Let's tackle some recent news and notes from Sault Ontario on this rainy Sunday morning, including some new videos, recent updates on an album release, and leading off, here's a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT!
Local folk punk/emo solo project Agnosticism will return to the stage with a headlining date at
The Distraction on Saturday, May 25th! Led by young & prolific local guitarist Mikhal Muto, Agnosticism (whose only social media account is
on Instagram) haven't played live that much in recent months, possibly owing to Mikhal's busy schedule in at least three other bands, but I believe this will be their first public show since releasing their new EP
"A Letter Of Resignation" on major streaming services, so you could call this the de facto release party! That EP will be reviewed on the SMS this month, for the record. Mikhal will be joined here by two other solo artists, including 2022 Soo's Got Talent finalist and
The Floor Between Us frontman Colin Gasparelli (who opened for Jackal Blood here in February) and Mikhal's Vanity First bandmate Andrew Beggs, who is credited as "Andrew Keith" for this concert.
No word on if Andrew's solo set will essentially be a one man unplugged Vanity First set or if he'll employ a different sound, but come down to The Distraction on East Street to find out! This Memorial Day weekend concert has an early 6:00 PM start time, no age limit, and admission set at "$5 or pay what you can". This should be a good time for fans of folk punk and acoustic stylings, so visit the official Facebook event page for more details!
Next up, and speaking of
Vanity First, let's cover some recent updates from Andrew and Mikhal's local punk band! For those of you who haven't bought their new album
"Identity Crisis" on CD or vinyl, the guys posted the back cover of it on
their Facebook page on April 25th, so you can glean some more information on the album that way. They credited "Studio 702" as where the album was recorded, and you can see the complete writing and singing credits as well. Notably, Mikhal was the producer of the album, and sang lead on "Off With The Heads", "When I Fall", and "Playboy Magazine", the latter of which being the only song co-written by drummer Keeghan McAllister. Of course, that album was launched at their release party at
Soo Blaster on April 20th, and they continued posting content from that show to Facebook after the fact, including lots more black & white photos by Honest Job's Drew Armstrong.
Vanity welcomed a guest guitarist for at least part of their set on 4/20, namely Carmen Muto (second from the left), who is either Mikhal's brother or cousin, I am not 100% sure which. If you want to see how he factors in, both of the videos posted from the concert feature Carmen, and both are covers, including a (sadly) vertical clip of them covering NOFX's
"Linoleum", and as embedded below, a shorter but horizontal clip of them covering "Suicide" by Choking Victim. Everyone sounds good on these covers, which did seem to go over well with assembled fans, and while Carmen was stiff up there, his guitar work did help fill things out! Before we move on entirely, Vanity First also posted
a "Reel" on Friday featuring in-studio performance footage of them playing "Off With Their Heads" from the new album, and heavily filtered with strobing lights (an interesting choice given that the band has confirmed that Andrew is epileptic).
I don't like "Reels", as readers will be well aware, but the video is neat looking, and I hope that a horizontal/non-"Reel" version exists to capture the whole song, especially if Vanity First intend it to be a formal music video! In any event, I can't embed it here, so watch it (and more) above, give their live Choking Victim cover a watch below, and stay tuned for more from Vanity First when it rolls in!
We'll close today with a new video of local/Barrie alternative/hard rock musician
Mike Haggith's set at last year's
Northern Vibe Festival in Ophir, courtesy of
his Facebook page on Wednesday! While
a full live-stream of Mike & crew's set was filmed at the festival last year, this is pro-shot, multi-camera footage that was filmed by Justine Chalykoff of local filmmaking company
Chalykoff Studios, who reportedly filmed Mike's whole set thusly. At the time, Mike promised that "a proper full-length video" was coming, not to mention
a teaser clip of an interview that Mike and his solo band recorded with Justine, but neither has made its way online in full yet. At least we have one song from the concert proper from what Chalykoff Studios shot, and hopefully we'll get more from it and the interview (even with the bassist switch) in due course! Justine filmed Mike playing his and drummer Brandan Glew's old band
The Din's song "Missing", which was their sixth of eleven songs that day.
No less than five cameras (four stationary, including the camera from the live-stream) filmed the guys in action last year, so you get a lot of great looks at the band and Forest Stage setup, especially notable given how the off-the-grid nature of Northern Vibe doesn't lend itself to plentiful video content compared to something like Rotaryfest. Note that the credits list Elly McWatters as a backing vocalist, but that appears to be a remnant of the full Chalykoff Studios video to come(?), as she only joined Mike for the last two originals. Excellent video, so give it a watch below, and hopefully there's more to come before Mike returns to Northern Vibe in July!
That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and notes on the site this week! Thanks everyone!
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