It's been a minute since we talked about local/Barrie crossover thrash band Spades GT on the SMS, so what have they been up to since we left off in late September? Well, we'll start with a new live video of theirs that was uploaded to their Facebook page on September 25th, courtesy of the show where they opened for The Exploited and Total Chaos at Lee's Palace in Toronto earlier that month! This was cobbled together from footage shot by Julie's HC Music and Stuff, as well as Thrash Panda Productions head Bowser Tabernak, who is one of the organizers of the annual Spiderfest in Meyersburg that (Jack) Spades have played at often over the years. The band was filmed here playing "Final Girl", and in a throwback to their late 2022 incarnation, ex-guitarist Jay "The Beard" Sarrazin came back to fill in on bass for their shows with The Exploited that month (new second guitarist Matthew Voros was ill and missed both dates).
The two camera angles were well edited together for this video, with one very close to the stage from an upward slanted angle, while the other was further out and captured the entire stage in frame, but was not stationary and did slowly sway around. Good stuff, and while they were down a guitarist, Spades delivered a rollicking rendition of the first single from "Sewer City Radio" here, so give this strong live video a watch below!
After that Friday the 13th show in Toronto, the bands in question regrouped on Ottawa the following day to rock The Brass Monkey, with Andrew Depedro reviewing the show for KNAC, and you can read his review at this link. While Andrew seemed to refer to that night's lineup as their current lineup, he praised their punk-esque energy levels and "bombastically eavy bruising numbers", while also remarking on their "unpolished driving ambition for many of their peers to dig". A picture of guitarist Daniel Horton was included as well. Solid praise of the band and set, so give his review a look above! On October 27th, the band posted a "Reel" to their Facebook page of Daniel and drummer Tyler Reiner remarking on their songwriting sessions at their "jam chamber" towards their planned new album next year, and they're apparently working on "some bangers", with hopes for fans enjoying "the direction tempos and messages".
As usual, "Reels" are unembeddable on external websites like this, they can't be played in background tabs, and they're forcibly short/vertical videos, so keep that all in mind, but the content within is encouraging for Spades fans! Another "Reel" was posted on November 2nd of the guys (sans Matt) in an apparent recording studio, but it just has static images and music, without new visual content. Spades GT played their final show of 2024 on November 8th, when they returned to their adopted hometown of Barrie to open for Battlescarred at The Rec Room. This show (entitled "Battle Cry Against Cancer") was a fundraiser for Battlescarred frontman Ray Galica following his own cancer diagnosis, so kudos to Spades for stepping out to help out Ray at this difficult time! $3,200 was raised for him and his family on this night. A recap video and "killer shots" were teased but never uploaded for unannounced reasons.
You can see a static image from their set in this brief video (not sure why they did it like that), but it confirms that Matthew was back in the fold for this set. With Jay on the road touring with Sierra Pilot, Spades GT called in Daniel's Fast Life bandmate Andrew Moorhouse (who provided backing vocals on the studio version of "XS") to play bass for the night, so he's a good familiar choice! A post-set "Reel" was also uploaded, where Daniel noted that they had a "couple (of) boo-boos", but "Andrew killed it", and he praised Barrians for coming out, while also hyping "lots of new surprises" for the new year. No sign of Matt, and the rapidly flickering light should definitely be advised for anyone who could be prone to seizures (maybe it's a good thing I can't embed it here!), but it's a nice little post-show update! Lastly for today, another "Reel" was posted on November 10th featuring Tyler and singer J.D. Pearce at their jam space.
Here, Tyler praises a bottle of rum that they had there, notes that they were just working on two new songs, and showed off their demo recording setup, including a keyboard that will reportedly factor on at least one song. It's hard to read the on-screen text behind the Facebook caption, but Spades plan to record their new album in February with producer Kyle Marchant at Room 21 in Toronto, similar to "Sewer City Radio" last year. We'll have more from the Spades camp on the site soon, but visit the above links for more on what J.D., Daniel, Matthew, *insert bassist here*, and Tyler are up to as of late! Thanks everyone!
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