LOCAL CONCERT ALERTTS (Bone Yard & HeadFirst), Plus New Punk Videos!!

Plans for this month's "Where Are The New Albums?" post to go up today have been slightly delayed due to a SHORT NOTICE LOCAL CONCERT ALERT hitting the news desk. To fill things out, we have more new shows for later this month and some high profile new studio material from two local punk projects, so here's what you should know!

Local hard rock quintet HeadFirst will play their first ever show at The Water Tower Pub TONIGHT! Apologies for the short notice, I only heard about this concert after seeing the band post a "story" on Facebook yesterday featuring this poster for their March concert slate. While I have never understood the conceit of posts that are designed to disappear after 1-2 viewings, I do thank the band for giving even a fleeting promotion for TONIGHT's concert, as they only previously mentioned it on their Facebook page on February 23rd, and only via the poster, not in writing. The Water Tower Pub never announced on social media who was playing TONIGHT either, so unless you know the band personally, you'd have to have seen and clicked on that image from the 23rd to have heard anything at the time. Regardless, it's great to see HeadFirst spreading their wings to another new venue, and hopefully things go well TONIGHT!

Remember, The Water Tower Pub traditionally hosts different bands nightly, with Generations having played there last night. You can enjoy HeadFirst's classic-leaning hard rock covers TONIGHT at 8:00 PM, and expect no cover and a 19+ age limit. Visit the above links for more details on TONIGHT's central gig from HeadFirst, and here they are live!

Next up, local southern hard rock trio Bone Yard have announced their upcoming concerts for the rest of March via this concert schedule image on their Facebook page last night! We'll separately cover this coming weekend's shows during our next round of weekend concert previews due to them being announced barely a week's notice, but their other upcoming dates are both Saturday nighters with no current shows scheduled on Friday the 15th or 22nd. On Saturday, March 16th, Bone Yard will return to Shooters Downstairs Lounge (who are hosting DJ nights on Fridays) for a traditional electric concert, their first at the Dennis Street nightclub this year. If you've missed seeing Greg, Alex, and Warren at Shooters since this past December, then keep this show in mind! Note that there could be a St. Patrick's Day theme that night given that the holiday falls on Sunday the 17th, but there has been no confirmation of green beer and such yet.

If you prefer your Bone Yard "uncorked", then they will return to Gateway Casino for one night only (they only book bands on Saturdays) on March 23rd, a little over a month after last playing an unplugged concert there. Fans of their acoustic sets should be right at home at the casino that night, so don't miss out then! At this juncture, possible dates for March 29th-30th have not been announced yet. These 19+ concerts have no announced cover charge, and start at 9:30 PM (Shooters) and 9:00 PM (the casino). Visit the above links for more details on their upcoming concerts, and don't miss Bone Yard at The Esquire Club tonight!

Also today, the fifth song in Mikey & His Uke's 30th anniversary series of covers of Green Day's "Dookie" album was uploaded to their YouTube channel on Thursday! Keeping with the album's track listing order, this week's song is "Welcome To Paradise", which is the second of Green Day's proper singles to be tackled as a result. The same backing musicians as on the prior "Longview" cover are back here, with local punk standout Mikey Hawdon (guitar/initial ukelele) joined by Pennywise bassist Randy Bradbury and ex-Goldfinger drummer Darren Pfeiffer. Vocals are provided here by former Screeching Weasel bassist Dan Schafer, a.k.a. Dan Vapid, who currently fronts Dan Vapid & The Cheats. Dan arguably has the most Billie Joe Armstrong-esque voice of the five guest singers so far, so keep that in mind, but everyone performs well on this cover overall!

Visually, this is probably the most straightforward "Dookie" cover yet for post-production and background settings (only including some crossfading between performers), but everything is still well shot and edited! Yes, Darren is wearing another hockey jersey (the sleeves are rolled up), but detectives may have trouble figuring out the team in question this time. If the scheduling pattern of 6-8 days between "Dookie" cover videos continues, then look for track #6 (the deep cut "Pulling Teeth") between Wednesday and Friday, but give "Welcome To Paradise" a watch below!

Finally, here's a surprise announcement from local punk trio Vanity First, as they have released a brand new single! As revealed on their Facebook page yesterday, the song is called "Off With Their Heads", and is apparently "streaming everywhere". If that was actually true, it'd be quite impressive! By "everywhere", they actually mean Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Bandcamp, and (as embedded below) via their auto-generated YouTube Music channel. On Bandcamp, the guys revealed that this song is "the most hilariously inaccurate viking song", and lyrics for it are posted there as well. "Off With Their Heads" will also be a part of Vanity First's second album, named "Identity Crisis" (cover art pictured), which follows their 2020 self-titled demo EP "Vanity" (released just before they tacked "First" onto their name). The guys had not publically said that they were recording an album, maybe this is why they've been so quiet lately?

No word on if their 2022 single "Get Out" or the re-recorded version of "Playboy Magazine" will be on the final product or not, but "Identity Crisis" is slated to be released "in April". If that holds, and nothing else beats it to market from local metal, hard rock, or punk acts, then its review will hit the SMS in May. I'll hold comment on "Off With Their Heads" pending our album review, but give it a listen for yourselves below!

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