YouTube Channel Profile Series: Fuller - Topic & xCrimsonCrusade's Channel

It is now time for this month's YouTube Channel Profiles after a few days' delay, and as usual, we're taking a look at YouTube channels whose content is at least half devoted to local metal, hard rock, or punk musicians/concerts! This month's randomly selected channels both take us to local bands who originated local content over a decade ago, with one completing said music last year and the other emerging improved after this, so here's what you should know on both fronts! We're doubling up because the first channel only has uploads from one album and I only felt comfortable spotlighting two songs without getting too repetitive, so a single-video channel was sourced.

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Fuller - Topic (http://youtube.com/channel/UC_vmb5Gu_u_dKwscM4LOI8Q)

Owner: If anyone, Fuller frontman Jamie Vincent, but this channel is auto-generated to facilitate Fuller's newest studio album being available on YouTube Music

Channel Timeline: Launched on March 27th, 2025; All videos uploaded that same day

Channel Summary: This channel solely features all ten songs from the local midwest emo/post-hardcore band's second album "II", which was released to major streaming platforms as part of their mid-2020s revival, with the release sandwiched between Fuller's two reunion concerts in December 2023 and July 2025

Why You Should Watch: If you were a fan of Fuller's dating back to their early-mid 2000s heyday, and/or are a fan of this era of emo and alt-rock, you'll definitely enjoy hearing "II", which finally saw Mark/Nathan-era originals of theirs recorded in studio as originally intended! However, the band has not made their 2002 self-titled EP (the one where no song was titled) available to match.

 Our Recommended Videos To Check Out:

 

And I End: The most popular song on YouTube Music from this album is its second track and first advance single "And I End", a slower but melodic number that will appeal to emo fans of the era while also still harbouring a raw DIY indie rock edge! Fuller are represented here by singer/guitarist Jamie Vincent (ex-AlgomA) and bassist Mark Rand (Cross Dog), with David Peredun (Convergence) taking over drums for Nathan Sauve, who retained writing credits. Producer Dustin Goodall (who guested with Fuller at Rotaryfest Stage 2 last year) provided "additional instrumentation" on the album, but they didn't specify his exact roles and on what songs.

 

Six: Fuller ended this album with a re-recording of the untitled sixth song from their self-titled 2002 EP, even bringing back original drummer James Kersley to record backing vocals for it. While it is currently the least streamed song from "II" on YouTube Music, it's actually one of my favourite cuts on the album, so I wanted to highlight it anew. Technically beginning with a two minute intro at the end of the preceding song "Kerosene", the 2025 revision is louder, has a more satisfying ending, and is a better produced, in-your-face midwest emo song that builds and gets the point across with an interesting trancey vibe. I'll likely be moving Fuller to our inactive band links next month, but it would be neat to see Jamie and crew make new versions of the rest of their first EP at some point down the road!

 

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xCrimsonCrusade's Channel (http://youtube.com/xcrimsoncrusade)

Owner: A member of 2010-2013 local/Central Algoma death metal band Crimson Crusade, exact identity unclear

Channel Timeline: Launched on September 13th, 2010; Only video uploaded that same day

Channel Summary: The original YouTube channel for "The Crimson Crusade" saw just one upload, featuring an audio recording of their original song "Left For Dead" from an empty theater, credited as "thy shitty demo". They apologized for the recording quality, blaming the sound tech, but I'll let you determine if the only comment is from the same sound tech. As best as I can gather, this features original singer Curtis Moir, guitarists Devon Lucier (Pillory) and Brent Beaulieu, bassist Riley Marshall, and Curtis' ex-Inhuman Methods bandmate Robert Crossley. Despite the audio quality, there is promise here for death metal fans, especially given that members were still CASS students at the time, but the vocals do sound somewhat forced, and they would develop a Death-influenced technicality by the time their 2013 album "Upon The Eve Of War" came out, so give that a listen afterwards!

