Tarnished Updates, New Original Songs, And More News & Notes!!

In case there's no new post before then, I'll wish all of our readers a happy Valentine's Day! This post features some assorted updates, new original songs from some familiar hard rock artists, and some more updates from a prolific local band, so here's what you should know!

We'll kick things off with the latest (non-TikTok) updates from Sault Michigan hard rock band Tarnished, who revealed on their Facebook page on Sunday that they are working on a new single, with plans to release it to major music platforms next month. Former Chained Memories guitarist Ryan Nicklas (who mixed & mastered Tarnished's cover of "Run Rudolph Run") is back in studio with the guys for this new single, and given Gary's recent departure, I imagine frontman Alex Traynor will be behind the drum kit again, knowing that that the single is already being recorded. Tarnished are looking for fans to contribute to planned "gang vocals" on the track, and if you're interested, comment on their Facebook post from Wednesday for more details. Finally, a new video of Alex and bassist Josh Fair performing acoustically at Crooked Music was posted to Facebook last night!

Entitled "A Crooked Jam", this was filmed by Pick-Me-Ups alum Trevor Yake in what looks like an empty store (I don't think we missed a surprise gig), the video features Alex & Josh covering a fragment of Metallica's "Fade To Black" and all of Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl", across multiple camera angles. Well done renditions with much better audio than their acoustic live-streams from last year, and I like the camera-work and atmosphere shots that Trevor got in this video! Give it a watch below, and stay tuned for more from Tarnished, on or off TikTok, next week!

Next up, Sault Ontario hard rock singer/guitarist Tym Morrison has two new original songs to check out! Now, I want to preface this by noting that these are not hosted on YouTube, rather Rumble, a video hosting website that has been gaining popularity in recent months among conservative-leaning content creators. From what I understand, these two new songs ("COVID-19" and "Declassified") were pulled from YouTube due to being flagged for misinformation, and they each have very strong personal viewpoints. I try and keep the SMS apolitical, so I won't go into specifics on the lyrics or the detailed video content on these songs, especially as YouTube and Blogger (this site's host service) are both Google properties. On strictly musical terms, both of these songs are very heavy and will definitely please fans of Tym's old metal work, with some strong guitar solos included in both. Give them a watch if you want at the above links!

Also today, here's a new solo original song from Skeyes Of Seven/ex-Sense Of Truth frontman Cory Murchison's YouTube channel! Entitled "Sorry & Forgotten", this is about rising up against "the global elite" and their control on Earth. I won't get into the lyrics, but this modern hard rock song is intense and well performed (I can easily see one of his bands playing this), and Cory makes good use of multiple camera angles! It is an odd visual seeing him sing through the pop filter though. Give Cory's new song a look below!

 

 

Finally for today, here are three assorted shorter news items from the last while, and as usual, these are in alphabetical order by artist name:

 

• Veteran local musician Greg Simpson revealed on his promotional company (Choose) Maxx Entertainment's Facebook page on January 27th that he's closing the page "sometime in the next few weeks", and encouraged everyone to follow his personal Facebook page for continuing business needs in event promotion & graphic design. Greg's personal page indicated that it was "time for a change up", as "this pandemic has forced me to shut down the corporation & move on as sole proprietor." Hopefully we'll still hear more from Greg in the future! As of this writing, the Maxx page is still online, so "the next few weeks" clearly means more than two.
• In their first Facebook page update in nine months, local acoustic punk solo project Slumshine shared a picture of a box full of blank cassette tapes, and noted that "SllMSHN" is coming soon. The two lowercase Ls seem to imply that these will be used to record a sequel to their 2019 debut album "SLMSHN" (note the one L), which was only released physically on cassette. It's great to see Brent is still working on new Slumshine material, so stay tuned for updates!
• I have moved Heavy Lies The Crown guitarist Ted Olson's solo project to our inactive Sault Michigan band links due to a year's inactivity. The St. Ignace product only sporadically updated this page after it's May 2018 inception, and despite hyping it as his "new artist page" in January 2020, only three videos followed that month before updates quietly ceased. Of course, pandemic woes and his work with Heavy Lies The Crown may have slowed Ted's personal page's activity, but stay tuned for more updates as H.L.T.C. progress towards their new album!

 

That's all for today, but stay tuned for a new news post of some kind by Monday! Thanks everyone!