LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Oz, The Rock Show, And Generations), And More Updates!!

Before we begin this post, I wanted to belatedly acknowledge that Sault Michigan classical metal band Theatre of Night did not play at The Soo Theater on November 30th as was advertised by the venue this fall (like in this event schedule poster). A reason for the cancellation was not publically announced, but the show was never confirmed by Theatre of Night on social media. The band is alive and well, and have been recording and teasing things on their Facebook page that I hope to talk about on the site soon, but it is disappointing to see Craig, Steve, and crew seemingly not playing a Christmas tour this year. Stay tuned for more from them!

Today's post otherwise features LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS for the coming months, and some assorted recent updates, so let's lead off with the return of Bay City classic/hard rock tribute band The Rock Show to the E.U.P.! One year after they toplined the St. Ignace Kewadin Casino's New Year's Eve party at The Northern Pines Lounge, The Rock Show will take things an hour north to The Rapids Lounge in the Soo for that Kewadin branch's New Year's party on Tuesday, December 31st! This year's trip north is basically an inverse of last year's, as The Rock Show will also be rocking out in their alternate guise as a Journey tribute band at the St. Ignace branch on Monday the 30th, but like last year's Journey gig in the Soo, this is a private event (at press time, the St. Ignace Kewadin doesn't have an advertised band booked on the 31st this year). The Rock Show have a strong handle on classic and hard rock hits, so don't miss their regional return!

All of the action goes down two weeks from tonight at The Rapids Lounge, there is a 9:00 PM start time with no announced cover charge, and I am unsure what kind of seasonal frills that Kewadin will have for the occasion, but there should be something. Ring in 2025 the rock way with The Rock Show, and visit the above links for more details!

Next up, let's head to Sault Ontario, where local classic/hard rock cover quartet Generations will play their first show of 2025 on Saturday, January 4th at The Water Tower Pub! Drummer Tony Santoro announced the gig on their Facebook group on Sunday, and while the venue has not corroborated the booking on social media at press time, a January schedule should be posted at the Great Northern Road location in a couple weeks (hopefully it makes it online, not all of them do). This will be Generations' first show since rocking Reggie's this past Saturday, and their first Water Tower Pub date since headlining their Halloween party. With no gigs planned closer to Christmas or New Year's, be sure to welcome Generations back for a new year in a few weeks' time! Remember, The Water Tower Pub hosts different nightly acts, so no word on who is playing on Friday the 3rd yet. As usual here, expect an 8:00 PM start time, 19+ age limit, and no cover charge. See above for more details!

Also this weekend, let's head back to Michigan, where Iron Mountain classic/hard rock cover quintet Oz will return to the aforementioned Rapids Lounge at the Sault Ste. Marie Kewadin Casino on Friday, February 14th and Saturday, February 15th! The band announced these dates via their own Facebook event page, as Kewadin's entertainment page has not been updated to reflect shows beyond February 1st at press time. Oz played two weekends at the Soo Kewadin in 2024, most recently just over a week ago, so it's good to see this talented cover band back in our neck of the woods for another pair of hard rocking nights of classic rock favourites! Like normal at The Rapids Lounge, these show should have 9:00 PM start times, 21+ age limits, and no announced cover charges. Visit the above links for more details on Oz' eastern road trip on Valentine's Day weekend, and stay tuned for possible updates if they roll in!

Finally for today, here's three assorted shorter news items from the last while, and as usual, these are in alphabetical order by artist name:

 

• I have moved Sault Ontario rapper/punk artist Tristan "Bold Noize" Goslow to our inactive band links due to a year's inactivity, last updating the profile & cover photo on his Facebook page in October of last year. As you may recall, Bold Noize debuted a new punk sound at Lopstock 2023, as heard on his "God Save Me" album that August, but all but two songs from it were quietly pulled from streaming services afterwards, hence why I never reviewed it here. No word on if he'll resume his punk work at all, but hopefully we haven't heard the last from Bold Noize!
• I have switched the link for local grindcore solo project Crucify The Whore from their now-deleted Facebook page to their Bandcamp page. As far as I know, C.T.W. is alive and well, but the graphic content of their song titles and album artwork may have gotten their "jgtdry" page yanked by Facebook, which has happened before. Assuming that Tyler doesn't start a new one, you can get project updates via their label Blood Shed Productions' Facebook page, and they released music on Bandcamp as recently as July!
• I have also moved local hard rock/experimental solo musician Mike Cliffe back to our inactive band links due to a year's inactivity. Mike is still very active as host of the Audiofumes podcast, and promotes some upcoming concerts from local musicians thusly, but I haven't seen anything clearly new from him as a musician in well over a year. Hopefully Mike releases some new music or videos of his own music again down the road, but listen to Audiofumes for eclectic underground music from around the world!

