Soundcheck Concert Previews, New Videos, And Much More!!

So as to focus on our (delayed) close to last month's poll and newly launched poll tomorrow, here's a second post on this Thursday, and it includes some assorted recent news, a new video and related apology, a music video from a prominent solo artist, and leading off, the last of our Easter weekend concert previews. Here's what you should know!

First, let's wrap up this weekend's hard rock concert previews with local classic/hard rock cover quartet Soundcheck's previously announced shows at The Esquire Club TOMORROW & SATURDAY NIGHT! After playing their last few concert weekends outside of their 2019 schedule posting, they're back with another pair of dates that had lots of advance notice, marking their first announced gigs there in two months. This frequently seen veteran group should have another solid weekend of hard rocking covers in store for fans at this west end venue this weekend, so keep Terry, Travis, Paul, and Glen's shows there in mind for your Easter weekend plans! As usual, these shows should have 19+ age limits, no cover charges, and 10:00 PM start times. Visit the Facebook event page for more details, and here's Soundcheck live!

Next up, here's the third and final music video from Kinross/Mount Pleasant, Michigan solo artist Alex Traynor's debut EP "Crazy World", as posted to his YouTube channel on Monday! This is for his (somewhat) softer original song "What Everything Is Like (High Life)", which was also third on the EP, and the video was shot by Eric Cairns at Third Cinema Productions, a long-time collaborator of Alex's for solo and Banned projects. The video features Alex waking up on a playground carousel, before roaming through a park in the wintertime, singing in front of forest settings and a brick wall (even playing guitar at the end.) Many of the visuals mimic an older 8mm film camera, complete with letterboxing and pillarboxing to simulate smaller aspect ratios, so there's a nostalgic quality in some ways. Well shot and edited, this is a nice way to round out Alex's music video trilogy, and it'll be interesting to see where his original solo work goes from here! Check the video out below!



Also today, here's our belated first video look at Sault Ontario classic/hard rock cover quintet Fluid 5ive, courtesy of a show that they played on Friday, February 8th at... Room 21?! I profusely apologize for missing that concert on the site, the venue's coverage completely slipped us by at the time, though as best as I can tell, it had under a week's notice upon it's announcement, and the band's Facebook page never acknowledged it publically. I will definitely try and stay on top of Fluid 5ive bookings more in the future, but at least we have a video out of it! Live-streamed by the venue that same day, this is of Fluid 5ive covering Radiohead's "Creep", less than 3 months after indie rockers Man Feelings covered it in a prior live-stream. Fluid 5ive have a good handle on this song, though frontman Colin Nelson's vocals almost sound too casual, if that makes any sense, and you see a lot more of the bar's strip lighting than you do of drummer Jeff Pennett for the duration.

The vertical camera angle is unfortunate on the whole, but it's great to have a video of Fluid 5ive at long last, and as you can see in the video and the above image from the show, they definitely weren't lying about having a saxophone in their repertoire! Hopefully there's more videos and updates of Fluid 5ive down the line, but give their Radiohead cover a look below, and I apologize again for missing their Room 21 show in February!



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

• Last week, defunct local horror punk quintet Frightlight posted on their Facebook page to say that "it's been too long" and that they "have booked a show", details forthcoming. In case this is another one-off like at Halloween, I'll wait before making a change to their status, but what does this apparent return show entail? Stay tuned!
• The Internet Archive recently posted what they call the MySpace Dragon Hoard, a 1.3+ terabyte batch of songs downloaded from MySpace as part of an anonymous research study from 2008-2010. This is by no means comprehensive for what used to be on MySpace before last year's song deletions, but it's nice to see hundreds of thousands of songs saved! The mechanism for the Dragon Hoard is a horrendous RAM hog, so make sure your device isn't lacking for RAM, and copy & paste your search inquiries for best results. I have found Woods of Ypres, Treble Charger, and Clownsack songs, and there's likely more local acts.
• Despite his announced retirement from live bands last summer, former Soundcheck/Turner Up drummer Scott McLurg posted on the Musicians Wanted Facebook group on April 1st to say that he was looking to play live once or twice a month, and to private message him at this link for details. I waited to mention this here in case it was an April Fools joke, but the posting is still up, so it looks serious. If Scott's able to play live again with some regularity, I'd be glad to see him back out there, and message him above for more details!

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