LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (The Truth Of All Death, Frightlight, And The Strange Coyotes!!)

Before we round out our Oh!No festival fallout, we have a post completely devoted to LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS today, one on SHORT NOTICE, so here's what you should know for your fall concert plans!

Local alt-folk musician Chase Wigmore is returning to the concert promotion game with a special New American Pub show THIS TUESDAY NIGHT, to be headlined by Toronto grindcore band The Truth Of All Death! Apologies for the short notice, this show was only announced last Tuesday, too soon to fully cover the show without this preview being a rehash. The Truth Of All Death should pique the interest of Blood Shed Productions loyalists with their minimalist grind/noise onslaught, short songs, and provocative subject matter, so if this is up your alley, give The T.O.A.D. a listen above in advance of their local debut on TUESDAY! Blood Shed's flagship solo grindcore project Crucify the Whore will open in a rare New A set, while the only other advertised act is Awokest, who I have no information on whatsoever. The chance exists that this is a new project of Chase's, given that he's not advertised with a solo set, but that's purely conjecture on my part. We'll let you know if public details on Awokest come out, or if potential added acts are confirmed!

Though the venue is not directly cited on the Facebook event page, The New A's Facebook page confirms that they're playing host. A $5 cover charge is in effect for TUESDAY'S 19+ concert, which has an advertised 8:00 PM start time, though that may just be the door opening time. If you've missed grindcore concerts locally, this should whet your appetite for the subgenre, so keep this concert in mind for TUESDAY NIGHT, especially if Chase's talk of bi-weekly concerts comes to fruition! Here's The Truth Of All Death live!



Next up, here's some Halloween season concerts with lots of advance notice, starting with local promoter J.D. Pearce's 14th straight year of Halloween party concerts, as he's back with a second straight double header on Friday, October 27th & Saturday, October 28th at... Soo Blaster?! After spending 5 of the past 6 years at The Algonquin Hotel, J.D.'s Halloween party (alternately known as "The Howling") will move to Soo Blaster for 2018, marking our first ever punk/metal concerts covered at the new restaurant, arcade, and live events venue at 345 Queen Street East, which was previously home to Woolco and the RMH/NCO call center. Soo Blaster has made waves in the past year with hip hop concerts and stand up comedians, but how will it handle aggressive live bands? This year's roster will be tribute-focused for a fourth straight year, with the Friday the 27th lineup featuring unidentified tributes to The Red Hot Chili Peppers, H.I.M., and The Distillers.

I can't confirm complete identities for the three bands at present, but personal Facebook postings indicate that Jack Spades/Stegadeth guitarist Tiffany Stocco will be performing in the H.I.M. and Distillers tributes. Will one/both of her bands take on either guise, or will these be one-off supergroups? Time will tell! Both are relatively unique bands for covers here, but the Chili Peppers aren't as shocking. Will this band share any relation to the late 2000s local tribute Sikamikanico? The lineup on Saturday the 28th will feature tributes to Tool and Weezer, and while HTs bassist Ryan Disano & Redundant frontman Justin Langlois signalled their involvement in each tribute via personal Facebook postings, I again don't know whether the tribute bands will be reskinned existing bands or one-offs. However, we do know the Saturday headliners by name, as defunct local horror punk quintet Frightlight will hit the stage for the first time in four years that night! How's that for a spooky surprise? Will they focus on Misfits covers to go with the theme?

Frightlight were a steady fan favourite band in their original 2009-2014 run, and while I can't confirm the makeup of their 2018 reunion lineup, look for the guys to deliver one more high impact fright night next month! Sponsored by Northern Superior Breweries, this year's Halloween party concerts are 19+ affairs with 10:00 PM start times, and each night's admission is $10, but there will be a $15 weekend pass for both nights. Things are shaping up for a great weekend of live music action at a new-ish locale next month, so visit the official Facebook event page for more details, and we'll let you know when we hear more on the band identities and ticket availability!

Finally, here's one more seasonal concert for late next month, as the aforementioned Chase Wigmore is bringing live metal music back to The Oddfellows Hall after well over a year away, with a Devil's Night concert planned for Tuesday, October 30th! After the abrupt relocation of his last try at an Oddfellows concert, things have a lot more advance word this time, so hopefully there's no hang-ups next month! A spiritual successor to Blood Shed Productions' Devil's Night concerts at the same venue in 2013 & 2014 (Chase played both), he is hyping up the "mash-up" nature of the lineup, with a variety of metal and folk acts on display next month, so who all is playing? As per the Facebook event page, we'll be blessed with a Haggith-less reunion of 2013-2014 funk metal band The Strange Coyotes as the apparent headliners! Nice to see Chase & James back together after far too long, though no word yet on if this will be a one-off, or if they'll have a drummer present. The remaining performers are all solo acts, though more bands could be added.