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I hope you guys liked this month's YouTube Channel Profile! This series will return on or around July 26th when we look at another randomly selected channel, this time Stonesmyth, featuring many original songs and videos from the defunct local hard rock project Stone Smyth (R.I.P. Troy), so look for that then, and for more news and notes this week! Thanks everyone!

Our Recap Of Episode #14 Of Metal Morpheus On The Borderline!!

We're falling behind on recapping episodes of Metal Morpheus on local internet radio station The Borderline, so let's take a deep dive into some more, starting with episode #14 from October 3rd, where host Josh Amendola concluded his trilogy of guitar-centric episodes with one all album all about guitar heroes! Specifically, these are guitarists that Josh is a big fan of as musicians, and with one exception, none were previously featured in the preceding Metal Morpheus episodes on shred guitar or amazing solos. Also, most of these are not "metal" guitarists, so just a heads-up, but they were influential on metal guitarists to come. The 67 minute episode begins with Josh explaining his criteria for inclusion in the episode, and the first artist on offer is pioneering Mississippi blues guitarist Charley Patton's song "Poor Me" (0:50), followed by the father of jazz guitar, Eddie Lang and his song "April Kisses" (4:40).

Blues guitar legend Robert Johnson is next via his song "Hellhound On My Trail" (8:30), with Josh flipping back to jazz pioneers with his next two cut, they being legendary French guitarist Django Reinhardt's song "Nuages" (13:20) and American guitarist Charlie Christian's "Swing To Bop" (19:20). We go to Spain next via influential classical guitarist Andres Segovia with his relatively brief song "Bach Bouree" (23:20), followed by the flamenco musician Sabicas with "Arabian Dance" (25:20). The first half of the episode concludes with a shift to rock via the late great Jimi Hendrix with his song "Hear My Train A Comin'" (29:55). Next, Josh returns to flamenco via Spanish guitar virtuoso Paco de Lucia's song "Impetu" (36:10), before surprisingly playing a song by country guitar great Chet Atkins, namely "Dark Eyes" (39:00). We get back to a heavier track with the legendary hard rock band Van Halen! 

Featured the previous week in the episode on amazing solos, this time we get an Eddie Van Halen solo showcase via the minute-long "Spanish Fly" (42:25). Rap metal icons Rage Against The Machine and their guitarist Tom Morello are next via their song "Ashes In The Fall" (44:05), but we follow them with this episode's last divergence outside of metal, courtesy of late Canadian jazz/country guitarist Lenny Breau's "The Claw" (49:15). Metalheads will get their fix via the episode's penultimate song, namely British metal pioneers Black Sabbath and guitarist Tony Iommi's Dio-era cut "Computer God" (55:10), and the episode ends with that week's local artist pick, namely early 2010s local/Central Algoma death metal band Crimson Crusade! Their song here is "Pillage" (1:02:10) from their 2013 EP "Upon The Eve Of War", which featured Devon Lucier and Pillory frontman Robert Sartini sharing guitar duties.

Josh does wrap the episode up by implying that this is just "volume 1" for episodes on guitar heroes, with "many more to come" featuring guitar greats not mentioned on October 3rd, but the episodes to air so far have largely returned to band-centric topics, and we will get to those hopefully soon. While the metal quotient of this episode is definitely lacking compared to prior weeks, the purpose was to outline influential guitarits who paved the way, and to to ignore these guitarists' contribution to the modern day tropes of metal guitar playing would be foolish. If anything, I'd have considered going chronological with this episode to sort of count the steps as we got to metal and it's evolution, and Josh's pronunciation of some names was a little off, but this was an informative and entertaining listen, and tune in to The Borderline tonight at 9:00 PM for episode #19 of Metal Morpheus!

Of course, you can hear all previous and episodes on demand on their website, with tonight's episode following suit after the fact, and we'll look at episode #15 on the SMS soon as Josh returns to spotlighting bands rather than guitarists individually. That's all for today, but stay tuned for news on a big recent album release and more this week! Thanks everyone!

