A Look At Tarnished's TikTok Videos (Part 1!!)

With news still at a crawl during the current Ontario lockdown, and my 3 day limit between posts arriving today, I'm going to think outside the box a little for our last post of January 2021, by heading to TikTok for a look at some of the videos that Sault Michigan hard rock quartet Tarnished have been posting there since they launched their TikTok page in November! No local band in our listings has taken advantage of TikTok more than Tarnished (as far as I know), with 80 videos posted there as of this writing, though it won't take terribly long to run through all of them, given that TikTok users generally have a 60 second time limit on their videos, and a number of these videos don't come anywhere near the one minute mark. You may have seen some of these videos in Facebook re-posts, but most are TikTok exclusives, so let's begin looking at a few of these to see what Alex, Nathan, Josh, and Gary have been up to on this service in their first month or so there!

Note that TikTok's official embed code for videos does not work on Blogger, so until I find a work-around, just follow the links below to see the clips in action, or see what has been cross-shared on Facebook. Also, if some videos don't have working audio, it's likely because the music in the video is geoblocked in Canada, and I didn't have immediate luck with using an IP blocker. In any event, Tarnished's first video is a very brief clip of Alex using his hunter's instincts on a burger, while their second video has Josh introducing the band (minus Gary) and promising more content to come on their TikTok page. Their next few were largely re-shared on Facebook, including a teaser for their merchandise giveaway contest late last year, their "On The Road Again" video, their fox-headed mascot/Saw villain parody Puzzle Piece eating a shirt(!), and three videos of them making logos out of Yooperlites.

Eight of their next nine videos (from November 22nd-30th) are of (mostly) acoustic covers, all obviously incomplete due to TikTok's runtime limits. Of those, the only non-musical clip of the nine being of Josh Puzzle Piece tripping on camera. We already addressed the covers of Metallica's "One" & The Police's "Every Breath You Take" on the SMS, but the others include Metallica's "Fade To Black", AC/DC's "TNT", Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising", Quiet Riot's "Metal Health", Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song", and Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train". The above covers mostly have Alex & Josh alone, with Nathan only in a few, and Gary only in the Police cover on a cajon. These videos will give a good sense of the post-production clipart and effects available to TikTok users, though whether you necessarily like the accoutrements is not for me to say.

Tarnished seem to have a handle of what's on offer though, and the music's all solid while it lasts! The next few clips include Josh walking across a fallen tree, Alex plugging a winner reveal for their merch giveaway, and a nighttime stroll through the woods, before returning to music on December 4th with their drum-less cover of The Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Dani California". This one has geo-blocked audio in Canada, but luckily, this was re-posted intact on Facebook, and we reviewed it on the SMS already. Their next four videos are non-musical, including Alex showing off his dog doing tricks, and three more videos of Puzzle Piece: two for merch giveaway reveals, and a shoutout clip we mentioned on the SMS last month. After a video where Josh premieres an exceedingly literal segment called "A Note In Review", their December 11th video was of the guys procrastinating over video editing.

27 videos down, at least 53 to go for SMS coverage, such as some are! Despite the woes of video editing, the guys seemed to have a good grasp on TikTok as of last month, with lots of good musical and entertainment content, though I have a lot to learn about this site (maybe I've been spoiled by long videos?) Some of the non-musical clips are clearly meant for a laugh, and I tried not to give away pertinent details in that regard, especially given the runtime, so give these a watch above to see Tarnished's TikTok repertoire through early December, and stay tuned for more on them and elsewhere on the site next month! Thanks everyone!