A Surprise Band Reunion, Tarnished Updates, Show Cancellations, And More!!

News remains slow as of late, but today's post is surprisingly stacked and eventful, including a lengthy live-stream, related concert cancellations, a rising young band's recent busy activity, and leading off, a band reunion almost a quarter century in the making! Here's what you should know!

Local/Hamilton alternative/hard rock band Foothill Road are back after a 24 year hiatus! In an e-mail, ex-bassist Ron Pyette alerted me to a brand new song that the band quietly recorded last year, before finally being produced this year and posted onto guitarist Mark Oliverio's new YouTube channel this past weekend. Entitled "Heard Of It", the song features Mark (last seen with Tripod The Dog) alongside original singer Ken Luxton and drummer Rick Bain, with veteran local musician Steve Cardiff on bass in lieu of Ron, though he was involved in the songwriting. Mark's former Glitch bandmate Mario Carlucci is not visibly back on guitar for the Foothill Road reunion. I have no idea if this will lead to a new album or concerts when available, but the song is promising, with a 1990s hard rock bent injected with some progressive and bluesy flourish, and their talents are still visible! It's easy to learn too, as this is a lyric video, which isn't common for local bands to post.

Just for context, Foothill Road's original run was circa 1993-1996, before members moved on to the now-defunct Hamilton-based bands Sara Inksetter & Cousin It. Time will tell how much more we hear from Foothill Road 2.0, but give their new song a listen below, and amazingly, they are now in our active band links! Stay tuned for possible updates!

Next up, let's take a detour to Sault Michigan for the latest from local hard rock quartet Tarnished, so what have they been up to since Rock The Block? On August 4th, they played a private outdoor set for a graduation party (photos are on their Facebook page), and then on Friday, frontman Alex Traynor and bassist Josh Fair returned to Eagle 95.1 FM's morning show to promote their now-released debut EP "Down To The Wire", and play acoustic versions of "Shortcut" and a Creedence Clearwater Revival song. Bizarrely, this wasn't hyped in advance on social media, but hopefully it gave them and the CD some great exposure! And yes, I meant "CD", as physical copies of "Down To The Wire" can now be bought online at this link, so if you haven't had any luck at local retailers, here you go! CDs run for $10 American, and you can see the back cover of the case there as well. Finally, Tarnished got some big exposure on 9&10 News' lifestyle newsmagazine series The Four last week!

Much like Alex had for prior solo performances, Tarnished performed "Cocaine Riot" on their week-ending "Friday Sessions" last week, and yes, this was the full band with electric gear. It's always great seeing E.U.P. talent on the local news, and kudos to our local CBS affiliate for heading north to film Tarnished in action, from multiple solid angles to boot! Allegedly, Tarnished did more songs to be included in future episodes of The Four, so tune in on channel 10 (Spectrum) or 10.1 (antenna) on Fridays at 4:00 PM to see if Tarnished are that week's artist! View last Friday's performance at this link, as I cannot embed videos from 9&10 News here.

Finally, I was planning to preview Sault Ontario hard rock musician Tym Morrison's announced return to the Motley Market on Gore Street tomorrow, but his remaining August dates there (including on August 20th & 27th) have quietly been cancelled, as per the Facebook event page. A reason for their cancellation has not been announced by Tym or the venue, but remember that the pandemic is ongoing, and the market is still very new to the downtown sector, so one or both may have played a part. At least Tym is back playing public concerts of some form, and hopefully we'll see him there or elsewhere soon! As for his live-streamed concert series, the 35th installment did indeed take place live at the Motley Market this past Thursday, and it remains his most recent episode at press time, as Tym did not film an episode yesterday for (again) unannounced reasons. We'll let you know if he has one tomorrow, but for now, how did last Thursday's live-stream go?

As live-streamed on Tym's YouTube channel once again, this 1:40 episode is comparable in length to his at-home shows, but well short of the 3 hours the concert proper was advertised to run for (I believe this captures the second half of the set). The captured set proper begins about 5 minutes in with covers of Alice Cooper's "Only Women Bleed", The Beatles' "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" & "Here Comes The Sun", Amanda Marshall's "Trust Me (This Is Love)", Bryan Adams' "Summer of '69", Simon & Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence", Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues", The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes", Cheap Trick's "I Want You To Want Me", Aerosmith's "Dream On", Toto's "Hold The Line", Roxette's "It Must Have Been Love", Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise", Berlin's "Take My Breath Away", Supertramp's "Breakfast In America", Imagine Dragons' "Radioactive", Yes' "Owner Of A Lonely Heart", Jim Croce's "Time In A Bottle", ...

... Bryan Adams' "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You", Yes' "Love Will Find A Way", 10cc's "I'm Not In Love", and finally, Tom Petty's "Yer So Bad". Entertaining set as usual for Tym, and it seemed like he was glad to be playing an actual concert again, but he is definitely chattier in the at-home streams. It's hard to gauge Motley Market as a venue given the camera angle, and the attendance didn't seem huge, but there were people coming and going. Note that 7 covers filmed on Thursday were already done in the previous Tuesday's live-stream. Give Thursday's video a watch below, and we'll let you know when Tym goes live next!



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