A New Local Band, New Shit Liver Videos, And More News!!

Well guys, we're ending January with a 30th news post, just the third time we've hit that mark since this blog was launched! This is a collection of cached news stories from the past weekend and some new stuff that I came across, including an apparent exit from an upcoming concert lineup, a local artist's new page & material, a local band's new YouTube channel, and more, but leading things off, here's a new local band!

I literally just found out about this band an hour or so ago, and it's a new hard rock project from Sault Michigan named MK-Ultra! Only two members exist in the project currently, including former Absolute & Riot! By Night guitarist Ben Huyck and Nick Landreville, who I think is the project's singer. I assume Ben and/or Nick are handling extra instruments as well for the time being, but they are on the hunt for a second guitarist, bassist, and drummer. Nice to see Ben back in a band, I liked Absolute and he is a good guitar player! Launched earlier this month, MK-Ultra play a radio hard rock style featuring a mix of everything from rap metal to more Red Hot Chili Peppers inspired stuff to softer ballad material, and they definitely give off a nostalgic late 1990s vibe! As someone who grew up listening to "nu metal" before getting into heavier stuff, this is an unexpected and nice surprise! Nick's got a good voice for this style, and Ben's guitar work is solid as I would expect! It'll be interesting to see what MK-Ultra have in store next, so check them out at their official MySpace and Reverbnation pages, featuring six original songs, and contact their MySpace if you want to try out for a vacant band position!

Next up, local grimecore trio Shit Liver have launched their own YouTube channel! It was started on Saturday, and it already features 11 videos from their most recent concert at The Rosie on January 21st! I don't know for certain who filmed the footage, but I saw the guy recording them on the right of the stage, and he got some very good footage! Much better than my camera is equipped to film, as he had a camcorder, and it can zoom during a video as well. I do question why three of the videos are filmed in sepia tone, but besides that, I can't complain about the quality! The videos include covers of Dystopia's "Self Defeating Prophecy" and "Backstabber", Rudimentary Peni's "Cosmetic Plague", The Capitalist Casualties' cover of Antischism's "Greedy Bastards", The Dead Kennedys' "Forest Fire", and GG Allin's "Bite It You Scum", as well as originals "Survival of the Shittest", "(Friendly Old) Uncle Joe", "Contribute or Perish", and "Sewer Livin'", and two videos of some jamming from last call (here and here)! I'm a bit surprised that the same camera's footage of their self titled song and "Speak of Weak" didn't make it here, but hey, these are still a lot of good quality videos!

However, if you didn't like Shit Liver before, these probably won't change your mind, but if you wanna check them out, the links are above! Check out their channel at this location, and here's one of the videos, of Shit Liver's originals "Contribute or Perish" and "Sewer Livin"!



Thirdly, Sault Michigan solo artist Mike Libertoski has posted two new original songs on his new Reverbnation page! If you've followed Mike's original material, you'll likely know that his styles vary widely from death metal similar to his old Slackjawed Rats work to soft acoustic material, but in the case of these newest songs, Mike's absolutely going in a heavy direction, and I'm really impressed! Very technical work and extremely heavy, I'd love to see this live with a full band! "Demo 1" in particular fits this vibe, and while "Demo 2" is overall very similar, the first track has more intensity and speed in my opinion, and less jazzy sections to kill the momentum. All I'd really add is more of a solo section on both, but no matter. Mike's very talented, and you guys should definitely check out his new tracks! I don't have much else to add, but thanks to Mike for the MySpace e-mail alerting me to these demos! Check the above links for more!

Fourthly, it appears that one of the announced bands for this Thursday's metal night at The Roosevelt Hotel is now off the bill. Bring The Fallen guitarist Dan Souliere posted on the Metal Nights at The Rosie Facebook page that the band won't be able to play on Thursday. No reason was given, though I imagine that bassist Nolan Rainville's latest excursion out of town is linked. I honestly would have thought that the band would have enlisted Mike Kyle or Chris Morphet to fill the vacancy again on Thursday, but now the band appears to be completely out. With that said, the promoters haven't confirmed or acknowledged this yet, so a new band to join For All That Is Lost and The Bear Hunters on Thursday has not been confirmed. I'll keep you posted as I hear more! Also on the note of metal nights, I can finally confirm which band named Skepsis is coming to The Rosie on February 17th, and it's the indie punk band from Montreal. Honestly, they're not metal at all, so it is a bit confusing that they're apparently playing here on the likely next metal night, but we should hear more on that in the next while. Thanks to Rich Moreland for clearing up which Skepsis this was, cause there really was a bunch of bands with that name!

And finally, we'll close today's post with three shorter news stories, in alphabetical order by band name:

• I told you guys about The Bear Hunters' YouTube channel for the videos from their concert on Friday that I filmed, but there are two extra videos there as well! One is their instrumental demo of their song "Collapse The Sun" and the other is "Squirrel Buddy" from guitarist Mitch Sirie's April Eyes project! This will apparently be played live by The Bear Hunters in the future, and it's quickly gotten a cult following, so stay tuned for it's live debut!
• SooToday posted an event page for February 19th's Maximum RNR concert at Foggy Notions onto their entertainment page at this location! It features a band bio and basic concert details, but doesn't really share anything new. I'm surprised nothing's added about frontman Diamond Brent Panther's local past, but it's still a good read, so give it a look! See you guys there!
• Woods of Ypres are retuning to Northern Ontario in March for a set at this year's Sudbury Metal Feast at The Serbian Center! They'll play on either March 11th or 12th, a final date has not been confirmed yet, but dates are supposed to come in tomorrow. Sounds good, hopefully a Sault Ste. Marie date will follow! I'll keep you posted with Woods of Ypres news as it comes in!

That's all for today, and I'll be back with new news hopefully in the next while, but our next post could be our February update of our "Where Are The New Albums?" series, which will go online on Wednesday! Stay tuned!

Icy Metal For Aborted Therapy Review!!

Hey guys, sorry for my review being so late, I've had a lot of things to work on today concerning the SMS, but now it's review time! As you know, yesterday was the Icy Metal For Aborted Therapy concert, a slightly impromptu all ages concert at The Oddfellows Hall. How was it? I will tell you!

The opening band was Sativa Rose, in their (to my knowledge) first ever all ages concert appearance, and the first time I've ever seen them live! It's about time, I've been seeing videos of theirs for six months! Their set consisted entirely of classic metal covers, ranging from hair metal fare like Skid Row, Motley Crue, and Ratt covers to heavier fare like Iron Maiden, Megadeth and Exodus! Sure, they were the only band last night that didn't employ "extreme" vocals, but they did a very good job as always! Andrew Angelic's a very impressive guitarist and has great onstage energy, Adam Veale's a solid bassist (props for the Death shirt too!), and Alex Palmer was really good on drums throughout their set! A lot of their songs were covers of bands with two guitarists, but Andrew's playing didn't scream for the need of a second guitarist, things were fine on their own! My biggest fault of their set is something I've raised before, and it's the vocals. When not using guest singers, Adam and/or Andrew handle the singing for Sativa Rose, and honestly, neither has a wide enough range to handle a lot of their material. Mainly the classic stuff, they can do thrash covers well. For those, a permanent vocalist or guest singers would be best, but aside from that, I really enjoyed Sativa Rose's set!

