Another Inactive Local Band, New Ashes To Dust Videos, And Much More!!

Six posts in six days, that's a good way to start off the month to me! News has still been slow-ish from many of the usual sources from early 2012, but there is still stuff to cover, and today, that includes a rare vocal cover by a local metal frontman, our first glimpse at a local band's new lineup, and some assorted news and notes, but first, here's notes on another likely inactive local band!

First, I've reluctantly opted to move another band to our inactive Sault Ontario band links, that being local experimental grunge trio SBD. While we're not at a year's inactivity threshold for them yet (their Soundclick page was last visibly updated in December), they haven't played live since the end of 2010, and frontman Dann Pichette's move to Terrace Bay earlier this year leaves a reunion unlikely for the immediate future, especially with the "D" in SBD being out of town. SBD left a quick impact on the local scene, especially at their 2010 peak, which saw them play a few notable local concerts (including the Downtown Showdown battle of the bands & RedD Monkey's first Green Christmas Party), as well as releasing two versions of their only album "Sonic Experiments", before activity slowed to just song postings in 2011, with the band dropping out of some announced concerts. However, I will note that Dann is already working on a new solo project out of Terrace Bay named The Dann Pichette Multi-Track Recording Extravaganza, whose own Soundclick page features some similar original material and at least one older SBD track.

I've been a fan of Dann's local music dating back to No Arrow's peak, so I'm disappointed to see SBD fade out locally. While a lot more experimental and varied than his & bassist Brad Griffith's No Arrow work, there was a lot of heavier & faster material mixed in with SBD's originals, and the guys seemed to have good chemistry & momentum during their live heyday! Hopefully everything works out in Terrace Bay for Dann personally & musically, best of luck to Shane, Brad, and Dann in the future, and stay tuned for more on the members' next local work if I hear it!

Next up, here's the latest videos from local hard rock quartet Ashes To Dust! Uploaded to their YouTube channel yesterday, these are from a recent set at Superior Heights Collegiate & Vocational School, and make up the first video footage of the band with with new second guitarist Liam Yeomans & with frontman Noah Morden on bass. The videos are of Ashes To Dust covering Blink-182's "Up All Night" (sans Liam) and The Foo Fighters' "The Pretender" (with Noah on vocals only), so click each link to check them out! Not the heaviest songs in their repertoire, but from what I've seen, their school sets aren't as heavy as ones elsewhere. They handle both songs well, and Noah seems like a capable bassist on stretches when he's playing it only, but the choruses on "The Pretender" don't fit his vocal style. Liam seems to be a good fit himself on guitar, and he helps fill out their sound, but I have to ask, why were all the extra guys on stage during "Up All Night"? Couldn't the sound have been worked on before A.T.D.'s set? Check out their cover of "The Pretender" below, and stay tuned for more Ashes To Dust news as I hear it!

Also today, here's something we don't share much: A vocal cover by a local metal singer! Yesterday, Valentine's Day Massacre singer Steve Rhodes uploaded this video to his new YouTube channel of him covering the Black Dahila Murder song "Deathmask Divine" (as recorded at his current London homebase), and it sounds pretty good! I'm not a huge BDM fan, but Steve's growling and screaming fit well for the song, though I'd have boosted the original audio more if possible, it's very quiet. We haven't heard much from The Valentine's Day Massacre since they all moved to London for college last month, but it's good to see new activity from any of the members, so check it out below, and if you like what you hear, give Steve some recommendations for new songs to cover!



And finally for today, here's three assorted shorter news stories from the last little while, and as always, these are in alphabetical order by band or site name:

• New Sault Michigan metal band The Eleventh Hour (formerly Angelic Genocide) have posted new band logos and art onto their Facebook page, all of which were done by clean singer Cathy Burgos. Not bad at all, so check them out above, and stay tuned for updates from them hopefully soon!
• In case you guys haven't noticed lately, Facebook recently made new mandatory changes to photo albums on Facebook pages, personal or otherwise, to flow better with the Timeline profile format. This affects any local bands with Facebook pages, and while I'm OK with the changes, I wish the default photo page would be albums and not in direct order of upload (and a video tab would be nice too.) Other than that, it's clean and well integrated, so keep it in mind!
• I recently added two new links to our Other Sault Michigan Metal Links section after we split them from the Sault Ontario links, and those are The Soo Evening News & The St. Ignace News! They are of course the regional newspapers in the Sault Michigan area, and both sporadically cover local metal/hard rock concerts and bands, and like Sault Ontario papers, articles do go up in print & online, so follow each to stay in the loop for local news and maybe some music talk!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for even more news and notes over the next while! Thanks everyone!