Monday, January 30, 2012

LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Garden of Bedlam), Battle Of The Bands Updates, And Much More!!

The news keeps rolling in fast and furious, and we've got a lot of it to get to today, so here's what's on tap! We have some assorted shorter stories from the last little while, the latest updates for the upcoming Battle of the Bands (including a newly added band's change), preliminary word on an apparent major upcoming concert, and a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT, but first, here's news relating to some great local press on a local band and their frontman, as it links to the new show!

The Sault Star's article on Garden of Bedlam singer Erik "Buzz" Boissineau is now online on The Sault Star's website! Written by Brian Kelly and entitled "Singer finds peace in Garden of Bedlam", the article features Buzz's thoughts on the imagery and themes of the band's new album "Everything Will Die", their studio work, their victory at 2009's Kiss Battle of the Bands and the experience opening for Kiss at The Essar Center in August 2010, and Buzz's musical journey before joining Garden of Bedlam, including brief mentions of his old bands Barfly and Sourcecode. The article also mentions that Garden of Bedlam hopes to do some touring this spring in Ontario, which would be awesome if it happens on schedule! This is a nice article with some good insights on both Buzz's music and Garden of Bedlam's local rise, and aside from spelling Kiss drummer Eric Singer's first name wrong, there's no glaring errors from what I can see. Buzz definitely is a nice guy deserving of the press, but I was hoping for either some more insight into his career or some more integration of the other members of the band for the article. Still, it's some well deserved press all around, and check out the full article at the above links!

That's not all from the article of note from Garden of Bedlam, as it also revealed their next concerts at the end, so here's a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT!! According to the above article, Garden of Bedlam will bring their metal onslaught back to The Rockstar Bar on Saturday, March 10th for a headlining concert there! This will be their first local concert of 2012, their first since their CD release show on Boxing Day, and their first show at The Rockstar Bar in nine months, but at least this isn't as huge of a wait for their next show as some of them have been! Garden of Bedlam haven't confirmed this concert on their pages yet, but if The Sault Star's mentioning it, then it can't be too inaccurate. Admission will be $5, an 11:00 PM start time is listed, and I imagine this is a 19+ event, but other details (like potential openers) haven't been made public yet. Check the above links for more details! It's nice to see Garden of Bedlam back for another headlining concert, and you know it'll be a big show no matter what, so stay tuned to the SMS for more details as they come in!

The other new show mentioned in the Sault Star is not completely confirmed yet, so I won't call it yet until official word comes out, but Garden of Bedlam are also listed for a David Gold memorial show at a to-be-announced local venue on April 7th! This appears to confirm that a local tribute concert in memory of the late Woods of Ypres frontman is in the works, and I have heard rumours relating to it and possible bands to perform on it, but until something completely official is released by promoters or band-linked sources, I won't officially go into any detail. Stay tuned though, because I have a feeling this will be a can't miss event!

Next up, here's the latest updates on the Sault Humane Society Battle of the Bands on April 20th at The Grand Theater! Two more bands have been confirmed for the lineup of this long awaited battle, including local deathcore quartet The Valentine's Day Massacre.... wait, who are they? They're actually the band formerly known as View To A Kill, who announced that they changed their name yesterday. A full reason for the name change wasn't announced, but the band said that the View To A Kill name "served them well". Maybe there was a conflict with a similarly named other band, maybe it's to better suit their material, who knows. Personally, I find that the name's a downgrade and doesn't really match their sound, but their music is still brutal, so stay tuned for more from The Valentine's Day Massacre as it comes in, including their next show next month when details come out! The other newly confirmed band is local rock quartet Wishbone (featuring local metal band alumni Glen Thomas & Steven Flint), who'll play their first local battle of the bands since the Kiss Battle finals in 2009! Not too heavy, but they're a very talented band, and they should do real well in April!

Notably, Late & Loud have yet to be confirmed for the battle despite the Facebook posts mentioning their involvement, but stay tuned if I hear anything for or against them playing. Veteran local bassist Nathan Bouliane's new band The Moves have also submitted an entry, but they've yet to be added to the lineup either as of this writing. This is shaping up to be a very cool battle of the bands, and hopefully everyone turns out to support their favourite bands and rock out! There's still openings for new bands, so click here to register to try and play at this battle, and stay tuned for more updates!

And finally for today, here's three assorted shorter stories from the last little while, and as usual, these are in alphabetical order by band or station name:
  • Formerly-local internet radio station Energy Rock Radio has shut down, and has been replaced by "The Energy Rock Radio Show" on the New York internet station Hard Rock Radio Live as of January 17th, running Saturdays at 12:00 PM. A reason wasn't announced, beyond owner Ryan Kaarlela saying it was "time to move on." It sucks to see ERR as we knew it end, but hopefully Ryan makes the new show a success, and hopefully you guys continue to tune in! As a result, I've replaced it's now show-centric link on the SMS with the old ERR Facebook group, but do check out the new show!
  • Local grimecore trio Shit Liver are among numerous bands playing at this year's Touch Of Death Metal & Punk Festival in Cochrane, Ontario (6 hours north of Sudbury) from June 29th to July 1st, joining notable bands like Hallows Die, Empyrean Plague, and Thekillingfield on the massive lineup. Click here for more details! This should be a great festival for Northern Ontario metal, as always, so keep an eye on it!
  • According to their Facebook page, local "blue Chinese metal crash punk" quartet Sykotyk Rampage recorded material towards a new album called "Jonathan, Your Music Sucks" at River Front Recreation Studios on Friday! I'll note that they still have their two "Genius Mushrooms" albums to release (the first one is online but not on sale), but no matter what the future release schedule looks like, stay tuned for updates!
That's all for now, but stay tuned for our last feature post of January (our review of Foothill Road's second EP) tomorrow! Thanks everyone!

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