LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Nixxon Dixxon & Turner Up), Plus More Assorted Updates!!

And now begins the catching up of news from my computer-less weekend! Some of these stories might already be known to you by now through other sources, or you may have heard about them through our Twitter page, but they all deserve proper SMS mention! So we have LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS, the reason for Silver Dream's recent disappearance, and updates from Woods of Ypres, with much more to come in the next few days! Here's the start of what you need to know from this past weekend!

For the new concerts, we'll start with the first ones coming up, as local rock cover band Turner Up return to the stage THIS WEEKEND for two shows at The Rockstar Bar! Looks like just their shows at The Nicolet Tavern and The Vibe Lounge were announced a head of time, oddly. This weekend's concerts are 19+ at 10:30 PM both nights with no announced cover charge. These will be their first shows at The Rockstar Bar with new frontman Brent Royer, so if you missed seeing him with the band this past weekend, now's as good a time as any! Sorry for the short notice about these concerts, they were just announced on Sunday (I believe) and my computer issues held them off from a proper SMS mention beyond Twitter. Confirm your attendance at the Facebook event page! Should be two more fun concerts from the band, head on out for renditions of classic hard rock hits! I'll keep you posted with updates!

The other new shows are courtesy of Sault Michigan hard rockers Nixxon Dixxon, who have some newly confirmed dates of their own! Thanks to Ernest Beaumont for these updates, cause the band's MySpace page hasn't been updated to reflect these new dates. Firstly, they will be at The Rapids Lounge at Kewadin Casino on July 30th & 31st, or, next weekend! Their MySpace page incorrectly states that they will be in St. Ignace that weekend, which Ernest chalked up to a simple error. No biggie, the more local shows, the better! As is typical, the shows will be 9:00 PM affairs with no cover charge, and you must be 21. But you'll get your fill of Nixxon Dixxon even earlier when they rock the Kewadin Casino 25th Anniversary Summer Fesitval! They'll be there on Thursday at 5:45 PM on the main stage, but did you know they're playing at Saturday at 2:30 PM also at a second stage? Full details on extra stages and performers that came through on the weekend are coming later today in our extended preview of the Kewadin Festival!

And finally, though it's not a new concert in and of itself, Ernest confirmed with me that Nixxon Dixxon are among the performers scheduled for this year's Sugar Island Music Festival, and will also be performing on August 13th, the same day as Free Refill! No word on times, but there you go, they're back at the Sugar Island Festival! Great to see these dates pop up, I'll keep you posted as more come in!

So, Woods of Ypres fans, just what have you missed in the last weekend? I'll fill you all in! We'll go in order for what has been announced and posted, and we'll start with Saturday's announcement of a newly published interview with Woods of Ypres frontman David Gold! It was conducted with Phillip A. Wickstrand, a freelance writer for the webzine Metal Psalter, and it's really well conducted with lots of good questions and detailed answers! Good discussions about the band's tour, the recording of "Woods IV", the band's future plans (no hints as to where David's moving though), his other projects, and more! Very detailed and well worded, and if you look past how he said things, you can see some allusions to his good opinions of Stereo Soul Studios and what happened in Steve Furgiuele's exit from the band! Check it out at this location! Later that day, David linked to another article about a contributor on the metal site Hook In Mouth's recent discovery and attraction to Woods of Ypres, check it out here!

Also, the band's North American tour has concluded, and David's back home in Sault Ste. Marie! A status update on the band's Facebook page from Monday has some, well, blunt comments about the Sault, but I have had hunches that he's never been really enamored with here anyway ("Your Ontario Town Is A Burial Ground", for example.). I admire his honesty though, and he's more than entitled to his opinion! But hey, some of you might agree, click here to check it out. I wonder if the inability to secure a local booking on the tour added to it? Note that I mean no harm or offense to David, he's always been more than nice with me and the SMS, and his opinions are clear and totally valid! Woods of Ypres have always been awesome and they delivered some of my favourite local concerts! Hopefully they'll play a concert here again, I can't be alone! And finally to note for Woods of Ypres updates today, David has uploaded two new concert videos onto his YouTube channel! One is another live performance clip of the band performing "The Shams of Optimism" & "Crossing The 45th Parallel", this time from their show in Worcester, Massachusetts! Great quality, click here to check it out!

I gotta say, these songs are definitely popular for new Woods uploads, and I love both tracks, but I don't want to seem repetitive either, so I'll embed the other video! This comes from their Ottawa concert, and it's a great quality clip of the band playing their song "Distractions of Living Alone"! Great performance with really nice audio and video, and the song holds up well! Check out this video below, and I'll keep you all posted with more updates, including their latest tour blog entry!



Finally today, were you guys wondering what happened to Silver Dream? Well, before I tell you, I want to come right out and say that I don't have a source for this... anymore. When I heard this story on Friday, it was courtesy of Matthew Silver's Facebook page, which was reactivated long enough for us to see one of his trademark news update image files with the scoop on what happened to the band. However, between then and now, Matthew closed his Facebook page again for unknown reasons, but I remember enough about the image file to give you details. You have my word that this was posted, and if you don't believe me, ask one of his old Facebook friends. I hate reporting unsourced information, but considering the topic, I have to say something. The image file more or less stated that Matthew left Silver Dream to pursue a more spiritual religious path in his life rather than continuing in music, and that bassist Mike LaRue would be keeping the band alive and searching for a new singer. This likely explains why the band's planned debut concert at Foggy Notions from a couple weeks ago was cancelled, though a reason for that wasn't implicitly stated.

Well, I have to admit that I'm disappointed to see Matthew leave, cause Silver Dream had a lot of promise, but if this truly is the right thing for him to do as a personal goal, then all power to him, and I wish him all the best! I wonder what form Silver Dream will take in the future? And again, THIS WAS POSTED ON FACEBOOK, and if Matthew revives his Facebook page again, I promise to give you guys sources!

That's all for now, but stay tuned later today for a weekend concert preview post featuring what you need to know about this weekend's Turner Up and Who Made Who concerts, and of course, the Kewadin Casino 25th Anniversary Summer Festival, featuring all new information yet to be posted on the SMS itself! Stay tuned for all this later today! And I'm aiming for tomorrow to be another double post day, one for news, one for SMS polls, so be on the lookout!