Defunct Local Band Profile Series: Poison Girl & Hiroshima Mutant Mindframe

It's now time for this month's Defunct Local Band Profiles, continuing our monthly spotlight of randomly selected bands who are no longer active, but deserve a look back for modern readers! This month's bands include a promising tribute band from recent years and a talented solo project with an album to their name, so here's what you should know on both!

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Poison Girl

Genre: Gothic Rock/Metal

Hometown: Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario

Members:

Tiffany Stocco (Jack Spades), vocals/guitar
Bill "Orthae" Bennett (Stereo North), bass
Johnny Belanger (The Bear Hunters), drums
Brian Holmes (Gates of Winter), keyboard

Info/Analysis: All three members of local punk trio Stegadeth (plus keyboardist Brian Holmes) paid homage to Finnish goth rockers HIM as part of night #1 of J.D. Pearce's annual Halloween party concerts at The Rockstar Bar on October 27th, 2018. Here, they shared the stage with Tiffany & Johnny's other debuting tribute band, the Distillers-honouring Coral Fang. Surprisingly, both bands would continue forward after Halloween, even with Facebook pages, but Poison Girl only played one further concert at the same venue in May 2019, alongside the debuting Stoned To Deaf covering Rage Against The Machine. Public updates on Poison Girl did not follow, later complicated by Tiffany's move out of town last fall, though her other bands are still labeled as active on the SMS. Unfortunately, no public media has surfaced from Poison Girl's gigs, and while a HIM tribute may have been more appreciated locally a decade earlier, the talent was definitely there!
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Hiroshima Mutant Mindframe

Genre: Technical/Progressive/Death Metal

Hometown: Sault Ste. Marie/London, Ontario

Members:

Matthew Parr (Czech Hotel, Our Place Or Yours), all instruments

Info/Analysis: Launched out of his London hometown circa 2010, Matt brought his solo project Hiroshima Mutant Mindframe with him when he moved to Sault Ste. Marie from around 2012, with new audio recordings posted frequently on the H.M.M. Soundcloud page and (more sparingly) on their YouTube channel. After briefly searching for a local band in late 2013, Matt released a Hiroshima Mutant Mindframe EP on Bandcamp that December, before moving back to London in 2014 and commencing work in bands there. New song uploads continued through February 2015, before the project fell inactive, but Matt did post some outside non-metal audio recordings on Soundcloud until early 2017. I enjoyed H.M.M.'s djent-laden technicality and musicianship on songs like "Whatever" & "Summit", and Matt was a musician who never got his deserved due while living here, but I would have liked to have heard longer songs with more solos. Here's Matt covering Horse The Band's "Arrive"!

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I hope you guys liked this month's Defunct Local Band Profiles! Our next randomly selected band to be spotlighted will be a big one, namely local/Toronto indie punk veterans Treble Charger! Note that their online presence since their 2013 reunion has minimal, and if they resume public activity before November 10th, I will pick a different band. That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news on the site next week! Thanks everyone!