 

That's all for now, but stay tuned for more news and notes on the site in the coming days! Thanks everyone!

Two New Album Releases, A New-Ish Punk Project, And More!!

Before we begin today's post, I wanted to apologize for missing a show in this past weekend's concert previews, as local classic/hard rock cover quartet Soundcheck played for a second straight year at Algoma Tree Services' annual community meet & greet outside of their homebase in Goulais River on Saturday night. Like last year, they joined classic rock band Angry Joe & The Growlers for this Kiwanis Club children's charity event, which was publically open with family activities. Also like last year, Soundcheck did not publicize their involvement on their Facebook page, though Algoma Tree Services did. I profusely apologize once again, I'd have covered it had I known, but hopefully things went well despite the forecast!

Now, today's post otherwise looks at some recent videos and updates from an array of local musicians, starting with new album releases, one being from a new addition to our band links, namely local rapper Tristan "Bold Noize" Goslow! While active locally since at least 2015, Tristan (who originally rapped as "White Noize") only crossed our radar on multi-genre events that he performed at, such as the old Sky's The Limit mental health fundraiser concerts, The Soo's Got Talent in 2018, and that year's Rotaryfest Stage 2. That changed once I started covering Lopstock III's SooToday live-stream from late last month, and whether you saw Bold Noize thusly or in person at LopLops, you'll have seen him reveal that he was working on a punk album that was released as planned to major streaming services on Thursday! It is titled "God Save Me", reflecting his faith, with his Christian rap status being more prominent in his early years.

The nine song album indeed features Tristan singing rather than rapping along with full band instrumental tracks, and while I have not seen public credit given to who played guitar and such on "God Save Me", note that he sang along with recordings at Lopstock, as he did for his four proper rap cuts that night. The music on offer definitely leans toward punk way more than nu metal, and I was reminded a bit of Machine Gun Kelly's rock output in terms of how Bold Noize approached the shift in genre. Honestly, the songs come through better as punk rock songs via the studio recordings than they did at Lopstock, owing to the pre-recorded instrumental tracks being heard & mixed as intended on streaming services. Bold Noize can carry a tune well on the punk songs, and you can hear for yourself how he handles a totally different genre on Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube, while the album is definitely on sale digitally for $8.99 on iTunes.

I would suggest that Tristan get a live band going, even if just occasionally, to better reflect the "God Save Me" album/future punk dalliances live, but it's hard to say what his next plans are, as he doesn't update his Facebook page all that often. Beyond "God Save Me", Bold Noize is a skilled MC with a strong flow, as local rap fans over the past decade will be well aware, but how far will he go in the punk realm? It'll be interesting to find out, but I do plan to review this album on the SMS formally in January (we're booked solid through year's end), and check out "God Save Me" above & below!

Next up, here's one more new album release, as local "blue Chinese metal crash punk" quartet Sykotyk Rampage's have newly put out their 69th studio album, fittingly named "69"! The cover artwork obviously gives the title in Roman numerals as "LXIX". While this was released to their Bandcamp page on Saturday, the band gives a release date of September 6th there. hardly a new conceit for their albums since becoming a studio-only band in 2017. Production and personnel-wise, there's nothing shocking to report from their prior album from earlier this year ("Genius Mushrooms With Thoughts Of The Stoned Ape"), but "69" appears to be a normal album without an overarching concept. 19 songs are included, enough to force this to be a double album if printed on CDs, and there are definitely some suitably eclectic titles for longtime fans!

You can buy "69" via digital download for $15 on Bandcamp, and you can stream it for free there as well. A review of this album (if not another album if they surprise us with one beforehand) will likely hit the site in February 2024, given our continued backlog, but it's great to see the Beckers, Shane, and Tony back with more improvised & irreverent bluesy hard rock, hopefully befitting the "69" title for anyone inclined to put on their environ-mental suits! Buy or stream "69" above!

We'll close today with a new live video of local/Toronto pop rock cover veterans The Killer Hooks, courtesy of their set at White Pines Collegiate & Vocational School's 50th anniversary reunion at The Canadian Bushplane Heritage Centre last week! Odd that they wouldn't have it at the S.C.T.C.... maybe the seats were an issue for mingling Wolverines alumni? The Killer Hooks are the occasionally seen high profile cover band fronted by Gsis Murphy's Tony Marcello, and we have brought them up on the SMS on occasion when they were filmed doing a hard rock cover, though their sets are way more pop rock in tone and focus. I really should go through their own videos at some point to see what heavier tunes they've done since we last talked about them, but this video comes from Mike Blair at 705Live Sound Co., who handled sound at the White Pines reunion.

