Banned Concert & Swearnet Movie Previews, Plus More New Videos!!

Before we kick off this post, I have a note on a concert cancellation (maybe a mistake?), as Traverse City metal trio Scarkazm are apparently NOT playing at The Northern Pines Lounge at the St. Ignace Kewadin Casino this weekend. While Kewadin pages still list the local dates, Scarkazm's own pages list this weekend's gigs as taking place in Cadillac instead, with their next St. Ignace shows coming in October. Not sure whether these were tentatively local once or erroneously announced, but best of luck to the guys this weekend, and fans can see Scarkazm back in the U.P. in the fall!

As a result of the Scarkazm switch, we'll instead look at The Chippewa County Fair, as the annual Kinross family festival is putting smiles on faces once again this year, and while the Rock Till You Drop battle of the bands is not advertised to return in 2014, Kinross hard rock trio Banned are still playing their own solo set TOMORROW! As announced on their Facebook page on August 19th, they'll be playing at the pavilion near the Lion's Club building at 4:00 PM tomorrow, so battle or no battle, Banned will be rocking their hometown tomorrow around supper time! Note that the fair's own website lists the 4:00 Pavilion timeslot as "to be announced", which is likely due to it not being updated since Banned's confirmation. Fans of ALL AGES can check out Alex & Don Traynor with new bassist Wayne Lawrence at the fair tomorrow among other events like stock car racing, animal shows, a tractor pull, and more, so click here for all details relating to tickets & admission fees!

As of right now, this is Banned's last scheduled gig of the summer, so keep it in mind if you're at the fair or in the Kinross area for some hard rocking entertainment! For a preview, here's Banned's recent video slideshow of their current lineup covering Stevie Ray Vaughan's "Pride & Joy"!



Next up, here's a preview of a different sort, as a movie filmed here with a metal connection opens TODAY, that being Swearnet, the new film from the stars of the Showcase (now Netflix) mockumentary comedy series Trailer Park Boys! As you may remember, Swearnet (which is about T.P.B. stars Robb Wells, Jean-Paul Tremblay, and Mike Smith forming their own uncensored online TV network) was filmed locally in Sault Ste. Marie in late 2012, and scenery from the Soo is readily seen in trailers! This fits on the SMS however due to ex-Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach's cameo role in Swearnet (following his own Trailer Park Boys guest part), which some of you guys may remember from some Sebastian sightings during filming, including a karaoke night appearance at The Canadian! A little birdie also told me that some familiar band paraphernalia will also be seen from time to time. Yes, Swearnet is showing at Galaxy Cinema at The Station Mall, and it will open there TODAY at 2:10, 4:45, 7:25, and 10:10 PM, with similar screenings times in the following days, though like with any other movie, it's longevity at the theatre will depend on it's overall box office performance.

It's not often where a major movie makes it way to Galaxy Cinema with a ties to both the Soo and metal, and knowing how much many readers like the Trailer Park Boys, I'm sure many of you won't want to miss Swearnet on that basis either! Early reviews are good, and I do hope to check out Swearnet soon myself! I will advise though that Swearnet (which is 112 minutes long) is rated 18A for it's content, so fans under 18 must be accompanied by an adult. For a preview of Swearnet, here's the official green band trailer!

Also, here's a bit of a surprise, as local funk/hard rock quartet The Elements recently made the 8 hour trip north to Moonbeam for this year's 16th annual Hempfest! As you may remember, the annual marijuana culture/concert festival made the full time move to owner Robert Neron's hometown this year due to rising costs and shrinking attendance in Ophir, contributing to the local summer concert festival dropoff this year. Though advertised as "The Hip-Hop Year", The Elements (who haven't played a public local gig since the Jack Spades EP release show in May) played sets yesterday and will again on Saturday, making them the first heavier local band to play Hempfest since 2011. Nice to see a local connection this year, and a slight variance from the rap theme, so hopefully their sets went over well! It's not much of a glimpse of their set, but Hempfest's official Facebook page features this 28 second cell phone video of The Elements' set from yesterday of the guys covering The Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Soul To Squeeze", so what can we see within?

Not a lot due to the length, but there's solid event lighting (the venue in Moonbeam is indoors) and I like the inflatable aliens! The lack of a crowd is concerning, but it may be due to when they played, as they opened the Thursday music lineup at 4:00 PM. In terms of critiquing The Elements' performance, there's not much as I can say due to the length and slow pace, but everything sounds fine compared to the original song. Check out The Elements live at Hempfest (albeit 8 hours away) below, and see more 2014 Hempfest videos at the above links!