Alongside the aforementioned Crucify the Whore, fans can check out Chase's own solo project (with an apparent "folk punk rock opera" in store), creative local pianist Damjan "Spider Fingerz" Binda, and new local alt-folk musician Wes Armstrong (not Anderson), who you may have seen at Chase's Rednecks show earlier this month. This ALL AGES concert has a presumably incorrect start time of 3:52 PM (I'd guess it'd be later), while admission fees have not yet been confirmed. Nice mixture of Blood Shed collaborators coming back for another Devil's Night, plus some new sounds, so visit the above links for current and continuing details as they roll in!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and updates on the site this week! Thanks everyone!

Recent Heavy North Entertainment Concert Videos!!

Today's post is devoted to recent Heavy North Entertainment and Blood Shed Productions concerts, specifically videos from them, as some were uploaded to Facebook in the last week or so via the shows' respective Facebook event pages, making them publically available! Yes, I know there's more from these shows and the same filmers, but if they're only shared via personal pages, we wouldn't share them here just for sake of privacy. This special post kicks off with videos from the Devil's Night concert at The Oddfellows Hall late last month, as promoter Tyler St. Amour posted six videos from the show onto the show's Facebook event page over the last week plus! Three of them are of the opening rap sets, including footage of Miracle Man & Mikey Thomas' spitting rhymes, but I'll give special mention to the video of Phat Boii (a.k.a. former Tomgrindy singer Jean-Paul Archambault), as I was running late to the show and missed his set entirely, so how did he do on Devil's Night?

More energetic and angry sounding than his studio work often does, he definitely made the most of the stage, though at times, it did look like J.P. was blurring words together. Nice to see Chase Wigmore jump in on guest bass too, so give Phat Boii's video and the other rappers a look above! As for the videos of heavier bands, Tyler has only uploaded three to the event page, including this 18 minute+ video of the end of Sudbury metal quintet Archelon's set, including their cover of Pantera's "Mouth For War" and their last two originals. Solid audio quality of their entertaining set, but the lighting is dark, and the camera angles vary from close to the action to mounted on a back table and panning down to just people's feet for a stretch. Nice to see some more video footage though, so give it a look below! Remember, embedded Facebook videos still work despite only showing a black screen now for whatever reason, so just double click on it!



Also among Tyler's videos from this show is this almost 10 minute clip of Crucify The Whore's set,  which will definitely please Blood Shed loyalists and goregrind fans! Featuring songs like "Orthostatic Hypotension" and the ultra-short "Batch Cones", the video has similar quality to the Archelon footage, but it has better lighting and a worse view of the (one-man) band, as Tyler Gibson is obscured by the crowd for most of the duration. C.T.W. fans shoiuld enjoy though, so give this video a look below!



Lastly for Tyler's Devil's Night videos is this clip of James Watterworth and his newly-restored Strange Coyotes bandmates playing one of his existing solo songs, though regrettably, I forget the title off hand. Nice, energetic, and heavy though, and the camera angle improves late when Tyler joins the floor, albeit with some pit action to disrupt the angle, but it ends well! Strong clip, and it's great to have James, Chase, and Mike back together, so check out their video below!



We'll close this all-H.N.E. post with a video from the abbreviated "Bloody Basement Jam" held on Weldon Avenue this past Friday, as posted on that show's Facebook event page on Saturday! Filmed, uploaded, and shared by attendee Katie Stevenson, this appears to be of C.T.W. frontman/Rotopsy bassist Tyler Gibson jamming along with backing music, but the lighting isn't great. Not bad for what it is, so give it a look below!



That's all for today, but stay tuned for weekend concert previews and more soon! Thanks everyone!

Devil's Night At The Oddfellows Hall II Concert Review!!

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LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (The Suicide Kings & Toystock) And The Adelitas Way Concert Preview!!

Back to the news on this Monday morning, and we have three topics to get to, including a preview for the latest major hard rock concert at the Sault Michigan Kewadin Casino, but first, we have LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS for this month from a new local band, including an awesome new charity event, so read on below for what you need to know!

New local hard rock quartet The Suicide Kings will make their live concert debut THIS WEEKEND at The Nicolet Tavern! The new band featuring Bear Hunters, Wishbone, and Limelight alumni actually announced these shows a week ago, but I hadn't gotten more confirmation about their sound then, so that explains why they're later for notice on here. According to the Facebook event page, The Suicide Kings are planning to bring back the rock, and are promising a wild time that doesn't include Lady Gaga or Gangnam Style, which alone is a positive hint! I believe their sets on Friday and Saturday will be covers-centric, but your guess is as good as mine on planned songs in their sets. No matter the case, they'll be on at 10:00 PM both nights with no announced cover charge, but both should be 19+. Check the above links for more details! I'm curious to hear how The Suicide Kings sound in their live concert debut, and hopefully they tear up The Nic on Friday & Saturday! And yes, this photo is new, it's from a recent photo shoot with Jackie Hall from Escape Photography. Very nice, click here for more from the shoot!

