LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Downtown Street Party), New Videos, And Much More!!

We made it out of July, so let's kick off August with a new news post, including some assorted recent updates, new videos, and a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT! Here's what you should know!

Local classic/hard rock cover quartet Generations and online page-less alt-punk cover quintet Bookclub will join forces on Thursday, August 10th for the second summer street party of the year on Queen Street East! Put on by the Sault Ste. Marie Downtown Association, this follows their first street party of the year on July 13th, which featured the debut of new local rock band Turbo Dad (featuring alumni of Ashes To Dust, Convergence, The Saturday Nights, and The Uncanny Valley), though I don't know if their sound encroaches into heavier territory. Specifics on the family friendly entertainment next week are surprisingly not out yet, but visit the Downtown Association Facebook page for updates when they occur, or to see what happened last month. Expect games, vendors, and a good time (weather permitting) in any event, and both Generations and Bookclub should deliver strong sets to a receptive audience!

The street party will take place on a closed off section of Queen Street between Spring Street and Dennis Street, and while they have not yet specified where on Queen that the bands will be playing, note that last year's street party between Spring & Dennis had the band stage set up at the corner of Queen and March Street. The festivities begin at 5:00 PM on Thursday, and have no cover charge. Hopefully things live up to their usual promise for families and music fans alike, so visit the above links for continuing details on next Thursday's street party!

Next up, here's the first public video from new local classic/hard rock cover quartet Silent 9's Facebook page! This comes from their set opening for North Bay country/hard rock musician Cory Marks at The Machine Shop last month, with an uncredited attendee filming them covering AC/DC's "Highway To Hell". It's a shame that this video is only 31 seconds long, as the quality of this camera is really good, and it captures the Obsession successors handling this hard rock classic very nicely across the board! I'm definitely curious to see more, but give it a watch for yourself below!

Also today, this is a bit of a follow-up from my review of Handsome Sandwich's debut album "Deconstructed" on Saturday, as this never made a normal post at the time. On July 7th, the local alt-hard rock quintet posted the album on YouTube via individual uploads of all 11 songs that you can access via their YouTube channel and/or this playlist, with each video creatively highlighting just one individual item on the sandwich on the front cover (two if you count both bread slices on "Darkside"), with the rest blacked out. If you wish that they hadn't changed the album's name from "Lettuce", then you may like that this sandwich's lettuce is highlighted on tracks #5, #9, and #10! The images are static, but have pulsating light effects on the album text. Effectively done way to differentiate what may otherwise have just been a stock YouTube Music upload, so give the opening song "Stick Up" a listen below!

Finally for today, here's three assorted shorter news items from the last while, and as usual for short story blocks like this, these are in alphabetical order by artist or company name:

• I have regrettably removed defunct local classic/hard rock cover band Obsession from our band links due to the deletion of their Facebook page and closure of their website (I don't believe that they had any other proper social media/band pages). The veteran fan favourites ended their 18 year run in February due to guitarist Gabe Tessaro's retirement from live music (That's Chester reunions excepted), with his bandmates splintering off into Soundcheck and the aforementioned Silent 9. I wish they would have at least left the Facebook page up, but follow Obsession members' current projects to see what they're up to now!
• In a Sault Star article by Jeffrey Ougler last week, he talked about the history of major touring musicians at GFL Memorial Gardens since the former Steelback/Essar Centre opened in 2006, especially in regards to a survey that the downtown arena put out to ask mailing list subscribers about what concerts they should try to book here. Rock & country led the way, and arena general manager Robert Santa Maria was interviewed about the challenges and ideal scenarios for attracting certain acts while minimizing any sort of monetary loss for the promoters. This is an interesting read, and hopefully the survey was fruitful, so read it for yourself above!
• Louisville, Kentucky post-grunge quartet Tantric will return to the region on Sunday, September 3rd at Bates Corner Bar & Grill in Gould City, Michigan! This is a 90 minute drive from the Soo, albeit still in the Upper Peninsula, so while it is out of our coverage range (about as far from here as Blind River), you guys may want to consider checking this out, as tickets are just $20. A robust lineup of openers includes local metal quartet Tarnished (no strangers to Gould City on their own), a very rare U.P. set from St. Ignace deathcore band Heavy Lies The Crown, and oft-seen Saginaw rap rock band Redburn, among others. For such a small town, this is a huge concert, and hopefully there's a solid turnout over the Labour Day long weekend despite the 90 minute trek for many!
  

 

That's all for today, but stay tuned for this month's "Where Are The New Albums?" post on the site next! Thanks everyone!