Finally for today, here's a short new video from new local rap/metal duo The Apocalypse Afterparty, as uploaded to their Facebook page on Monday! It's of members X & Z "partying before their set on Saturday" (referencing their between-band involvement at Soo Band Roulette at The Rockstar Bar), though it mainly features X answering a question about if they're ready, and Z dancing to a live rapper's track. Interesting watch, but of course, you'll see the real Apocalypse Afterparty experience on Saturday night, so don't miss Soo Band Roulette, and give their new video a look below!



That's all for now, but stay tuned for more news this weekend, plus this month's CD review shortly as well! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Who Made Who), And Ultraviolence/The Big Four Reviews!!

So did you remember to check the SMS out at 10:00 PM last night for the all-concerts auto-post? I hope so, cause there was a lot there to get through, and even still, that's not all! Before I review Ultraviolence & The Big Four, we have another LOCAL CONCERT ALERT, so here's what you need to know!

Just four months after they last came through here, Who Made Who, The Ultimate Tribute To AC/DC will be back in Sault Ontario in exactly ONE WEEK! Sorry for the short notice, I was only alerted to this show today. AC/DC fans sure have had a lot to cheer about locally in 2010, after seeing Who Made who at Nite-Life Dance Club in February and then seeing ANOTHER AC/DC tribute band, Hells Bells, at The Canadian Nightclub just last month! And just like at their May 2009 concert here, Who Made Who will be back at The Canadian themselves! What can you say, Sault Ste. Marie loves AC/DC and AC/DC tributes love coming here! The Ontario-based tribute band will bring their own authentic AC/DC sound and look once again next week that will be sure to impress, just as they did in their last shows here! The show will be on June 30th at 10:00 PM, there is a $5 cover charge, and you must be 19 to get in. You can never get too much AC/DC, so what excuse do you have to NOT go? Confirm your attendance at the Facebook event page, and check out more from Who Made Who by clicking here!

Now, onto reviews of what happened last night! Well, as you guys were probably aware, me and a few dozen other local metalheads found ourselves at Galaxy Cinema in Theater 1 for The Big Four: Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax, live from Bulgaria! Well, it didn't turn out to be completely live, though that was probably to quicken things. Before the bands started, we didn't have to sit through trailers and ads, luckily, we actually got to see Lars Ulrich, Scott Ian, Dave Mustaine, and Kerry King talk about music and their influences and stuff, it has a nice casual interview feel! Anthrax opened to a huge raucous crowd, and I can see why, but I didn't expect them to be so into Anthrax and know all the songs! The band were fantastic and looked to be enjoying every minute of the show, especially singer Joey Belladonna, who went all out with his energy, including running around like a maniac with his Indian headdress during the song "Indians"! The highlight of their set was when they stopped mid-song to cover "Heaven and Hell" in tribute to Ronnie James Dio, that was just awesome! My biggest complaint about Anthrax was the vocals, probably cause I'm a huge fan of John Bush, and I never thought Joey's singing fit a thrash band, though I will say his voice has held out the best of the current Big Four frontmen!

Megadeth were next, and they sadly had to play about half their set during rain. I would have blamed Lars for trying to sabotage Dave and them, but that sounded cruel. Musically, they were on top of their game, with just an onslaught of thrash metal with no chit chat needed between songs! Again, like with Anthrax, my big complaint lied with vocals, it sounded like Dave Mustaine was straining his voice a lot of the time to hit higher and angrier notes. It's also awesome seeing David Ellefson back, and Chris Broderick's guitar work is just awesome, Dave did good to get him! Following them were Slayer, and I have to say, they still sound as good as ever! I was actually going into this thinking Tom Araya's singing would be the worst, cause last I heard, his singing was shot. Not last night, he sounded pretty close to their recent albums! Musically, I can't complain one bit, Kerry King's guitar mastery was obvious, Dave Lombardo laid waste to his drums (for my money, he's the best "Big Four" drummer), and the whole band played with an obvious intensity combined with joy to be playing!