They're a talented band with a lot of promise, and the future is bright for them! Also, look out for Adam's dad John's videos from the show soon as well, as he was filming their set himself!

Second was State of Misery, themselves making their first all ages concert appearance! Firstly, I should note that the crowd probably doubled in size for their set, which seems unfair to Sativa Rose, but at least we got a good animated crowd despite the lateness! I just saw them last week at the Rosie metal night, so I honestly won't be treading much new ground with my comments this time around, but I'll share some observations! Ray Cowan definitely needs more guitar solo time, he's a very promising young guitarist, and Steve Rhodes' continues to show a nice enthusiasm and ease on stage! I loved his bottle of Smirnoff that he had on stage, who says you can't have that kind of drink on stage here and there? The homemade State of Misery stickers that many fans had were a nice touch, but they looked bland without a logo or something. Their originals continue to impress with their heaviness and proficiency, but again, Pantera isn't the right type of band for them to cover. State of Misery brought another entertaining set of death metal to their fans last night, and I can't wait to see them again! They're rising fast locally, and they're a safe bet to get mosh pits going at any of their shows!

Following them was The Bear Hunters, and before I go too much further, I want to say that I have no photos from their set. Guitarist Mitch Sirie requested that I film their whole set for use in future band projects (their DVD?), so I did! It sapped my battery, but I got every last second of their songs! So I have no photos, but attendee Tia Ollinaho got some pretty good shots from the concert, so click here to see what she took! With that said, this was the first time that I've ever seen The Bear Hunters live, though I saw 3/5ths of the band in the D.O.T.H. days a few years back, so I was at least familiar with them to a point. I was mostly impressed with The Bear Hunters' melodic death metal sound, featuring a mix of very heavy originals and covers from a few bands you wouldn't expect, like Amon Amarth, Slipknot, and Arch Enemy! Mitch & Mike Vincent handled guitar really well, Johnny Belanger's move to a harder and heavier style of music is seamless, and Justin Lam is definitely a bassist to watch, I've thought that for a while! However, the audio made some of their songs jumbled, and Nik Deubel's vocals were VERY low in the mix. I honestly can't comment on his singing style, I could barely hear him on any song. Hopefully this won't be an issue on Thursday!

Overall though, I enjoyed their set, but I know that I can't accurately judge the whole band without better audio, and that day could come as early as Thursday! Plus, I hopefully won't have to kick and tap the floor lights to ensure visible band members like I was last night!

Second last on the bill was WinkStinger, and again, I have to state something. Thanks to filming The Bear Hunters' entire set, my battery was drained beyond belief. Luckily, I was prepared, as I brought my camera's AC adapter with me, so I plugged it into the nearest wall outlet to charge my camera and get pictures/video at the same time! Now the nearest plug was basically beside the speakers, so I got a tinnitus inducing load of metal and an odd vantage point of the set, but aside from that, I can't complain! WinkStinger were on top form at the show, even if Jesse Cook was dressed normally (I enjoy the costumes!) Alan Wells took control of the floor for their set, utlizing good crowd interaction and passionate screaming in their often very funny (yet still brutal) songs! Like with State of Misery, I just saw WinkStinger last Thursday, so I can't add too much here that wouldn't be restating earlier points, but they delivered another very entertaining set, and between you and me, it just felt right seeing a band with Jesse Cook and Jonas Gasperas playing at The Oddfellows Hall again. Soldiers of Misfortune were one of my favourite local bands from when I was a teenager, I remember their all ages shows there well, and nostalgic feelings like this are always welcome! Great set of metal from WinkStinger, they continue to deliver!

Finally was Bring The Fallen, in a bit of a different appearance than we're used to. Bassist Nolan Rainville was out of town, so he wasn't with the band last night. I half expected Mike Kyle from Shit Liver to fill in temporarily again, but for this show, guitarist Dan Souliere covered the bass for most of their set. On their originals, the rhythm guitar position was filled by (I think the name's right) Chris Morphet, who I don't recognize from any other local bands, but he did a good job! Their set consisted of many of their very solid originals like "Exposed Embankment" and "Defiling Despondence" with Children of Bodom and Slayer covers bookending everything. The former featured Dan on guitar with no bassist, while the latter featured local concert promoter and guitarist Rich Moreland in Chris' place. I have to say, this wasn't one of Bring The Fallen's best performances, but considering the slightly impromptu nature of the show, Nolan's absence, and my hunch of alcohol consumption, I won't be harsh. When they were on, they were devastating, and Josh Stephney's growling was solid! Travis St. Amour deserves more credit on drums too, I saw him extra well thanks to my placing almost behind the stage to charge my camera (apologies for the odd pictures.) They were still entertaining, and very brutal, but this probably won't go down as one of their live highlights.

Overall, this was a fun concert, but I have a hunch that with more advance warning, it would have been even better. The show had a slapped together feel at parts, the crowd was very inconsistent (the attendance was almost dead for Bring The Fallen), and the audio could have been better, but you can't beat 5 talented local metal bands! I had fun, and that's what matters! I have 5 videos, 1 for each band, and if you're wondering about my footage of The Bear Hunters' entire set, check out their official YouTube channel for the whole set! I'll let the band have an exclusive grasp on the set for a while, and they gave me credit for the footage, so I'm not worried! I'll likely upload the full concert onto the SMS YouTube channel down the road, but for now, check out the full set at the link above, and here's 5 videos: Sativa Rose covering Ratt's "Lay It Down", Sativa Rose's original "Don't Break The Silence", The Bear Hunters' song "Dominate", WinkStinger's amusingly named "Poop", and Bring The Fallen's cover of Slayer's "Black Magic"!











That's all for today, but stay tuned for more local metal news and notes very soon! Thanks everyone!

Bands Looking To Play Here, Bear Hunters Related News, And Our Musicans Union!

One more post for you guys before I head to The Oddfellows Hall TONIGHT, full of some notable updates! We have three bands who have tentative dates in Sault Ontario that I'll go over, an update on our local musicians union, and first, here's some Bear Hunters-related updates, including a schedule change for tonight's concert!

WinkStinger are now the co-headliners for tonight's Icy Metal For Aborted Therapy concert at The Oddfellows Hall due to prior work commitments for at least one band member. This means that both The Bear Hunters (pictured) and State of Misery will be pushed back in the band order, though Sativa Rose & Bring The Fallen's slots are unchanged. Also, the concert has been pushed back an hour so it will now start at 6:00 PM with the doors opening at 5:30 PM. Nothing else has changed, but make note of these so you don't show up early or miss a certain band! Thanks to Bear Hunters guitarist Mitch Sirie for these updates, as sent to attendees in a Facebook e-mail. While we're on the subject of The Bear Hunters, they've talked about a lot of intriguing things for their future, including plans for both an EP and a full length album this year, with the EP to include a DVD in the package, and a planned tribute to the Big Four thrash metal bands for future shows! I probably won't cover any Bear Hunters albums here until recording officially starts, but keep all this in mind, as they have big hopes for this year! Check out their official Facebook page for more!

