Toystock Video Showcase!!

Happy December, everyone! To help kick off the month, we have a special video showcase post concerning Toystock, the Christmas Cheer fundraising event at The Canadian Nightclub last weekend that saw 10 local bands gather for a great cause! Attendee Shawna Parr was present all night taking photos and videos of the bands, and while we'll touch on the videos in a second, give her Facebook photo album a look at this location, as she snapped tons of quality photos of each band! Awesome work! For videos, she got footage of each band (except Boxcar Junction, apparently because that video didn't work), and not just one song from each, getting at least two from each band (complete with on-screen titles, though not all entirely complete), and the quality is very good on these, as she had a nice angle of the action for each act! In chronological order, here's the videos, with ones involving metal/hard rock performances embedded on the site! The opening band was local country band Summer Thunder, and Shawna's video features them covering Toby Keith & Dierks Bentley material followed by their original song "Winding Road", and while I'm still not a huge fan of country, these guys (and girls) show clear talent and love of the genre, so click here for their video!

First for the heavier performances is local cover/dance rock quartet Obsession, and while I missed them at Toystock, maybe I should have came early for their set, as they're pretty good! Featuring singer Valerie Powley alongside bandmates Alex Trecroce, Jim Michaud, and Rich Trevisanut, Shawna caught 4 songs for this video of Obsession's set, including their covers of Lenny Kravitz' "Fly Away", Nazareth's cover of The Everly Brothers' "Love Hurts", Janis Joplin's rendition of "Me & Bobby McGee", and Led Zeppelin's "Rock N' Roll", and while I wasn't overly familiar with Obsession going in, I should keep a larger eye on them! Valerie has a great voice, and the members show talent on their instruments, and can noticeably rock out when the song calls for it, especially on the Zeppelin cover! I don't think their sets generally skew heavier, but Obsession can pull it off, so give their Toystock video a look below, and stay tuned, as I may have more from Obsession in a future news post!



Also among Shawna's videos was no less than two separate videos from local country band Asylum (formerly Asylum Country) and their set at Toystock! I assume she's a big fan to get this much of theirs, including Asylum (plus guest drummer Ric Datson on two songs) covering Kenny Chesney, Brooks & Dunn, and Garth Brooks in the first video, and John Michael Montgomery, ZZ Top, and Luke Bryan songs in the second video, so give each a look to hear some well played country & southern rock covers! Following them were local hard rock quartet The Suicide Kings, and if you wanna hear more of their promising covers, this video should help! It features the Mike Gaetano-led band covering Our Lady Peace's "Superman is Dead" and Weezer's "Say It Ain't So", along with their original "Into The Fray", and these are good to hear again, especially the O.L.P. cover! Their melodic harder edged sound should take them far, so give this newest video of theirs a look below!



Next for Shawna's videos was this clip of new local hard/alt-rock band Lucky 13 (featuring Aftersight, Wishbone, and Turner Up alumni), and it has them covering Collective Soul's "Heavy" (though incorrectly titled on the video), The Stone Temple Pilots' "Interstate Love Song", and The Fratellis' "Chelsea Dagger"! Nice to see videos of some of their more energetic originals, and the grit in Ed's singing& the band's guitar work helps give them a different sound from similar bands! Give this newest Lucky 13 footage a look below!



That's followed by this clip of new classic rock band Griphook covering AC/DC's "Dirty Deeds (Done Dirt Cheap)" and The Red Hot Chili Peppers' "The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie", and while I'm not high on the latter song, it's nice to hear Brian Oja's vocal channeling of Bon Scott again, and this supergroup of sorts (featuring Flat Stanley, Bigsuit, and Southern Fried Band alumni) should go far in their own right if they keep up their good work! Check out Griphook's set ending songs below!



Lastly for the heavier performances was Shawna's video of local party rock trio Stiffler's Mom, and while they played no originals at Toystock, they did unleash some heavier covers! These however are their set-opening songs, including a surprisingly edgy cover of Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues" and a rendition of Golden Earring's "Radar Love", and the guys show their old tricks well on these classics, so give their new video a look below!



The remaining videos are of local country band Bone Yard (who covered Justin McBride, Randy Houser, Big & Rich, and Jason Aldean in their video), and local pop rock cover band Cherry Crush (who covered 30H!3, Maroon 5, and Nicki Minaj in their video), so click the above links to check those videos out as well! As well, while Shawna couldn't get a working video of Boxcar Junction, this video popped up on Facebook of the band (plus a special guest singer) that night, but the audio quality is very bad (but it's something!) Kudos to Shawna for all of these awesome videos, and stay tuned to the SMS for more news shortly, including this month's "Where Are The New Albums?" post tomorrow! Thanks everyone!