Bookclub/Wyld Stallyns Concert Preview, New Videos, And More!!

As promised, we're finishing up this weekend's hard rock/punk concert previews in today's post (anything on super late notice excepted), and to round things out, there's an inactive band note and a couple of new videos to check out. Here's what you should know!

New and online page-less local alternative supergroup Bookclub and local funk/hard rock cover sextet The Wyld Stallyns will join forces for a special holiday season concert at LopLops Lounge TOMORROW NIGHT! Effectively a seasonal encore for two bands that shared the stage at Outspoken Brewing's Oktoberfest concert in the fall, this will be Bookclub's second concert period and first as headliners. With a stacked lineup featuring Inner City Surfers & Room 206 alumni playing a relatively new batch of songs compared to their prior punk-centric bands, hopefully Bookclub make a good impression at LopLops tomorrow! The Wyld Stallyns should do the same in this rare LopLops appearance from them, so look for a fun opener from Christina, Rob, Jesse, Alex, Derek, and Josh to kick off the festivities! No word on seasonal frills (poster aside), nor how LopLops' recent renovations will affect the concert proper, if at all.

Despite the all-local lineup, this show will have paid admission of $15 in advance ($20 at the door), and you can buy tickets online through the Facebook event page. This is a 19+ event, and it starts at 10:00 PM.  This should be a fun time for local music fans hoping to hear some talented musicians rocking out over the holidays, so definitely visit the above links for more details, and here's Bookclub live!

Next up, here's (one of) the newest Mikey & His Uke cover videos, courtesy of the project's YouTube channel! Of course, this features Bookclub frontman Mikey Hawdon, so it's a natural segue! Unveiled on November 23rd, this is a cover of Cyndi Lauper's verison of The Brains' "Money Changes Everything" featuring Mikey on ukelele (initially) and guitar once the full band kicks in. Joining him from afar are The Haunt singer Anastasia Grace Haunt, Warrant's Erik Turner and Mikey's Fairmounts bandmate/producer Simon Head on guitar, New Found Glory bassist Ian Grushka, Fenix TX drummer Damon de la Paz, and Huey Lewis & The News keyboardist Sean Hopper (a huge get for Mikey personally, as he loves that band and even briefly fronted a Huey Lewis tribute band in Toronto). Not the punkiest song going for Mikey & friends to tackle, but it's very well performed on all fronts, and Anastasia nails the vocals in particular!

While writing this post, December's (non seasonal) cover video was uploaded to the Mikey & His Uke channel, so we'll save that for an upcoming news post, especially given the people involved in that one. Nicely edited and shot, so fans of the Mikey & His Uke series will definitely want to check out their Cyndi Lauper cover below!

Also today, I have reluctantly decided to move local Celtic punk quintet Dustin Jones & The Rising Tide back to our inactive band links. The band has not updated their Facebook page in any capacity since a post share from another page on December 18th of last year, but they haven't posted anything themselves about new/future band activity since releasing their "No Control" music video in December 2020, and they haven't played live in three years. A factor in their 2021-2022 dormancy was fiddler Sheldon Jaaskelainen working out of town, and the pandemic can't be ignored either, but Dustin has been focusing his original music pursuits on his solo project Jonesy Land in the last two years, not to mention the revived Cover-Up and the aforementioned Bookclub. After their original 2007-2016 run and a year+ hiatus, The Rising Tide returned in 2018 and worked on an unreleased fourth album over the next few years, with two songs making it online.

They still gigged in 2018 & 2019 too, but dialed back their touring schedule in favour of staying local, while also expanding to a five piece lineup. It's a shame that The Tide's fourth album never got completed, but hopefully this isn't the absolute last we'll hear from them, and remember that Dustin does cover Tide originals in Jonesy Land's rare live sets. Best of luck to him, Sheldon, Marshall, Liam, Chris, and their former drummers in the future!

We'll close today by not straying too far genre-wise for a new video from former Brain Tuel guitarist Zach Reid's YouTube channel!  His first upload in a year, this video (like that one) sees Zach cover a Christmas song on acoustic guitar, this time The Vince Guaraldi Trio's "Christmas Time Is Here" from A Charlie Brown Christmas. This is a well done, if spare rendition of this jazz Christmas staple, so give it a watch below!

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