Now for three tentative local metal concerts, two of which need a venue, the other of which needs openers! We'll go in chronological order, and firstly, an out of town metal band looks to be the headliners at an upcoming Roosevelt Hotel metal night! Rosie owner Chad LaRoue was inquiring yesterday on the Metal Nights at The Rosie Facebook page as to local openers for a band named Skepsis on February 17th, which is a Thursday and two weeks after the next metal night on the 3rd. So I looked up Skepsis to see who they were, and believe it or not, there's at least THREE Canadian bands with this name, maybe more! None have definite dates listed for February in town though, and the only one that is hinting towards February shows doesn't even describe themselves as metal. I'm not comfortable enough to assume which Skepsis it is, but if you wanna open for them at the presumed February 17th metal night, get a hold of Chad at this location! When I hear more, especialy concerning which Skepsis this is, I'll let you guys know!

Now to shows without venues, and we'll start with a band we saw here last year! Toronto instrumental progressive trio The Isosceles Project are tentatively planning a return show in Sault Ontario on May 23rd! You may remember when they came here last August one night after the Kiss concert as one of the openers for Skull Fist at The Canadian Nightclub, or maybe you saw them on Disband on MuchMusic! A venue, additional bands, or any specific details aren't known yet for this show, so I take it nothing's finalized. Bassist Scott Tessier had told me that they are playing a longer set than they had last year, so that's a good sign! I take it the band doesn't have a finalized booking yet though, so if you're interested in booking or promoting The Isosceles Project for a local concert on May 23rd, message the band at their official MySpace page! I hope this gets finalized, as I was VERY impressed with The Isosceles Project last year, and their progressive instrumental attack will surely leave you guys wanting more as well! Stay tuned for updates if I hear them!

The other possible new concert has no specific date in mind, but maybe you can help secure one? When I was browsing the 705 Video Magazine forum recently, I came across a topic about a band's efforts to secure a local booking in May or June. The band is Vancouver progressive metal quintet Unleash The Archers, and singer/guitarist Brayden Dycszkowski posted there in the hopes of securing a booking for the band in that timeframe for their upcoming tour cycle in support of their new album. I like their sound, it's a creative mix of extreme death metal and melodic female-fronted metal, and they're pretty heavy to boot! The band has no real contacts in town, so I'll do what I can to help get them a booking in town this year! If you're interested in helping set up an Unleash The Archers concert in town later this year, contact the above links to show your interest! I'd like to see them here, how about you guys?

And finally for today, this is a new find for me, but we have mentioned this group on here before. In May, you may remember us talking about Sault Ste. Marie's own musicians union, The American Federation of Musicians, Local 276. When browsing links the other day, I found out that they actually have an official website! It mentions that one of the bands who is members of Local 276 is Woods of Ypres, though it doesn't name drop any other metal bands as members. The site is descirptive in talking about Local 276's history, why you should join, and all the benefits that becoming unionized can offer. This can go from playing in the United States to recording to even helping fill in for other musicians, there are many benefits to getting your band into the AFM! Definitely consider joining this union if you're in a local band, it could pay off in the future! Click here for details on how to join! Also, note that one of the executive board members is veteran local musician Ric Datson, now best known as the drummer for That's Chester!

That's all for today, but I'll see you guys TONIGHT at The Oddfellows Hall! Thanks everyone!b

LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (For All That Is Lost & Browbeat) And Weekend Concert Previews!!

It's time to get you guys caught up on some more news for this Thursday night! Today, we have this weekend's local concert previews, and kicking things off, LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS!! Here's what you need to know!

The next metal night at The Roosevelt Hotel on February 3rd is now confirmed with a three band lineup, including an out of town band! That band is For All That Is Lost, a death metal band from Desbarats, Ontario! Desbarats is about an hour from Sault Ste. Marie, which is a bit far for us to count them as a "local" band, but they're one of the more promising metal bands I've heard in the district from outside of the Soo! Solid death metal, their production needs some work from the songs I've heard, but they sound pretty good! Joining them at this concert are two local death metal bands, those being Bring The Fallen and The Bear Hunters! These will be their first shows following TOMORROW'S all ages concert at The Oddfellows Hall, and they'll surely be looking to tear up the stage with their original material! An order for the bands hasn't been locked down yet, but For All That Is Lost did say on their MySpace page that they would be opening for Bring The Fallen. We'll have to see how the final order falls into place. This concert will take place in exactly ONE WEEK at The Roosevelt Hotel, with no cover charge, a 19+ age limit, and a likely 9:00 PM start time! For more details, check the above links and the Metal Nights at The Rosie Facebook page! This should be another great metal night, with lots of death metal to go around! I'll keep you guys posted with updates!

Also on the new concert schedule is the return of Browbeat! Yes, the local hard rock trio will make their first concert appearance in four months on February 18th and 19th at The Roosevelt Hotel themselves! These shows will mark the debut of the band's newest lineup, including Bear Hunters drummer Johnny Belanger, who replaced Rick White in Browbeat late last year. The Facebook event page only lists the February 18th show, but frontman Dutch Vanderploeg confirmed the Saturday for that weekend as well on his personal Facebook page. Dutch has also talked about releasing and recording a Browbeat DVD on there as well, so make note of that! I'd expect a 10:00 PM start time for this show and a 19+ age limit, and I doubt there'd be a cover charge either night. Check the above links for more details! It's great to see Browbeat back out there, especially given their recent issues getting a stable long term lineup, but hopefully Dutch, James, and Johnny will last for the long haul and get lots of gigs in! Stay tuned for more as I hear it!

Now to this weekend's concert previews! I know of a few this weekend in the Sault area, but I haven't heard of anything across the river. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, as concerts over there are a lot harder for me to source. We'll start our previews with a show we alluded to above, as it's the all ages metal show TOMORROW NIGHT at The Oddfellows Hall! Entitled "Icy Metal For Aborted Therapy", this concert was originally a private birthday party event for Bear Hunters guitarist Mike Vincent, but after cancelling for health reasons, 5 of the 8 announced bands (Browbeat, Stillbroke, and Psychotic Nature are off) pulled together to book The Oddfellows Hall anyway and rock out for the good of all metal! The lineup includes Bring The Fallen as the headliners, preceded by fellow death metal bands The Bear Hunters and State of Misery, extreme quintet WinkStinger, and classic metal trio Sativa Rose! Great lineup of newer and younger local metal bands, this isn't to be missed, despite it's relative short notice! Admission will be $5, it is ALL AGES, and everything starts at the early start time of 5:00 PM! For more details, visit the above links and the Facebook event page!

I will absolutely be there, and this will be my long overdue first glimpse at Sativa Rose & The Bear Hunters, so there's no real way I'd wanna miss this show! For a video preview, here's a new video of Bring The Fallen covering Trivium's "Entrance Of The Conflagration" from last month's Soo Music Mash-Up concert, thanks to Micaela Hurley for uploading this onto her YouTube channel! Short, but not a bad clip, check it out below!



Also this weekend is Turner Up's return to The Nicolet Tavern for a pair of dates tomorrow night and Saturday night! The frequently seen, hard working classic hard rockers will be sure to put the extra effort in this weekend, especially with tomorrow's show falling on guitarist Len Ward's birthday, so make note of that if you're at The Nic tomorrow! Both nights will have roughly a 10:30 PM start time, there shouldn't be a cover charge, and you must be 19 to enter on both nights. We just discussed these shows yesterday, so I won't retread too much ground, but if you want some classic hard rocking entertainment, The Nicolet is where you'll wanna be this weekend! For more details, visit the official Facebook event page, and for a preview, here's Turner Up covering Guns N' Roses' "Mr. Brownstone" from earlier this month at The Rockstar Bar!



