The Newest Mikey & His Uke Cover, Mike Haggith Updates, And More!!

Before we get into today's post, just a heads up that local southern hard rock trio Bone Yard & their sister band The Bearded Lounge have cancelled their Shooters Downstairs Lounge shows last night and tonight due to an illness affecting 2/3rds of the band, as per Bone Yard's Facebook page. It was already known that they'd have had special guest sitting in this weekend, possibly related to The Bearded Lounge subbing in for Bone Yard at The Water Tower Pub last week, but I don't know specifics. Shooters are instead hosting music video dance parties this weekend, and Bone Yard plan to return for their first shows in a month next weekend at Jay's Piston Broke Pub. I hope everyone gets well soon!

Today's post is otherwise focused on recent videos from some familiar faces on both sides of the border, plus the latest from a prominent local solo musician, and let's lead off with this month's Mikey & His Uke cover video, which was posted to the project's YouTube channel last week! In a partial diversion from Mikey Hawdon's usual punk cover choices, he tackled Billy Idol's "Rebel Yell" this time out, with Mikey on guitar (and ukekele at first) as usual. For this cover, the remotely filmed all-star band includes Bowling For Soup frontman Jaret Reddick, Steel Panther guitarist Russ "Satchel" Parrish, Buckcherry bassist Kelly Lemieux, his former Goldfinger bandmate Darren Pfieffer on drums, and Arkells keyboardist Anthony Carone. This cover comes through nicely and everyone handles their instruments with zest, and Jaret's singing is a good match! It'd have been amusing if he had did Motley Crue though (when did they become classic rock?)

Visually, the difference in musician placement and camera angles adds variety to the proceedings too, especially Kelly's unique perspective, and while it's a shame that Satchel's video was shot vertically, at least they mirrored it rather than letterboxing it. Yes, Mikey is playing guitar in front of the arcade games at Soo Blaster, which is a nice touch! Solid stuff as usual, so check out the newest Mikey & His Uke cover video below!

Next up, here's the latest from local/Barrie alternative hard rock singer/guitarist Mike Haggith, and while major updates on the public resumption of his original music post-move are still forthcoming, he's hardly been idle! In a post on his Facebook page on Tuesday, Mike announced the formation of his own indie label MorningStar Records (named after his song "MorningStar", and an imprint he has used for Thompson-era solo releases), which he calls "a record label, minus the label". The idea is that musicians record their music where they want for as long as they need, and then become an "affiliated artist", not a signee to the label, so Mike wouldn't own your music. He'd host the material on the planned website, sell it, list the artist there with a biography and updates and whatnot, with physical albums made to order (presumably via Kunaki, which Mike used for recent solo albums). This way, costs are kept down and the artist retains as much control and independence as possible.

Mike claims to have had a vision of working with a label like this for over a decade, especially given the difficulties he met releasing solo albums in the past, not to mention existing label restrictions and commitments that musicians often run in to under contract. This is definitely an ambitious idea, but hopefully it takes off, as Mike knows what its like in the system and I know him well enough to know that he means 100% well to help other rising independent artists! The label may not be Sault Ste. Marie-based, but Mike is definitely getting the word out about MorningStar Records on local music-related Facebook groups/pages and has attracted positive local notice, with industrial metal solo project Molten Imp already revealing on their Facebook page that they plan to release a "double EP" through MorningStar "this fall". Stay tuned for updates on that front!

Outside of the label plans, Mike announced that his monthly Facebook live-streams will return on Tuesday, March 28th where he will interview Ryan Jensen of the Denver, Colorado alt-rock solo project Surrender The Tides. while Mike teased that he will be interviewed by Brian Tremblay on local internet radio station The Borderline's show Rock & Roll Heaven, airdate yet to be announced. Sounds like things are picking up for Mike in 2023, if not in the new album-centric ways many fans expected, so visit the above links for more on what Mike has going on at the moment!

We'll close today with a new video of local southern hard rock quintet Fort Creek's concert at Jay's Piston Broke Pub on Friday, March 3rd! We already touched on their "Give Me One Reason" cover shot by frontman Justin Grayson himself, but this one was filmed by attendee Katina King and uploaded to the band's Facebook page on Monday. It features the band covering Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Simple Man" (two days before guitarist Gary Rossington's death, for the record), and while the 87 second clip is obviously not complete, the landscape orientation and really solid audio quality help a ton to overcome the deep purple stage lighting! Check it out for yourself below, and look for more from Fort Creek soon!

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