A New Solo Project Discovery, New Videos, And Much More!!

Today's post is almost going to run us dry for new content on the site, so good thing tomorrow's post has been ready to go for a bit, as we have some time to build up material for Wednesday! Below, you will find some assorted shorter stories, some new-ish solo content from a former local frontman, and a couple of videos, so let's get things rolling!

We have a new-ish solo project to add to our band links on the site, and this is The Dann Pichette Multi-Track Recording Extravaganza! Launched by the former No Arrow/SBD frontman back in 2012, this project isn't active anymore, but he linked me to his old solo material for something to cover on the site, and goodness knows, we sure need that right now! Ten songs are posted there, though only four exceed a minute in length, and there are (censored) expletives in many of the longer song names. The music on offer here is definitely more experimental compared to his old local bands, but if you miss No Arrow, "Always Tryin' To F*** With Me" will be the closest in spirit for grunge fans, and "Shut Up, You Stupid B***" will also have similarities there, albeit with sleepier vocals. Beyond that, "Wanna Be Like Dann" has more of a 1980s pop rock sound, and "Swass" sounds like a Primus demo, among other tracks. No song sounds like the others, which is good!

These don't have clean, professional recording quality, but they definitely showcase Dann's irreverent musical sensibilities, though given the solo angle, I'm surprised he didn't pay as much homage to early Pink Floyd as you may remember him doing in the SBD era. Dann moved out of town a few years ago, but if you were a fan of his local music work in the 2000s and early 2010s like I was, his Multi-Track Recording Extravaganza is worth a listen, which you can do above! Hopefully we hear more new music from him down the road!

Next up, here' the latest from prolific local folk punk/extreme metal solo musician Chase Wigmore, who has uploaded his entire discography to Google Drive for you to stream for free! This is totally official, Chase put this up all 22 albums for fans to have something to listen to during the pandemic, and it includes material released under his own name, plus Awokest, This Is Your Band On Drugs, The Black Lodge Masters, his splits with C.T.W., and any other project name you can think of. Not all of his back catalog is on Bandcamp and YouTube, so if you love Chase's diverse original music, you'll want to take advantage at the above links! As well, he did do a live-streamed performance on his Facebook page yesterday, which sees him cover a section of "Viral Counterpoint of the Coronavirus Spike Protein", an experimental classical piece by musician Markus J. Buehler, which attempts to turn the amino acid sequence of COVID-19 into a rather lengthy musical composition.

The video quality itself is oddly choppy for a live-stream, which may or not be helped by the filtered monochrome visuals, but musically, it's definitely something different! Very intricate playing, this as an oddly soothing essence, albeit one far from his usual sounds, so give it a watch below!



Also, here's one more new video from local/Elliot Lake punk solo project Ashoka at the Show, as uploaded on the 184Films YouTube channel yesterday, where frontman Darren MacDonald discusses what he's been up to since his originally lost access to this channel, how he got back into using this channel, and he promised to continue uploading "songs to quarantine to" daily while all of this is going on. You don't see too many videos like this where a YouTube channel owner apologizes for a hiatus, but it's good to keep fans updated, and hopefully we hear more of Ashoka at the Show soon!



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

• If you are wondering why we never covered local rap/metal trio The Apocalypse Afterparty's announced set at The Borderline's SMAC-19 live-streamed benefit concert earlier this month, it's because they quietly withdrew from the lineup for unannounced reasons. Hopefully nothing bad happened, but visit the Mike's Lunch Music Facebook group to see the other performances by a wide array of talented local musicians! You may have to dig for them, as they've been sharing a lot of Facebook performance videos there since.
• Northern Superior Brewing Co.'s "Songs & A Six-Pack" live-streamed concert series on Fridays did return last week, but it's actually not intended to be a one-artist showcase, so Greg Callaghan did not host the second installment (I apologize, wording from that week was ambiguous.) Instead, Rising Tide fiddle player Sheldon Jaaskelainen hosted, and you can see his episode, complete with Northern Superior plugs, at this link. Sheldon's vocal/acoustic guitar set contains no punk songs, but his talent is fully on display, including Boot Hill Crooners and Wild Turkeys renditions!
• In their first post since the cancellation of their March concerts, local folk-punk solo project Slumshine revealed on their Facebook page that they were helping pass the time by making up a run of CD copies of their debut album "SLMSHN", which was originally exclusive to cassette tapes in it's initial physical release last summer. The sleeves are perfectly in line with Brent's art style, but given social distancing, when and how will these be available to buy? Stay tuned!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for part 4 of our WLS0 9O.1 FM retrospective series on the site tomorrow! Thanks everyone!