LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Nudge & Banned), A New V.D.M. Song, And More!!

Keeping with our recent Sault Michigan focus following our "Yooper Bars" review yesterday, we have a new news post today that mostly touches on bands across the river! It's not completely Sault Ontario-devoid, as we have a song from a band on this side of the border and some assorted news and notes on both sides, but leading off, we have LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS for Sault Michigan-area concerts this month, so here's what you need to know!

Marquette hard rockers Nudge are returning to Sault Michigan THIS WEEKEND! These local favourites will be making their first local stops in around 3 months (following show cancellations in September) when they return to their favourite local stomping ground, The Satisfied Frog, on Friday & Saturday! My source for these shows is the band's Reverbnation page, as Nudge curiously haven't posted a Facebook event page for them yet. This will be Nudge's second local concert weekend with new drummer Scott Kusmirek, and he will join frontman Danzo McCracken for his customary acoustic gigs at The Frog before the full sets on Wednesday & Thursday night, so keep those in mind if you wanna mellow down before the full Nudge shows this week! Like Nudge's past shows here, I'd expect a 21+ age limit & 10:00 PM start times for these shows, while a cover charge hasn't been announced. Check the above links for more details! It's great to see Nudge back in town for some hard rocking covers & good times, so don't miss them on Friday or Saturday at The Frog, and stay tuned for more later this week!

The other new Sault Michigan-area shows concern Kinross hard rockers Banned, who will return to Hessel for at least four concerts this month! Fresh off their latest dates 2 hours away in Gould City this past weekend, this hard working quartet (at least at the moment) will hit The Runway Bar in Hessel on November 16th, 17th, 23rd, and 24th for two straight weekends of hard rocking covers and originals! These will be their first stops at The Runway Bar (roughly an hour from the Soo & 40 minutes from St. Ignace) since August, and these are rare in one way, in that Banned generally only plug concerts one weekend at a time, often on short notice. It'll all work out though, as the Traynors and company have plenty of talent and fun songs to go around! Admission should be free for these 21+ shows, and 9:00 PM start times for both weekends are advertised. Check the above links for more details! Banned should rock hard all month in Hessel, so don't hesitate to check them out live this month at The Runway Bar!

Thirdly today, here's a brand new original song from Sault Ontario deathcore quartet The Valentine's Day Massacre! Aside from some fan art postings on their Facebook page, updates from the band as a whole have been very quiet since The V.D.M. moved to London for college in late August/early September, but yesterday, frontman Steve Rhodes uploaded a new original demo onto his YouTube channel from a recent jam session! Entitled "Lovecraft Cthulhu" (and likely inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu"), it is a promising song that reminds me of some of their earlier originals, but the recording quality could be better (especially for equalizing the instruments), and it feels a bit longer than it should be. I like where they're going, so check out The Valentine's Day Massacre's newest song below, and stay tuned for more news and notes from their current London homebase as it rolls in!



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

• I'm now listing inactive local metal band Borderline Divine under their old name Stillbroke on the SMS' band listings. I know that they weren't called Stillbroke for their last 8 months together, but they had more shows, material, longevity, and success under that name than they had as Borderline Divine. Like we've done in earlier similar cases, I'm listing them under their longest lasted/most successful name for the benefit of casual readers, but if they ever come back as Borderline Divine, you know we'll change it back!
• Local musician Chase Wigmore is looking for experimental musicians to collaborate on original music, and he indicated on his Musicians Wanted Facebook group post on Saturday that grindcore would be among the genres being played (or attempted.) His material on SoundCloud is interesting and widely varied, touching on a lot of styles, and if you're at all interested, click here to message him or visit the above links!
• Sault Michigan hard rockers Tantrym Tyme have launched an official Twitter page! Only one tweet is there so far, but if you actively use Twitter, follow them in case they use it more in the near future, especially if they have lots of updates!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news as the week rolls along! Thanks everyone!