I'd like to send out deepest (if sadly belated) condolences to the family and friends of veteran local rock bassist George "Kinounini" Belleau, who passed away on June 17th at the age of 55. His obituary is posted online at this link. While born in Toronto, a member of the Garden River First Nation, and a graduate of St. Mary's College in Sault Ontario, George eventually made his home in Brimley, Michigan, and was a veteran bassist in many Sault Michigan/E.U.P. bands. SMS readers may recall George surfacing in mid-late 2010s hard rock bands like RamWagon, Full Throttle, the final incarnation of Highway 63, and that band's short-lived side project Mackinaw Trail, while he was also a member of the country cover band Hawk Junction. George also played drums with the Eagle Lodge and was involved in traditional drum groups. Outside of music, he worked as a bus driver and janitor, had a large collection of movies on Blu-Ray, and crafted beadwork, regalia, and instruments in his spare time.
George is survived by his mother, two daughters (sadly, his daughter Ayanna passed away previously), two grandsons, and other extended family, including his niece, Sault Ontario-based rapper Conika. Services took place at the Bay Mills Cultural Center on June 21st & 22nd, with arrangements entrusted to C.S. Mulder Funeral Home in Sault Michigan, and interment was at Mission Hill Cemetery in Brimley. Unfortunately, videos of George in concert are not publically extant to my knowledge, but George was a talented bassist across multiple genres who was able to cross border lines effectively as a musician and personally. Thank you to Glen Thomas for letting me know about his passing, and R.I.P. George!
After a bit of a delay while we worked through Halloween weekend concert previews, here's this month's YouTube Channel Profiles! Continuing out spotlight on local metal, hard rock, and punk-focused YouTube channels that were randomly selected from our YouTube subscriptions, we're tripling up for October 2023 due to the first chosen channel only having one video, and the second only having two videos from the same band's concert set, so a third single-video channel was picked to fill it out. Each channel here ended up having videos shot at high profile local concerts from the late 2000s-mid 2010s, so here's what you should know!
Owner: YouTube user and Sault Ontario resident Samantha Mick
Channel Timeline:Launched on September 17th, 2012; Only video uploaded on July 2nd, 2016
Channel Summary: Sam (who sadly passed away in 2020, obituary linked here) was in attendance for Abbotsford, B.C. power pop/punk quartet Hedley's outdoor concert at The Yard on Canada Day in 2016, with her video capturing a memorable incident from the show where singer Jacob Hoggard called the mother of a girl (reportedly YouTube user stevie17058) caught texting during the show, using her own phone! He had done this at multiple shows, not just ours. Now, three different people uploaded video from this to YouTube, with C Auffrey getting the best quality and most complete video of the local occurrence, but Sam's captures the phone call side of things well also! For full disclosure, this video and concert came two years before the sexual assault allegations against Hedley and Hoggard were made public.
Owner: YouTube user NorthernFunko, possibly named Taylor, but I can't confirm anything else
Channel Timeline:Launched on January 25th, 2009; Videos uploaded on December 9th of that year
Channel Summary: This channel's only videos come from Norwood, Ontario hard rock quartet Three Days Grace's second and (to date) final concert at the Essar Centre (now GFL Memorial Gardens) on December 8th, 2009, where NorthernFunko filmed them playing "Never Too Late" and the slightly more popular "The Good Life". Though not as well attended as their 2006 debut here, it was a very entertaining concert (being a huge fan of Adam-era 3DG, I was at both), and the crowd response and energy are captured well on both of these videos! The choppy video quality, muffled audio, and somewhat jittery angle are forgivable to an extent given that these videos are almost 14 years old (hard to believe!), but more videos from both local Three Days Grace concerts are available elsewhere on YouTube.
Channel Timeline:Launched on May 26th, 2012; Only video uploaded that same day
Channel Summary: Josh's channel (distinct from his old Chainsaw666 channel) only features one video, and from a show that Garden of Bedlam didn't even play at. On May 23rd, 2012, Juno Award-nominated Ottawa grindcore band Fuck The Facts headlined at the former Canadian Nightclub, with Josh's video capturing that show's three local opening bands in performance order. These include Central Algoma death metal quartet For All That Is Lost playing most of "Ripped In Two", inactive local grindcore trio Shit Liver playing parts of five songs, and death metal quintet The Bear Hunters playing chunks of "Bloodthirst" & "Dominate". Given the age of the video, these come through pretty well today thanks to Josh getting some nicely varied angles, and while the staticy audio during Shit Liver's section, most songs being abbreviated, and the lack of Fuck The Facts are noted, this is a nice little slice of the local metal scene from over a decade ago!
