LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Banned & Exiled), A New Local Band, And New Videos!!

Busy day for me yesterday, but now let's touch on some back news items as we get up to speed! Today's post mostly relates to the Sault Michigan area, including LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS. a brand new local band, a new video, and a bassist change, but we have a cool Sault Ontario update to cap things off with. Now, here's what you need to know!

We have a new local band to add to our Sault Michigan band links, and they are a new hard rock trio named Exiled! Based out of nearby Rudyard, their lineup features former Absolute & NoXcape bandmates Donny Newell (most recently of the original Full Throttle) on vocals & bass and Justin Lawless on drums, alongside guitarist Johnny Mayer, who is presumably related to some of the other Mayer family members with regional music ties. A likely cover-centric band that tackles both classic & modern rock material, I assume they'll be musically similar to Donny & Justin's past collective bands, but no media is online yet to prove that. Exiled debuted at Dan's Place in Rudyard at some point earlier this month (apologies for missing that show), and in some LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS, their next announced concert will come on Saturday, September 6th when they play at The Bunker Bar & Grill at The Oaks at Kincheloe Golf Course (obviously in Kincheloe), which they'll follow with a full Friday-Saturday weekend back at Dan's Place in Rudyard on November 14th & 15th, so keep those in mind too!

Each show has an announced 9:00 PM start time, all are presumably 19+, and none have an announced cover charge (though for the sake of clarity, I'm not familiar with The Bunker as a concert venue at all.) Nice to see Exiled off to a quick start, and if the guys can recapture past magic and chemistry from older bands, things should be alright going forward! Check the above links for more details (and here for the Facebook event pages for these shows), and don't miss their unique golf course show in Kincheloe in a couple of weeks!

Next up, Kinross hard/classic rock trio Banned will return to the Chippewa County Fair in their hometown for a set THIS COMING FRIDAY! You may remember that the guys have played the fair in past years both by themselves and as part of the Rock Till You Drop charity battle of the bands, which I don't think is back this year (at the very least, it's not on the fair's schedule), but we'll let you know if we hear otherwise. It's good to see the guys back for this year's fair, so look for them at the pavilion near the Lions Club building on Friday at 4:00 PM! This is definitely ALL AGES, and click here for info on admission and ticket packages. While we're on the subject of Banned, singer/guitarist Alex Traynor has joined the wave of people participating in the Ice Bucket Challenge for ALS research (click here to see the video, hopefully more local musicians take part!), and a new video relating to their concerts is also on their YouTube channel now too, so what's there?

A cover of Stevie Ray Vaughan's "Pride & Joy" that was uploaded to their YouTube channel on Wednesday, this is an audio recording from a recent show at The Rapids Lounge at the Sault Michigan Kewadin Casino, as set to photos of their set by Holly Traynor (a relative of both Alex and drummer Don Traynor.) The video also confirms that Banned's current lineup no longer features bassist Jim Pentland, with former Bad Side bassist Wayne Lawrence taking over in his place at some point in recent months. A reason for Jim's departure hasn't been announced, but he was last visibly depicted online with Banned in April. Hopefully all's amicable, so best of luck to Jim going forward, and it's nice to see Wayne back in a local band again! As for the video itself, it's well put together and edited, but I do have to nitpick the cover in one aspect, as the vocals don't have the bluesy soul or deep tone that really "fits" a Stevie Ray Vaughan cover, but all's good otherwise! It's at least heavier than their recent modern indie rock postings. Check out Banned's new slideshow video below, and good luck in Gould City this weekend!



Lastly, we have a video of defunct Sault Ontario classic metal quartet Late & Loud from their farewell(?) concert at The Rockstar Bar three weeks ago! Courtesy of local music promotion company For The Music Inside (who also took many photos that you can see at this link), this is of the guys playing their original song "Fast As A Bitch" with a guest appearance by former Lust Boys guitarist Ben Kemp-Reynolds (a.k.a. Benny Blitz), who some of you may remember as a bandmate of bassist Benn Garside's in both The Glass Statues and in older CASS Cafe-era bands! Great to see Benny back in the area, and he looks and plays the part even in a guest role! The video's solid and close to the action, though the colour is very warm and almost too "red" from the lighting, but other than that, no complaints! I'm just surprised this took 3 weeks to make it to F.T.M.I.'s YouTube channel, but things relating to this show did come slowly to their online pages. It's here now though, so give it a look below, and watch for a cool solo from Benny at video's end!



That's all for now, but stay tuned for some more big news and updates shortly! Thanks everyone!