Thursday, January 10, 2019

Defunct Local Band Profile Series: Condemned & The Soo Fighters

It's now time for our first Defunct Local Band Profiles of the year! As usual, this monthly feature series spotlights one or two local metal, hard rock, or punk acts with surviving online pages, in order to give a current look at their runs for our readers, with each act randomly selected as usual. This month, our random selection gave us two bands, as the first didn't have enough material for a solo profile, so we added a second band to fill things out. There's a little something for fans on both sides of the border today with these two side projects, so here's what you should know!
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Condemned

Genre: Folk/Death Metal/Progressive

Hometown: Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan

Members:

Teagan Sanders (Insipid Brutality), vocals/guitar
Tyler Dettloff (KiddyWompus), guitar/vocals

Info/Analysis: Concurrently with local death/black metal quintet Insipid Brutality's 2006-2008 run, members Teagan Sanders & Tyler Dettloff performed in an acoustic side project named Condemned, who cited Opeth, Lamb of God, Johnny Cash, and Leadbelly as influences, while sounding like "nothing you have ever heard before." Four demo originals were posted to Condemned's MySpace page, and they performed at The Sugar Island Music Festival one year, but quietly dissolved around the same time as Insipid Brutality circa late 2008. Unfortunately, MySpace's music player still doesn't work (we'll update this if it's fixed), but Condemned were an intriguing band, harbouring both a brutal stripped-down side for fans of Teagan & Tyler's other work, while also incorporating some more melodic clean vocals on some tracks. Sadly, Condemned didn't posthumously return alongside Insipid Brutality in 2012, but hopefully the guys are still musically active!
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The Soo Fighters

Genre: Alternative/Hard Rock

Hometown: Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario

Members:

Jules Cote (Cherry Crush), vocals/guitar
Jeremey Salatuk (Wishbone, Lucky 13), guitar
John Amendola (Cherry Crush), bass
Jonny Amendola (Cherry Crush, Skeyes of Seven), drums

Audio/Video: As a tribute band, The Soo Fighters had no originals, but two videos of theirs are known to exist, including a jam session rendition of "This Is A Call" (minus Jeremey) from October 2017, and as featured here, their version of "All My Life" from their second and final concert at that month's Halloween Party concert weekend at The Rockstar Bar. The guys had a good handle on Foo Fighters classics, and Jules looked the part of Dave Grohl with that wig! No other videos are public, but check out Cherry Crush pages to see members tackling other bands in that group.



Info/Analysis: A side project from 3/4ths of veteran pop rock cover band Cherry Crush, the band's instrumental members joined forces with then-3 Day Millionaires guitarist Jeremey Salatuk to form this Foo Fighters tribute band in the summer of 2017. While ostensibly formed as a one-off band for that year's Halloween Party, The Soo Fighters preceded that by taking part in a benefit concert for Cherry Crush singer Taryn Bugyra at the same venue earlier that same month. No updates followed their Halloween gig, but The Soo Fighters handled Foos classics with professionalism and energy, and fans definitely enjoyed their take on their 1990s and 2000s hits while they lasted!  
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I hope you guys liked this month's Defunct Local Band Profiles! Next month in this series, we will have our first single band profile of 2019, as our random selection has given us The Small Town Rivals, the early 2010s punk band featuring Northwest's Wayne Watkins in it's local/B.C. lineup! Look for this on or around February 10th, and stay tuned for weekend concert previews on the site next! Thanks everyone!

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