Uploaded to 705Live's Facebook page on Friday, the video features The Killer Hooks covering Kiss' "I Was Made For Loving You", and if you want to get a dance floor going via a Kiss song, that'd be the one to use! The 42 second clip is obviously abbreviated, but Mike had a nice view of the stage with effective stage lighting to highlight the band nicely, and they handle this song pretty well! I'd have based it more on Kiss' later live versions where Paul sung the verses at full voice, but beggars can't be choosers. Give this Killer Hooks video a watch below!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for more of our Lopstock III fallout tomorrow! Thanks everyone!

Lopstock III Coverage (Part 3!!)

It's been too long already, let's continue our extended look at Lopstock III at LopLops Lounge on July 29th today via the middle two acts who played at the 8+ hour "bohemian conclave! Firstly, just some unfinished business from our coverage of Bold Noize's set in part 1 from last week, as we can now officially title the three new songs from his debut punk album "God Save Me" that he did not introduce by name. In order, they are named "Hopes Up", "New Man", and "The Taurus", and while I will talk more about this album/its punk quota on the site soon, Tristan would perform five of the nine cuts from "God Save Me" at Lopstock. Now that we have more details, give those songs a look/listen above! As for Lopstock III in progress, we pick things back up with the fifth of ten acts from two weeks ago, namely local rappers Mykey "Sawbé" Preston and Ethan Stoneburgh (who typically performs under just his last name).

The two MCs have performed together frequently since at least 2019, and have rapped in joint sets often in 2023, Lopstock among them. They're introduced by promoter Brendan Garlick at 2:44:37 of SooToday's multi-camera live-stream embedded below, during which time Brendan defended the local rap scene as being quite real (I guess there are people who don't think we really have one). Sawbé & Stoneburgh led off with their joint single "NFR Cyphers, Pt. 3", before curiously going in reverse to do "NFR Cyphers, Pt. 2" next (albeit sans Mic Swiff from the studio version). They next perform "We Ready", afterwards doing a brief song that I couldn't identify by name (possibly called "Stages"?), before Stoneburgh traded places with the aforementioned Bold Noize for one of his joint songs with Sawbé, "Sand Castles". Stoneburgh returns for another brief song that wasn't introduced (perhaps these are transitions by design?)

Next, the two MCs are joined by fellow local rapper Grief and (from off stage) Bold Noize again, uniting all four performers on "Rust", which Stoneburgh is the lead rapper on rather than a featured performer. A brand new song (possibly named "Hellbound"?) is performed by Sawbé & Stoneburgh next, before they do another song not introduced by name. Grief returns to the stage next to join in on "All Eyes", whose hook was sung in studio and at Lopstock by Handsome Sandwich frontwoman Taylor "Tea" Emlaw! Nice to see her involved, especially as this is Sawbé's most popular song on Spotify! Taylor trades places with Bold Noize for this set's closing song, with all four No Filter Records MCs joining in for Sawbe's "Burning In Hell". Hip hop isn't something that I am super knowledged about, but Sawbé, Stoneburgh, and crew are talented rappers with good flow and intensity when called on!

Sawbé made use of the LopLops space well, and while Stoneburgh's stage presence was a little stiff, you can see how the two pair well on these songs, with Grief also impressing for his features, and Bold Noize making up for the lack of rap in his set to boot. Rap fans will definitely want to give this set a look below or via the song names linked above! As Lopstock started with acts with shorter sets, the sixth set from young local alternative/indie rock quartet The Hollow Heads' set concluded the first half of the festivities. If you're unfamiliar, you may recognize them from Rotaryfest Stage 2 both this & last year (among other events), and frontwoman Gabrielle Dumas was involved in the Clusterfolk Music Festival last year as a solo artist. Also, Pointless' Bill Priddle & Dustin Goodall helped produce their debut single. Gabrielle is joined here by guitarist Ethan Roode, bassist Liam "Curls" Morassut, and drummer Joseph Rosso.

You may recall seeing this set via The Hollow Heads' own YouTube channel, with the band having re-posted their songs from SooToday's live-stream there as a complete set and via individual uploads, so keep those in mind for the convenience. In order, they played "Rat Race", "I Get It", "Breakup", "Invested", "Rearview", "Gypsy", "Belly",  and "Lucy", before closing with a brand new song named "I Need Time", which featured two guest musicians, namely singer Juliana Regan from two sets previously, as well as The BAG drummer Bradley (credited as Ben) Nixon on rhythm guitar. For the record, The Hollow Heads did not play their aforementioned debut single "Complicated", and like the preceding rap set, they had no covers either. The Hollow Heads' set was nicely varied for subgenres and styles, with "Rat Race" being surprisingly heavy compared to everything after it, and Gabrielle was very much at ease on stage!

