Tuesday, October 9, 2018

Defunct Local Band Profile Series: Bludgeoned

As I'll be on the road for much of tomorrow, here's this month's Defunct Local Band Profile a day early! This monthly feature looks at 1-2 local metal, hard rock, or punk bands who may not be active anymore, but deserve a belated look for current readers, and as usual, this month's selections were made randomly. I had originally planned to look at two bands once again this month, but the first band had more surviving information than I gave them credit for, so they're getting a solo profile, and I'm bumping the second band (Sault Ontario's Foothill Road) to next month. That said, this band should ring a few bells from the early 2000s, so here's what you should know!
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Blugeoned

Genre: Death/Extreme Metal

Hometown: Dafter/Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan

Members: (This lineup information may be incomplete. Let us know if you can fill in any blanks!)

John Rios (From Hell, Flesh For The Beast), vocals
Doug Reed (Drayton Fever, Half A Man), guitar
Erik Rintamaki (Half A Man, Lower S.E.S.), bass
Mikey Bishop (Summon, Half A Man, Sadomasochism), drums 

Audio/Video: Based on the above image on their posthumous Reverbnation page, Bludgeoned may have released an album named "This Flesh These Hands" in or around 2001, but surviving information on the band is too slight to confirm this from online postings alone. Five songs (two being untitled demos) can be streamed on their page, though their extant YouTube videos were deleted a few years ago when Mikey closed his channel. Here's the studio recording of their original "Prophet Of Doom"!



Info/Analysis: Long after Bludgeoned's 1999-2002 run came to an end, drummer Mikey Bishop launched a Reverbnation page for this band, though it contains no biographical information and only a handful of photos, but Mikey did offer copies of their studio material on CD for a time. Personal Facebook postings indicate that they once opened for Corrosion of Conformity in Grand Rapids, and also played at least once at Harpo's in Detroit, so they definitely got around! From what I know of Bludgeoned, they were a respected and brutal band in their heyday, with Mikey's technical drumming complimenting John's brutal vocals, Erik's solid bass, and Doug's heavy riffs very well, and it'd be nice to know more about their original run! John Rios's later Grand Rapids metal bands like Flesh For The Beast and From Hell will share the most similarities with Bludgeoned's sound, but Erik, Mikey, and Doug will be more familiar to long-time SMS readers from their work with the 2009-2013 Brimley metal band Half A Man.
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I hope you guys liked this month's Defunct Local Band Profile! Next month in this series, we will finally spotlight Foothill Road as promised, but as I still don't forecast them having enough archive material for a full profile, we'll profile another randomly selected Sault Ontario band to fill things out, and it just so happens to be a very new addition to our inactive band links, namely progressive metal duo Kraken Mara! Look for these on or around November 10th, and stay tuned for more news and updates soon! Thanks everyone!

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