That should wrap up today's post, and if you're wondering where the Tym Morrison preview is, I'm saving that for a post on the weekend as he's only at Foggy Notions on Monday this weekend, so I'll preview it closer to then. This is an off weekend for his Big Cheese arrangement, so it's too early for the Foggy's preview. I'll have more on that and other news as the weekend progresses, so stay tuned! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Turner Up), A New Contest, Videos, And More!!

After another day's break to let news gather, I have lots of stuff to get to today! In this post, we have our latest classic local video, a new hard rock cover from a local musician, news on a recent book release, and a contest that we're running, but first, here's some LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS!!

Turner Up are back on the concert stage this weekend! The local classic hard rockers return to The Nicolet Tavern on Friday and Saturday night for a pair of entertaining nights of music! Apologies for the short notice, these were only just announced yesterday. Convenient timing though, as the Friday show coincides with guitarist Len Ward's birthday, so if you're out that day, wish him happy birthday! There is no cover charge for either night this weekend, both concerts have listed 9:30 PM start times, and you must be 19 to enter. For more details. visit the official Facebook event page! But that's not all, as they'll be back at The Nic on February 11th (no word on the 12th yet) for a Bon Soo-connected event! That night is 70s & 80s Night and Turner Up are the house band, with a planned costume contest as well for attendees dressed like their favourite rock stars! Sounds like fun, it's great to see them back with Bon Soo again, I'm fairly certain the band did a Bon Soo event last year as well! Same house rules should apply, but just in case, make sure you have a button. For more details on this special concert, check your official Bon Soo programs in this week's issue of Sault This Week! Stay tuned for more Turner Up news as it comes in!

Next up, here's a special announcement: We're running a contest! How would you guys like a $20 gift card for The Rad Zone at Wellington Square Mall? Len Ward from The Rad Zone (and Turner Up) graciously donated a $20 gift card for me to give away in a SMS contest, and you can use it to pick up any of the great items they have there, be it music, moves, games, skate products, clothes, books, or anything! I'm opening this contest up to you guys, the loyal SMS fans and readers, and I'm going to run this similarly to The Rad Zone's giveaway contests, as they seem to work well! Here's how you can win: Head to The Sault Metal Scene's Facebook page and post your name as a comment in reply to our posting about the contest. One entry per person, you must post your name for it to be a valid entry, and entries on other postings on our Facebook page won't be accepted. You'll have until 8:00 PM on February 2nd to enter (one week), and then I will randomly select one name from the eligible entries to win the gift card! So enter today at this location, cause I know someone out there could really use $20 at a great store like The Rad Zone! ENTER TODAY, you have one week!!

One more Rad Zone related note, as when I last stopped in, I finally picked up a copy of "Going Underground: A Brief History Of Punk Rock In Small Town Canada"! That's the book on the local punk scene in Sault Ontario that Paolo Colasacco launched and held a signing for on Saturday. I couldn't make the signing, but I have a copy, so here's some additional info on it for you guys! Released by Paolo Paolo Media and printed by Friesens Press, the book is 408 pages long, and takes a mostly photographic journey through the punk scene in Sault Ontario from 1985-2000. Each "wave" of the scene (roughly the late 80s, early 90s, and late 90s each) has loads of photos from concerts, photo shoots, and related events, along with some stories Paolo has from the scene from each time period. There are metal mentions, and though the book is primarily punk based, there's a lot of quality stuff in the book and a lot of bands I'd personally like to learn more about! I won't go into detail with my thoughts yet, as I want to formally review it in the near future, but it is worth checking out! Even if you were too young to be a part of the scene, why not educate yourself? It's at The Rad Zone in their Hole In The Wall book section for $30, pick it up today!

We'll close today with two videos, and first, here's a new hard rock cover from local musician Curtis J. McKenzie! We've profiled his work on here in the past, largely from his band projects like 20 Pack Of Marshmallows and Restricted Illusions, but since last year's last major updates, he's since moved to Wawa, where he continues to work as a solo artist. The old Restricted Illusions page was even taken down and now just links to his solo page, so I removed it from our band links. His solo work isn't very heavy, as we tended to get that more from his now-inactive local bands, but one of his newest videos has a local metal connection, as it's a Guns N' Roses cover! As a tribute to the band and to an unidentified person he cares for a lot, he recorded a solo cover of "So Fine" and uploaded it to his YouTube channel yesterday! That, if you guys aren't sure, was one of the few GNR songs sung by Duff McKagan, and Curtis does a good job with it, though his range is a bit high compared to what we're used to from the original. Check it out below, and for more from Curtis' solo and band projects, check the above links!



And finally, here is this week's classic video! Keeping with past trends, I am tying in this week's video with performers from an upcoming concert, and in this case, it's three of them! Those three are Bring The Fallen guitarist Dan Souliere & Bear Hunters members Nik Deubel and Justin Lam, all of whom are performing on FRIDAY at The Oddfellows Hall! As some of you may know, Dan, Nik, and Justin were all members of a defunct local black metal band named Dark Salvation, who were active in late 2007 and early 2008. A then short-haired Nik handled guitar, but Dan and Justin's instruments are no different. The lineup was rounded out by former Caedis Omnis singer Kevin Calder (you may recognize him as local wrestler Kevyn Kross) and backup vocalist Sam Mitchell, who filmed this video but doesn't contribute to the performance. Aside from Woods of Ypres, black metal is a genre we don't see a lot of local bands playing, so this was refreshing to see upon their inception. Unfortunately, their lineup was never publically completed before their demise, but this video shows some promise! It features 4/5ths of their lineup covering Dimmu Borgir's "Puritania" at a jam session from January 2008, and though they are playing along with the original audio track, they do a good if unrefined job! Kevin's got solid black metal vocals too, it's a wonder he hasn't popped up in another band since!

This was filmed by Sam Mitchell and uploaded onto her Facebook page in January 2008. The original link is at http://facebook.com/video/video.php?v=20195923496, and Sam deserves ALL CREDIT for this video! She did all the work, all I did was upload it to YouTube to expand it's audience! So check out our new classic video below, and we'll have another one in the middle of next week!



That's all for tonight, but stay tuned for more local metal news and notes soon, including weekend concert previews tomorrow! Thanks everyone!

News From Lion Ride, Tym Morrison, Energy Rock Radio, And More!!

Now to clear out most of my remaining news stories as we continue with this busy January! If you want to escape the northern cold, then bundle up for some notable news today from the local metal scene, including a number of concert date changes, a new audio interview from a local band, the latest updates from Energy Rock Radio, and more, but we'll start today with some new videos!

