store for fans in/around St. Ignace, so visit the above links for more on this weekend's concerts, we'll let you know if videos surface, and that's all for today, but look for this month's Defunct Local Band Profile next! Thanks everyone!
It took almost 5½ years, but here is our third all-video post from the Dokken/Firehouse concert at GFL Memorial Gardens (then known as the Essar Centre) in September 2017! The reason this show is back on our radar is because promoters Superior Entertainment recently launched a new Facebook page and have been posting media from their concerts there, primarily from this show. The only concert videos uploaded there so far come from this event, and none were previously featured on the SMS, at least not via a link that works in 2023. I'm not sure if the new Superior Entertainment page is part of a planned relaunch for the Sault Michigan-based concert/MMA promoters or just a way to (re-)post old event materials, but note that their newest post is a gag poll asking what artist that inactive(?) local hard rock band Bucksaw should cover next. If Bucksaw have reunited, this is the only post that I have seen to confirm it so far, but I'll let you know if anything else is said.
None of the videos on Superior Entertainment's Facebook page (all unlabelled) come from Dokken's set, but co-headlining South Carolina hair metal quartet Firehouse's set was captured in two videos, including a 29 second clip of them playing "All She Wrote" and, as embedded below, a 1:41 clip of them playing the second half of their power ballad "Love Of A Lifetime", albeit filmed sideways from the 5 second mark onward. Why upload it based on the original orientation, I don't know, but the two videos sound good for fans, and Firehouse were good to the Sault area in the early-mid 2010s, so give these a watch above & below!
The other three live videos on the channel come from Los Angeles/Saskatoon arena rock quartet Love 'N Revenge's opening set, though two videos are just 13 seconds long and I can't identify the song performed in one of them (the other is a cover of Rockarma's "Bring It"). Embedded below is their cover of Skid Row's "Youth Gone Wild", and props to frontman Damon Kelly for sounding admirably like Sebastian Bach here! This clip runs for barely over one minute, but like the "All She Wrote" video, you get a good look at the stage from the vantage point of this stationary camera, and the band's on point, so check these out above & below as well!
Finally for the new/old videos is a re-post of a promotional clip for this concert featuring the members of Firehouse (except frontman C.J. Snare) that was first posted onto Superior Entertainment's now deleted Facebook page on September 29th, 2017, the day before the concert took place. Kewadin Casino concert-goers in particular won't be too surprised by touring bands plugging their show here like this, but this was notable as Firehouse had already arrived in town, so check it out (again) below!
As of this writing, the Superior Entertainment Facebook page otherwise features photos of event posters and the events proper, be they from Dreammakers Theater hard rock concerts or MMA cards, so do check everything out at this link, especially if this is setting the stage for a return to booking live events in 2023. That's all for today, but stay tuned for weekend concert previews on the site next! Thanks everyone!
We have a new news post on this Monday evening, which is half devoted to a new-ish band who you may remember seeing live last fall, while we also have lots of updates from a solo project, a new live concert video, and an apology for missing a show for previewing on the site last week. Here's what you should know!
We have a new local band to add to our Sault Ontario band links, and they are noise punk duo No Funeral! You may recall seeing this band at a Dryer Fire-promoted event at Outspoken Brewing in October, and they were scheduled for last month's cancelled Matthew Nadon memorial concert, but aside from being described as an "indie noise" act, little was public about them unless you saw their October set. I knew from personal Facebook postings that former AlgomA drummer Jamie Vincent was one half of this band, but No Funeral shares far more in common musically with his mid-2010s grunge/punk duo Bad Back, but with two key differences: More of a chaotic post-hardcore bent, and that Jamie isn't the frontman here. Rather, their singer/guitarist is Connor O'Brien, who played guitar in the defunct Edmonton noise punk band Flint, of which Jamie was a member on bass from 2009 until he moved back to the Soo in 2012.
