Sailor's Tongue At Rotaryfest Review, Their New CD, And Much More!!

Just to keep things moving along without delay (especially given the time it'll take to upload all 6 videos), I'll hold back our Bushplane Musical Madness II review to either tonight or tomorrow so we can touch on what I caught from Rotaryfest last night, and some more recent news relating to it and some videos I recently uploaded that Woods of Ypres fans should like! Without any further adieu, let's begin this post!

As you may remember, I attended Bushplane Musical Madness II last night rather than an extended stay at the Rotaryfest stages due to my own music preferences, but I did have incentive to slip out for a bit in the 8:00 PM hour, as local hard rock band Sailor's Tongue were both playing their first live show in a year AND releasing a new CD! So I took the 10 minute walk from the Bushplane Museum to the Tenaris Second Stage (just past Case's Music on Queen Street East) and I caught parts of 4 songs from Sailor's Tongue's set before The Suicide Kings took the stage at the Bushplane show! Now, this was the first time I've seen Sailor's Tongue live since a battle of the bands in 2007, and while I can't make too much of an analysis given that I only saw two songs played in full, I enjoyed what I heard! Very solid hard rock sound with a lot of catchy elements and classic influences, with much more of an edge than frontman Kyle McKey's past original bands (aside from maybe Stillbroke.) Everyone fit musically, though I will say that I hope Liam Seymour got a chance to sing lead last night, as he's got a great voice!

Kyle's voice fit the songs, it was nice seeing Blake Jackson back, and the three-pronged guitar sound didn't seem like overkill either! Members had expressed a lot of optimism for the new quintet lineup, and based on what I saw, I think they're right, but I'd need to see a longer set of theirs before I can form more of an opinion. Hopefully they'll play live again this year, and I did get pictures & a video, so here's Sailor's Tongue playing their original song "BootScattered", and see my photos at this link or via our Facebook page!



As for their CD, did I get one? Of course, so here's what you should know on it! The merchandise table outside of the Second Stage had not just CDs, but the first ever Sailor's Tongue t-shirts (in both black & grey), and hopefully each sold well! The album itself is named "Pierced" (as depicted with a literal "sailor's tongue" on the cover), and the liner notes just include each song's name and a listing of all 5 band members. The CDs are handmade with the members' autographs on the front (similarly to the first pressing of Late & Loud's EP), and they're packaged in a slim jewel case. The included songs are "Float", "Out of the Woodwork", "Wired For No Sound", "Shadow", "Doctor John", "BootScattered", and "Beauty's Limousine", though note that the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th songs are all explicitly labelled as demos, so there's likely a quality shift. Streaming copies are available on Reverbnation & SoundCloud, though I don't know yet if they're exactly the same recordings (also, the songs "Don't Shoot The Messenger", "Horses & Trains", and "Navy" did not make the cut for the album.)

I haven't heard "Pierced" yet, but I definitely will soon, especially to get more familiar with a band that hasn't been the most prominent in recent years! As for when this will get a review on the site, it's definitely lined up for the fall (Crimson Crusade's next month), but with SweetKenny and Mike Haggith having back albums awaiting reviews as well, I don't want to commit to a date just yet. Stay tuned though just in case, and if we hear anything on Sailor's Tongue's next updates, shows, and CD availability, we'll have it here!

Also today, here's some fallout from The Suicide Kings' main stage set at Rotaryfest on Friday! First off, it was covers only, as they confirmed at the Bushplane Museum show last night, so the first stage hasn't begun making original exemptions. As for the "huge surprise" that the Rockstar Bar Battle of the Bands winners were hyping? Well, they were joined by former Limelight bassist Brandon Uhl for at least one song, reuniting him with his Limelight bandmates Steven Flint & Ben Boudreau! My source is numerous photo postings from attendees on Facebook. The hint on this maybe being "the only time this is happening" is likely because Brandon currently lives in Hamilton for college, but it's still nice to see 3/5ths of Limelight back together, even if briefly! Also, this could be seen as a preview of The Suicide Kings' plans to add a full time bassist in the coming weeks, so if you saw their quintet performance, I'd get used to the idea for after the auditions wrap up! Two photos from their set can be seen in Donna Hopper's SooToday article on Rotaryfest (pictures 18 & 29), so give them a look at the above link, and keep an eye out for appearances in the photos from Giwakwa's Chris Page & Chris Thompson, and The Side FX's Rob Speers!

Other Rotaryfest stage fallout is forthcoming, I'm sure, including hopefully another cycle of videos from Local2, and perhaps more, so stay tuned for updates as we hear them, and of course, stay tuned either tonight or tomorrow for our review of Bushplane Musical Madness II!

Finally for today, here's a little bonus batch of songs I recently uploaded to our YouTube channel! As you may remember, the Woods of Ypres tribute album "Heart of Gold" was released in May, and it's attracted positive notices from many fans! When listening to it for our review of the set, I was hit with the idea of combining a few of the included covers with the original Woods of Ypres tracks in Audacity to see what would happen (similarly to the "orchestral version" of "Allure of the Earth" I made in 2010.) This time, I made three combination tracks using Audacity, combining the original versions of "Adora Vivos", "Finality", and "Trillium: The Third of Three Winters, 2004-2007" with their "Heart of Gold" covers by Raphael Weinroth-Browne, Kuhrzarth, and Justin Bender respectively. In each case, the covers are ones that add to or compliment the original in their own way, with "Adora Vivos" coming out with a more orchestral vibe, "Finality" featuring new guitar parts and a hypothetical duet between David Gold & Paul Kuhr of November's Doom, and "Trillium" taking on a more melodic sound.

Of course, that's not to say that they're better, that's for listeners to decide, I just thought these fit really well and added a new dimension to the original tracks, for better or worse. I didn't pick other songs from the tribute album to combine in Audacity for one of two reasons: Either they were too similar or heavy for it to work without sounding cluttered and noisy, or the cover was too different from the original for them to mesh. The three combined tracks that I did make have gotten a good response so far, but check the above links to see what you think, and here's Woods of Ypres & Kuhrzarth playing "Finality" together!



That's all for now, but stay tuned either tonight or tomorrow for our Bushplane Musical Madness II review! Thanks everyone!