LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (T-Rex Manning), Jack Spades EP News, And More!!

Congratulations go out to the Canadian men's hockey team on winning gold this morning (and for our Yooper readers, the Americans put up a great game in the semifinals!) Today's second post features a new cover video, the latest from a returned local metal band, and some overdue notes on an upcoming CD release, but first, here's a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT for later this week (and check out this month's YouTube Channel Profile in the post below this one!)

The next Heavy Thursday at The Roosevelt Hotel will indeed have a metal-featured band, as local punk/metal quartet T-Rex Manning have been added to THIS THURSDAY'S lineup! This will be the band's first live appearance of 2014, and it will also mark their first show with drummer Rick White since May of last year (he missed their two late 2013 dates during his injury recovery), so it's awesome to see the full lineup back together finally for the third Heavy Thursday! In fact, Rick will be pulling triple duty on Thursday, as his local punk bands Redundant and Fist Fighting Stephen Hawking will also be playing this show, so fans of Rick and his music will definitely not want to miss this show! This will be Redundant's first Rosie appearance in 6 months, while Fist Fighting Stephen Hawking (featuring Rick on guitar alongside alumni of Frightlight, Northwest, and As It Stands) will be playing their second ever live show following their debut at the Bon Soo Marquee

Admission will be $5 on Thursday night, you must be 19 to attend, and a 10:00 PM start time is expected. For more details, visit the official Facebook event page! Very solid lineup, and while Rick will be busy in his Rosie return, I know he'll handle everything nicely despite the workload, so keep the third Heavy Thursday in mind for later this week!

Next up, we have some long overdue updates concerning T-Rex Manning members J.D. Pearce & Tiffany Stocco's other punk/metal band Jack Spades, as they've began work on their debut EP! According to their Facebook page, they've been working on it since at least last Monday (when guitarist Jesse Cook & drummer Johnny Belanger completed tracking), with Tiffany recording guitar parts last Thursday, bassist Justin Lam finishing bass parts today, and J.D. waiting until instrument tracking is finished before recording vocals (Johnny & Tiffany will handle backing vocals then too.) Indications point to the EP having 5 original songs, but details on the name, artwork, formats, release date, and such are not out yet. The EP news seemed to come out of nowhere unless you're close to the band, but I'm very curious to hear what's in store for this one! If The Bear Hunters' album finally comes out this year too, it'll prove to be a huge year for Justin and Johnny musically, so fingers crossed everything works out, and stay tuned for updates as they roll in!

Also today, here's the latest from Sault Ontario "derd rock" project The Issues, who recently came back from a 9 month public hiatus! On the lineup side of things, the band has quietly parted ways with singer Velvit Bretfield and guitarist Robbie Rockit (a.k.a. Pillory's Bret Shuttleworth & Robert Sartini) for unannounced reasons, as per their removal from their Facebook page's lineup. Disappointing news, especially with no media to show from their tenure, but hopefully things were amicable, as drummer Mullet Studborne did a solid job producing Pillory's EP! However, the band's remaining members (including bassist Vinyl Muto) are back working on at least 3 new studio tracks as per their Facebook page on Friday, and to go along with it, the band uploaded four old tracks as Facebook videos there as well! Three ("Dirty Baby", "Lambs to the Slaughter", and "That's When She Calls") are re-posts of songs from their MySpace page, but one named "In The Past" is new to either page.

The songs are all very different, with "Dirty Baby" having a punk feel, "Lambs to the Slaughter" benefiting from then-singer (and Winkstinger frontman) Alan "Power" Wells, and "That's When She Calls" having more of a folksy laid back sound (featuring ex-guitarist "Leather Luc", who I believe is Bankshot alum Lucas Schmiedendorf.) I've always enjoyed The Issues and their sense of humour, and I'd like to see them finally get a full lineup and play some real live dates, so hopefully the recent news helps with that! Check out their old/new hard rocker "In The Past" (featuring late founding guitarist Andres "Denim" Duchesne) below!



Finally for today, we have another solo cover video from Ashes To Dust guitarist Alex Hemy's YouTube channel, this time a cover of Passenger's "Let Her Go"! Uploaded last Monday, this returns to his recent trend of softer rock covers, but I like his continually improving skills at multiple instruments and at video editing (including a greater use of panning and zooming!) I'm not familiar with Passenger, but he does a good job for this style of song, so give Alex's newest solo cover a look below!



That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news tomorrow as we clear out our news cache! Thanks everyone!