I hope you guys liked this month's YouTube Channel Profiles! We're finally back to looking at a single video channel today, as our random selection has spotted us AshesToDustBand, the official channel of the short-lived early 2010s high school hard rock band Ashes To Dust! Look for that on or around November 26th, and for a Halloweeny news/concert preview post plus this month's CD review next! Thanks everyone!
I wasn't planning to double up with posts on this Saturday, but a SHORT NOTICE LOCAL CONCERT ALERT came to my attention, and we'll fill things out with a lengthy new video interview with a familiar face, and the surprise cover songs he was involved with! Here's what you should know!
Local hard rock quartet Rhythm & Brews will return to The Cozy Corners Tavern & Grill (well, outside of it) in nearby Barbeau to cap off their Oktoberfest celebrations TONIGHT! Apologies for the short notice, the band only announced their involvement via their Facebook page on Wednesday, but the venue's Facebook page had been plugging the band as headlining for well earlier than this week. Rhythm & Brews debuted at The Cozy Corners at 6800 East 15 Mile Road in July for the Dunbar Dirt Road Dash, and TONIGHT's show will similarly be for a special event, with this Oktoberfest being a fundraiser for the Hospice of the E.U.P. in Sault Ste. Marie, so don't bypass that wonderful cause! Rhythm & Brews' established hard rock covers and likely Van Halen flourishes will be capping off Oktoberfest TONIGHT at 9:00 PM outside of the venue, and a bonfire, cornhole tournament, stein hoisting contest, and more will be ongoing from 2:00 PM onward
Also don't forget the smoke-off that began this morning, and again, sorry again about the late notice! I believe admission is free for Oktoberfest, with donations and funds from the smoke-off and internal events going to the Hospice, and of course, expect a 21+ age limit given the beer emphasis. 9&10 News is calling for cloudy weather from 9:00 PM-11:00 PM before showers are projected to set in, so hopefully Rhythm & Brews and the crowd escape the rain! No preview videos of Rhythm & Brews yet, alas, but visit the above links for more on TONIGHT's festivities!
Next up, here's a 50 minutes long video interview with former Gates of Winter/Woods of Ypres guitarist Bryan Belleau! Conducted remotely last month by Tyler Fleming of the Pensacola, Florida doom metal band October Noir, he hosts a YouTube interview series called The Noir Hour, which launched in the summer and has roughly posted an interview a week since. The interview is primarily based around Bryan's two year stint with Woods of Ypres (though Gates of Winter come up), and includes questions about Bryan's life in British Columbia nowadays, how Bryan met David Gold & joined Woods of Ypres with the rest of Gates in 2008, experiences working with & learning from David, Woods' influence and reach in the past decade, how he got involved in a cover of "Wet Leather" featuring Bam Margera (more on that at post's end), his folk/jazz music with his wife Melinda out west in the last few years, seeing bands cover Woods of Ypres songs at the Ypres Metal Fest in the Soo in 2012, ...
...his reactions to David's death the previous year, his relationship with David after leaving the band, Bryan's thoughts & perceptions of his album with the band (2009's "Woods IV: The Green Album") and some songs individually, the emotional impact of Woods of Ypres' late-period songs, the personal qualities & positive impact of David's mother Esther (a.k.a. Mama Gold), his musical development while recording with Woods, what Bryan knew about the "Home" single (he was told that the songs were "Woods IV" leftovers), the personal reasons that led to Bryan amicably leaving the band before their 2010 American tour, the wide-ranging friends Bryan met through Woods of Ypres, his views on the impact of his stint with the band, and how involved he wants to be in metal nowadays, especially now that he is a father with different priorities.
Solid interview with Bryan coming across as very humble & appreciative of both his time in Woods of Ypres and the kindness he's felt from fans of his, the band's, and David's in the past decade, and while Tyler was an acknowledged late bloomer to Woods fandom, you can tell he was thrilled to talk to Bryan and get his insight! Some more talk about Gates of Winter, even if just some more details on the Gates of Ypres 2008 tour and/or why Lee, Brian, and Steve progressively left, would have been interesting, but Bryan definitely hit most notes non-local Woods fans will wanna hear. Give the interview a watch for yourself below!
