Lots Of Assorted News & Videos From The Last Little While!!

It's time to clear out some of the stories from our recent news cache today, as this post is dedicated to assorted stories we've missed over the last week! I know that there's a new concert tomorrow and another cancelled for tomorrow, but I don't want to redundantly cover both almost identically for consecutive days, so stay tuned early tomorrow for weekend concert previews. For now, we have news on a relaunched solo project, Ypres Metal Fest news, new Half A Man updates & this week's classic video, so here's what you need to know!

Former Browbeat frontman Dutch Vanderploeg appears to have relaunched his solo project! He posted new Facebook & Reverbnation pages on Thursday to promote his latest musical ventures, while also deleting his short lived Training Snakes project's Reverbnation page. The pages mostly reference Dutch's musical past (specifically Browbeat, who he said would probably return in the future), while discussing a bit of recent work, like the Saturday jam nights he hosts in his basement. His Reverbnation page linked above features three audio recordings, those being new versions of the Browbeat originals "Walk Away" and "Sorry", and a softer new original song named "Brighter Day", and all appear to feature Dutch's former Browbeat bandmate James White (Redundant/Caveman Morrison) on bass & backing vocals. Nice to hear these songs again, and fingers crossed that Dutch continues to work on his original material and make local waves again!

His music (Browbeat or otherwise) has always been entertaining, and I hope these don't end up deleted like his other past projects and sites! The new song "Brighter Day" is a bit light for my tastes, but it's well performed, and hopefully there's more to come, so become a fan at the above links, and Dutch's new solo work has replaced Training Snakes in our active band links!

Next up, here's the latest updates for the Ypres Metal Fest at The Canadian Nightclub on April 7th! A 12th band has been added to the lineup for this massive David Gold memorial concert, that being North Bay black metal quartet Empyrean Plague, who were previously confirmed for the David Gold memorial show in Toronto on April 5th as well. My source is the official Facebook event page. With at least 5 common bands now on both memorial concerts, it's good to see a lot of symmetry present in David's memory! Empyrean Plague are no strangers to the Soo, having headlined the 34th Roosevelt Hotel metal night last September, and they've opened for Woods of Ypres in the north on a few occasions, so they'll be excellent fits here and in Toronto next month! The other news relating to the Ypres Metal Fest is that tickets reportedly went on sale for $20 yesterday, as per a post by promoter Rich Moreland on the event page linked above. You can reportedly buy tickets through him, David's sister Marie Gold, The Rad Zone at The Wellington Square Mall, Northland Music on Queen Street East, and The Canadian Motor Hotel's front desk, but I'll note that nothing 100% about the ticket sales has been said since Monday. You can try to get tickets now if you want, but as soon as official word on their availability is made, I'll let you guys know! Keep posted for more Ypres Metal Fest updates as they come in!

Thirdly today, here's the latest from Brimley metal quartet Half A Man! A new unmixed demo original song named "Bad Way" was posted onto the band's Facebook page on Sunday, and though it's an instrumental, it has a solid groove and is pretty heavy all around! Unfortunately, this particular file is only online via a Facebook video right now (it's not on YouTube yet), and Facebook videos are sadly unembeddable, so check it out at the above links! Not all is lost though, as a solo acoustic version of this song (with vocals) was posted onto guitarist Erik Rintamaki's YouTube channel earlier today! It's got a noticeably different tone, but it's good to hear singing on this version, and Erik lined up the words with images he found on Google to link everything nicely! Erik's singing is better suited to heavier material, I find, but you can feel emotion in his voice on this track, so check out his solo unplugged rendition of "Bad Way" below, and check out more from Half A Man at the above links!



And finally, here's this week's classic video! With Garden of Bedlam's first concert of 2012 coming up THIS SATURDAY at The Rockstar Bar, I thought I'd post another older video of theirs that's not on YouTube yet! This comes from an early concert of theirs, when they opened for inactive Red Hot Chili Peppers tribute band Sikamikanico at The Other Place (last known as GLOW) in April 2008, and it's of Garden of Bedlam covering Velvet Revolver's "Slither"! Now, better quality video from this concert exists, and you can hear their "Slither" cover in full and in higher quality at this location, but it never hurts to get new views on things! This video isn't of the full song (starting during the second verse), and the audio's very scratchy, but the filmer got a good angle of Garden of Bedlam, and their talent's audible underneath the quality issues! This video was filmed by an attendee and was later uploaded to the band's Facebook group by bassist Evan Belleau at http://facebook.com/photo.php?v=17889665931. NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IS INTENDED!! All credit for this video goes to Garden of Bedlam and the original filmer, I'm just trying to share this video with a wider audience like it deserves! With that said, check out this early Garden of Bedlam video below, and stay tuned for my preview of their concert on Saturday night!



That's all for today, but stay tuned for weekend concert previews tomorrow, our next entry in the Battle of the Bands Rewind Mini-Series on Friday, our Defunct Profile on Paraside on Saturday, and yes, our "Woods V" review is coming soon as well, along with more news! Thanks everyone!