The fact that Connor isn't local may explain why we've only seen No Funeral in concert once, but this project's existence is definitely more on the local side of things than Edmonton, especially given the credits for... their debut album!? Yes, No Funeral's self-titled debut album (and if you believe Jamie's personal Facebook page, their "only" album) was released to their new Bandcamp page yesterday, and the description there says in more graphic terms that the band has been in the works for two years, with the album coming together within a two week span before coming out. The album was produced by Dustin Goodall at Unsalted Audio last fall, with Dustin supplying backing vocals, additional bass, and "musical saw", while Saultite author Mat Laporte guests on saxophone on the two closing tracks and also provided the album artwork. Much like Bad Back's Bandcamp albums, "No Funeral" is on sale on a "name your price" model.
I'll hold comment on the album pending our eventual review of it (I currently have it pencilled in for June given our current backlog), but if you miss Bad Back in particular, don't bypass No Funeral! Of course, connections to Flint will be obvious if you're familiar with that band from before Jamie moved back home (or if you've lived in Edmonton), so if you want to hear Connor & Jamie's prior output, do check out Flint's Bandcamp page, as I believe Jamie factors on all but their newest two songs posted there. As best as I can tell, No Funeral's only public online page is on Bandcamp, but give it a look to see what they bring to the table, and consider paying something for the album to support their work!
Next up, I want to apologize for a concert that we missed in this past weekend's concert previews, as local funk/hard rock cover band The Wyld Stallyns returned to The Kiln at Searchmont Resort for a matinee concert on Saturday. The band did not announce this show on their Facebook page in advance, and I only learned that it was a thing when a video from attendee TerriDollie Williams' personal Facebook page was shared to the band's seldom updated Facebook group yesterday. Sensing that this likely wasn't from their Searchmont gig in January, I learned belatedly that the resort's Facebook page plugged it on Friday. Still on short notice, but at least someone got the word out. I have to do better re: Searchmont concerts, especially with The Stallyns not always plugging their own shows on Facebook, so my apologies again, I'd have plugged it had I known! That said, how about that video?
TerriDollie filmed the band (minus saxophonist Josh Norling, who apparently missed the January Kiln show too) covering The Outfield's "Your Love" with Christina Speers on lead vocals. Not a supremely heavy choice, but everyone handles it well, and I'd hope most attendees were familiar with the original song! The video is vertically shot, but as the video is as much to highlight a young relative getting into the song as it is the band proper, I won't nitpick the angle. Cute watch in that respect too, so check it out below, and apologies again for missing The Stallyns at The Kiln... again!
Finally, here's the latest from newer local rap rock solo project Less Than Zero, so what have they been up to since the fall? First off, in November, project leader/ex-Winkstinger guitarist Jason Ladouceur changed the band's name in In The Sun. According to their Bandlab page on December 6th, the new name is intended to make the project "more inspirational", though their sound and even their existing logo remain unchanged. If you're Facebook friends with Jason, you'll know very well that he is always posting material for In The Sun, and at the moment, fifteen unique songs can be heard on Bandlab, many being tweaked as time goes on, so you can tell that this is a labour of love for him. In fact, under the name "In The Sun1", three songs are now up on Spotify, while a couple dozen videos can be seen on their YouTube channel, and Jason did tease late last year that he wants to release an In The Sun album in the near future.
Embedded below is a recent take of their song "Factory Reset" (all of their songs except a cover of Megadeth's "Sweating Bullets" are original). Jason's method of frequently posting these songs and then adding to/editing them over time is helping the songs sound heavier and more fully realized, so if you do check out In The Sun's songs, definitely listen to the newest instance of each song on Bandlab or YouTube, not the oldest ones unless you want to see the journey. Vocals can still come off as unnatural and not as aggressive as the music calls for, but again, Jason's always working on these songs, so I doubt he's done yet. Check out much more from Less Than Zero In The Sun above & below!
That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and notes on the site this week! Thanks everyone!
