LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Mourning Wood), Sault Ontario Concert Previews, And More!!

Night #2 of the VM Radio Battle of the Bands should be wrapping up around now (our recap post and videos from the event are coming soon!), but for now, here's our first of two weekend concert preview posts for this weekend! We'll touch on Sault Michigan concert previews and potential late notice announcements tomorrow. In this post, we have a SHORT NOTICE LOCAL CONCERT ALERT for TONIGHT and a new drum video as well as the previews, so here's what you need to know!

Sault Ontario classic/hard rock trio Mourning Wood have a new regular gig lined up, as they'll be headlining and hosting a weekly jam/open mic night starting TONIGHT at The Rednecks Saloon! Apologies for the short notice, the band only announced the series on the Facebook event page on Monday, so we held it for our weekend concert previews. This is somewhat uncharted territory for a hard rock band to host in the area (Tym Morrison's acoustic jam nights at The Harp aside), but Mourning Wood will essentially be the house band on this weekly experiment at the former Nicolet Tavern, and while it will generally be a concert of theirs, an open invitation is out for any attendee with vocal or instrumental ability to join them and jam on stage! Amplifiers and microphones are provided, but you otherwise must bring your own gear.

As Mourning Wood's weekly jam nights are hyped for "every Thursday", and to avoid a glut of repetitve, increasingly distant concerts in our schedule, we'll add them monthly to the SMS listings unless something changes (so Thursday, March 19th & 26th are both now listed as well.) Like Mourning Wood's usual solo gigs, there's a 9:00 PM-ish start time, 19+ age limit, and no announced cover charge. For more details, visit the above links! It will be interesting to see if this Thursday jam night takes hold, but either way, fans of Mourning Wood have a nice regular slate of Thursday shows to enjoy whether they're interested in jamming with them or not, so keep TONIGHT'S show in mind to start off, and here's Mourning Wood live last year!

Moving to previously announced concerts, we're sticking with Thursday events, as Chris Shoust's punk/grunge solo project Telephone & Address will officially launch their new studio album "Rust Orchid" TONIGHT at The Gore Street Cafe! After launching his last two albums in support of heavy electric bands, Chris will mellow things down as headliner for tonight's show, which will launch physical copies of their new ambient instrumental CD for a special $10 price (they'll jump to $15 after that), though remember that digital copies of the album were released on Bandcamp last month. Chris will be joined by Boxes of Boom leader and recent Speak Easy Battle co-promoter Sam Decter for a supporting set, and his own music has merit and creativity, so be there early to check him out! If you're not familiar with The Gore Street Cafe, it's located at 164 Gore Street (naturally), and it's just down the road from 180 Projects. Though infrequently used for concerts (usually acoustic when they occur), it's great to see another concert on Gore Street!

Admission is on a "pay what you can" model, this is presumably all ages, and everything will start at 7:30 PM tomorrow night. For more details, visit the official Facebook event page! It's great to see Telephone & Address back on stage for the first time in 2015, and hopefully this release show is a big hit! And yes, "Rust Orchid" remains likely for this month's CD review. Don't bypass this show, and here's Telephone & Address live last year!



Lastly for today's previews, the aforementioned Tym Morrison will continue his long weekly run at The Harp Bar & Grill with announced shows TOMORROW & SATURDAY NIGHT! I will give the caveat that The Harp usually shows UFC PPVs when they occur, and one (UFC 185) takes place this Saturday, but both the Facebook event page and Tym's website still list a Saturday show. Whether The Harp is skipping UFC 185 or not isn't clear yet, but if you're a Tym Morrison fan, keep Saturday night in mind too... just with a grain of salt! In any event, Tym's entertaining and prolific hard rock covers should keep fans in the groove tomorrow (and Saturday?), so get ready for his unplugged action at The Harp! There's a 10:00 PM start time in effect, there's no announced cover charge, and you must be 19 to attend. For more details, visit the above links, and here's Tym live at The Harp early in his run there!



Finally for today, here's a new video from Bad Back drummer Nathan Sauve's YouTube channel, as uploaded on Friday! This is partially both a drum cover video and an outtake reel, as Nathan was filming a cover of The Dillinger Escape Plan's "When I Lost My Bet" on different days, and he emphasizes the faces he makes when drumming in the clips (especially referencing one 4 minutes in.) The drumming is solid as usual, but having the original song synched alongside would help, and the faces would be more effective if the camera was mounted in front of him. Amusing and entertaining though, so check it out below, and stay tuned for more from Bad Back!



That's all for now, but stay tuned for more weekend concert previews and our recap of night #2 of the VM Radio Battle of the Bands! Thanks everyone!