YouTube user schramalama has uploaded two brand new videos of local metal quintet Lion Ride onto their official YouTube channel yesterday! The videos are live performances of the songs "Cocaine Crazy" and "Stick It In" from their concert this past Saturday at The Circus Room in Kitchener! The audio quality is really good, and the video is as well, but it's a bit dark. The angle's something we don't see much out of concert videos, almost from below and slightly on an angle too. Mikey Lion's vocals sound a bit strained at points, but the band are on form otherwise, and it's always nice to see new Lion Ride footage! Check out schramalama's channel linked above for more Southern Ontario concert videos, including a few of The Saigon Hookers featuring Lion Ride bassist Carmine "Cobra Carmander" Romano from last year, and of course, check out the Lion Ride videos too! I'll link one here, so here's Lion Ride playing their song "Cocaine Crazy" from this Saturday in Kitchener!



Next up, a number of upcoming concerts from a local musician have been moved up a day. Caveman Morrison frontman Tym Morrison's weekly arrangement at Foggy Notions has been adjusted, with the weekly concerts now being moved up a day from every Sunday to every Monday. His concert schedule hasn't been updated yet to reflect this, but the Facebook event page for what is now TONIGHT'S solo acoustic concert says that Foggy's owner Taryn Bugyra talked to Tym and wanted the shows moved up a day. Why? I don't know, but maybe this is due to a new Sunday weekly feature or an attempt to attract Monday business. Oh, and Tym confirmed this with me via e-mail, so this is well sourced. So Tym's now at Foggy's on Mondays every week through February, with more dates likely to come, so make sure you guys know about the change! Our concert listings have been edited to reflect this, and remember, Tym's playing at Foggy's TONIGHT, so make it out if you can!

Thirdly, here's the latest news from Sault Ontario's own online rock radio station, Energy Rock Radio! They've been working on lots of updates there, including some cool local metal news and notes! The station will soon be offering a Frightlight prize package including a bunch of band swag, and an interview with Sense of Truth frontman Cory Murchison is expected for next month as well. Good to hear, maybe we'll find out more on what's been keeping the new album from coming out, and maybe when we'll see them on stage next! The new site design (yes, another one) isn't complete yet, with some dead links here and there, but things are looking up, and there's even an automatic music player on the main page that streams Energy Rock Radio right from there, no need for an external program if you don't want it! Ryan Kaarlela and the guys at ERR continue to put in a lot of hard work to make this station rock, so definitely give it a listen at their official website today! When I hear more interesting news, I'll have it here, and thanks for the awesome plug too!

I wanted to include a Woods of Ypres interview I just heard about, but the links expired, so I'll finish with three shorter news stories in order by band name. If I find the Woods interview elsewhere, I'll have it in a future post, but for now, here's three quick stories!

• Sault Michigan death metal trio End of Existence have relaunched their official website with a new design! Looks nice, and it includes some interesting news and updates, including talk of looking for a full time bassist! Click here to check it all out!
• According to their official Facebook page, local metal quartet Late & Loud are planning to begin work on a demo this weekend, and will start playing some shows real soon as a result! Not much else is there yet, but that sounds promising! Click here for more!
• Mike Haggith's new album "Suspended Animation" is now available on CD for those of you who want a physical copy! It's pretty good, and if you wanna pick it up, it's $7.50 at his official store! Click here for more details!

That's all for today, but I'll have more local metal news very soon! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Sativa Rose & The Darwin Project), Many Concert Cancellations, And More!!

After a day off from a marathon first month of 2011, it's time to get back to some news, and we have some big stories today! We have a pile of new out of town concerts, what's been going on with Woods of Ypres, and a pile of concert cancellations, but first, here's some LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS!! (EDITED: 2:52 PM)

Since late last year, some of you may have heard about a planned private birthday party event to have featured a stellar lineup of local metal and hard rock bands. It was supposed to be held on January 28th (this Friday) to celebrate Bear Hunters guitarist Mike Vincent's 20th birthday party, but was called off due to health reasons. Rather than completely cancel though, the bands have chipped in to keep the gig alive as a public ALL AGES concert, so here's what you need to know! Five local bands are confirmed for this concert, including classic metal trio Sativa Rose, extreme metal rockers WinkStinger, death metal quartet State of Misery, the aformentioned Bear Hunters, and fellow death metal band Bring The Fallen! No word yet on if Mike will be well enough to play with The Bear Hunters on Friday, but time will tell! Also note that when this was still a private event, Mike Vincent's new project Psychotic Nature and the returning Browbeat and Stillbroke were also scheduled, but none are currently listed, so I take it they're off. Admission is $5 for this concert, and it will take place at The Oddfellows Hall on Friday at 5:00 PM! For details on this night of "icy metal for aborted therapy" (and what that name means), head to the official Facebook event page!

This should be a great night of metal from the newer wave of local bands that we've seen in the past year, and despite the slightly impromptu nature of it, I expect face melting metal at every turn! Check the above links for more, and I'll be there!

Meanwhile, we have a lot to get to in Sault Michigan, as a pile of updates have been made to the concert lineup at The Rapids Lounge at Kewadin Casino. First, the good news, as Cheboygan hard rockers The Darwin Project have booked a weekend of concerts there on April 1st and 2nd! These are likely 21+ affairs with no cover charge and 9:00 PM start times. Great to see them back, it's nice to see them at Kewadin for a change! If you want some great radio hard rock, The Darwin Project should fill that nicely! Check them out at their official MySpace page, hopefully you like what you hear! Now, the bad news. EIGHTEEN previously announced dates for local hard rock bands Monkey's Uncle and River Witch, plus Cheboygan rockers Driven, have completely disappeared from Kewadin Casino's entertainment page, save for a single Monkey's Uncle weekend on May 6th and 7th. Why? I have no clue. All three bands' infrequent page updates don't help matters, but River Witch just played shows earlier this month in Sault Michigan (apologies for missing them!) and guitarist Darian Causley was discussing the band on his personal Facebook page as late as Thursday, so if nothing else, they're still together. Maybe these are just reshuffling of dates by Kewadin, but time will tell. I will absolutely keep an eye on this, as it's not normal to see that many dates disappear from a schedule of any kind.

For now though, I've deleted them from our listings until I hear otherwise. And before you guys panic, note that Peril and Splitshot's previously scheduled dates at Kewadin are still on, so no need to worry about that! We'll have more from local bands at Kewadin Casinos after the next paragraph!

Next up, here's the latest news from local doom metal band Woods of Ypres, now hard at work once again with their new label and David Gold's return to Canada! The big news for us is that David's released more details about the band's next music video, their first since "The Northern Cold" in 2007. We previously just saw scattered preview clips with no visible clues to the song, but it was confirmed on Woods of Ypres' Facebook page that it's for their doom ballad "I Was Buried (In Mount Pleasant Cemetery)" from the soon to be rereleased "Woods IV: The Green Album"! This past Friday was apparently the last day of editing for the video, and it will feature the band's current lineup in full. When might we see the new video, which was filmed in August with Handshake Inc.? My money's on March, a little before Earache Records officially reissues "W4", so keep an eye out! Before we jump to our next topic, here's one more Woods note, in the form of a new video! This was uploaded onto Handshake Inc.'s Vimeo page on Tuesday, and it features an angle of footage from the video, with David Gold shaving his beard in the reflection of a monument at Mount Pleasant Cemetery, as in the title of the song. It is what it is, but it's a preview of what to expect from the video, which should be interesting! Check it out below!

