Recent News & Updates From Spades GT & Mike Haggith!

Today's post is designed to cover some recent notes and content from two different local acts that eventually moved to Barrie, Ontario, as both have new albums, videos, and other news to touch on that have fell by the wayside in recent weeks. Here's what you should know!

We're definitely behind on recent updates from local/Barrie crossover thrash quintet Spades GT, so what's new to report from their camp? Firstly, we do have more Josey Scott's Saliva videos coming, but there's stuff before and since that we haven't even hinted at from the former Jack Spades yet! One year to the day after playing Spiderfest in Meyersburg on the same weekend as Random Killing, the two bands (both fronted by Saultite vocalists) joined forces at The Atria in Oshawa last night, so how's that for another hardcore homecoming from afar? Following their already announced gigs in Cambridge and Toronto, the band (minus Jay) made their way home to the Soo for the Josey Scott's Saliva concert on June 24th, and while that was the de facto release party for us, the actual release party will take place tonight at The Queens Nightclub in Barrie, over a month after "Sewer City Radio" came out!

No idea why they didn't time a release party with the actual on-sale date of June 2nd, but better late than never! Spades GT, guitarist Daniel Horton's other band The Fast Life, and fellow Barrie punk band Kill/Death Radio are playing this event, which also coincides with the release of their "Final Girl" music video, details forthcoming. Good luck tonight, of course! In another new GTA concert announcement, Spades GT will open for No Signal at Inside Skatepark in St. Catharines on Saturday, July 22nd (details here), while they & The Fast Life will both be opening for Hamilton death metal band Death Perception on Saturday, July 29th at The Killroom in Hamilton. Should be good shows if you're in the area! All other updates since have been in the form of *sigh* "Reels", including two teaser clips of the "Final Girl" music video (linked here and here), with the latter edited more like a horror movie trailer, which is very fitting.

The letterboxing of the widescreen music video is not ideal whatsoever in the vertical "Reels" format, but the wait is almost over! As of this writing, the video is not live yet but we'll give that its own feature in an upcoming post. The last "Reel" was to promote yesterday's Random Killing show, featuring drummer Tyler Reiner and singer J.D. Pearce plugging it from a pool, if you can believe it. Can't embed them externally, so give them a watch above, and stay tuned for more from Spades GT in the near future!

Next up, here's some recent updates from local/Barrie alt-hard rock musician Mike Haggith, starting with a video interview with him that I've put off for way too long! On June 8th, Mike was one of the remote guests on the first episode of The S.W.A. Happy Hour (S.W.A. stands for Songwriters Anonymous), an interview series hosted out of New York by musicians Dominick Torregrossa and Chris Lane Sr. that you can see episodes of at this link. Mike is not the only guest, but he is an S.W.A. member, so there was familiarity with him & his music from the hosts. Mike's segment begins about 26 minutes into the 2+ hour livestream, and includes a full airing of his "Carousel" lyric video, which more or less premiered here before it went public. At 31 minutes or so, Mike pops in for a 45 minute interview, where he discusses the lyric video & song, his involvement with Songwriters Anonymous, his own songwriting process, ...

... the lyrical choices & thematic sensibilities in "Carousel" and other songs, his upcoming album "All The Best In All You Do", guest guitarist Hetriani's appearance on it, Mike's musical journey from Windsor to the Soo to Thompson, his musical influences, whether he listens to stuff like he actually plays, and his recording process, before playing "Carousel" again so they can re-analyze the song again with the benefit of what Mike has said. The interview ends with some summative and fan-submitted questions, plus plugs for Mike's current and upcoming music links. Not a bad interview at all, and the ultra-focus on songwriting will be appealing to some, especially compared to some of his other interview/guest appearances on similar webshows! That interview is embedded below, but just to get some other recent notes covered on here, this image is in fact the "All The Best In All You Do" album cover, despite the lack of any credits.

This is something that wasn't immediately clear when it first popped up on Mike's social media channels, but this means it will be his first album since he moved from Windsor to not have his name or the album name on the front. You can now pre-order "A.T.B.I.A.Y.D." for $10 on Bandcamp (no sign yet of the teased bonus songs for Bandcamp buyers only), but if you'd rather wait for the official on-sale date, that is Thursday, coinciding with his opening set at Rotaryfest Stage 1! Stay tuned for more from Mike soon, and here's his S.W.A. Happy Hour interview!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for this month's Defunct Local Band Profile next! Thanks everyone!