YouTube Channel Profile Series: 62ndChamberMedia's Channel

A day early, but here's this month's YouTube Channel Profile, our monthly spotlight of a randomly selected YouTube channel whose content is at least half devoted to local metal, hard rock, or punk artists/concerts! This month's pick gives us some prominent extreme metal content from the local scene eight years back, so here's what you should know!

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62ndChamberMedia's channel (http://youtube.com/62ndchambermedia)

Owner: 62nd Chamber Productions owner Boyd Rendell (a.k.a. Darby Wigwaus), who is also known for his work as a vocalist and guitarist in extreme metal projects like AlgomA, BeeFMouTH, and Molten Imp

Channel Timeline: Launched on April 11th, 2013; Videos posted from May 31st of that year until June 8th, 2014

Channel Summary: The official YouTube channel for Boyd's inactive film production company, it's contents are primarily devoted to local musicians (mostly metal ones) that were active in 2013, which he either worked with or hosted shows featuring. While primarily of live concert footage, uploaded videos also include two interviews, a jam session clip of a private BeeFMouTH reunion, and teaser commercials for two AlgomA concerts.
 
Why You Should Watch: Local metal fans will be most interested in 62nd Chamber Productions' channel, and it captures a lot of the highlights of the scene from eight years ago! Hard to believe it's been that long since these were filmed. However, the channel has not been visibly used since 2014, preceding 62nd Chamber's website being taken down in 2016. As well, the channel does not include 62nd Chamber's short film work from the early 2010s, most notably their short film "The Last Strand".

 Our Recommended Videos To Check Out:

 

GIWAKWA - Iron Lung --- from a LXII bootleg currently in production: The first concert video here is of inactive local death/doom metal quartet Giwakwa playing their original song "Iron Lung" when they opened for Sleep When You're Dead at The Oddfellows Hall in May 2013. The video title hints that this was from a "bootleg currently in production", but whatever that was alluding to never got publically released. Despite a green post-production filter and a low frame-rate, this video captures Josh, Chris, Nolan, and Chris at their usual brutality during this brief run, and hopefully the personal teasers about a Giwakwa reunion of some kind do come to fruition!

 

 

Sabrina Strange interviews The Bear Hunters: The most popular videos on 62nd Chamber Prouctions' channel are two interviews conducted by late local metal musician Sabrina Pelchat (a.k.a. Sabrina Strange), specifically with AlgomA and (as featured here) The Bear Hunters, a video which garnered over 1,200 views. Posted in October 2013 in advance of their set at The Big Loonie Bus Show, Sabrina asks the band (minus Josh) about their musical influences, songwriting, album release plans, experiences on the road, among other topics, before closing with a jam room performance of their song "Servitude". Both the interview and song are well done, despite some abrupt cuts, and this is a must-watch for Bear Hunters fans! Note that Sabrina's first public interview (with The Cretin from The Dayglo Abortions) was not posted on this channel, and has since been taken down anyway.

DESTROILET live @ Bark at the Loon I: Four videos on the 62nd Chamber channel come from The Big Loonie Bus Show, a special one-off concert held at La Cucina (underneath Bucci's Place) in Echo Bay by AlgomA's promotion company Oh! Right Arm Promotions, with a bus being rented to get fans unable/unwilling to take the 40 minute drive there and back. With the exception of AlgomA (presumably as band members were the ones manning the camera), every band was filmed across multiple songs, including The Bear Hunters, Crimson Crusade, mystery act Telephone & Address, and as featured here, hardcore punk quintet Destroilet, whose black & white video captures 37 minutes of their usual fury. It's always been hard for me to identify individual songs in Destroilet sets, but lots of familiar originals and covers can be seen here, and everyone puts in a blistering performance!

