Tuesday, April 16, 2024

Spades GT Updates & Videos From Early 2024!!

Let's continue playing catch-up with local/Barrie crossover thrash band Spades GT in today's post, and we'll pick things back up from last week with continuing coverage of their set at the second annual Walterstock memorial/charity concert at The Rockpile in Toronto on January 6th! In our post on April 7th, we looked at some fan-shot videos that filmed single songs from Spades GT, but their full set at Walterstock was also filmed, and in this case, horizontally! This was filmed by YouTube user Jake Disman, who previously shot Spades playing "Hands" at the Road To Lockdown Fest last year at the same venue, but this time, he didn't put a filter over the video afterwards. Owing to the fact that Walterstock had twenty-seven scheduled acts in one day, the former Jack Spades only had a 15 minute set, in which they played "Succubus", "Red", "Final Girl", "Sewer City Radio", and "Rise" (the latter was not planned to close but they didn't know they had extra time until they finished "Sewer City Radio".)

While Jake's video is softer and more distant than the closer videos that we featured here last week, this horizontal stationary video captures Spades GT ripping a furious (if rushed) mini-set, and you can't ask for much more out of what J.D., Daniel, James, and Tyler gave in 15 minutes than what you get here! Audio quality is much crisper than the video quality too. Check the whole thing out for yourselves below!

Moving into the month of February 2024, Spades GT's music video for "Final Girl" (as well as the newest video from guitarist Daniel Horton's side project The Fast Life) were reviewed by the Facebook music review page E:W:L (Even Without Life), which normally reviews new independent music not unlike You Rock! or Your Music Live. You can watch the 2+ hour livestream at this link, and host Tim Woloszyn looks at the "Final Girl" video an hour & 39 minutes into the stream. Despite the focus being on independent music, the portion of the stream where Tim plays Spades GT's video is muted due to Facebook content matching the song, even though Spades were 100% on board with being promoted here, so the video is sadly unembeddable externally. Tim highly praised the video and song though, and definitely was amped up as an on-camera personality, so check out the whole thing by clicking here!

Updates were relatively quiet from Spades GT's camp in February aside from openly putting their name out there re: bookings for later this year, both in the GTA and elsewhere. The band is now taking pre-orders for an official skateboard featuring the band's logo stencilled over the "Sewer City Radio" album cover, so click here if you want details on the construction and how to place an order! On March 8th, the guys confirmed that they have begun writing for their next album, as per this "Reel" (no video there though). They revealed that they're "stepping outside the box" here, but to what extent is to be revealed, and the band has since revealed that they plan to release new music "this summer". A few days later, Spades posted a new video from the Random Killing show in Toronto last September (also double posted as a "Reel" for some reason.)

The video sees Spades GT playing "Red" at The Bovine Sex Club, and it's a well shot video from a close angle (horizontal, at that) which gives a larger feel to the venue! Fittingly red lighting (maybe too red), but everything sounds and looks good, and while I don't know why they didn't share this last fall when the show was still fresh in mind, better late than never! Give their new-ish "Red" video a watch below!

We'll close with the aforementioned E:W:L, as Spades GT returned to that webseries for its March 22nd episode (also unembeddable due to Facebook content matching songs played on air), where Tim interviewed bassist James Roy Daley and drummer Tyler Reiner over Skype! The Spades section begins 32 minutes in with a playing of "Sewer City Radio" (now muted), but you do see Tim enthusiastically rocking out still! In terms of the interview proper, Tim (with help from commenters) asks the guys about their belief in ghosts, how they define music, how they write their songs, their favourite Canadian musicians, their rehearsal patterns, past drug experiences, how the band met (Tyler referenced the band's Soo origins here and even briefly mentioned why ex-bassist Daniel Rodbard left), the genre of music they'd prefer if they couldn't play punk/metal, an... interesting experience from their Northern Vibe Festival set up here in 2022, ...

...their favourite song to play live, why they got into music, and their message to the indie music community. The interview runs until the 65 minute mark, so we get over a half hour of loose and fun conversation with Spades' rhythm section here! I'd have structured the topics of conversation a little more naturally, as it seemed very random without a lot of follow-ups, but James & Tyler came off well, so give the whole interview with E:W:L a watch at this link! Remember, I can't embed it here due to the content matched audio elsewhere in the stream. We're almost caught up for Spades GT activity, so we'll have more from them last & this month on the site soon, along with more local content! Thanks everyone!

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