LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (The Wyld Stallyns), Surprise New Album Announcements, And More!!

Bit of a surprise new post on this Friday, but if I wanted to cover a new LOCAL CONCERT ALERT before we were a week and under until it occurred, I had to get this out today. Along with this new event, we have the surprise announcement of new albums from an inactive group, and some assorted recent updates, so here's what you should know!

Local funk/hard rock cover quintet The Wyld Stallyns will headline a special fundraiser concert for the Entomica Insectarium at their current homebase at the Canadian Bushplane Heritage Center on Saturday, August 21st! Surprisingly only just announced on Wednesday given the scope and unique aspects of it, this is the first Bushplane Museum concert we've covered on the site since in over two years, but being attached to the Entomica bug lab is a new one for us. Entomica do great work in educating everyone about insects, and hopefully this "Let's 'Mis-Bee-Hive', Come Out & Jive" social will help the cause and entertain a local audience at this late(?) stage of the pandemic! The Wyld Stallyns (plural) will close the night at 11:00 PM as the only hard rock-leaning band on offer, but the lineup does have a mini-Rotaryfest feel to it, plus lots of food/drink vendors and kids entertainment, but who else can you expect next Saturday?

Veteran local entertainer Tim Murphy will do a host segment at 10:30 PM, heavily implied to be doing so in drag as Ms. Beehive (get it, "misbehave"?), which fits along with many of his other live stage and hosting work, so expect some humour here! Classic rock veterans Mustang Heart (who do cover hard rock on occasion) will take the stage at 9:30 PM, while local country musician Jeffrey Wright will hit the stage at 8:30 PM. If you're not familiar with Jeffrey, he only just launched his Facebook page last month, but he is a talented multimedia artist! The opening two acts get extended 90 minute timeslots, including Rotaryfest veterans The Northern Jazz Ensemble at 6:45 PM and the confusingly named Josh Norling Jazz Ensemble (led by the prolific Blues Harvest saxophonist) kicking things off at 5:00 PM. This is an all ages event with admission by a $5 minimum donation.

And as usual with the pandemic, please respect and follow any social distancing and public health guidelines being enforced at the Bushplane Museum/Entomica to ensure everyone's safety. Now that we're finally seeing some multi-band concerts in Sault Ontario at a scale reminiscent of what we saw locally before the pandemic, hopefully the "Let's 'Mis-Bee-Hive', Come Out & Jive" social fundraiser is a hit for all parties, and stay tuned for more in our next weekend concert previews! Visit the official Facebook event page for more details, including on all of the vendors!

Next up, have you been waiting for details on Mike Haggith's next solo album release and new original material? Well, here's a swerve, as his defunct local power pop/hard rock trio The Din have announced a couple of posthumous album releases for later this year! After a series of surprise teasers on Thursday (the fifth anniversary of it's release), the band announced on their Facebook page that they will be re-releasing their debut mainline album "Give In To The Din" in a deluxe edition with eighteen tracks! For reference, the original 2016 release only had nine songs, so are these all rough demos of what made the cut, or are these properly unreleased, perhaps including songs only heard in live recordings? Time will tell! The second album will be called "Technically Live", and it will comprise their full set from the "Give In To The Din" CD release party at the auditorium at The Tech (the former St. Mary's/Lakeway Collegiate site) from August 12th, 2016!

Now, the latter isn't completely unheard material, as Shaw TV filmed The Din's set that night for the premiere episode of their OnStage series, where they played the entire "Give In To The Din" album, plus two non-album tracks (Mike's solo song "Of Cars & Criminals" & their unreleased original "Differences"), but a smattering of outside covers were not included in Shaw's broadcast. Will those be present on "Technically Live", and will the audio be proper soundboard recordings, or come from Shaw's cameras? Follow The Din on Facebook to get further updates as they roll in, and it's great to see Mike, Tammy, and Brandan have some more fuel in the tank!

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

• In their first Facebook page posting in 17 months, Sault Michigan hard rock quartet 415E shared a photo on July 20th of a drumkit & speakers with the caption "Time to jam". Them returning to activity at this stage of the pandemic makes sense, but guitarist Chris Hubbard & bassist Brett Blackwood debuted their very similar new band Rhythm & Brews at The Rapids Lounge earlier that same month, and that band hasn't posted online since July 3rd. Have Rhythm & Brews thrown in the towel already & reverted to the 415E name, or will both bands continue forward? Time will tell, but 415E are back in our active band links!
• Following my decision to drop the planned Defunct Local Band Profile on them earlier this week, I have removed mid-2000s all-female hard rock trio Apocrytha from our inactive band links due to a complete and utter lack of surviving public information on their official online accounts (re: just their MySpace page, whose photos all no longer work). Follow members' later bands like The Freshwater Sirens and The Danger Cats to hear what the ladies have been up to!
• Almost a year & a half after his prior search on the Musicians Wanted Facebook group, local guitarist, singer, and drummer Jayrald Micky is looking to join something and is "dying to jam and get back out there". He did note that he has stage experience, but I'm not familiar with public band work of his. Message him at this link or via his group post from Wednesday for more details!

 

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