Mike Haggith's #LockdownLive Episode On The Band Haggith!

Single-topic post tonight, as local/Thompson, Manitoba alternative/hard rock musician Mike Haggith live-streamed the tenth installment of his #LockdownLive at-home concert series on his Facebook page last night, and keeping with the local vibes from last week, this installment is devoted to his eponymous 2012-2015 grunge/hard rock band Haggith! While dipping into this band's well makes sense given their local prominence, the band Haggith won't be as well known to fans who only know of Mike from The Din and/or his Thompson-era material, especially as Mike was Haggith's drummer., and (by my count) was only on lead vocals for 12 songs on two of their five studio albums. #LockdownLive X is a little shorter than normal, running for under 2 hours, but don't worry, there's a lot to take in as usual! After acknowledging his setup changes for this week, he starts by acknowledging that he did not name the band after himself, it was a joke by Curt & Dan relating to how bands are never named after the drummer.

For the record, Haggith songs here were originally sung by frontman Curtis McKenzie on their studio albums unless otherwise stated. After introducing this week's share contest to determine a fan-picked cover that he has to play next week, Mike starts by playing "Livin' It On The Run" from Haggith's 2012 debut mainline album "Dragon Joy Ride", before introducing Mike's old Din bandmate Brandan Glew for a live call-in where he announces the rules of "the Apocalypse drinking game" for live-viewers to play during the stream, so if you're familiar with the tropes of #LockdownLive and that album, you'll see why they would fit for a drinking game. Irreverence is a guarantee! Afterwards, Mike plays one more song from "Dragon Joy Ride", namely "I Am", before calling Haggith guitarist Daniel Horton (who wrote "I Am") to discuss the band's second album, 2012's concept CD "Apocalypse", which Mike and Daniel were the primary writers of.

Given Mike's heavy involvement as a writer, vocalist, and lead character on this CD, not to mention the climate of the world nowadays, it makes sense that "Apocalypse" gets a strong focus here. In their conversation, Mike and Dan even note that they had plans once to do four "Apocalypse" albums continuing the concept, and even floated the idea to do a compilation or remaster of old Haggith material, which would be neat to see! Before hanging up, Daniel noted that Jack Spades are planning a tour of some kind in 2021 once the pandemic ends, and he acknowledged ongoing work with his side projects The Bridge Heads and Big Mistake (albeit not by name), before confirming Mike's mention last week that he is moving out of town for work reasons in the very near future. Daniel noted that he plans to come back and play shows, and how he worded it didn't sound like it'd be a long-term thing, so hopefully we see him back in the local scene in some form before we know it!

From "Apocalypse", Mike plays "Days" (which we just heard last week in #LockdownLive IX), "Red Car", sections of the seven-part "Home" suite that began on this CD, and "Fin (Part 1)". Those songs all originally had Mike on lead vocals except "Fin (Part 1)" & the fragments of "Home (Parts 5-7)", which were on 2015's sequel album "Apocalypse II". Next, Mike performs the opening song from "Apocalypse II" (confusingly named "Apocalypse"), which outlined the original album's story from Curt & Dan's perspective, after Mike's character committed suicide in the prior album's last song. Got all that? Mike then looks at Haggith's 2013 mainline album "Deuce", from which he performs the untitled seventh song, "As Time Comes To Pass", "75" (with Din-era "Leamington, Ontario" commentary during the bridge), and "Leon The Janitor" (as also heard in #LockdownLive VI). All but "As Time Comes To Pass" were originally sung by Mike on the CD.

Mike jumps back to "Apocalypse II" to perform "Spreading The Disease", before tackling the untitled 2 minute bonus track at the end of "Deuce", including an explanation of how it was composed. I didn't really feel it in our original review, but it's interesting to hear how it came about! That's where the Haggith band portion of the show ended, and no, Mike didn't play anything from their final EP (2015's "XIV") due to his own admitted difficulty translating those songs to acoustic format. The closing stretch begins with Mike's cover of s "The Pussy Cat Song" by Connie Vannett (as nominated by Re:Born frontwoman Elly McWatters for winning last week's share contest), and if you like vintage adult party records, this will definitely pique your interest! If you are easily offended, steer clear, but it's certainly an amusing rendition, complete with a Bob Dylan pastiche! Afterwards, Mike hyped an afterparty on his new private Facebook group, and if you want to watch, join at this link.

It was really cool hearing classic Haggith band songs again, especially ones Mike just did drums and backing vocals on back in the day, and Daniel and Brandan added solid input as well during the call-in sections! I'm a little surprised that he didn't acknowledge their bassists by name when talking about the band's history, but I know that Curt, Dan, and Mike were the primary songwriters. Could we perhaps hear acid jam-era Din songs, The Strange Coyotes, or his early Windsor bands like S.C.A.R. and The Thorns in future episodes? Time will tell, but give #LockdownLive X a watch below, and stay tuned for more news and notes on the site this week! Thanks everyone!