While we're on the subject of Woods of Ypres, here's some more out of town concert listings to add to that section of the SMS, which I keep forgetting to update. My apologies! Firstly, Woods of Ypres' first tour dates of any kind for 2011 have been announced, including a special three piece concert on February 12th in Virginia, and an opening slot for Kalmah in Toronto on March 13th. I wonder why the Virginia show will be absent a member? My guess is Joel Violette won't be a part, but I can't verify that. Click here for details! The other new out of town shows also come from Kewadin Casino, rather, their St. Ignace casino, as local hard rockers Splitshot (featuring Nixxon Dixxon alumni Chris Hubbard & Kyle Beaumont) hit St. Ignace for 10 shows through November, not counting their St. Ignace shows from this weekend. I need to stay on top of that, my apologies once again for missing those! Get all these dates in our out of town concert listings to your right, and stay tuned for more news and notes from the above bands as I hear them!

That's all for now, but stay tuned for more news and notes over the coming days! Thanks everyone!

Rosie Metal Night #5 Review!!

Hey everyone, as you may remember, I finally made it to a metal night at The Rosie, and this is my review, along with three videos! That's the only topic for this post, but I have some big news coming tomorrow as well, so stay tuned for that! Let's begin with a quick insight into The Roosevelt Hotel itself, as this is a venue I've previously never been to for a concert. For much of the time it's been around, it's been seen as a country bar, and it sort of has that feel to it inside, with wood paneling on the inside and sort of a rustic lodge sort of feel to it in ways. I've heard people in the past call it a dive, but since Chad LaRoue's gained control, he's been working on cleaning it up, and I got no dive feel out of it at all. Kinda reminded me of what would happen if Coch's Corner & Foggy Notions were put into a blender. It also turned out to be smaller than I expected it would be from photos, with a more straight and narrow setup, but it was warm and inviting, and it's an overall nice venue!

First thing about the concert itself that I'll mention is that the lineups we see announced by promoter Rich Moreland on the metal nights' Facebook page are actually in performance order, not the usual method from headliner down to opening bands. So where he listed this band first, it was to designate the first band performing, not the headliners, and that band is State of Misery! And before anyone asks, no, there was no second guitarist during their set. The rumours suggested it, but they're either just rumours, meant something else, or the second guitarist isn't ready yet. This was the first time I've ever seen State of Misery live, and I have to say, I'm really impressed! Witha mostly original-centric set, these four young musicians cranked out some heavy and very brutal death/grindcore songs, and deserve lots of credit! You can tell they've been working on this stuff and getting it ready for the stage! Steve "Sykcy Ace" Rhodes really stands out for me, with diverse and very capable death growling and a solid stage presence, and Ray Cowan's guitar work is very promising, I look forward to hearing more from him! Kevin Dorazio and Nick Kainula were solid all night on their respective instruments too, I can't complain too much! It's hard to, they didn't make many visible flubs, and have good chemistry on their originals!

I also like their sense of humour, which came through especially with an original song about what happens after sleeping with a Smurfette. I'll let you connect the dots. My only real complaint is that they should pick more covers that suit Steve's vocal style. The Lamb of God covers ("Ruin" and "Now You've Got Something To Die For") were awesome, but I don't think "Cowboys From Hell" by Pantera fits their sound or how Steve sings. Other than that, I was really impressed with State of Misery, who surely have a bright future if they keep on with what they're doing!

The middle band was WinkStinger, and first off, kudos to Jonas Gasperas for his Soldiers of Misfortune sweater and to Jesse Cook for his mermaid costume! That's right, I said mermaid costume. Now, I wasn't there to witness this, but WinkStinger's set at the first Rosie metal night in November didn't exactly go off without a hitch, and was widely panned for things I won't get into here, especially since I didn't witness them. Well, from what I've heard, I can safely assume that this concert completely redeemed them for November, as they were awesome! They completely stole the show based on crowd reaction, including crowd surfing! Yes, Nik Deubel from The Bear Hunters & Dan Souliere from Bring The Fallen were crowd surfing, how often can you say that locally? WinkStinger busted out an energetic and extremely heavy set of originals like "Chudnugget", "Fuck The Rest", and "Cheese Grader Face" among many others, and the crowd responded very well to every song! Alan Wells continues to impress with his high pitched brand of screaming, very original locally! Resident merman Jesse Cook was awesome on guitar, as was Jason Ladouceur, even if he was kinda off to the left of the action. Ryan Sherman's bass work was solid all night, and Jonas Gasperas' drumming continues to impress!

WinkStinger even got extra time to perform from the promoters, which is a solid sign, and a possible indication of the looser atmosphere being maintained, and they capitalized with lots of crowd interaction and their own sense of humour, as seen on some of their newer songs like "Poop"! WinkStinger's extremely heavy and fast brand of music definitely stole the show, but there was more metal in store!

The headlining band was local grimecore trio Shit Liver, and let me say this off the bat: If you're among the people who don't like Shit Liver or don't get them, and are wondering why they're headlining, remember that they have a good fanbase who were there enjoying themselves. That, and I imagine Rich is planning metal night lineups on fairness to all bands, not constantly on local prominence only. That said, they put in an entertaining set to close the concert that accomplished exactly what it set out to do. As I said in November when I first saw Shit Liver live, they are rather polarizing, and you either like them or you don't. There's no in between. But at the same time, this is what they want to play, and they play this grimy and crusty brand of death metal rather well. Why should you rank them on a scale that doesn't accurately describe their goals? I find that guitarist Josh Penno is probably the most diverse of the three band members in terms of vocal talent, being able to growl and scream pretty well, where bassist Mike Kyle and drummer Matt Baic both sound brutal, but don't shake things up as much vocally. Their setlist of covers and originals was dirty and to the point, but succeeds at capturing that vibe, and they got some moshing going!

Not a bad set, and it's cool to see them get a headlining opportunity like this! I think it'd be cool to see them cover some more mainstream songs in their style and grime them up, but their originals work pretty well for this style, and their devote fan base couldn't ask for different! Also, I thought it was hilarious that Josh' setlist was on a reciept, just thought I'd add that too!

Overall, this was a very entertaining night of metal, and huge kudos to Rich Moreland and Chad LaRoue for putting these metal nights on! Just cause The Rosie's not downtown doesn't mean it's not worth hitting, and there's a lot of quality bands coming there every two weeks, so you guys should definitely hit these! I'll be at more for sure, now that holidays are over and my camera works again! Speaking of camera, I got tons of pictures last night, so click here to check them all out or visit the SMS' Facebook page! And yes, here's my videos, of State of Misery's new original "Stand The Fuck Up", WinkStinger's song "Chudnugget", and two short songs from Shit Liver, their self titled song & "Speak of Weak"!







That's all for today, but I have a post with some big concert news tomorrow, so stay tuned! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Half Past & That's Chester), A New Local Band, And More!!

We're on pace for our busiest month on the SMS since the summer, which is a great sign! Our march to another 30+ post month continues today with some more big news and notes from the past little while, including news on a notable local book, a previously unknown store for a local band, and two LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS, but first, here's a new local band!