To close, what was that about Bryan recording a cover of "Wet Leather" with Bam Margera that I mentioned earlier? I assume this flew under the radar because Bryan isn't locally based anymore, but in April of last year, Bryan collaborated with Matt Lidwin of the Milwaukee goth metal project 616 to remotely cover "Wet Leather", with Bryan on guitar and Bam (formerly of Jackass fame and his band Fuckface Unstoppable) singing chorus vocals, alongside former HIM drummer Mika "Gas Lipstick" Karppinen. 616 have strong HIM overtones, and Bam was a major fan of theirs already, so the shoes fit! Clearly a good working relationship was also established between Matt and Bryan, as the two worked together on another 616 cover earlier this year, tackling Type O Negative's "Everything Dies" last month, a song that Bryan mentioned in the Noir Hour interview was tentatively planned for a Woods of Ypres covers album that never made it to the studio.
Both 616 covers are on all major streaming services, I have them linked/embedded here via their YouTube channel. Great hearing new metal material from Bryan for the first time since Gates of Winter's last public "Perhelion" teasers in the mid-2010s (I miss them), both songs suit Matt's (and Bam's) vocal ranges well, and the covers are faithful but with some extra flourish and effects to help them stand out a little. Well recorded and produced, and if you don't mind the lyric repetition of "Wet Leather", it'll be easy to hop on board with that cover. Give them a listen above & below!
That's definitely all for today, but stay tuned for more news and notes on the site next week! Thanks everyone!
It's now time for our last monthly feature post at the SMS for July 2020, namely this month's YouTube Channel Profile! This monthly feature series looks at 1-3 YouTube channels whose content is at least half devoted to local metal, hard rock, or punk artists/concerts, in order to spotlight their public uploads for modern day readers and encourage hits and subscriptions. This month's randomly selected profile gives us some intriguing early videos from one of the biggest local hard rock bands of the late 2000s and early 2010s, so here's what you should know on it!
Channel Timeline:Launched on March 8th, 2006; Videos posted from January 2008 until July 2009
Channel Summary:Evan primarily dedicated his personal use channel towards videos from the early run of his 2007-2015 local hard rock quartet Garden of Bedlam, who feature in five live concert videos from a set at a local festival, and two early jam session covers. His sole video without his bandmates features Evan playing an original bass line towards a proposed future song. Why You Should Watch:This channel is a must watch for fans of Garden of Bedlam, especially those who were around the band in their initial public rise in 2008, and it's interesting to see their early originals and covers in this still proficient state! The solo video of Evan's also shows promise towards the future, even if the visual quality can show it's age to a point. Note that while this channel has seen some personal use in the past decade or so, there have not been any videos afterward to document Garden of Bedlam's local run beyond 2008, but the band's official YouTube channel & guitarist Josh Belleau's own YouTube channel will fill in some blanks.
Our Recommended Videos To Check Out:
Headup cover: If you followed Garden of Bedlam's earliest concerts, you'll know that Tool and The Deftones were frequently covered by them live, and this is reflected in Evan's first two jam session videos from January 15th, 2008, of their classic lineup covering Tool's "Ænema" and, as featured here, The Deftones' "Headup". Featuring Evan alongside singer Erik "Buzz" Boissineau (ex-Barfly/Changing Lanes), his cousin Josh Belleau on guitar, and ex-Papa Fogals Chair drummer Derek Turner, both covers are strongly done, especially given the band's lack of live experience together, though the dark and fuzzy video quality really dates both of these.
Garden of Bedlam - Sober (Tool Cover): Most of Evan's uploads come from Garden of Bedlam's set at the annual Hempfest in August 2008 nearby Ophir (on the grounds of the current Northern Vibe Festival), back when the local marijuana culture event was still under it's original ownership. The Hempfest videos include two early original songs ("The Truth Will Set You Free" & "Sovereignty"), plus covers of Godsmack's "Awake" and two more Tool songs ("46 & 2" and the channel's most popular upload, "Sober"). A good crowd of festival-goers witness this solid performance, and as you'd expect, Garden of Bedlam definitely knew their way around Tool songs! Also, despite the age of these videos and the lack of zoom, the video & audio quality is more than respectable, with every band member clearly audible!
Something New: Almost a year after his final Garden of Bedlam uploads, Evan posted one last video in July 2009 of him playing a solo bass track. He noted in the description that this had "minimal structure right now", and he was seeking input on it, despite turning off comments for the video proper. The song in this form sounds fine, and it sounds familiar, but I don't know off hand if it became a later Garden of Bedlam original. Not bad audio quality either, and hopefully we hear more music from Evan down the line!
I hope you guys liked this month's YouTube Channel Profile! Our next randomly selected channel in this series will be YouTube user rubbs001's channel, featuring videos from a band active during Garden of Bedlam's early heyday, namely defunct Sault Michigan hard rock quartet Nixxon Dixxon! Look for this on or around August 26th, and for more news and notes on the site later this week! Thanks everyone!
