Chase Wigmore & Uncanny Valley Updates, Plus More Recent News & Notes!

I hope everyrone had a relaxing long weekend! We've got a new news post to check out on this Tuesday evening, including some shorter recent updates, new videos, and some updates on a local musician's next albums, so here's what you should know!

Let's start with the latest from local extreme metal/folk punk musician Chase Wigmore's Facebook page! First, in a belated clarification from his lengthy post about his future album plans, Chase confirmed to me in a personal Facebook conversation that his upcoming concept album "The Chaotic Rite" is one and the same as his long-gestating "A Story About A Kid Named Todd" rock opera, a fact which wasn't readily obvious given how that post was laid out. Good to know that the rock opera isn't fully on the shelf and that things are go, albeit under a new name and expanded concept! Coming out first though is his album "Is This The End Of...", and Chase released two more songs from it to his Bandcamp page last week as teasers, namely "Spiritual Casualities" (which will be track #4) and "The End Part Two".  No comment on either until our likely review, but this is a metal album.

The image above is attached to all four of the "Is This The End Of..." advance singles, which would seem to indicate that it will be the album cover, though the letterboxing and lack of Chase's/the album's name is acknowledged. The songs on Bandcamp have extra information about their meanings and background, so do check those out if you're at all interested, and we have to be nearing the release of this album, right? We'll wrap up for Chase's updates with new videos, as he posted two of him on an unplugged electric guitar to Facebook in the last couple of days, both unusually featuring him speaking to the camera before playing! One is this 3 minute video of him working on parts of "The Chaotic Rite", but the audio quality through his webcam is definitely not ideal. Things sound better on the 15 minute video embedded below, and Chase notes that this is "half of it", so are we in for a 30 minute song on either album down the line?!

Despite him lampshading the guitar not being plugged in, he is playing along to backing tracks, so neither sounds thin & empty. Promising instrumental performances all around, with Chase letting loose on the guitar as only he can, so give these and much more from him a look!

Next up, here's a new video of young local hard/classic rock quartet The Uncanny Valley performing at The Roberta Bondar Pavilion during their Summer Concert Series on August 11th! This was uploaded to the band's Facebook page two days later, apologies for the nearly month-long delay in addressing it here. The 70 second clip features the largely instrumental ending of a song who I can't 100% title (a search complicated when they took down most of their early concert videos on Facebook, alas), but based on the one line we hear Adrian sing, my best guess is that this is from The Uncanny Valley's self-titled song. While the video is vertically shot, the filmer got a good view of the whole band, and even tipped the camera upward to capture more of the tent, a neat reminder of the scope of the venue! Give it a look below, and stay tuned for more from the Valley soon!

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 updates on his Facebook page last month, local hard rock solo artist Mike McCleary revealed that his planned comeback instrumental album will have 7 songs running for over 35 minutes, with three of them being 7+ minutes each. As of August 28th, Mike had finished recording the music for said album, but now has to get it "to the point where I'm happy with all of the songs". Remember, Mike is one to delete and de-list old songs/albums if they're not representative of where he is currently, so he'll want this to be perfect before releasing it. Stay tuned for updates!
  
• According to pictures from the Northern Vibe Festival circulating on personal Facebook accounts (public fallout has been slight so far), local Foo Fighters tribute band The Soo Fighters featured Lockdown singer Nicole Ambeault as a backing vocalist for at least part of their set, having served similar duties at Northern Vibe last year. I don't know if she's a permanent band member or not (the band's current lineup isn't given on their Facebook page), but note that the actual Foo Fighters don't have a backing vocalist in their full lineup beyond existing instrumentalists. With or without Nicole, you can next see them opening for Sandman in October!
• No word on if he'll be back at The Trading Post for any Wednesdays this month, but local hard rock singer/guitarist Tym Morrison has been tapped to open for hair metal icons The Killer Dwarfs at Soo Blaster on Tuesday, September 13th, as per personal Facebook postings! If you're only familiar with Tym's acoustic gigs as of late, remember that he used to be a prominent electric guitarist here and in Calgary with metal bands like Hollow, Carbon Black, and (most recently) Caveman Morrison, so even unplugged, he'll be a good fit! Tickets are still available for $22 at this link!
   

That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and notes on the site soon! Thanks everyone!