Soundcheck Concert Preview, New Videos From Two Mikes, And More Recent Updates!!

Before we begin today's post, just a heads up that tonight & tomorrow night's announced Banned concerts at The Northern Pines Lounge at the St. Ignace Kewadin Casino are not taking place. The Kinross, Michigan classic/hard rock band announced the news on their Facebook page yesterday, citing that the "casino messed up on bookings", and given that Kewadin's entertainment page was indeed advertising Banned, that reason sounds legit. Hopefully all's well at the venue, and don't miss Banned there late next month! Now, today's post features some assorted recent updates, a couple of new videos, and to start, here's one more concert preview!

Sault Ontario classic/hard rock cover quartet Soundcheck will continue their recent run of monthly Water Tower Pub concerts when they play there for one night only TOMORROW NIGHT! Just two weeks removed from their last Saturday nighter there, this popular veteran group have clearly been gaining a following at the Great Northern Road nightclub, and hopefully tomorrow's concert is another hit for fans and the band alike! Remember that this is a one-nighter, The Water Tower Pub traditionally books a different performer each night where they have live music, rather than having anyone double up. As usual for the Mourning Wood successors' shows at this locale, tomorrow's concert has a 19+ age limit, no announced cover charge, and 9:30 PM start time. Visit the official Facebook event page for more details, and hopefully some video footage surfaces at some point!

Next up, here's some new videos from a pair of local solo hard rock artists named Mike, starting with Mike Haggith, who shared his new acoustic live album "From The Nickel Stage" on his YouTube channel on the day of it's release last month! Apologies for not covering it at the time, he didn't promote the YouTube posting at the level of the sale copy. Featuring 6 new originals and a Din carry-over, this YouTube version is a nice free way to sample this live concert from Thompson, Manitoba's Nickel Days festival last month, so give it a listen below, and stay tuned for more updates!



Also today, here's a humorous parody video from fellow local solo artist Mike McCleary's YouTube channel, where he dubs his own original song "Get Out" (from his newest album "What've You Done To Me") over the latter half of the 2010 viral video Double Dream Hands, where music teacher John Jacobson performs the title dance to his own composition "Planet Rock". It is amusing to see the silly dance from the original performed to Mike's alternative hard rock composition, so give it a look below, and "Get Out" proper begins 45 seconds into the video!



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

• The revolving door of identities and themes at the former Docks Riverfront Grill continues, as the current HD Sports Grill will close later this month and re-open on August 27th as the long teased Montana's BBQ & Bar location. 75-100 jobs will be available at the chain restaurant's Soo branch, and while it's unclear if the 89 Bay Street location will continue to host the occasional concert, Montana's will reportedly retain the HD Sports Grill's golf simulator. This will be the fifth identity that this building has had since 2014, but hopefully Montana's can survive where their other post-Docks themes didn't, and click here for more on the changes! 
• Local rapper Planet Rock has quietly been added to the lineup for this year's Oh!No concert festival in Leeburn on September 8th, as per this updated poster on the Facebook event page on last week. I honestly can't find an online page for Planet Rock, but he (they?) performed at Soo York City's 10th anniversary event last year, and hopefully this is a solid addition to the now 19-acts-strong Oh!No festival this fall! FYI, the Planet Rock name has nothing visibly to do with the pre-dubbing song from Mike McCleary's parody video above.
• Music networking service PureVolume (which over 100 local music acts have current profiles dating back to 2004) announced earlier this year that the site would be closing "in it's current form", and musicians had until June 30th to archive music from their pages. In preparation for this news, I archived everything I could from local artists there, but as of today, PureVolume is still up, with only some dead photo links to show for the teased "sunsetting". I don't know when/if the site proper is closing or being redesigned, but head there while you still can, just in case severe changes are imminent!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and updates on the site in the coming days! Thanks everyone!