In November, you may remember us talking about a new local hard rock trio named The Quims, which featured frontman Justin Langlois (of Scary Uncles fame), Frightlight guitarist Rick White, and his brother James on bass, as you'll recognize from Browbeat. They looked promising and original for a local band, but we hadn't heard anything on them for over two months. Well, the other day, a new local band popped up on Facebook named Motion Carried which also featured Justin and Rick, but with Rick now on drums and a new bassist listed, veteran local musician Jamie Whalen (notably of Facedown). I can confirm that The Quims have broken up (thanks to Justin for confirming that), but without plainly visible sources, I won't say much else. Now, we have Motion Carried, a promising sounding band that describe themselves as an old fashioned rock n' roll band, with alcohol as a listed influence! Good sign! The band might be looking for a second guitarist, but aside from that and the existing info on their Facebook page, little else can be said yet, but keep an eye out! I have a feeling some good stuff will come from Motion Carried!

Now to our LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS, and first, a notable local hard rock band have finally announced their long awaited return to the stage! That band is Half Past, who have booked a headlining concert at The Rockstar Bar on February 26th! This will be their first live concert in almost 11 months, following a lengthy break from the stage amidst the departure and return of bassist Arthur Lacasse, and the beginning of preparations for their debut album. It's about time they come back, they're a talented band with some really solid originals and many great covers, and they should deliver next month in their return! A start time of 10:30 PM is listed on the Facebook event page, there is no advertised cover charge, and you must be 19 to attend. Pencil me in to attend this concert if I'm in town (not sure about my March Break plans yet), but regardless, this should be a great concert! Stay tuned for more updates as they come in, and check the above links for more details!

The other new concerts today are from an upcoming concert weekend at Docks Riverfront Grill, where That's Chester will return for a pair of shows next month! A favourite stop of theirs, the local classic hard rockers will be back at Docks on February 11th and 12th, one weekend after Turner Up, so a nice string of classic hard rock cover bands is on the way at that venue! My source for these new concerts is a reply to a post on That's Chester's Facebook page, and they've proven to be correct and honest with upcoming concert claims in any form, so I wouldn't expect this to be altered. As is usual, I would expect a 19+ age limit, 10:00 PM start time, and no cover for both of these shows. These should be fun as well, as That's Chester have some great music and talents in store at every concert, and you guys should consider going if you need some live music next month! Stay tuned for more That's Chester news and updates as I hear them!

Now for a couple news stories from the last little while to fill out this post, and we'll start with a surprising find I never realized existed! News from local crash music quartet Sykotyk Rampage has been slow recently despite no less than two albums in the works for release, but I did find something pretty cool that I never noticed before when I was browsing their pages: A store, and not just for music! The band's Reverbnation page has a surprisingly extensive store where you can buy band t-shirts, hoodies, hats, water bottles, mugs, tank tops, and canvas bags! The designs range from band logos to the front cover of their newest album "Bella Disgusta", but note that some of the graphics are pretty distorted depending on the product. I assume this is more like CafePress than something with extensive band input. The above links will take you to their store, where you can buy official Sykotyk Rampage merchandise, but note that things are slightly expensive compared to similar products from other bands. Still, if you love the sound of baboons eating peanut butter or stars decaying, you might wanna pick up some of this stuff! Stay tuned for more Sykotyk Rampage news as I hear it!

And finally, this is a news item that isn't entirely metal-centric, but it's really cool and has a lot of historic noteworthiness to the local scene, so I have to mention it. Do you guys remember in July when I talked about some cool short stories from the local music scene in the 1980s written by local photographer Paolo Colasacco? They dealt with the concert scene in the 1980s, mostly concerning punk bands and shows at Centennial Lanes, but they were insightful looks back into an era many local music lovers remember fondly, and you can check them out by clicking here. I hoped they'd amount to something big in the future, but with their posting taking place in 2005, I honestly wasn't too hopeful. However, Paolo has finished a book entitled "Going Underground: A Brief History Of Punk Rock In Small Town Canada" which compiles (I assume) the short stories above and many more, along with a bunch of his concert photography into a book about the Sault music scene from 1985-2000. It looks to have a punk focus and bent towards all ages concerts from that 15 year spread, but the articles I read and posted in July did have metal references, so there should be more mentions of it! I was regrettably too young to be a part of the scene during the time period Paolo's featuring in "Going Underground", but I always want to learn, and I have a hunch this will be a must read book!

"Going Underground" goes on sale THIS SATURDAY at The Rad Zone at Wellington Square Mall for $30, which may seem steep, but don't look at it like that. This should prove to be a great collection and flashback to the local scene that I'm sure many people regard fondly, so I expect it should be worth the money! In conjunction with the book signing, Paolo will be on hand from 1:00-4:00 PM on Saturday to autograph copies of "Going Underground", so if you want a signed copy, that's when to attend! For more details, visit the book's official Facebook page and The Rad Zone's Facebook page as well! I think I will pick up a copy, and if things go according to plan, we may just have a new book review this year! Stay tuned!

That's all for today, but I will see you guys at The Rosie TONIGHT for Metal Night! Thanks everyone!

This Weekend's Local Metal/Hard Rock Concert Previews!!

It's time to get uou guys hyped up for another exciting weekend of hard rock and metal concerts in the Sault Ste. Marie area! We have a lot of interesting news to share (including LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS), and I hope to get a good segment of it out of the way later tonight, but I'm going to focus on the weekend concert previews in this post. I know of at least six shows from tonight to Sunday in Sault Ontario, and let's start with the show taking place TONIGHT!

The next metal night at The Roosevelt Hotel goes down tonight, featuring three notable local metal bands! All are veterans of past metal nights, but all three are relatively new in the local scene, and are well worth your attention! So at tonight's show, we have extreme metal quintet WinkStinger, death metal rockers State of Misery, and grindcore trio Shit Liver ready to lay down the metal for all who attend! This is WinkStinger's first show of 2011, so they'll be looking to make a heavy impression with their fast and aggressive originals, while State of Misery (potentially with a new guitarist, if rumours are true?) will have their own originals and covers in store for a set of crushing death metal! Shit Liver, though polarizing, will no doubt stand out with their locally unique brand of crusty and grimy death/grind music! As is custom for these metal nights at The Rosie, there is NO COVER CHARGE, a 9:00 PM start time (more or less), and you must be 19 to enter. For full details, check the above links and the Facebook event page! Sounds like a great concert, and I would like to add that I should be in attendance for this one! I have no holiday commitments or camera issues, so I'd bet on my "making an appearance", if you wanna be formal! Check the above links for more, and for a preview, here's WinkStinger playing their song "Fuck The Rest" at Coch's Corner in October!



Next up, here's a notable concert taking place TOMORROW NIGHT at The Canadian Nightclub! When it comes to tribute bands, The Canadian's been a go-to place for them in recent years, and that continues tomorrow when Who Made Who return to Sault Ontario! Yes, the popular AC/DC tribute band from our very province will be back at The Canadian tomorrow night, in their first of at least two area stops in 2011 (remember, they're on the Hempfest lineup too!) Who Made Who always deliver a great night of AC/DC classics from the Bon Scott & Brian Johnson eras, and they're definitely a band to watch out for if you're bar crawling tomorrow night! Who doesn't love AC/DC? The show starts at 10:00 PM tomorrow, with a 19+ age limit and a $5 cover charge at the door. For more details, visit the official Facebook event page! Take my word for it, Who Made Who are a faithful and entertaining tribute band, and they'll deliver what you expect if you head to The Canadian tomorrow night! Check out all of the above links for more info, and for a video preview, here's Who Made Who playing "Whole Lotta Rosie" at a show early last year in Thunder Bay!