Before Metallica played, we got a surprise tribute segment to Ronnie James Dio, who was supposed to play this festival with Heaven and Hell as well before he died. Lars, Scott, Dave, and Kerry reminisced about Ronnie and their memories meeting him and playing with him, which was really cool! Everyone at the theater responded to that nicely! When Metallica hit the stage, they had an awesome stage setup with a huge video screen and pyro and all kinds of bells and whistles, and luckily, their music lived up to the presentation! They played many of their greatest hits, and they sounded very tight, though I do have complaints. The fire in James Hetfield's voice isn't there as much, and it sounded like he tried too hard at various parts. Also, the downtuning was really evident on a number of songs. Still, they were awesome, and thankfully didn't play anything from their mid-90s albums or "St. Anger"! There was a moment where we could see what was on James' guitar pick, which I won't spoil, but everyone loved that! And then, to kick off the encore, Metallica were joined on stage by Megadeth, Anthrax, and Dave from Slayer (where were the rest of them?) to play Diamond Head's "Am I Evil?", and that was a surreally awesome moment! Never would I have thought I'd see James Hetfield and Dave Mustaine share the stage again, I think Hell froze over!

Overall, that was a fun way to see the four kings of thrash, and I definitely think Galaxy should show more metal concerts there, cause if something else huge is there, it'll be worth seeing too, I think! There were some general camera issues, a glitch during Slayer, and it ran long, but no worries! Hopefully The Big Four tour together in North America in the future! Can you imagine if they all played HERE? One can dream!

However, because "The Big Four" ran long (it ended around quarter to 11), I actually missed the first half of Ultraviolence's first set at Coch's Corner, but that wasn't going to stop me from going! I've missed seeing them too often already as it was! I made it there mid-song and settled into the closest booth possible and got ready for some filthy dirty drunk n' roll! Now you know how I've said that Ultraviolence have an AC/DC-ish sound? Well, guess what the first full song they played when I got there was? "For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)"! And I have got to say, frontman Turi Mercuri has a great Brian Johnson-esque voice, I can see him fronting an AC/DC cover band if he wanted to go that route! But good thing they don't, cause they have some great originals and covers of other bands to go around! Their set had a number of covers from many different bands, ranging from Twisted Sister and Motley Crue to Led Zeppelin and Motorhead (bassist Jordan Beer'd handled vocals there) to even some Elvis Presley! Plus, they threw in their originals like "Hey Li'l Mama", "Queen Heartbreaker", and "Devil's Little Girl", that are full of raw hard drinking energy that the crowd ate up!

Turi Mercuri's a great frontman, and not just vocally, he was all over the place, jumping on tables, singing to and with the fans there (I got to sing along with the chorus of "Rock N' Roll"), and engaging in some funny on-stage banter! Actually, he and the rest of the band are all very nice guys, they're class acts and I got to chat with them during their first break, which was really awesome! I even got my CD autographed, thanks guys! Andrew Postlethwaite was great all night on guitar, though it seemed like he was hidden a lot of the time, maybe it was just my angle of the stage. Jordan Beer'd ruled on bass, he's gonna go far himself, and Phil Elliot kept the beat nicely on drums, he had some great licks! The crowd, thought not humongous, were great considering this was a Tuesday night concert, and everyone there was getting into it and having a good time, singing along and talking with the band, it was a great environment!

I'm dead honest when I say this: I haven't had this much fun at an out-of-town-headlined bar concert since Ministry of Zen were here last, and even then, there might be some dispute! Ultraviolence are entertaining, they have a great sound, they're nice guys, and they'll get you moving and grooving! The horns and beers were flying, and rightfully so! At points, it didn't even feel like some Tuesday concert! If you weren't there last night, you missed out big time! But keep in mind that Ultraviolence end their summer tour here on July 31st, so go to that concert, you'll thank me later! As you can tell, I took lots of photos, though excuse the quality, the lighting in Coch's Corner wasn't great for photo taking, so the setting made them grainier than I'd like. Click here to check them out, and yes, I got a video too! Here's what I got, Ultraviolence playing their original song "Devil's Little Girl"!



I'll leave this post there for today, but here's what to look out for on the SMS! Tomorrow's post is solely dedicated to previewing this weekend's local metal concerts, including the big Tesla show at Kewadin Casino on Saturday! Friday will have a news post with lots of updates that I need to get through, and also, keep an eye out for my newest profiles of out-of-town bands with local members (this month: The Disciples of Rock & Violet Fuse) between Saturday and Wednesday! And remember, the SMS' 3rd anniversary is ONE WEEK FROM SUNDAY! Stay tuned for more news and updates as they come in!