After taking the month of April off, classic hard rock quintet That's Chester are returning to the stage THIS WEEKEND at The Roosevelt Hotel! This talented collection of local music veterans will bring their cover assault to The Rosie on Friday & Saturday night, in what are relatively rare stops at the Korah Road bar for them. From what I can tell, they have not played a public show at The Rosie since at least 2010, maybe earlier, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong! Notably, this weekend's concerts will be with a special guest, as Cleveland Steamer drummer Mike Blair will be filling in for Ric Datson behind the That's Chester drumkit for both gigs, as per a comment on the Facebook event page. From what I understand, Ric suffered a joint injury last weekend that will prevent him from playing this weekend, but I hope he gets well soon! Both the Friday & Saturday night shows have 10:30 PM start times, no cover charges, and 19+ age limits, so check the above links for more details! If nothing else, these will be a unique pair of gigs to see That's Chester rock out their proficient classic hard rock covers, so if you love The Roosevelt Hotel and That's Chester, you know where to be this weekend! Stay tuned for our previews of these shows later in the week!
The other new shows I have this weekend are for the return of Tym Morrison's solo acoustic concerts! Though Tym has kept busy with his band Caveman Morrison in the past month, his shows next weekend at The Service Grill will be his first solo dates in 6 weeks and his first since his Yamaha acoustic guitar was stolen last month. The new guitar won't be all that's different from his usual acoustic shows though, as the Facebook event page says that his May 18th & 19th shows will start at 3:00 PM and run until midnight! I assume they'll be laid out as two 4 hour gigs at 3:00 PM & 8:00 PM respectively, which he's done before, as I can't see these being 9 hour sets with only normal breaks. Admission should be free for these concerts, and likely all ages given the restaurant setting. Check the above links for more details! It's always good to see Tym break out his unplugged set again, and hopefully the concerts next weekend are huge successes that can set off even more acoustic gigs! Stay tuned for more from Tym's projects as it all comes in!
We'll close this post with my recap of the Posted Around art exhibition, as it's last night helped end National Youth Arts Week yesterday! It was at the Circle of Creative Arts Centre on Queen Street East, in the space between Anipeg Tattoo & Top Hat Bar & Grill, so it wasn't completely obvious to find, but it has a nice setup inside! Kinda minimal, but there's an artistic sensibility for sure. The posters themselves were from a wide range of concerts and events from the 1980s through today, including posters by artists like Frightlight's Kevin Powe, local NYAW organizer Rihkee Strapp, and former Arcadia owner Matt Ceolin, alongside donations from Giwakwa's Nolan Rainville and other groups and artists. Very solid selection of posters, though it was skewed to recent years and the 1980s in many cases, and it'd have been cool to have seen more 1990s posters. Some of these brought back some good memories (I'd completely forgotten about Woods of Ypres' show here circa 2004), and others just had nice designs that I liked, even if I didn't know the band or their genre! One poster by Matt Ceolin for an October 2007 show at the former Eargasm Records headlined by a band named Mothra really caught my eye, and though I'm still not 100% on who they were, I'd have grabbed it if I had more cash at hand!
The evening also included the "Night at the C.O.C.A." open mic night with refreshments on sale, though there wasn't too much in the way of performers after I shown up. It was nice to finally see Rihkee play accordion live (I never got a chance to see The Night Owl Meme Makers live, sadly), and though I don't know him, the bassist that performed was really talented! The rest were varying levels of good too, but it'd have been nice to see more participation. There was some other artistic items dotted around, including some really solid work from Dayna Rainville (Nolan's sister), and a tree that somehow had a shovelhead in it, among other interesting works! As it was the last night, I was able to buy & bring home framed prints right from there (they'd be reserved if bought earlier in the exhibition until it closed), so now I have the posters from The Dayglo Abortions' show at The Rosie last year and Woods of Ypres' second-last local concert (August 2009 at The Speak Easy) hanging in my room, and they look very nice! I'll try and get pictures at some point. If there was one thing I'd change about the exhibition, it'd be having more posters. Probably the most glaring absence for recent posters was stuff by Destroilet's Matt Waples (he does awesome work), but if this exhibition returns, hopefully word is larger to encourage more submissions and involvement!Overall, this was a fun display of local artistic talent, and I hope that these poster prints continue to be sold in some fashion! Either bring back the exhibition itself or sell them at the C.O.C.A. centre year round, because there's definitely an audience for all of this, and there's a ton of room to grow it! I got photos from the exhibition, including every poster I could prove had a metal band, and some select other posters that I liked or thought may have had heavier acts, so click here to see those, or visit our Facebook page! There's also some photos of the open mic performers and other works of art there. Kudos for a great National Youth Arts Week, and here's to an even bigger one in 2013!
That's all for now, but stay tuned for a new news post shortly, plus weekend concert previews and our next Defunct Local Band Profile! Thanks everyone!
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