Saturday, October 10, 2015

Defunct Local Band Profile Series: Ashes To Dust

It's now time for this month's Defunct Local Band Profile, our monthly feature that spotlights one or two randomly selected defunct/inactive local metal, hard rock, or punk bands, in order to outline their run, successes, media, and current whereabouts! This month's choice should be very familiar to many Steelhawks out there, so read on below for what you should know, and check out more new concerts and videos this morning's post below!
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Ashes To Dust

Genre: Hard Rock/Punk

Hometown: Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario

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

Noah Morden (vocals/bass)
Alex Hemy (guitar)
Liam Yeomans (guitar)
David Peredun (drums)
Kyle Breckenridge (bass)

Audio/Video: A couple dozen videos (generally with their original lineup of Noah, Alex, Kyle, and David) can be seen on Ashes To Dust's YouTube channel, mostly culled from sets at their alma mater of Superior Heights Collegiate & Vocational School in the early 2010s, but there are extras like jam session performances, a blooper reel, audio recordings of their only known original song "Forgotten Lives", and a System of a Down cover from their only non-school concert appearance in 2012. We also filmed them at said show covering the Judas Priest version of "Diamonds & Rust", but that's it for known public media. Here's Ashes To Dust's final lineup playing "Forgotten Lives" in June 2013!



Info/Analysis: Active from 2011-2014, Ashes To Dust were a young local hard rock band best known from frequent live appearances at Superior Heights Collegiate during the members' enrollment there. First posting videos from school events in December 2011, they made their only non-school appearance at the second annual Swampstravaganza at The Oddfellows Hall in July 2012. After founding bassist Kyle Breckenridge left that band that fall, their final lineup released a full studio version of "Forgotten Lives" and played at school events as recently as June 2013, but advertised Swampstravaganza sets in 2013 & 2014 did not pan out as planned. A.T.D. have been dormant since, though guitarist Alex Hemy has stayed active with numerous cover videos and solo originals. Ashes To Dust had promise and a nice diverse, though often heavy, range of songs, and while their stage presence was stiff, and Noah's vocal range was hit & miss, they definitely had talent and it'd be interesting to see the guys back at it in some form!
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I hope you guys liked this month's Defunct Local Band Profile! Next month, our 2-1-3-1-2-1 rotation will bring us back to Sault Michigan, with our random selection bringing us to Twisted Manikin, a 2008 hard rock project featuring ex-Half Stupid drummer Jordan Gendreau, but they definitely won't have enough for a solo profile, so we randomly selected a Sault Ontario band to fill things out. As a result, we'll also look at Break the Violence, a short lived ska-punk band featuring future members of As It Stands. Watch for this split profile on or around November 10th, and stay tuned for more news in the coming week! Thanks everyone!

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