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I hope you guys liked this month's YouTube Channel Profile! Next month in this series, our random selection has given us YouTube user skam705's channel, featuring dozens of local punk concert videos from the early-mid 2000s and the old (705)VideoMagazine. That should be a good one, so look for it on or around June 26th, and stay tuned for more news and notes on the site by month's end! Thanks everyone!

Defunct Local Band Profile Series: Crimson Crusade

It's now time for our first Defunct Local Band Profile of 2018, as we're continuing our monthly spotlights of 1 or 2 local metal, hard rock, or punk bands that, while no longer active, still deserve a revisit for current readers! This month's 100% random selection takes us to a prominent young metal band active locally from 2010-2013, so here's what you should know!
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Crimson Crusade

Genre: Melodic Death Metal

Hometown: Sault Ste. Marie/Hilton Beach/Thessalon, Ontario (credited as "North Shore Area Algoma" on Facebook)

Members: (Members not in their last full lineup in italics.)

Devon Lucier (The Dirty Few), vocals/guitar
Robert Sartini (Pillory, The Peach Thieves, The Issues), guitar
Riley Marshall, bass
Robert Crossley (Inhuman Methods), drums

Curtis Moir (Inhuman Methods), vocals
Brent Beaulieu, guitar
Brock Pinder, guitar

Audio/Video: Crimson Crusade independently released their only EP "Upon The Eve Of War" on June 3rd, 2013, as recorded with producer Dave Pihlaja that winter, and while it is no longer in print, you can stream it in full at this link via frontman Devon Lucier's YouTube channel (though their actual YouTube channel only has one early demo track.) A handful of late-period live concert videos can be found on YouTube as well, primarily from our YouTube channel, but here's a full set of theirs from one of their final gigs that October, during Six, Two, Oh.'s Big Loonie Bus Show in Echo Bay!



Info/Analysis: One of a cluster of young extreme metal bands to come out of Central Algoma Secondary School and their CASS Cafe events in the early 2010s, Crimson Crusade launched in the spring of 2010 and spent their first couple of years as a sporadically seen act in varying Algoma District settings, debuting at a Hilton Beach event that summer, and eventually playing their first Soo show at The Bellevue Park Bandshell in August 2011. After months of practice and some big lineup shifts, Crimson Crusade fully relaunched in November 2012 at that month's Locals Attack event at The Canadian, shifting from mostly covers to an original-heavy setlist, inspired greatly by the band Death. Notable local appearances in 2013 included that summer's Skeletonwitch, Warsenal, and Ahna concerts, though a brief breakup that summer stunted their post-EP momentum. The band played their final show at The Oddfellows Hall on Devil's Night, and announced in 2014 that they were "on a hiatus."

Though only briefly a prominent sight on Sault Ontario stages, Crimson Crusade got a lot done in a short time, and developed a brutal sound unlike any of their local contemporaries! They owed a lot to Death, but Devon could definitely channel Chuck Schuldiner with ease on vocals, he and Robert Sartini were a devastating two-pronged guitar attack, and Devon and Robert Crossley were also very effective during their run! While their 2010-2011 material and early lineups were works in progress, fans who followed along saw their evolution, and their EP helped validate their prior work. Hopefully we see the guys back at it in some form in the future!
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I hope you guys liked this month's Defunct Local Band Profile! Next month in this series, our random selection will give us a more recent band than usual for us to spotlight, but one that deserves a spotlight nonetheless, they being classic metal rockers Project 421! Look for that on or around February 10th, and stay tuned for this weekend's concert previews next! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Banned), More Weekend Concert Previews, And Show Cancellations!!

(Updated at 2:52 PM) As planned, we have our preview of tomorrow's Northwest show here, but with a SHORT NOTICE LOCAL CONCERT ALERT, we're now leading off with that in this post! Also, we're rounding things out with one more preview for later this weekend, and a pair of big concert cancellations, so here's what you should know on this Friday morning!

