It's now time for this month's YouTube Channel Profile! This monthly feature series looks at 1-3 YouTube channels whose uploads are at least half made up of videos featuring local metal, hard rock, and/or punk musicians and/or concerts, in order to spotlight and showcase what's posted there and encourage you guys to view/subscribe. For our second randomly selected profile of 2024, we're heading back to the late 2000s for a prominent local punk band, so here's what you should know!
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justfrenchie's Channel (http://www.youtube.com/justfrenchie)
Owner: Redundant singer/guitarist Justin "Frenchie" Langlois, also known for fronting The Scary Uncles and playing guitar in Fitswitch, among other projects
Channel Timeline: Launched on December 19th, 2007; Videos uploaded from February 2008 until December 2010
Channel Summary: The de facto official YouTube channel for 2007-2010 local punk band The Scary Uncles, Justin uploaded two live concert videos, two jam session performances, and an audio track of them here. The only video not credited to the band is of Justin playing a solo cover on vocals & acoustic guitar.
Why You Should Watch: This is worth a watch for fans of Justin's local band work over the past 15 years, and not just fans who remember The Scary Uncles, as they always shared many sonic similarities with Redundant, so you can make links to see where things began! Note that this channel has not actively been used since The Scary Uncles disbanded.
The Scary Uncles - Should've known: Four performance videos of The Scary Uncles in 2008 were uploaded to Justin's channel, including two from a concert at The Other Place (f.k.a. GLOW) on Gore Street where they covered The Ramones' "Blitzkrieg Bop" (with Justin's ex-Fitswitch bandmate J.D. Pearce on guest vocals) and Green Day's "Christie Road". The audio quality is really rough on those, but you'll get more out of their jam session clips featuring original songs, namely "Cripple" and (as embedded below) "Should've Known", which was later adopted by Redundant and appeared on their 2018 EP. These videos feature Justin alongside his future Redundant bandmate Andrew "Scary" MacDonald on bass and Mark Mullin on drums. Solid performances with nice clear visuals for 16 year old YouTube videos, so fans should take to these easier for audio & video quality than the concert uploads!
Justin - Paper Lanterns acoustic: By far the most popular video on Justin's channel, over 15,000 people have watched his unplugged cover of Green Day's "Paper Lanterns" (which, like "Christie Road", is another song from Green Day's pre-"Dookie" releases). Featuring Winnie-The-Pooh among his captivated audience, Justin nails this cover despite the acoustic trappings, and I'm sure it translated well to live concerts at the time! Note the dim lighting and background hiss, which aren't dealbreakers for watching this cover, but remember that this was uploaded to YouTube in November 2008.
Labatt 50 - The Scary Uncles: In one of The Scary Uncles' last public acts, Justin posted the studio version of their original song "Labatt 50" to his channel in December 2010. This was claimed to be from "their new album", which I don't believe ever came out, but Redundant fans will know this song under its new name "What Will You Do", which was also released on Redundant's EP in 2018. The song is accompanied by a slideshow of pictures of Justin, Andrew, and Mark during their heyday. The Scary Uncles' version of this song is more or less the same as "What Will You Do", but it is played slightly faster and Justin's voice is definitely higher than it would become. It's definitely interesting to hear the original version, and it's a shame that The Scary Uncles didn't realize their full potential, but at least Justin & Andrew got there moreso with Redundant!
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I hope you guys liked this month's YouTube Channel Profile! This series will return on or around March 26th when we look at another randomly selected channel, and this time, we'll look at inactive local/Ottawa hard rock band Bad Chug's channel, featuring assorted performance clips from their Ottawa-based years. Look for that next month, and for more news and this month's CD review in the coming days! Thanks everyone!
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