A New Local Hard Rock Band, Plus New LemmaFest Videos!!

In the last post of our sixth year of existence, we're 100% in Sault Michigan for tonight, as we have a "new" band to profile and add to our full coverage, plus lots of videos at their most recent show from them and other bands, so read on below for what you need to know, and check out this weekend's concert previews (including some late notice gigs and a band name change) in the post below this one!

We have a new area hard rock band to add to our active band links, and they are the Sault Michigan trio Division of Sanity! Active since the spring of 2012, it took us so long to add them on here partly because most of their posted material was acoustic, and I was looking for some more evidence that they'd play hard rock either in studio or live, and we got that via their set at LemmaFest at the Dondee last month, but we'll touch on that in a bit! Division of Sanity's current lineup features singer/guitarist Caine VanderMolen (a recent local solo musician), guitarist/bassist Myke Young, and drummer Gabe Nunez, while a drummer named Nick Morgan played with the band in 2012, and Power Slug drummer Bob Helsten guested on some of their demos in 2013. A $3 demo CD is available through the band (and presumably at their live shows too), but it's contents aren't clear online. Caine's solo gigs aside, Division of Sanity's first show (I think) was at the Soo's annual Arts & Music Festival last August, but they only began regular area concert sets this summer.

We'll cover some of their announced upcoming gigs next week, but how about Division of Sanity's sound? As you may have seen at LemmaFest, Division of Sanity's live form is a hard/modern rock, possibly most distinctive by Caine's deep raspy singing voice, which reminds me of John Mayer at times, though everything is softer and lighter on the band's older acoustic demos. It will be interesting to see how Division of Sanity progress, including on if some more of their hinted metal ties come to the forefront! Older demos of theirs can be streamed at the band's YouTube channel, their BandPage on Facebook, and on Caine's SoundCloud page (the latter of which featuring select covers), and while their sound varies, there's talent present throughout! Their YouTube channel also features some interesting vlogs from Caine from last year, as well as some other content we'll share in the coming weeks, but now, to the LemmaFest videos!

Filmed by Wayne Kozeyah and uploaded to the D.O.S. YouTube channel yesterday, the videos include their originals "Seasons", "Isn't What I Said", and (as embedded below) their self titled song, and while the guys could be a bit livelier on stage, these showcase what I assume is their optimal live sound, so check everything out above and below, and stay tuned for more on Division of Sanity in the near future!

Also from Wayne Kozeyah, he uploaded this video onto his YouTube channel on Tuesday, which features video footage of 4 of the bands at LemmaFest last month! Nothing was included here from Infathom, The Bottom Line, Caitlin LeBlanc, or Mike Kowalski's sets, but the other bands are all featured, so what's present? In order, the video starts with two covers that we've already seen from Wayne's camera(s), those being alt-rock trio Plastic covering Tom Jones' "It's Not Unusual" and The Misfits' "Return of the Fly" (as previously seen on their channel.) After Mr. Fister's cover of Black Sabbath's "Fairies Wear Boots" (also first seen here), we get a new cover from the Bucksaw successors' set, that being of Thin Lizzy's "Jailbreak" that to me actually outshines the Sabbath cover, and sounds tighter overall! The third portion features Division of Sanity's self-titled song featured above, but here, it features an overhead camera angle to capture more of the crowd than Mr. Fister's did, which is a double edged sword as it highlights how few fans were close to the stage.

The second Division of Sanity song that Wayne included here actually isn't linked above, rather a different original named "Glare", which has a faster edge to it than the other videos that Wayne shot of their set, so give that song a look too if you're new to this band! The video closes with footage of Nightmare Grin (complete with the same camera angles) covering Guns N' Roses' "You Could Be Mine" & Ugly Kid Joe's "Everything About You", complete with a highlighted fan dancing near the end. Nice to get higher quality footage of Ryan, Bart, and company here, and while the GNR cover is slightly out of Ryan's vocal range, there's a great spirit and energy on both covers, and it will be interesting to see what this band has in store next if they're not a one-off project! If this encompasses all of the bands that Wayne shot at LemmaFest, then he did a bang-up job with an awesome camera, and hopefully he keeps up the great filming work in the future, perhaps at LemmaFest 5? Check out the full 29 minute video below!



That's all for today, but stay tuned for something big tomorrow! Thanks everyone!