Kinross, Michigan classic/hard rock cover trio Banned will return to The Runway Bar in nearby Hessel for one night only TONIGHT! Apologies for the short notice, we only heard about this show via Banned's Facebook page yesterday, though the venue's Facebook page first announced the set via this photo last week. Banned haven't announced non-Kewadin shows with advance notice in months, which also explains why we missed their April 13th & 14th Hessel gigs for coverage on here last month (belated and profuse apologies for that), but The Runway Bar has announced both earlier than Banned has, so I'll have to pay more attention to their Facebook page in the future. In any event, Alex, Wayne, and Don should have another night full of familir favourites for fans out in Hessel TONIGHT, so don't miss out on all of this action! There is a 9:00 PM start time for this show, which has a 21+ age limit and no announced cover charge. See the above links for more details, here's Banned live, and we will stay more on top of Banned's future Hessel gigs, I promise!

Next up for this weekend, Sault Ontario indie/punk quintet Northwest will play their first public concert of 2017 when they headline at LopLops Lounge TOMORROW NIGHT! After taking a 9 month hiatus from the stage since opening for 1971 last August, this talented veteran outfit will take a break from their recent studio sessions to headline at LopLops with a show full of their established and newer originals alike, so don't miss out on Northwest's return tomorrow! Guitarist Greg Callaghan was confirmed as a late opening act via his personal Facebook page this afternoon, so don't be late for his often evil covers! Also, in case you were curious, Winnipeg country musician Richard Inman is playing at LopLops tonight. Tomorrow's Northwest show has a 9:00 PM start time, a $5 cover charge, and a 19+ age limit. For more information on this concert, visit the official Facebook event page, and here's Northwest live in concert last year!



Also, here's one more concert preview for later this weekend, as local alt-hard rock trio The Din will provide special acoustic sets during SUNDAY'S Family Market on the Greens at Crimson Ridge Golf Course! A very unique locale and event for our coverage, the Fourth Line West location will welcome dozens of local vendors and businesses to the golf course under provided tents to display and sell their wares, while the golf course proper and the on-site Hickory Bar & Grill will also be available to attendees, and there will even be a bouncy castle, games, and more to take in, so visit the official Facebook event page for full non-musical details! The Din will be playing scattered sets throughout the day as a two-piece sans drummer Brandan Glew for unannounced reasons, but as we have seen in the past, The Din acclimate well to an unplugged setting, with or without a drum kit or cajon present, so keep an eye out for Mike & Tammy on Sunday!

Events kick off on Sunday at 12:00 PM for the Family Market on the Greens, admission is FREE, and this is certainly an ALL AGES event. For more details on all of the entertainment and vendors on Sunday at Crimson Ridge, visit the above links, and for a preview, here's The Din live!

Finally, we have a pair of Canadian Nightclub concert cancellations for next month to take note of. One is the planned Rad Zone Battle of the Bands scheduled for next Saturday, with the event page noting that the event will be rescheduled for an unspecified later date. Promoter J.D. Pearce noted to me that slow band registrations were a contributing factor, which is definitely disappointing, but hopefully the battle gets a new date soon! A now-deleted post on the Facebook event page noted that the judges next week would have been Dustin Jones and myself once again alongside Pointless frontman Bill Priddle (replacing Rob Speers), and while I can't speak for potential changes for the new date, I'm happy to return if available! The other cancellation is for the Jesse Merineau/Din concert from Jeremy Hannah's new SaultMusicScene agency on June 30th due to an "unfortunate circumstance", as per the Facebook event page earlier today.

No word on what happened specifically, but Jeremy did direct fans to follow the July 7th Vaultry concert at the same venue from Live705. Hopefully Jeremy can get his concert bookings back off the ground, so be sure to stay tuned for updates on their next gigs! For what it's worth, blues/country outfit The Barn Board Trio had replaced Bizotic as tentative openers prior to the cancellation. That's all for now, but stay tuned for this month's YouTube Channel Profile next! Thanks everyone!