Tuesday, September 4, 2012

LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Haggith), New Material From Them, And Much More!!

It's time for our first news post of September, and today, we have some intriguing recent news to get to, including new songs from a local metal band, the latest material and updates from a newer local act, and much more, but first, here's a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT!!

New local grunge band Haggith will make their Sault Ste. Marie concert debut next week at The Roosevelt Hotel! The trio featuring local solo musician Mike Haggith alongside Havadder & 20 Pack of Marshmallows alumni will be one of two local opening bands at a punk concert at The Rosie on September 13th (one week from Thursday), in what will be their first proper concert outside of the outdoor Goulais River/Wawa sets they played last month. This show will be headlined by Vancouver pop punk trio Halfway To Hollywood, who have energetic sound that, though definitely not metal, should pull in some interested fans next Thursday! The other local openers will be local punk notables Redundant, who'll be nice to see back on stage following their exit from the Skull Fist show last month, and they'll fit in well with their punk originals and covers! Note that this show is being promoted by Frightlight/T-Rex Manning frontman J.D. "Johnny Pints" Pearce, so despite the Thursday timing, it's not the next Rosie metal night, but if I hear anything on the status of that series, I'll let you guys know! There will be a 19+ age limit and no cover charge, with doors opening at 10:00 PM. For more details, visit the official Facebook event page!

It's great to see J.D. bringing another punk show to The Rosie to help fill in the Thursday gaps, and if you liked the Die Mannequin & Shotgun Dolls shows, this might be up your alley! I'll admit that I'm not high on Halfway To Hollywood, but that's jut out of my personal preferences. Pop punk fans should enjoy them, and Redundant are always entertaining, but how about Haggith? Well, we're not quite done with them for today!

Beyond their forthcoming local concert debut, Haggith have been hard at work on recording sessions towards their debut CD, as we alluded to in our latest "Where Are The New Albums?" post (below this one), but as it turns out, they don't just have one new album in the works... they have three! As it turns out, their debut album will be the aforementioned "Dragon Joy Ride", with an album named "Deuce" second and the album titled "Apocalypse" third. This may seem very sudden & ambitious for a band to be working on three albums after only a few months together, but if you're at all familiar with Mike Haggith's solo output, you'll know that this is par for the course. Just to put it in perspective, he has more recorded albums than Sykotyk Rampage, so the quick early pace doesn't surprise me! With that said, the band Haggith have posted a bunch of new photos and videos from recent recording sessions on their Facebook page, including this lyric writing video and this clip of Mike doing some vocal demos (implying that he'll contribute some singing on future recordings), but those are all Facebook exclusives and sadly unembeddable. However, their newest YouTube channel (do they need so many?) has some videos we can share here, including a pile of studio recordings and some re-uploads from another channel, but to spread everything out, let's start with their newest live video!

Shot during the same sessions as their acoustic version of "I Am", this is of Haggith members Curtis McKenzie & Daniel Horton playing an unplugged version of their song "Livin' It On The Run", as uploaded to their new YouTube channel on Sunday. Similarly to "I Am", there's some grungy alt-rock promise here, and some nice gritty vocals, but I'm curious to hear this in it's full electric glory (and with better lighting.) Check it out below, and stay tuned for much more from Haggith in our next news post!



Next up, here's the latest material from local metal duo AlterWhite! The band featuring local musicians Mike Matthews & Kevin McCarthy are continuing with recent activity with two more song uploads to their YouTube channel from this past weekend, those being tracks named "Taking Back My Life" and "Watch With Eyes Closed". Both are extending on their earlier promise, with the former sounding more like a high tempo thrash number and the latter sounding slower and more introspective while retaining a heavy essence. The overly Hetfield-esque vocals don't work well on "Watch With Eyes Closed", but they do fit better on "Taking Back My Life", which might be one of my favourite tracks of theirs! If they can tone down the singing a bit and get a full band, they'll have a good shot at attracting some big notice around town, but for now, check out "Taking Back My Life" below, and check the above links for the latest videos and updates from AlterWhite!



And finally, here's three assorted shorter news stories from the last little while. As always, these are in alphabetical order by band, company, or venue name:
  • Local old school hardcore quintet Destroilet appear to be re-emerging from their hiatus! Their Facebook page was recently updated with new band logos, which confirms recent personal Facebook postings by band members alluding to new developments & band work. Fingers crossed that we see them back soon, as it's been way too long since their last show and their quiet EP release last spring, so stay tuned for more updates as they come in!
  • Are you or your band looking for a manager? Sault Ontario resident Stephanie Desjardins has started a managing company named Escape Into Music, and she's hoping to sign on with local bands to manage them, assist in production and booking, manage expenses, and the like that comes with expanding as a musical act. This could be beneficial for local artists without experience in non-musical aspects of being in a band, so contact Stephanie at this location for more info!
  • Local concert venue/Algoma University campus bar The Speak Easy has launched new online pages on both Facebook and Twitter, so like or become a fan of each to keep in the loop on events there! Though slower in recent months for metal/hard rock shows, The Speak Easy is always a possibility for some metal, so follow the above pages just in case, and I've replaced our link for it in our local concert venue links section with their Facebook page!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news on the site shortly! Thanks everyone!

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