LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Spun), New Videos, And More Updates!!

Here's another news post for your Friday evening, and it includes some new videos from a pair of solo artists, some assorted shorter items, and leading off, some LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS! Here's what you should know!

You read that right, we have LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS for the first time in almost three months! Take these with a huge grain of salt given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, but Marquette, Michigan hard rock cover quartet Spun have announced scheduled concerts at The Northern Pines Lounge at the St. Ignace Kewadin Casino on Friday, August 7th and Saturday, August 8th! The Nudge. successors announced these shows via their Facebook event page yesterday, but if you read their Facebook page's updates in the past month, you'll see that they did return for an outdoor matinee gig (with appropriate guidelines) in Labranche in the Western U.P. on May 30th, and have slowly began adding summer concert dates in the Upper Peninsula since then. If these scheduled St. Ignace dates hold, they will be Spun's first in the Soo area since rocking The Satisfied Frog in January 2018.

Yes, Kewadin Casinos have re-opened with social distancing measures, but as of this writing, concerts of any type are still not taking place through at least the Fourth of July (source here), and they have not confirmed Spun's announced dates as of this writing, let alone outlined how they would enforce social distancing for a nightclub concert. We will absolutely let you know when Kewadin gives the all-clear for concerts, and in what form, but if Spun can make the trip to St. Ignace in August, it would be great to see them on a Eastern U.P. stage again! See above for more details!

Next up, we'll stay in the Sault Ste. Marie-area for a look at the new song from local metal solo project X's & Y's! As uploaded to their Facebook page yesterday, this 61 second video features footage of the tracking computer, plus a sampling of the track "A Flow of Touch", which has a djent-laden progressive metal sound that is definitely promising, and will definitely please fans of Jason's old Life's Eclipse and Werehold Records output! Time will tell how the full song sounds, but give the video a look below!



We'll head north to Sault Ontario now, starting with a new original song from local hard rock musician Tym Morrison's YouTube channel! In his first non-live-stream upload in a month, Tym shared his new song "Calm Before The Storm", which has very direct partisan lyrics that I won't get into here. Musically, the song is heavy but with a bit of a dream-like ambiance that adds some variety, though it does have some tinny percussion, and he again used the free trial version of Filmora to make the video rather than a truly free program. Well composed, so give it a listen below!



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

• The Sault Ste. Marie Downtown Association has postponed the Downtown Street Parties scheduled for July 16th and August 13th on Queen Street East due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, as per this news release. Artists like Soundcheck, Tym Morrison, and The Wyld Stallyns were among the musical entertainment at last year's street parties, so hard rock acts were certainly possible had these events occured as planned, but fingers crossed for 2021!
• I have added Anthems vs. Oceans frontman Dave Hunter's inactive record label idioRECORDS back to our "Other Sault Ontario Metal Links" section, courtesy of their still-active website. The former For July! were always the flagship band of idioRECORDS, but they also hosted EDM projects Audiosmile and Electric Therapy at last update, and they were the label for 2009-2010 hardcore band (and brief As It Stands successors) Out Of The Mouth Of Babes. Hopefully idioRECORDS resurfaces down the road!
• Also announced via a SooToday press release, this year's planned Sault Pridefest (scheduled for next month) has been cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, though the Sault Pride Community hopes to bring the event back next year. Live music was a common sight at the annual LGBTQ2SI celebration and events, and you may have seen acts like The Din, Re:Born, and Tym Morrison at Pridefest events in the last three years. Pridefest is a wonderful event, and hopefully they can return even stronger in the new year!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and notes on the site this weekend! Thanks everyone!