Friday, April 28, 2017

LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Rad Zone Battle of the Bands), New Videos, And More!!

In what may be our last news post of the month, we have some big stuff to touch on today, including some assorted recent updates, new videos from two bands at recent Live705 concert events, and first, a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT regarding a major concert event, so here's what you should know!

The first band is official for the Rad Zone Battle of the Bands at The Canadian Nightclub on Saturday, June 3rd, as local alt-punk quartet A Dire Setback will take part in their first ever battle in five weeks' time! No strangers to The Canadian in recent months, A Dire Setback have carved a big profile locally since their debut last fall, but how will they do in this third annual event? As you may surmise from their registration, interested bands can now pick up entry packages for this year's battle at Case's Music & The Rad Zone, as per sponsors Tidal Records on the Facebook event page, so if you want in, head down to either location! Bands must pay a $100 registration fee again to enter, but they will recieve 15 tickets to sell for the event (a'la the past two years), so if you sell 10 tickets, you make the money back, and have 5 more to make a profit! Click here for the front page of registration forms, via A.D.S.' Facebook page. "Limited slots" are available for competitors, but note that no one-night local battle since 2008 has exceeded 10 bands.

While no other bands are 100% confirmed at press time, local rock bassist James White showed interest on the event page towards his bands The Elements and Handsome Sandwich signing up, but nothing is official from them yet. The registration deadline for this year's Rad Zone Battle is Saturday, May 20th (two weeks from showtime), so check the above links for all current details, and stay tuned for continued updates on the lineup, admission, ground rules, prizes, judges, and more!

Next up, here's that other new video from local alternative hard rock trio The Din that we teased yesterday, plus one more update! As you may know, The Din will be rocking out at LopLops Lounge on Saturday, May 20th, and an opening band has finally been confirmed for that show, they being local indie rock trio The Autumn Roots! This was announced on that show's Facebook event page, and it reunites two of the bands from the NLFB Meltdown audition again at the same venue, so hopefully Jeremy, Chase, and Greg (sorry, Carlos) deliver a solid set before The Din rock the stage! As for that video, The Din's full one hour set at Live705's March Mash-Up at The Canadian was posted onto their YouTube channel back on April 18th, and we've delayed this one long enough, so what should you know? This was actually filmed by Shaw TV's Christian Lemay towards their future features from the show, and kudos to him for letting The Din share the full set!

In order, the set features The Din playing "Flux", Haggith's "75" (with "Leamington, Ontario" intro), "In Search of The Perfect Moment", "Alleyways & Apartments", "35's The Limit", "High Park", Mike's solo songs "Potato (Should Have Known Better)" & "Leon the Janitor", The Tragically Hip's "Blow At High Dough", Mike's solo song "We Met As Surrogates" (partly retitled as "We Met at The Circus"), and "Suburban Dream", so click each link to go to a specific song. Very well filmed and recorded, though there is some colourful language peppered within, so check out this full Din concert set below, and stay tuned for our Sky's the Limit concert preview next week!



Also today, here's a new video from local hard rock/blues trio Electric Church's headlining set at Live705's Easter Bash earlier this month! Posted to their Facebook page on Sunday, this is of their original "Take Me Away" from their delayed set, and while it was unfortunately filmed at the vertical cell phone camera angle, it captures this fast rising trio in good form, so check it out below, and don't miss them at The Sky's The Limit either!



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

  • Following their largely well received European tour run, local doom metal trio AlgomA are back home, and were scheduled to play at Toronto's Bovine Sex Club on Wednesday (source here). However, the band has opted to cancel the show while guitarist Boyd Rendell recovers from surgery he had while the band was overseas. Out of respect for it's personal nature, I won't elaborate unless the band does, but stay tuned for word on AlgomA's local return show next month, and get well soon, Boyd!
  • In a clarification note from our recent coverage of Gianni Gagoots concert videos, we can now confirm that recent guest guitarist & conga player "Ronnie Famiglia" is in fact Jaime Jacques, who has drummed in guitarist Liam Seymour's recent blues/country bands The Barn Board Trio and The Boatload Killers. When a guest performer gets his own Italian parody stage name, you know that's a good sign! Thanks to drummer Frank McCormick and fan Alex Moore for the confirmation!
  • Local musician Rob Charlebois is again looking to start a local rock band, and while he's open to most styles, he does not want to play thrash, metal, or "Cookie Monster" (presumably meaning death metal growling.) If you're interested in jamming with him towards a new band project, message Rob at this link or via his Musicians Wanted Facebook group post from Saturday!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for this month's CD review next! Thanks everyone!

No comments: