Friday, August 19, 2016

The End Of Long Shot, Sault Michigan Weekend Concert Previews, And More!!

Before we finally tackle the results of last month's poll, we have a new news post on this Thursday morning, and it includes the last of the previews for this weekend's hard rock shows, some assorted recent updates, and leading off, here's a surprise band breakup on the Ontario side of the border!

Local hard rock quartet Long Shot have surprisingly announced that they have disbanded, as per their Facebook page yesterday. The band cited that it "was a mutual decision" and "that now was the right time", and while they did not elaborate otherwise on the reason for the breakup, note that Long Shot have only played one public concert in the past nine months. Though their members were previously unfamiliar from other recent bands, Long Shot migrated from covers-centric sets at private and corporate events in 2014 to becoming an increasingly familiar sight at concerts in the mid-2000s, including a runner-up finish at last year's Speak Easy Battle of the Bands, a set at last year's Rotaryfest Stage 1, and a number of solo headlining sets at The Eagles Club in Heyden. In the above Facebook post, the band also confirmed that their debut self-titled EP is officially out, presumably upon the posting of the last song on their Bandcamp page on Jully 13th, but if there was a physical CD release or additional songs in that format, I can't confirm them at this time.

Long Shot were a solid band that injected some added flavour to the local scene, combining catchy hard rock originals with some unexpected yet well played covers, and while the guys weren't well known commodities in the local scene beforehand, they definitely made a good mark in a short time! Regarding a review of their EP, , we could look at it as soon as next month, now that I know it was completed, so keep an eye out, and best of luck to Evan, Nathan, Adam, and Jeremy in the future!

Next up, let's head across to the Sault Michigan area for previews of this weekend's remaining hard rock shows (barring a super late notice announcement), starting with the return of local hard rock quartet 415E to The Northern Pines Lounge at the St. Ignace Kewadin Casino TONIGHT & TOMORROW NIGHT! Two weeks removed from the private "Bro Bash" event in St. Ignace, this will be the former Hubbard Menard Band's first public show since last month at the Soo Kewadin, and 415E should be ready to party with a strong weekend of hard hitting, Van Halen-inspired favourites for fans at The Northern Pines Lounge! If you can't see them this weekend, you can check them out at the end of September in Sault Michigan too. 415E will be on tonight & tomorrow night at 9:00 PM, both shows are 21+ affairs, and there are no announced cover charges. Check the above links for more details, and here's 415E live!



Lastly for this weekend, the first annual Musicians Festival in Rudyard will go down TOMORROW at the Rudyard Township Park! Launched by local classic rockers Steelhead to help raise funds for Rudyard area school music programs and the Carol's Corral Foundation, this special family concert event will see a dozen musical acts rocking out tomorrow, with other activities planned including a bouncy castle, a smoked pig roast and other food items, and much more, so visit the above links and the official Facebook event page for more details on non-musical events! Steelhead will headline at 12:00 AM tomorrow, with Bay Mills masked metal quartet Stoned Ape Evolution co-headlining at 11:00 PM, and local hard rock/blues quartet Project 906 playing at 10:00 PM. Evening bands (largely sans online pages that I've found) will include Dondee Lanes regulars Second Offense at 9:00 PM, The Gaskins at 8:00 PM, The North Country Band at 7:00 PM, The Wednesday Night Headliners at 6:00 PM, and Traverse City's New Jazz Trio at 5:00 PM.

Early acts will include Crossroads member Denny Verrett at 4:00 PM, Hayley Malaska at 3:00 PM, Jimmy Williams at 2:00 PM, and Rob & Bob Malaski at 1:00 PM, while Traverse City experimental trio The Neighborhood Dogs (replacing Alex Schrovenwever) will open at 12:00 PM, and while they aren't on the poster, they were confirmed in official lineups elsewhere. This FREE & ALL AGES event will take place at 18725 South Mackinac Trail in Rudyard, with camping encouraged, but food and vendors will have costs that you can double check above. This sounds like a fun event that could very well fill the LemmaFest gap, and with some heavier bands to cap things off, so check the above links for more, and here's Project 906 live!



Finally for today, here's three assorted shorter news items from the last while, and as usual, these are in alphabetical order by artist name:

  • Local alternative/hard rock trio The Din are planning to launch a new "Din Talks" series on their YouTube channel where they'll answer fan questions both about the band and even about unrelated topics. If you're interested in submitting a question for a future video, comment on The Din's Facebook page's thread about it, and stay tuned for more from their recent album release!
  • New local progressive metal band Kraken Mara have posted two new introductions for new original songs named "Straus" and "Ishka" to their Reverbnation page in the past month. While the Late & Loud successors have yet to unveil the full versions (vocals or not), these have the promising djent-influenced metal that has given fans a good early impression, so give them a look above! Note that the band spells their name on their Facebook page as one word ("KrakenMara") now, but if this is permanent, no other official links omit the space yet.
  • The original crash band, Sykotyk Rampage, will make their first concert appearance of 2016 when they take a rare road trip to Sudbury to headline at The Asylum on September 9th! The improvised local blues/hard rock quartet will headline this show, which will also feature ex-bassist Brian Cattapan's current Sudbury band Aggressive Acoustic among the openers. It's great to see Sykotyk Rampage back at last, so click here for more details on their concert out east, and hopefully we see them back on a local stage sooner rather than later!

That's all for now, but stay tuned for last month's poll results and our newest poll next! Thanks everyone!

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