YouTube Channel Profile Series: rubbs001's Channel

It's now time for this month's YouTube Channel Profile, posted a day early to make room for weekend concert previews, especially given the returning Northern Vibe Festival. This monthly feature series looks at 1-3 randomly selected YouTube channels from our subscriptions, in order to spotlight them and their public content for potential viewers and subscribers, and as usual, channels must have at least half of their public videos devoted to local metal, hard rock, or punk artists/concerts. Our channel pick for this month lets us take a trip over a decade back to one of the biggest hard rock bands to come out of the E.U.P. (and their singer solo), so here's what you should know!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

rubbs001's channel (http://youtube.com/rubbs001)

Owner: A relative or close friend of former Nixxon Dixxon/current Rhythm & Brews singer Brandon Carr (the channel is focused around him but the descriptions lead me to believe he didn't run it)

Channel Timeline: Launched on December 18th, 2006; Videos uploaded from March 19th, 2009 until April 2nd, 2011

Channel Summary: All of the videos on rubbos001's channel star Sault Michigan hard rock singer Brandon Carr in some fashion, mostly via videos from concerts at The Northern Pines Lounge at the St. Ignace Kewadin Casino by his most prominent band, late-2000s hard rock quartet Nixxon Dixxon. Other videos include a comical lip sync of Billy Idol's "Dancing With Myself", a solo acoustic cover of Lady Gaga's "Poker Face", Brandon performing "Dentist!" in Sault High's 2010 production of Little Shop Of Horrors, and two takes of him singing at that year's International Idol competition.
 
Why You Should Watch: This is definitely worth a watch for fans of Brandon's local music work, especially during Nixxon Dixxon's late-era peak, and you also get a good look at what he was up to artistically beyond the band at the turn of the 2010s! However, there are other sources for full-band & better quality Nixxon Dixxon videos of this era, like YouTube user myangels1266's channel. Also, note that no videos are featured here from Nixxon Dixxon's pre-2009 activities, despite the 2006 launch date.

 Our Recommended Videos To Check Out:

 

155 pop evil: With one exception, all of rubbs001's Nixxon Dixxon videos are of acoustic performances at The Northern Pines Lounge, with Brandon performing alongside bassist Kyle Beaumont (later of The London Gentlemen and Trail's End) on acoustic guitar. One is of Brandon & Kyle covering Seether's "Broken", Daughtry's "Going Home", and Puddle of Mudd's "Drift & Die" (the latter with Jake on drums) in March 2009, while a June 2010 set yielded videos of Shinedown's "The Crow & The Butterfly" (uploaded twice), Godsmack's "Touché", and in this channel's most popular hard rock video, Pop Evil's "100 In A 55". Dark lighting on the 2009 clip isn't helpful, but Brandon and Kyle are a good unplugged match on these rock radio covers, and Brandon's strong melodic voice gets a lot of good use throughout!

Blood Pollution: The only video of Nixxon Dixxon performing a full electric song with the whole band here is also from the June 2010 St. Ignace show, where they covered Steel Dragon's "Blood Pollution" from the movie Rock Star. Also featuring 415E/Rhythm & Brews guitarist Chris Hubbard and London Gentlemen alum Jake LaLonde (now of the Nashville country rock band Miller Holler), it's nice seeing Nixxon Dixxon again, even if the video is a little grainy, and seeing as they disbanded a couple of months later, it's even nicer to have this online! Very talented young group, they deserved more!

 

Simpleman: In June 2010, Brandon was one of 29 local singers who competed in the third annual International Idol vocal talent competition at The Soo Theatre, with the winner of the 14-and-over division getting to open for Meat Loaf on the closing night at Kewadin Casino's 25th Anniversary Summer Festival the following month. Brandon lost to local singer Kellan Perron (read more about the winners at this link), though Nixxon Dixxon played that day on the second stage anyway, as well as on the main stage on night #1. Uploaded twice to rubbs001's channel at different lengths, Brandon was filmed covering Shinedown's version of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Simple Man", with Brandon matching the vocal tone of the cover, if not Brent Smith's range. Solidly done and well filmed for the time, and hopefully we'll hear more from Brandon musically soon with one band or another!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hope you guys liked this month's YouTube Channel Profile! Next month in this series, our random selection has given us a doozy of a channel to spotlight, namely Mike Haggith Music, the official channel for the prolific local alt-rock musician, which has a LOT of ground to cover from the past decade, so look for this on or around September 26th, and for weekend concert previews on the site next! Thanks everyone!