Let's continue playing catch-up with local/Barrie crossover thrash band Spades GT in today's single-topic post, so what have they up to over the past 3 months? We'll rewind back to October 24th to start, when drummer Tyler "Jeeb" Reiner took part in a 19 minutes long interview with Jason Saulnier of the Nova Scotia-based music interview website Music Legends, and you can see much more from Jason's past interviews via his YouTube channel. The interview is actually the second time that Jason has interviewed Tyler, following a 2012 telephone interview, for the record. This time around, the interview starts with light talk about Tyler's personal life before giving an introduction to Spades GT, and unlike in a lot of the band's promotional materials, Tyler does acknowledge the band's beginnings as Jack Spades in the Soo, including how he met them during Caym's tour runs up north, and how he joined the relaunched group after J.D. & Daniel moved down south in the early 2020s.
The interview next delves into the challenges of promoting their music as an unsigned band (Tyler has been serving as the band's manager/publicist as well as drumming), while connecting the dots to Tyler's existing business experience. He next discusses how Spades GT's album "Sewer City Radio" got its name, and if the lyrics of the title track didn't clue you in, the album's name is 100% inspired by Sault Ste. Marie. How the album artwork was conceived and pitched comes up afterwards, and Tyler also goes into how they approached the writing and recording of the album. Spades' 2023 concert slate is next on the docket, with bigger past shows and then-upcoming dates plugged, along with friends of the band, with Tyler ending things with his hopes for what he wants listeners to get out of their music, including the diverse comparisons that people have had between Spades GT and more mainstream bands.
Good interview that gives some relatively rare acknowledgement to the Jack Spades years, and compared to other times that I've seen Tyler interviewed, he really leaned into the behind the scenes aspect of things in terms of marketing and promoting the band rather than just playing with them. Jason was good to let Tyler talk unencumbered, but I will say that he could have segued between topics less abruptly, as it seemed like he was trying to move things along too fast without proper transitions. Give this video interview a watch for yourselves below!
In terms of Spades GT proper, their first concert after this interview saw them open for Tyler's dad Robb's band Anvil (you may have heard of them) at Queens Nightclub in Barrie on November 9th, with the two bands joining forces again at The Rockpile in Toronto eight days later. The former seemed to get more attention after the fact, starting with this review by Richard Varty from The Simcoe Scene, which is the same blog that interviewed the Reiners to promote the then-upcoming Barrie concert. The review focuses on Spades GT and not the other bands that night, with Richard comparing them to the band on the Titanic, and calling them "the house band of the end times". Lots of hyperbole and intense imagery to describe how Johnny, Dan, Killroy, and Jeeb performed on this night, so it's easy to see why the band liked the review, which you can read above! A recap video was uploaded to Facebook as well, though sadly, it's as a "Reel" so it can't be embedded externally.
Like their In Crust We Trust "Reel", this features assorted video clips of Spades GT hanging out pre-show, mingling with attendees, and of course, that night's bands, all as set to a studio track of theirs (in this case, "XS"). Alas, as a "Reel", it's vertical, short, unembeddable, and unplayable in background tabs, and while it's a well edited taste of what absent fans couldn't see, one must wonder what kind of raw video they're sitting on from this show, as the video quality looks really nice! The Toronto show also got some promotion via Tyler in this "Reel" featuring their song "Red" as the backing audio, and it also got a recap video (uploaded as a "Reel") set to "Succubus" that is very similar to the one from Barrie. It does have some unique touches at The Rockpile, like a fancy throne and... a slide? Again, I find "Reels" very limiting and I'd love to see fuller, horizontal, and/or raw footage from this show, but I'm very behind on the TikTok age.
Next time that we talk about Spades GT, we'll pick things back up with their show in Newmarket opening for Random Killing at The Lion Pub & Grill on November 18th, so stay tuned for more from their camp in the near future, and this weekend's concert previews next! Thanks everyone!
No comments:
Post a Comment