Thursday, October 10, 2013

Defunct Local Band Profile Series: Elements Of Madness & No More Landmines

In our first of two posts today, we have this month's Defunct Local Band Profiles! This monthly feature series looks at 1 or 2 defunct or inactive local metal/hard rock bands (selected randomly), in order to profile them and their work for a current audience, and outline their successes and output! For a second straight month, we're looking at two different bands due to the first selected band not having enough information, so read on below for this month's profiles (one for each side of the border), and if anything's missing or incorrect, let me know!
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Elements of Madness

Genre: Hard Rock

Hometown: Sault Ste. Marie/Newberry, Michigan

Members: (Members not in their last full lineup in italics)

Tyler Fox, vocals/bass
Cody Rosebohm (All The Dirty Words In One), guitar/vocals
Joe Pine, guitar
Landon Mattson (The Pick-Me-Ups), drums
Kyle Hummelgard, drums

Info/Analysis: Originally named ThatOneBand, Elements of Madness were a short-lived hard rock band from Sault Michigan that was active for roughly a year between June 2011 & mid-2012. Influenced by everyone from Les Claypool to John Mayer, information on their run is minimal, but it doesn't appear like they got very far off the ground, despite optimism towards songwriting sessions & a potential open mic night appearance at Zim's. There is surviving media of their songs courtesy of guitarist Cody Rosebohm's YouTube channel, which features solo acoustic portions of their songs "Falling" and "The Beast Inside", and while they're generally well performed, they're raw unplugged takes and would probably differ greatly from their forms with the full band (though they're more similar to Cody's current band All The Dirty Words In One.) I'd be curious to hear expanded recordings of Elements of Madness, but hopefully the members find larger musical success in later projects, and here's a longer clip of Cody playing "Falling"!


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No More Landmines

Genre: Comedy Metal/Rockabilly

Hometown: Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario

Members: (Members not in their last full lineup in italics)

Ryan Walsh, vocals
Robert McClelland, guitar/drums
Brett Trudeau (Lankee), drums
Mitchell Fera, drums

Audio/Video: None known, though posts on their PureVolume page indicated that they were working on original material and a music video in mid-2008. As well, the 7 albums and credited songs featured there do not appear to have been recorded as such. In any event, No More Landmines likely weren't similar to drummer Brett Trudeau's more active rock band Lankee, who had more of a general/indie rock sound.

Info/Analysis: Active from roughly 2007-2009, No More Landmines were a comedic metal project from Sault Ontario featuring then-Sir James Dunn students. Despite their lack of public material and live concerts that I can source, their online biography is quite detailed & often amusing, outlining members' numerous stage names, instrument roles, and fictional back stories that painted members as Mexican immigrants who formed the band while locked in jail. There's a likeable absurdity to No More Landmines' posts and fake albums, but it's hard to get a bead on how they would have sounded as a full band, especially with the minimal local music credits for their members aside from this project. Comedic metal isn't something we get a lot of in the Soo, but hopefully media of No More Landmines will turn up at some point, as I have a feeling their music may have had some humour value, if nothing else!
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I hope you guys liked this month's Defunct Local Band Profiles! Next month in this series, we'll actually be looking at two bands again, as the first randomly selected band doesn't have enough online information again. With that said, next month's bands will be Central Algoma hard rock sextet The Diego Experience (later Durera) and 2008 Sault Michigan metal project Deprecor (featuring two later members of Analog Deficiency), so watch out for these profiles on or around November 10th! That's all for now, but stay tuned for weekend concert previews later today! Thanks everyone!

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