An Overdue Addition To Our Band Links, Plus Spades GT Updates!!

In what may be our final post of October 2022, we have two topics to look at, including recent updates and footage of a prominent local (well, partly local) band, but let's lead off with a belated but now truly local band of sorts to roll into our full coverage!

It's time to finally add Mikey & His Uke to our active Sault Ontario band links! Of course, this project started in the spring of 2020 when Inner City Surfers/Fairmounts alum Mikey Hawdon began doing daily vocal/ukelele "quarantune" cover videos during the first pandemic lockdown, which soon went to a more spread out release schedule, and the videos became huge deals, with Mikey getting far flung names from punk bands and even some surprise celebrities for full-band covers recorded remotely. The "Mikey & His Uke" name remained relevant, as these newer videos always start with him playing the song on ukelele before the pretense is dropped and he moves to guitar or drums. We have covered the project on the SMS before, especially for covers that involved fellow local artists, but I hadn't rolled the project into our links yet because Mikey was living in Toronto still. That was, until June, when he moved back to the Soo!

Great to see Mikey back home after two decades of primarily living out of town (impressive given the number of local bands he was still involved in during that time), and hopefully we hear much more musically from him with Bookclub and such now! As for Mikey & His Uke, his monthly release schedule looks like it skipped June due to his big move, but three official covers have made their way to his YouTube channel since. July's video saw Mikey cover The Go-Gos' "Head Over Heels" alongside actual Go-Gos frontwoman Belinda Carlisle, as well as Bags singer Alice Bag, Runways bassist/former Jeopardy! champion Jackie Fox, and members of bands like The Circle Jerks & Arkells, among others. August's cover was of NOFX's "Quart In Session" alongside Descendents frontman Milo Aukerman, Frenzal Rhomb guitarist Lindsay McDougall, and Less Than Jake bassist Roger Lima.

Embedded below is Mikey & His Uke's newest cover(s), as he tackled two Operation Ivy songs ("Jaded" & "The Crowd") alongside skateboarding legend Tony Hawk (not his first appearance in this series either), NOFX frontman Fat Mike, and members of bands like The Bouncing Souls, The Interrupters, and more. As usual, Crusty Media handled the video's production/editing, while the song's individual parts were mixed & mastered by Drive Studios, both out of Toronto. All three of the newest Mikey & His Uke cover videos are a lot of fun, and put together very naturally for the viewer, but a lot of work goes into these, both for recruiting guest musicians, making the videos proper, and getting them online. In fact, the Op Ivy video has Mikey noting at the end how they get these songs onto major streaming platforms, so you know how cover songs with this many collaborators get cleared, and how you can do the same.

Obviously, there's much more that the SMS hasn't covered from before Mikey moved home, and there's a literal who's who of familiar names for diehard punk fans in his covers from the past two years, alongside some very surprising gets, like Moby, Danko Jones, and many more (let us not forget Harry Waters Jr. from Back To The Future either!) Definitely visit the Mikey & His Uke YouTube channel for much more, look for more soon (time's running out for an October video, after all), and here's Mikey & crew covering Operation Ivy for the series last month!

Finally for today, here's the latest from local/Barrie crossover thrash quartet Spades GT, who played their last show of 2022 when they opened for The Ripcordz at The Queens Nightclub in Barrie on October 1st. The band has since confirmed on their Facebook page that they are working on their first full-length album, following their Jack Spades-era EP and the "Fed Up" split that they were also on. Last week, the guys mentioned on Facebook that they "laid the groundwork for three new bangers today", those being songs named "Dead To Me", "Stars Over Jamestown", and "Last Line". One imagines the middle song references the local James Street district, but I can't 100% confirm that yet. Spades GT also have had new band stickers made up, so message them on Facebook A.S.A.P. if you want one! You can see them in this "Reel", such as "Reels" are. There is one new video to check out from the aforementioned Ripcordz concert too!

Uploaded to their Facebook page on October 2nd, this 68 second clip has the guys playing the back half of what sounds like a newer song of theirs. Good thing the audio holds up decently, as the heavy purple lighting is not to this video's benefit at all, to the point where I'm not positive on who the bassist is! It looks a little like their official bassist Daniel Rodbard (who missed their third-quarter dates), and if so, he pulled double duty with Innisfil punk band The Fast Life that night based on matching attire/bass in pictures I've seen, but The Fast Life are publically cagey about their lineup on social media. In any event, solid performance, so give it a look below!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and notes on the site this week, and in case there's no post tomorrow, have a Happy Halloween!