Also in new Suicide Kings concerts, they have apparently been added to the lineup of the Toystock charity concert event at The Canadian Nightclub on November 25th! We haven't plugged this on the actual site yet because the bands I know stuff on weren't hard rock-leaning, but The Suicide Kings announced that they were taking the 3:00 PM slot on their Facebook page yesterday. Note that organizers have yet to confirm their addition, but a band named K.I.C.K. (no idea who they are) were originally slotted for the 3:00 slot, so unless there was lineup shuffling, they're likely out. Toystock itself is an ALL AGES Christmas charity concert being put on by local musician Greg Simpson's event company Maxx Entertainment, with the aim being to raise money and encourage toy donations to Christmas Cheer. As a result, admission will be via toy, money, or canned food donations, and the Stuff-A-Bus and Santa Claus will be on site (it is a family friendly event, after all.) Plans are to make Toystock annual, but it already sounds like a fantastic event for great charitable causes, and hopefully it's a huge success!

That said, who all is playing? Saying that The Suicide Kings replaced K.I.C.K. with no other lineup changes, there will be 10 bands playing for an hour each from 12:00 PM onward, all of which are generously donating their time for the cause! The headliners are local rock trio Boxcar Junction (formerly Cleveland Steamer) at 9:00 PM, and in descending order from there, we have dance/pop cover band Cherry Crush at 8:00 PM, country quartet Bone Yard at 7:00 PM, popular rock trio Stiffler's Mom at 6:00 PM (who I believe are back full time now), a couple of bands that I have absolutely no information on at 5:00 & 4:00 PM (Griphook & Lucky 13), The Suicide Kings at 3:00 PM, Asylum at 2:00 PM (who I believe are essentially Asylum Country minus Tyson Hanes), local dance rockers Obsession at 1:00 PM, and country band Summer Thunder at 12:00 PM. Most of these bands are familiar sights at local bars and venues on the weekends, and kudos to them all for taking part in this great charitable event!

I would like to know more about Griphook & Lucky 13 for reference sake before the actual show (i.e. members, genre, etc.), so if anyone out there can identify these bands, be they new, reunited, renamed, or intentionally secretive, let me know at robertfigures@hotmail.com! Same for K.I.C.K. too, I was scratching my head on their identity as well. For more details on this ALL AGES charity event, click here! This should be an awesome event for Christmas Cheer, and here's hoping it's as big a success as is hoped! Stay tuned for updates as they roll in!

Finally for today, we have a major concert preview for TONIGHT, as three notable rock bands will descend upon The Dreammaker's Theater at the Sault Michigan Kewadin Casino for the latest concert from Allstar Promotions! The headliners are British Columbia post-grunge quartet Theory of a Deadman, who have attained big success in recent years thanks to hits like "Nothing Could Come Between Us", "Bad Girlfriend", and "Lowlife", and they alone should get a solid response! Although they're not really "metal", the openers cross into the hard rock spectrum, including Las Vegas hard rockers Adelitas Way, who have quickly rose up the charts with hit singles like "Criticize", "Sick", and "The Collapse"! Catchy modern hard rock abounds with them, as it does with the concert's first band, Baltimore quintet The Charm City Devils, who are well known for recent songs like "Let's Rock N' Roll" and "Unstoppable", and they should deliver a fun Shinedown-esque set of radio hard rock themselves! Also, for you wrestling fans, you may recognize all 3 bands for contributing songs for WWE programming and events, so there might be some added familiarity!

This concert is SOLD OUT aside from some standing room only tickets, but if you want to try your luck for any that become available today, click here, visit the Kewadin box office in person, or call 1-800-KEWADIN! Yes, this is an all ages event, a 7:00 PM start time is advertised, and I'd call ahead to see if there will be a meet & greet, as they never seem to get advertised well in advance. Check the above links for more details! I'd expect this to be a hit concert by the ticket sales alone, so hopefully you guys have yours! I'm not high on Theory of a Deadman, but they have a good following and should deliver well tonight, as should the openers! Stay tuned for any possible fallout of this show as it rolls in, and for a preview, here's Adelitas Way's video for their song "Sick"!



That's probably all for today, but stay tuned for more news and notes shortly, including hopefully some fallout from tonight's big show! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Adelitas Way), New Local Band Videos, And More!!

