LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Stryper), A New Rock 101 Interview, And Much More!!

How's about another news post for this Tuesday afternoon? I've been admittedly slow for news in recent days, but this should hopefully help, as we have a HUGE LOCAL CONCERT ALERT for next month, a cool new interview from a local radio station, this week's classic video, and some more assorted news stories, so read on for what's in the news today, and check out this month's Defunct Local Band Profile on Bring The Fallen in the post below this one!

The first major metal concert of 2012 at The Dreammaker's Theater at Kewadin Casino has been announced, and for you hair metal fans, a triple header of classic glam & metal action will be in store on February 24th! Platinum selling Christian metal legends Stryper will headline this concert, with hits like "Free", "Honestly", and "To Hell With The Devil" potentially in store for fans next month! Joining them will be Las Vegas metal standouts Slaughter (best known for hits like "Fly To The Angels" & "Up All Night") and Lynch Mob, the prominent hard rock quartet led by original Dokken guitarist George Lynch (whose hits included "Tangled In The Web" and "River of Love".) How's that for an impressive lineup of old school metal? Though I don't believe any of these bands have played Kewadin before, there's a bunch of local concert ties present. Slaughter, of course, opened for Jackyl at the now-Essar Center in May 2008, while Stryper frontman Michael Sweet sang with Boston when they played here the following month, and Lynch Mob bassist Robbie Crane was with Ratt when they came to Kewadin in June 2006, so each band has at least one member who played in the area before! Overall though, this is a nice quality package of old school glam metal and hard rock, so you definitely won't wanna miss it!

This concert is on February 24th at 7:00 PM, it is an all ages affair, and tickets are just $36 American, which means it's just $12 a band! Good value, I'd say. Tickets are now on sale at this location, and good seats are still available, so get hooked up A.S.A.P.! Tickets should also be available at the Kewadin box office or by phone at 1-800-KEWADIN. For more details, click here! This sounds like a high quality package of old school metal, and hopefully you guys take notice and make this a success! Stay tuned for any possible updates as they come in!

Next up, a new interview recently on Rock 101 has been posted on YouTube, and it's of Rock 101's Scott Cook interviewing "Eddie Trunk Rocks" and "That Metal Show" host Eddie Trunk on air on Friday during "Scott & Brian In The Morning"! Uploaded by YouTube user Maddog2000 on Sunday, the interview is about 28 minutes long and was posted onto Maddog2000's YouTube channel into two parts. The interview starts with a lot of talk about Eddie's work in TV and radio, before launching into talk about Van Halen's recent intimate return show (which Eddie was in attendance for) and how the band sounded in their return to the stage. This is a big story in hard rock, and the new Van Halen song "Tattoo" is promising (not a fan of the chorus though), so it's good to hear one of the most qualified people possible critique Van Halen as they sound right now! Sure, the discussion topic isn't local, but it's great to hear Scott and Eddie go back and forth, and hopefully more interviews on the station pop up over the coming months! Check out the first half of the interview below, and click here for part two!



Thirdly today, here's some assorted shorter news stories from the last little while, and as usual, these are in alphabetical order by band or artist name:

• Sault Ontario solo artist Mike Haggith's new studio album "Neighbourhood Watch" has had some extra changes made to it's track lising, notably adding two new songs ("Room 822" & "Leon The Janitor") and removing another ("Standing On The Edge".) For complete current details on the album, click here, and stay tuned for it's projected release on the 25th!
• I'll likely be moving Swayze Train guitarist Mike Libertoski's solo project to our inactive band links on Sunday due to a year's inactivity. Mike last updated his solo MySpace page on January 15th last year, possibly due to his work with Swayze Train and his tech-metal project Galactic Alignment keeping him busy. Hopefully he revisits his general solo stuff down the road though, he had a nice mix of styles and sounds there!
• Local hardcore quartet Skull After Betrayl have parted ways with bassist Adam Brett, following his move to Niagara Falls late last year. Adam had played with the band since their inception, including at all of their 2011 concerts. The news was broken on the band's Facebook page on Friday. A bassist search is planned but has not begun yet, so I'll let you guys know when it does, and best of luck to Adam in Niagara Falls, I hope everything works out down there!

And finally for today, here's this week's classic video! With prominent local musician Mikey Hawdon returning home to rock The Canadian Nightclub while fronting his Toronto-based Ramones cover band The Merves on Saturday night, I thought it'd be a perfect time to tie in this week's classic video with his local metal band Lion Ride! News from them has been scarce since the fall, but there's still lots of material of theirs to go around online while we wait, including more videos that aren't on YouTube, like this one courtesy of The 705 Video Magazine's Facebook page! Likely shot by 705VM owner Fred Kember, this comes from Lion Ride's concert at Coch's Corner on August 28th, 2009, and it's of the band playing their song "I'm A Drug" from their debut EP "Awesome". I don't believe this is as popular in recent setlists as it was then, so it's good to hear on video! Featuring their 2009-2010 lineup (including then-bassist Diamond Brent Panther), this was uploaded onto Facebook a few days after this concert, and I apologize for it being clipped at the end. You can view the original video at http://facebook.com/video/video.php?v=124214113756, but note that the lighting on my YouTube upload was altered to make it brighter after I posted it.

NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IS INTENDED!!! All credit for this video goes to Lion Ride, Fred, and the 705VM crew, I'm just trying to share this video with a wider audience like it deserves! The audio quality's kinda sketchy and the video was small and had poor lighting, but it's still a good and energetic performance from Lion Ride that should be seen by more fans, so definitely check it out below, and go see Mikey with The Merves this Saturday!!



That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and notes as the week rolls along, plus this weekend's concert previews! Thanks everyone!