(Updated at 6:12 PM) Before we begin, I wanted to give our belated condolences to the family & friends of Soo Profile Magazine founder and publisher James Mancuso, who passed away on August 20th of last year at the age of 58. You can read his obituary at this link, as well as The Sault Star's article about him, and he was survived by his wife Pon, his mother, two brothers, and other extended family. The Soo Profile was published from July 2009 until July 2019, and was available to read for free at various local businesses. Covering local history and culture in a way other publications weren't doing in the 2010s (especially post-Townies), the magazine occasionally intersected with The Sault Metal Scene, notably via late 2010s cover stories on local musicians like Greg Simpson, Ric Datson, and Tammy Hill. In it's early years, I even sent in concert listings for them to include in issues, for which I thank James for the early exposure!Beyond the Soo Profile, James lived a full life, including a stint as an English & art teacher in Taiwan, establishing the Mancuso School of Fine Arts locally, and working in news video production in Halifax. Sadly, The Soo Profile has not continued production under a new publisher, and their website's domain name has expired, but you can still see covers and issue fragments from their decade-long run on their Facebook page. I didn't know James well, but he was a kind and talented person in multiple avenues, and he is definitely missed by those that met and worked with him. R.I.P. James!
Now, today's post features new videos from two familiar sights & some more news, but we'll start with local/Thompson, Manitoba solo musician Mike Haggith's fourth #LockdownLive after-show, which live-streamed on his Facebook page on Sunday night! As teased in this video to promote what to expect for this episode, the 33 minute video starts with us meeting Mike's cat Artemis, before discussing what went down in #LockdownLive X the previous day, and addressing the share contest where whoever shared yesterday's live-stream the most would pick a song that Mike has to cover on #LockdownLive XI on Saturday. This time, the video was shared 593 times, and the winner with 181 shares was Re:Born frontwoman Elly McWatters for a second straight week! Mike called her to announce the winner again, and she nominated "Sugar Daddy" from the musical Hedwig & The Angry Inch, specifically mentioning the Neil Patrick Harris version at the Tony Awards. The amusing discussion about how Mike will approach this cover is worth a listen alone, so we'll have to see how things look on Saturday! Mike also lets Elly pick a song from "If Ever Comes The Day" to perform to help end the video, and she chose "Take Back The Moon", but commenters also requested "2145", so he ended up playing both, before wrapping the video and teasing the next #LockdownLive and possible changes to the share contest. Entertaining and informative video all around, so give it a look below, and stay tuned #LockdownLive XI on Saturday night!
Speaking of Re:Born, I was contacted via e-mail recently by that band's original lead singer Robert Nevitt, asking if I'd be interested in featuring some recent videos that he's posted on his personal Facebook page. These haven't been publically shared elsewhere, but as Robert asked, that's appropriate consent to feature them here! Since we last saw him on stage with the now defunct Big Mistake (their Facebook page was taken down, in any event), he has posted three videos of him covering songs for 45+ minutes, karaoke style, which you can watch here, here, and embedded below. I won't give these a blow-by-blow recap given how they were uploaded, but it's great to see Robert staying busy and keeping his solid vocals sharp! In the video below, you can hear him cover The Tragically Hip, The Barenaked Ladies, Rehab, Otis Redding, The Isley Brothers, Elvis Presley, Seven Mary Three, AC/DC, and Lynyrd Skynyrd, among many others there and above.Unless you saw one of his few live appearances with his old bands or at The Soo's Got Talent 2018, you may not be familiar with his vocal style, but he has a nice melodic tone and good grit when need be, and he definitely has a diverse range of material that he can do, so his karaoke videos at home are definitely worth checking out above and below!
Finally for today, here's three assorted shorter news items from the last while, and as usual, these are in alphabetical order by artist or company name:
- Sault Michigan hard rock band Tarnished did not play a live-streamed concert on Facebook at all last week due to Alex and Josh moving their at-home live-stream setup to their regular recording studio, as per their Facebook page on Thursday. They plan to announce more details this week, which will reportedly involve full-band live-streams of some kind, so if you've been curious to see Nathan and Gary take part too, keep the above information in mind!
- I have deleted local recording sudio Scholomance Studio from our "Other Sault Michigan Metal Links" due to the closure of it's Facebook group, and there are no equivalent pages to replace it with. Launched by Werehold Records founder Jason Mills back in 2014 towards releases by label acts, the studio was primarily active through 2015, and was one of the presumed casualties of Werehold's closure in 2018. Look for new music from Jason in his current project X's & Y's soon, hopefully!
- I have deleted Sault Ontario live event sound company Twin City Sound & Entertainment from our "Other Sault Ontario Metal Links" section due to the deletion of their Facebook (and only online) page. Led by then-Mourning Wood bandmates Terry Eaton & Steven Flint, Twin City Sound worked assorted concerts from at 2014-2016, including the 2016 Speak Easy Battle of the Bands, but updates were slim to none in the late 2010s, even before Steven left Soundcheck. Hopefully we hear more from both guys soon!
That's all for today, but stay tuned for this month's Defunct Local Band Profile on the site tomorrow! Thanks everyone!
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