Hey guys, I wanted to apologize for the lack of posts and updates this week. We seem to have hit a very quiet stretch for local metal/hard rock news, and while I've had some stuff to post, it wasn't enough to fill out a full post like usual. I did want to note before we get too deep into what I did compile today that two seemingly obvious topics won't have the updates you'd expect. One is for the Buckcherry/Fuel concert at the Sault Michigan Kewadin Casino on Monday, as I've heard extremely little fallout from it. No local news coverage, no visible YouTube videos, nothing. You'd think there'd be some coverable items from it by now, but hopefully something will pop up! Also, if you were hoping for a Roosevelt Hotel metal night tonight, I don't believe there's one, even though this is next on the recent bi-weekly schedule. No Thursday nighters at The Rosie have taken place since July 5th (J.D. Pearce-booked gigs aside) or since recent promoter Stephane Vincent moved to Toronto as expected last month (best of luck to him!), so I'm unsure what's going on. Is the series on hiatus or dead? Is Mitch Sirie bringing it back at some point? I have no idea, but if I hear anything, I'll let you guys know!

That all said, we do have some stories today, including updates to one of our monthly feature series, new videos from a new local band, and leading things off, this notable LOCAL CONCERT ALERT for this fall, so here's what you need to know!

As first announced on Monday morning on Rock 101, the next Allstar Promotions concert at The Dreammaker's Theater at the Kewadin Casino in Sault Michigan will go down on November 12th, and it does feature a couple hard rock bands! The headliners will be British Columbia post-grunge/alt-rock quartet Theory of a Deadman, who are bound to be well known for hits like "Bad Girlfriend", "Lowlife", and "Nothing Could Come Between Us", so they'll attract a sizeable crowd on their own in November! Though Theory of a Deadman aren't really heavy, the opening bands are definitely hard rock leaning, and they include Las Vegas hard rock quintet Adelitas Way, who are well known for mainstream rock hits like "Sick", "The Collapse", and the WWE Superstars theme "Invincible", and they have some nice energetic modern hard rock that should entertain the local audience! The concert will be opened by Baltimore hard rock quintet The Charm City Devils, who are slowly making a name on the national rock charts with songs like "Let's Rock & Roll" and their version of "A Man of Constant Sorrow", and they remind me of Shinedown at points, so I expect they'll make a solid first impression on November 12th! In fact, all three of these bands have never played locally before, which is notable in itself!

Tickets are just $28.50 for this ALL AGES show (which is a fairly good deal for this package of bands) and a 7:00 PM start time has been advertised. Seats are still available from the second row and back, so if you're interested, click here, hit the Kewadin box office in person, or call 1-800-KEWADIN! This should be an entertaining enough concert, and there's plenty of solid newer rock bands to entertain everyone in attendance! I find Theory of a Deadman to be too much of a "Nickelback-lite" group myself, but the other bands have some good material, and this show should find a good audience! Pick up your tickets A.S.A.P., and stay tuned for updates if they roll in!

We'll close this post with new videos, both relating to newly discovered local bands! In the last few days, I was alerted to this first band via YouTube postings, and they're a brand new thrash metal band from Sault Ontario named Pillory. Their lineup currently features guitarists Andres Duchesne (ex-Bear Hunters/Social Suicide) and Robert Sartini (more on him in a second) and drummer Bret Shuttleworth, and though they don't have an online page yet that I know of, they appear to be somewhat newer (but I've heard from Bret often that he's been starting or joining bands for a while now.) Robert uploaded videos of Pillory playing three original songs ("Shattered By War", "Fatal Woods", and "Onward To Death") to his YouTube channel last month, and I have to say, Pillory do show promise in these videos! We don't get a lot of straight thrash bands locally (mostly thrash/death hybrids if anything), and they have the thrash trademarks down with some fast heavy riffs and melodies, and if Pillory takes off and gets a bassist and singer, they could be a young band to watch! I've embedded the longest of these Pillory jam session videos below ("Shattered By War"), but definitely check the rest out at the above links!



And speaking of bands with Robert Sartini, this isn't the first band project he's tried to start locally. Though relatively a new sight on our coverage, he briefly led a band named Roadkill last summer alongside drummer Jarrod Sachro, and four jam session videos from their run were also uploaded to his YouTube channel! The videos include a self titled original, songs named "Speed Therapy" and "2083... E.D.I.", and a cover of Diamond Head's "Am I Evil?", so click each link to check them out! I don't know if Roadkill evolved into Pillory or were a separate band entirely, but these songs do show some thrash metal promise, though they are rougher & less complete, and the chemistry isn't as obvious. Interesting stuff though, so check out Roadkill's self titled song below, check the above links for more, and stay tuned for more from Robert's channel!



That's all for today, but stay tuned for weekend concert previews (maybe?) and more soon! Thanks everyone!