A New Local Band, New Sewer Swampstravaganja Videos, And More!!

Here's another news post for this Monday evening! Our consecutive streak of new posts snapped yesterday due to my computer issues, but the news certainly hasn't quelled, and today, we have news on a possible hard rock connection to the Soo Greyhounds, and new videos from last night's Sewer Swampstravaganja concert, but first, how's about a new local band?

Yes, here's the newest metal project out of Sault Michigan, entitled Galactic Alignment! This is the newest metal project from local solo artist, former Slackjawed Rats frontman, and area guitar instructor Mike Libertoski, and he describes Galactic Alignment as "a jazz influenced technical-death-metal project". Mike only plans to play guitar full time in this band, and is looking for additional members to form a full lineup. 5 songs from a planned 6 song demo are currently posted on the band's Reverbnation page, with plans to add vocals in the near future once a singer is obtained. How do the demos sound? Really good and very technical, with fast riffs, unique time signatures, and solid drum tracks! Reminds me of a few progressive death metal and technical metal bands, but I do find that the songs are overall very similar in style. Maybe with vocals and refinement, things will sound more varied, but these are sill really promising demos, and show Mike Libertoski's talent really well! Check the above links for more on Galactic Alignment, and also become a fan of their new Facebook page!

Next up, here's some more new videos from Saturday night's Sewer Swampstravaganja all ages show at The Oddfellows Hall! Firstly, here's the latest video footage from classic metal quartet Sativa Rose, who of course had bassist Adam Veale's dad John present to film them in action! Videos of their originals from last night were uploaded onto John's YouTube channel yesterday, those of course being "Fall From Grace" and "Bellows Of The Beast"! Better video quality than what I shot, that's for sure, and John got a better angle of the band than I had too! These songs are really well written, and have a fast paced nature that really suits them! Very solid stuff, I can't wait to hear more original material from Sativa Rose! "Fall From Grace" is linked above, but because it's a much longer and (at times) more technical song, I've embedded "Bellows Of The Beast" below, so check it out! You'll be glad you did!



Also for new videos, these were honestly an accidental find as there's nothing indicating they're local videos in the titles, but they sure are! YouTube user Chantal Hopper was in attendance for this show, and posted four videos from it onto her YouTube channel yesterday as well! One is of another band, I'll have that in a future post, but three are from As It Stands' set, which I sadly misserd due to the Lion Ride show, so it's great to see footage of it online! The three videos are a 25 second clip of "Big People, Little Lock City", a 4 minute video of a mosh pit during one of their originals (I can't make out which one due to the audio quality), and the video I'm embedding below! This is an over 9 minute long video and it features their original song "Conception" and (surprisingly enough) what sounds like a cover of Blink-182's "Stay Together For The Kids"! Again, this is bad quality audio, so I could be wrong, but I believe I have the song's name right. The video quality's decent, and you get great angles of the crowd, but the audio is NOT very clear. It's very scratchy and sounds distorted at parts, but still, these are decent videos of their set, and hopefully we can hear more from As It Stands real soon! Check out the new video below, and stay tuned for the other new local metal video from Chantal's channel very soon! (Credit to Amanda Petrocco for the picture)



And finally, here's some news on the Soo Greyhounds' search for a new general manager! With the search to replace Dave Torrie underway, rumours have narrowed onto a few candidates and... what, you don't know why we're talking about hockey on the SMS? Well, here's why. Late last year, you may remember when I mentioned that former Foothill Road bassist Ron Pyette has since moved on to become a Stanley Cup winning scout for the Pittsburgh Penguins (he's also previously worked for Hockey Canada.) Well, wouldn't you know it, Ron is apparently the favourite to become the Greyhounds' new GM! Ron, who is obviously a Sault Ontario native, has been interviewed about the GM position in recent weeks, and an announcement on the new Greyhounds GM could be made as early as this Friday. For more details on the reports, check out recent articles on SooToday, The Sault Star, and Sault This Week. This would be cool to see if the reports have truth! He's a nice guy and he's done some good work as a scout in the hockey world, and I have a hunch he'd do well in the job if he gets it! Of course, check the above links for more, and click here for more on Foothill Road, who were a very entertaining local hard rock band from the mid 1990s! Good bass work too!

That's all for now, but I have more news and notes to come very soon, including tons of Woods of Ypres news, so stay tuned! Thanks everyone!