A New Battle Of The Bands, Ace Frehley Updates, Nixxon Dixxon Videos, And More!

How's everyone doing on this fine Sunday? Before I get to some news, let me recommend that you all check out my review of Stillbroke's debut EP, "Never Enough", immediately below this post! It's a good album, well worth your money! But now it's time to update everyone on some news and updates from the Sault-area metal world, and first, something that may interest those of you in a band!

The Algoma Univeristy Students' Union, in cooperation with The United Way, are holding a Battle of the Bands on December 1st! It will be at The Speakeasy, and it will be a fundraiser, with all proceeds going to local charities. Any local bands with recorded material are eligible to enter! Now there's not a lot of detail announced yet, but there will be prizes for the top three bands. Entrance fees, song limits, sign up details, and ticket info are yet to come, but get first word on these details at the official Facebook event page! Some notable local musicians are on the judging panel too, including Gsis Murphy drummer Tony Fabiano & Dustin Jones of Dustin Jones and The Rising Tide!

But why do I mention this on a metal blog? Cause I'm hoping some of you in metal bands might be interested in getting on the lineup for the Battle! Remember, Bring The Fallen, Dirty Virgin, Sue Inside, and Operation: Killdozer all took part in the YMCA-hosted battle in March, with all but one winning prizes! Hopefully there'll be some metal representation for this one too, the talent's there, you just gotta get involved! As soon as I hear more, I'll let you guys know! Stay tuned!

Next up, we have updates from Friday's Ace Frehley concert at Kewadin Casino! SooToday reader Marc Capancioni has submitted a review and photo album from the show to SooToday, and it's overall a positive article! Apparently, Ace had smoke spew from his guitar during one of his solos, just like back in the Kiss days! That would have been a treat to see live! Also, I'm surprised to see that Marc reported a "less than capacity crowd". You'd think with all the Kiss hysteria for their December show that Ace's concert would have sold out! Check out Marc's review at this location, which also has 5 quality photos from the show!

Speaking of Ace Frehley, some videos from the concert have began popping up online! Two YouTube users, KissRocksForever and peacelovebonjovi, have uploaded videos from the show! Both took video from Ace's cover of the Kiss classic "Shout It Out Loud", while KissRocksForever also recorded clips of Ace playing two more Kiss songs, "Love Her All I Can", and "Shock Me"! Quality on all four videos is not great, but hey, I'm just happy people took video! Click on their names to check out their videos, but I'll show you guys one here, so here's peacelovebonjovi's clip of Ace playing "Shout It Out Loud"!



While we're on the subject of videos, there's a few more of a local band online! Sault Michigan's own Nixxon Dixxon recently played shows Halloween weekend at Kewadin Casino in St. Ignace, and YouTube user myangels1266 has uploaded three videos from their show October 31st online, including clips of the band covering Metallica's version of "Whiskey In The Jar", Van Halen's "Atomic Punk", and Alice In Chains' "Man In The Box"! Quality is definitely better than the Ace Frehley videos, though not perfect. Audio's decent though, and it's always great to see clips of Nixxon Dixxon online, as they have loads of talent! I'll show you guys a clip that myangels1266 uploaded, here's their version of "Man In The Box"!



And finally for today, two quick random updates. Sault Ontario natives Detroit have launched an official Facebook group! Nice to see them with a Facebook presence now, hopefully we'll get some cool band updates through there as well! Visit their Facebook group at this location, and remember to go see them on December 29th at Coch's Corner with Destroilet and Talk Shit! Also, I can now clarify that yes, Friday November 13th was the day that "Woods IV: The Green Album" was SHIPPED (Source here.) So the first copies should arrive Monday, I'd assume? We'll have to see, but no matter when it arrives, I can't wait! I'll share details on the album and what the bonus disc is when I get my copy! Review coming around December 1st!

That's all for now, notice the new banner image? Obvious why it's up, I'm happy with how it turned out! Logo on the Facebook page is updated too! Also, I figured the background should be changed to be more SMS-personal, and I like how it looks too! A bit darker and it incorporates the SMS logo too! Hope the change isn't too disliked! Stay tuned for more news in the coming days, including a new SMS poll, "Green Album" updates, and more!