New Videos & Lots Of Assorted Updates!!

News has continued to be slow as of late, so let's tackle a bunch of shorter stories today, along with some new videos! We'll start with the first live concert footage of new-ish local southern/hard rock quintet Fort Creek, courtesy of their one-off gig at the newly re-opened Reggie's Place on Friday, September 4th! Filmed by attendee Justyne Gilbert and shared from her personal Facebook page onto the band's Facebook page, this has Fort Creek covering Thriving Ivory's "Angels On The Moon", which is in tribute to frontman Justin Grayson's grandmother, who passed away in 2007. The performance is well done and suitably emotional, if not a showcase of their heavier chops, and everyone tackles their instrument nicely! However, the vertical camera angle isn't ideal, and Robin's usually obscured from view. The new Reggie's looks good, though I assume the band is cordoned off due to social distancing. Give it a watch below!



Next up, here's a new acoustic cover video from Guitar Gangsters bandmates Erik "Buzz" Boissineau and Tiffany Stocco, courtesy of Buzz's YouTube channel on August 28th! Some viewers may have caught this on CTV News Northern Ontario two weeks ago at the end of the 6:00 PM newscast, but it's on YouTube for all to see, and it has the ex-Garden of Bedlam frontman and Stegadeth frontwoman covering Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt" with Buzz on vocals. Nicely done cover of this dark ballad, and Buzz's singing is a nice match, so give it a watch below, and hopefully they have more in the works!



Finally, here's six assorted shorter news items from the last while, and as usual, these are in alphabetical order by artist, company, or website name:

• Blood Shed Productions have announced that they will be hosting a private bonfire jam this Saturday entitled "For Bunk Sakes & Headaches". The event will take place at "the park", but you have to contact the label for the specific address. Message Blood Shed at this link or above for full details if you are interested in attending!
• Despite a shared Facebook post on February 4th indicating that frontman Henry Switzer wasn't ready to play a full concert due to health issues, now-defunct Sault Michigan classic/hard rock quartet Highway 63 did play at The Rapids Lounge at the Sault Michigan Kewadin Casino on Friday, March 13th, which was the last weekend before the full-scale lockdown, as per a comment thread by ex-Full Throttle guitarist Jason Lamoreaux on their Facebook page. Given Henry's earlier post, I opted not to cover this concert at the time on the SMS, which I learned went forward too late. My sincere apologies, hopefully it was a good show!
• Sault Ontario/Thompson, Manitoba alt-hard rock musician Mike Haggith was interviewed by Camille Mola of the Philadelphia-based lifestyle blog Positive Publicity last month, where he discussed his experiences during the pandemic, his musical background, what inspired his new album "If Ever Comes The Day" (he's more candid than ever about it here), and his future plans. Entertaining and informative read, so give the interview a look at this link!
• SooToday's James Hopkin posted this article onto the local news website on August 28th, which discusses the transition back into hosting live music for local nightclubs. The article features interview remarks with the owners of Soo Blaster (which has resumed live music) and Coch's Corner & The Whiskey Barrel (both of which hadn't at press time), and it is a good read to see how different venues are adjusting to "the new normal" and social distancing limitations when trying to host even one band on a given night. This has been a rough year, but hopefully things will ease up before we know it!
• Sault Michigan hard rock trio Tarnished announced yesterday that their planned live-streamed concert on Facebook on Wednesday has been put on hold, due to concerns about reported changes to Facebook's terms of use agreement that would penalize or take down accounts that included copyrighted music in videos. News articles since seem to have cleared up the concerns of many Facebook content creators (covers seem to be alright, but not the original recordings), but in any event, Tarnished indicated that they'd look into doing live-streams on other platforms. Stay tuned for updates either way!
• I have deleted local extreme metal solo project X's & Y's from our Sault Michigan band links due to the quiet deletion of their Facebook (and only online) page at some point in the past two months. Led by Werehold Records founder and ex-Life's Eclipse guitarist Jason Mills, X's & Y's had sporadic updates between December and June, including a handful of videos. I was glad to see Jason working on new music again, and hopefully he resurfaces in some form!

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