She had a knack for storytelling and crowd banter, with vocal ability to match, and this young foursome definitely showed a lot of talent across their nine song set, so don't bypass them! We have now reached the (more or less) halfway point of Lopstock III, and the full hard rock/punk acts will start being touched on next, but to see what all went down between the 2:45:00 and 4:12:00 marks on July 29th, check out the full live-stream below or via individual songs linked above!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for a new news post on the site next! Thanks everyone!

Lopstock III Coverage (Part 1!!)

As you may recall, ex-Gnaeus drummer Brendan Garlick resurrected his mid-2010s "bohemian conclave" multi-band concert Lopstock for a belated third installment at LopLops Lounge this past Saturday, which served as the launch event for his new promotional agency Sault Noir. In the lead-up, he teased "one more Lopstock announcement... and it's a pretty exciting one" on social media, but at the time that we previewed Lopstock III on the SMS on July 28th, it hadn't been made 100% public, so what was the announcement? Well, the concert was live-streamed.... all of it. All 8+ hours of it! And this wasn't just a "let's set up one camera in front of the stage and hope things cooperate" situation, as this was in cooperation with SooToday, being live-streamed directly to their YouTube channel and promoted on their website proper, with three high quality (mostly) static camera angles being used for the duration.

Kudos to Brendan for getting this high production quality to log this entire show (with ten scheduled acts, mind you), and it sure blows his already extensive video coverage from the last Lopstock out of the water! This is also a good sign of intent for what he's aiming to do with Sault Noir, even if we don't see video like this all the time. The live-stream runs for over 8 hours and 36 minutes, but is bookended by 7 minute-long static title cards on SooToday's end, and the performance order was heavily changed from the posters, with the three hard rock-leaning acts all pushed into the last four timeslots. The live video begins with Brendan himself introducing the show (he was the evening's MC), and the opening artist was folk/pop singer/guitarist Hannah Lindsay, who played her original songs "The Water Runs Cold", "Speak Your Mind", "The Birds", "Scarred", and "Where I'll Go", a cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Rhiannon", and her own "Your Friend".

Remember, Brendan asks Lopstock acts to keep their sets focused around original material with a one cover limit. Hannah had a strong performance of acoustic pop rock songs here, and while not always too animated on stage, she had a comfortable rapport with the audience, so don't sleep on her opening set! After Brendan offered a quote from Flowers For Algernon and acknowledged his late friend Joonas Kamula, the second act of the evening was local rapper Tristan "Bold Noize" Goslow, whose set started with his songs "Set The Tone" and "Danger". Things took a surprising turn next when he acknowledged on stage that he was going to "switch up the vibe a little bit", as "we're putting out a punk album (in) two weeks". Now this is 100% news to me, but as a rapper, Bold Noize isn't a project that I regularly scout. Social media teasers have been minimal as of this writing, but the album will be named "God Save Me", cover art pictured.

The punk portions of Bold Noize's set were still just Tristan alone with a backing track (if he has bandmates, they weren't on stage with him), but he was predominantly singing rather than rapping. The first two songs of this ilk were not introduced by name, but you can see them linked here and here. He gets back to his existing rap output next with "Bring The War", before dipping back to the punk album ahead with the title track "God Save Me", a song named "Dead Inside", and a slower track not introduced by name, before closing with his existing rap song "Talk". Personal Facebook postings suggest that "God Save Me" will be released on major streaming services on Thursday, so keep an eye out then if this interests you. If these are a true indication of how this album will sound, then expect something more like Machine Gun Kelly's rock output than NOFX, but I'm definitely curious to hear how the final product turns out!

Is this just his existing rap structure with predominantly clean vocals, or truly something more rock-based? We'll find out soon! I'll pass judgement on the songs until I hear the studio versions (even the rap songs here were more vocally animated live than in studio), but Tristan can carry a tune as a singer, and while the backing tracks did lean more to his rap output than a fully fledged band (at least as presented here), props to him for expanding his range beyond hip hop! He also made good use of the LopLops venue to rock out in the audience rather than staying on stage, and his rap flow was fast and natural. Check out all of Lopstock III below, with our coverage of the other 88% of it to follow this month!

That's all for now, but stay tuned for much more from Losptock and beyond this week! Thanks everyone!