Friday, March 5, 2010

LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Sykotyk Rampage), The End Of The Bear, New Videos, And More!

Now the SMS is back in the full swing of things, I'd say! Today, we'll get to lots more stuff that I missed during my Detroit trip! Lots of cool stuff to get to, including some new local metal-related videos, but first, a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT!!

Sykotyk Rampage have scheduled another upcoming local concert! This time, they'll be back at The Outback at Sault College on March 20th! It will be their first show at The Outback since October, and their first set of any kind since their podium finish at the Sault College/Scotties Tournament of Hearts Battle of the Bands last month! But this show isn't just to enjoy some live music, as it's the 8th annual Tyler Yuke Memorial Night. Tyler Yuke was a 21 year old Sault College student who suddenly died from a fall in Gros Cap in April 2003, and ever since, the college has held memorial concerts or open mic nights in his honour. There's a nice online memoriam to Tyler online that you can check out here! It's great to see Sault College continue to remember Tyler all these years later, I remember hearing about the memorial shows when I went there, but I rarely heard what bands were playing. Nice to know this time, and it's a metal band to boot!

Sykotyk Rampage are scheduled to take the stage at 10:00 PM on March 20th, with a yet-to-be-announced cover charge going to the Sault College Music Chapter. No potential student restrictions have been announced. So whether you wanna enjoy harsh music for harsh minds, remember Tyler's memory, or both, this show should deliver the goods! I'll keep you guys posted with updates! Confirm your attendance for this show at this location!

Next up, it looks like we can confirm the worst about the fate of one of our few local rock stations. It appears that in late February, 97.9 Classic Rock, The Bear shut down. It looks like February 23rd was the last day that The Bear was operating. I can't verify if The Bear's sister stations in Cheboygan, Traverse City, and Cadillac shut down too, but for what it's worth, they're all under the same ownership. No official announcement has been made about the shutdown, but I have tried to listen to 97.9 FM since I heard the news, and sadly, it only picks up static or faint mixed signals from an unrelated station. The writing was on the wall for this, with Sovereign Communications not buying The Bear in their station purchase from Northern Star Broadcasting, and Northern Star's apparent plans to exit the radio industry. But part of me was hoping that someone, anyone, would buy all four of The Bear's stations and at least make use of them somehow. The music was always solid, the DJing was great, and fans of Bob & Tom In The Morning and Nights With Alice Cooper will surely be disappointed. Plus, now we're down to just two FM radio stations that air hard rock/metal (Rock 101 and WLSO sometimes.)

This just sucks, hopefully someday in the near future, we'll get another rock station up here, we need the variety! The link for The Bear's website has been moved to the Other Local Metal Links as well. R.I.P. Bear, we'll miss you!

OK, happier news now! As you may remember, Pop Evil and three other bands rocked out at Kewadin Casino this past Saturday in memory of Kim Rogers and Kelsey Raffaele, and from what I've heard, it was a huge success! Scott Brand from The Soo Evening News posted an article about the show at this location! Promoter Dave Atkinson believes that the show raised more than $14,000, which will go towards scholarships in Kim and Kelsey's names! More than 1,600 concertgoers showed up, most of them area high schoolers who received donated tickets purchased elsewhere, and the concert was indeed sold out as a result! Also, the bands played free or at reduced prices, which is a nice gesture! Now by all accounts, it looks like the attendees had lots of fun, and we can get a glimpse of what we missed, thanks to YouTube! Although I can't find a video of Graveyard Tan from the concert, I have found video of every other band! Going in performance order from Saturday, here's video of Nixxon Dixxon performing their original "One Shot Woman", Evans Blue performing their song "A Step Back", and Pop Evil playing an acoustic rendition of their song "Hey Mister"! (Thanks to myangels1266, KrisJamieson09, and KFNightFire23 for the uploads!)







Also, as it turns out, Nixxon Dixxon DID play at The Rapids Lounge at Kewadin Casino on February 27th too, hitting the stage there after opening the Pop Evil show! I didn't figure they'd pull double duty, but hey, we all make mistakes! I bet it was a good show! My apologies!

And finally for today, more video has surfaced from Bring The Fallen's Algoma Hope4Haiti show at Nite-Life Dance Club! Nine minutes of hard hitting death metal here, nice to get so much in a clip! I like the video and audio quality, especially the fact that this person's camera let him/her zoom mid-video, mine can't. Check it out below, and thanks to YouTube user flightmaster for the upload! Great stuff!



I think we're mostly caught up on local metal news I missed now, maybe a few scattered things to get to that I haven't seen yet, but I'll find them! I'll have more news and updates before you all know it!

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