Now back to local bands, as a prominent local classic hard rock band returns to the stage this weekend! One night after metal night, The Roosevelt Hotel welcomes Turner Up back for two straight nights of entertaining covers! These will be the talented quintet's first shows of 2011 at The Rosie, and they'll be looking to entertain and rock for all in attendance! There doesn't appear to be a cover charge for either tomorrow or Saturday's shows, everything starts at 10:30 PM, and you must be 19 to enter. For full details, visit the Facebook event page! This should be another fun weekend of music from Turner Up, who impress and get people moving all the time, and this will likely be no different! Remember, if you go, don't be discouraged by the first set's lack of "metal", as things "turn up" as the night goes on! For a preview, here's Turner Up covering Guns N' Roses' "Mr. Brownstone" last week at The Rockstar Bar!



And finally, Tym Morrison returns to the stage for two shows this weekend in his continuing arrangements at a pair of area bars! As he has in recent weeks, Tym will be at The Big Cheese in Heyden tomorrow night, and then he'll be rocking Foggy Notions with his acoustic solo material on Sunday night! Sure, this is more reserved and soft than his Caveman Morrison work, but while the lineup situation continues to be in flux, either of these shows will be good alternatives! Both have start times of 10:00 PM, neither have an announced cover charge, and both are 19+ shows. The Sunday show at Foggy's has no event page, but it's on as scheduled until proven otherwise, but you can confirm your attendance for tomorrow's show in Heyden by clicking here! I should also note that Tym announced on the above link that his Big Cheese arrangement has been altered to just every second Friday, which would explain the recent cancellations. Why? I dunno, but could this open the door for weekend Caveman Morrison sets upon their return? Time will tell! Check the above links for more, and head out to see Tym this weekend if you can! For a preview, here's Tym covering Eric Clapton's "Tears In Heaven" from a December concert at Foggy's!



That's all for now, but stay tuned later today for more news and notes before I head out to The Rosie! Thanks everyone!

Two New Local Bands & Some New Local Videos!!

A day after we launched our new poll (VOTE TODAY!!), we return to the news for today, and we have some notable stuff to share on this fine Wednesday! We have our latest weekly classic video, the latest clips from a once-locally based band, and headlining today's post, two new local band pages! Here's what you need to know!

Almost two months after debuting at the Total Chaos concert, local hardcore quartet Changing Waves have finally launched their own internet pages! I have noticed two, one being a MySpace page, the other a Facebook account. Yes, I said account, not page or group, so you'll have to actually add Changing Waves as a friend, but definitely add them! Their MySpace page (which was launched on January 10th) has more to say at present, and there, it confirms the lineup I had previously mentioned on here, including frontman Benjamin Kallonen, guitarist Mike Hagerman, bassist Devan Lauzon, and drummer Alex Hagerman! You'll of course recognize the Hagerman brothers from Paraside, and Benjamin and Devan from Face First. Crediting "life" as an influence, the band say they sound like "what we want to hear", and they say they're trying to put as much music as they can out there. Not much extra info is present, but you know what is there? Songs, three of them! They're likely recordings from a jam session, and these are rather clear, which is nice to see! I notice that on these recordings, Benjamin's singing isn't as "scream-filled" as I figured it was live, but that's not bad, and the group have chemistry! Can't wait to see their next steps, and definitely check them out at the above links!

The other new band is a new solo project from a prominent local musician! If you've followed the Sault Michigan scene recently, you're likely well aware of singer/drummer Bob Helsten, a.k.a. Orb Hearthstone. Now the singer in End of Existence and the drummer in Elipzis, Orb's carved a good local reputation through singing roles in Integrated System of Machines, Weed, and Mugwort, and for his drum work in Clownsack and Chord On Bluez, among others! Well, Orb's launched another new band, this time, a solo project simply named "Orb"! This project is a completely solo effort, with Bob on each instrument, and he describes his new solo material as a little different than what we've previously seen from him. He's right, as the new songs he has posted on his solo project's MySpace page are lighter and slower than his past death metal work, though there's still harsh vocals to be had on "Dawn of a Dying Day"! "Final Day" is completely softer, but in still sort of a fast sort of pacing, and it reminds me at points of some later Faith No More songs, if that's accurate. Good stuff, definitely different from his usual fare, but just metal enough for the SMS! Check out more from Orb at his solo project's MySpace page linked above, and his new Reverbnation page! And yes, both Changing Waves & Orb are linked in our band links on your left and right!

Now, to new videos, and we'll start with Sue Inside! Yes, the locally-born experimental metal band have resurfaced with a pair of new videos on frontman Shane Lipsit-Fraser's official YouTube channel! One is for an original song named "Hermit", an acoustic instrumental (well, mostly) with an accompanying music video! It's similar in tone to a classic silent film, only with filters, a contemporary setting, and some mostly unintelligible spoken word from Shane in the last section. It's well made, and the guitar work isn't too bad! The same can apply for the second video, of the original song "Green Curry Chicken", which is also a solo acoustic track. It seems to pick up where "Hermit" left off, but is mostly a solo performance, but also in black and white with filters. Not too bad, not really heavy, but well played! And before anyone's like "This isn't metal, why are you talking about this?", keep in mind that many of the posted Sue Inside videos since Shane moved to Southern Ontario have been acoustic, and there are still heavier videos on his channel and on the band's CBC Radio 3 page. Still, it's nice to see Sue Inside are still active, and hopefully some more material comes online soon! Check the above links for more, and here's Sue Inside's video for "Hermit"!



And finally, here's this week's third weekly classic video! Once again, I'm tying in this video with performers at an upcoming concert, and in this case, it's half of local death metal band State of Misery! Bassist Kevin Dorazio & drummer Nick Kainula have joined forces before in other bands, most notably Stealing Kisses in 2009, but that same year, they hit the metal scene in the defunct local band Losing Ground! Only briefly active in late 2009 and early 2010(?), Losing Ground also featured Kevin & Nick's Stealing Kisses bandmate Kevin Koprash on guitar, and current Late & Loud frontman Jonathan Tiberi on vocals and guitar! Is it wrong of me to use puns like State of Loud or Late & Misery to describe Losing Ground? This band never played a live concert, but their Facebook group includes lots of optimistic postings, and there is video footage online of the band in action! This video is one of them, from a late 2009 jam session at Nick Kainula's house, and it features the band (minus Kevin Koprash) covering the Pentagram song "Forever My Queen"! Featuring good quality audio and heavy filter use, it was uploaded onto Jonathan Tiberi's Facebook page in late 2009 at http://facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1309509976165, and because it deserves higher exposure, I ripped it from there and uploaded it to the SMS' YouTube channel!

Remember, all credit for this video goes to Jonathan, NOT ME! NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IS INTENDED, I mean no harm!! It's a good performance, and this song suits Jonathan's range, I wonder why Losing Ground didn't last? So, check out our newest classic video below!



That's all for now, but I should have more later tonight or tomorrow, including weekend concert previews, so keep an eye out! Thanks everyone!