When Might Kiss Be Coming? Plus, Lots Of New Videos, And More!

So, are you guys craving some new local metal news and updates? As always, I've got your fix! Today, we have potential news on a certain postponed major concert, more videos (seems like we're getting piled with those lately) and some cool Kewadin Casino related stuff!! I have more assorted news to tack on to tomorrow's post as well, so keep note of that! Here we go!

So Kiss fans, have you been voting in this month's poll about your current feelings on the upcoming Kiss show? Vote on the right if you haven't yet. I won't publicize vote totals, because I don't want to swing voting in any choice's favour, but if you're voting for "I don't think they're coming at all", this might make you reconsider. Now, because of the December postponement, Kiss guaranteed we'd be getting a concert this summer, right? Well, FINALLY, official band sources (as in, Gene Simmons' Twitter account) have confirmed that Kiss will kick off their next North American tour in August! Gene's latest tweet says "...And yes, KISS is coming to North America again, starting Aug. See you all then. " Sure, a Sault Ste. Marie date isn't explicitly implied, but they have promised they'd be back, and they are a band of the word. Locally, we should know that, because they did play a makeup show in 2006 at Kewadin Casino after backing out in 2005 for that Japanese tour. Mark my words, skeptics, Kiss are coming, they will keep their word, and though maybe the show won't be announced immediately, they will, I have faith! Remember, Gene loves cash, and Kiss fans here will help with that!

Three new videos to share with you guys today, and kicking things off is a clip from the TV series Aux Weekly, which airs on the Canadian specialty channel Aux. And this video features none other than Lion Ride! Now, why would a local band be on a national cable channel? Well, it's because of their participation in The Great Canadian T-Shirt Battle, which took place on March 25th at The Hideout in Toronto! As it turns out, this battle of the bands had more going for it than just giving the top band 200 free t-shirts. The clothing company that put the battle on, Me To We Style, use organic cotton in their clothes and ensure fair wage distribution, as well as donating half their profits to Free The Children! Me To We Style put the battle on due to their affiliation with The Juno Awards and to promote sustainability within the entertainment industry.

Lion Ride themselves appear at 1:29 during some mid-performance clips for about 8 seconds. Then at 2:01, all four official members of Lion Ride are featured for a 16 second interview segment, where drummer Iron Mike Bison talks about the musical benefits this kind of event can have. Nice to see them get this kind of profile, but I have one complaint: Barely any Lion Ride music to hear, just some muffled background music of theirs during the interview. But it's still great to check out, even though they didn't win, they're winners to us! Ignore the ad at the beginning and check it out, hopefully more local bands get exposure like this soon!



Next up, SBD, the new experimental hard rock project from members of No Arrow and The Chintzy Slicks, have launched their very own YouTube channel! SBD videos had previously been hosted on frontman Dann Pichette's YouTube channel, but now those, and much more, have their own home to themselves! And by "much more", I mean 56 videos already! A number were jam session clips uploaded a few months ago, including the excessively fragmented clips of their song "Rock Paper Scissors" from Dann's channel, along with some newer jam stuff uploaded last week. But most excitingly to me is a whole pile of videos from SBD's first ever live concert, from last Friday at Foggy Notions! Looks like the band had a few camera guys filming the show, and as a result, there's tons of clips from the show online, of varying quality and length! Some even have some post-production effects (that mirrored effect in particular), and even some clips from their set breaks, including a performance by "Homeless Harry" outside of Foggy's during one of the breaks!

As for the SBD material itself, sounds good to me! Amongst covers of Pink Floyd, Mystery Machine, and Link Wray, there's lots of intriguing originals with odd titles and experimental trippiness! Some songs are more like No Arrow than I think they'd like to admit, while others try lots of unique stuff! Hard to describe some SBD stuff in ways, but that's a positive comment! It sucks that I missed the show, but thanks to the band for all the video uploads! Click here to check out dozens of SBD clips, and right here, I'll show you their performance of the song "POW! Right In The Kisser" from their debut concert!



My final video is a third demo clip from new local rockers WinkStinger! Once again, we have a video slideshow featuring a fragment of a new song, this time entitled "(Deeeerp)", which was uploaded onto YouTube user joeyvelcro's channel on Saturday! Sounds good too, more of the punk influenced hardcore I'm coming to expect, though this time, there's a slower jazzier interlude in it too, which is interesting! Hopefully we'll see more from WinkStinger in the near future, maybe a MySpace page or a show? If I hear more, I'll be sure to let you guys know! For now though, check out their newest demo clip!



Finally for today, here's a little goodie of sorts that I recently found on Kewadin Casinos' website! If you highlight "Entertainment" on the navigation bar at the top of the page, one of the choices that pops up is "Concert Pictures", and if you click that, you're taken to a photo page with photos and some related captions and info from various concerts/events at The Dreammakers Theater and outdoors, including Saving Abel, Kenny Rogers, MMA legend Dan Severn, Hoobastank, and Keith Urban (did you know his show had a higher attendance than Kiss?!), along with (for us metalheads) Kiss and Staind! These photos are NOT high resolution at all, but it's cool to see Kewadin recognize their past shows! And though I am NOT a fan of country music, the overhead crowd shot from the Keith Urban show is really cool!

That's not all though! Above the photos, it says "If you attended a meet and greet, view our photo page." Click "photo page", and you will get pictures from meet and greets at Kewadin involving bands who performed at The Dreammakers Theatre! I never even knew they had so many meet and greets, why isn't this plugged on their page more often? Well anyway, there are pictures (still none that are high res) from meet and greets with Brenda Lee, Wynonna Judd, and....Ace Frehley! Yes, he had a meet and greet/photo session with fans prior to his November show, and 13 pictures from it are on that page, including a couple faces that look slightly familiar! Nice to see Kewadin recognize their old shows and performers, they should update these pages with newer and older shows as well! Just plug the meet and greets more and make the pictures bigger! See, if you just explore websites more, who knows what you'll find, like all the band links on the SMS!

That's all for now, I have a pile of assorted news to come tomorrow, along with previews of this weekend's Tym Morrison and Nixxon Dixxon shows, so stay tuned for all of that! Rock on!