It's time for our admittedly belated review of Saturday night's Handsome Sandwich CD release party at The Loft at the Algoma Conservatory of Music! This is the first concert of a remotely heavy persuasion that I know took place at The Loft, so what is it like to attend a show there? First off, the Conservatory is located in the old St. Mary's Paper office building at the end of Huron Street right by St. Mary's River, right beside The Mill Steakhouse. The Loft is on the third (and top) floor of the Conservatory, and being inside the building honestly reminded me of being at the courthouse downtown, especially the stairs. Yes, there is an escalator too, something I didn't know about until when I left the show. As a concert venue, The Loft is very nice with good acoustics, a unique layout, and neat sightlines, especially with the slanted roof and industrial beams. Pictures make the space look bigger than it is and obscure the layout a bit.
While photos on The Loft's website show thick seating, these are movable & were pushed against three walls to varying thicknesses to allow for a proper floor section. Rooms are adjacent to The Loft for the connected recording studio, and the bar section for anyone wanting a potent potable was well in view from the main door. Yes, HD video cameras were rolling, seemingly for both bands, and I did notice a camera slowly panning left to right beside the drumkit on the stage, though what we'll see and when, I don't know. My biggest issue with The Loft was the lack of air conditioning, and if that's not practical, at least turn the fans up! Regardless, it's a very nice space for concerts, and I hope more local bands take advantage of it!
The openers were local alternative/indie rock quartet Man Feelings, who were lucky enough to get an hour long set, which is impressive for a support band! As such, they played a lot of unreleased songs, plus material from their "City Friends" EP like "Modest Spouse" and "Long Winter's Night". I don't believe that I've seen Man Feelings live before, and when listening to them, comparisons to The Black Keys came up often, if that band had more instruments and variety to their sound. While bassist Tyler Willson handled most lead vocals, all of his bandmates got turns to sing, which is encouraging from an original band in terms of giving everyone an identity. Not a heavy band, but they have good songwriting, and everyone made the most of their instrumental roles, with B.J. Swire's keyboard work adding an extra element throughout, and Paul "Gabby" Gabrylewicz had some strong guitar melodies!
I will say that Man Feelings were slow to engage the crowd at first, and they had a few too many songs that just... ended, without a big finish. Not really abrupt endings so much as anti-climactic ones. Still a solid set that helped set the tone for the handsomeness to follow, and of course, how fitting is it that Man Feelings opened for Handsome Sandwich, thereby swapping roles from Man Feelings' CD release show last year? Also, shout-out to Ricky the juggler, who even got to "perform" for a song!
And your headliners were local alternative hard rock quintet Handsome Sandwich in their release party at least seven months in the making! True to prior teasers, their set comprised of their entire debut album "Deconstructed" in album order, with an intermission separating the main program from a six song mini-set including four newer/omitted original songs like "No Idea", and two covers: Tones & I's "Dance Monkey" and an encore cover of Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" featuring solo spots by all four instrumentalists. While I have seen the original three-piece, covers-only Handsome Sandwich live, this is the first time that I've seen the version relaunched in 2021, and they definitely have a crowd-pleasing set that rarely sticks to one style for too long, including glimmers of funk, hard rock, punk, indie rock, jam rock... basically anything that they want to play, and the audience was here for it!
Frontwoman Taylor "Tea" Emlaw brought a very unique stage presence to The Loft on Saturday, with lots of unpredictable movements and an infectious enthusiasm that was great to see! Her vocals remind me a lot of the American jazz/blues singer Beth Hart (listen to "Stay" to hear what I hear), and that alone helps this band stand apart from the local pack. Rafael Medina proved that his Algoma University music program training was well utilized on bass, the twin guitar attack of Jesse Cook and Mitch Sirie never hurt (even if I'd have liked to have seen more soloing), and drummer Johnny Belanger kept the rhythm as well as you'd expect, while also filling in the gaps for crowd banter, helping keep things in a loose and carefree spirit despite the anticipation and setting of this concert. Good stuff all around, and if this is the kind of show fans can expect from Handsome Sandwich, then who knows how far that they'll go?
Overall, this was a fun show aided by the unique and high-end locale, and on a kinda-related level, it was awesome to see Mitch & Johnny finally get to have a proper release concert like this after their old death metal band The Bear Hunters' planned release show for their higher quality second album "The Dead Testament" never went through due to the pandemic and the band's own decline in activity after 2017, leading to it getting a digital-only release on Bandcamp in 2020, and only one further live set. 2+ years later, they finally had their big moment, and hopefully Nik and Justin get theirs in some form! You can check out our photos from the show at this link or at our Facebook page, and I shot a video from each band, namely Man Feelings playing "Bring Me Home" and Handsome Sandwich playing "Better Off"!
Due to the length of this review (which went longer than normal already), I'll hold comment on Handsome Sandwich's newly released "Deconstructed" album for an upcoming post, but I did buy a CD copy on Saturday night and it will be reviewed on the SMS in due course! That's all for now, but a new news post will be hitting the SMS later today! Thanks everyone!
In what may be our final concert preview-free news post of the month, we're covering videos from a quartet of varied local acts today, so here' what you should know from each video and band!
We'll start with a full concert video from Sault Michigan classical metal project Theatre of Night's Christmas tour finale at The Park Theater in Holland on December 23rd! A month removed from that event, the 74 minute long video was finally posted online, though unlike their prior full concert videos from their 2018 tour, this was posted to their YouTube channel rather than on Facebook. Much like the previous tour uploads, the show in Holland (40 minutes west of Grand Rapids) was filmed on a stationary camera in the audience, but it's positioned well to capture the guys in action! The setlist is identical to the prior filmed shows due to the structured conceptual nature & pre-recorded introductions, but with the benefit of YouTube links that start at a given time, you can click on these song titles to easily hear each given song: "What Child Is This", "Carol of the Bells", "The Little Drummer Boy",
"Away In A Manger", "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy", "Silent Night", "O Come All Ye Faithful", ...
..."O Holy Night", "Hark The Herald Angels Sing", "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen", and "We Three Kings", with instrumental/aria numbers also sporadically dotted in between. If you can put up with the belated post-Christmas nature of these metallized carols, then you'll get more solid and dynamic performances from this talented quintet, and the audio and video quality holds up well for the duration! Give Theatre of Night's full Holland set a look below, and stay tuned for more from them when it rolls in, including on if they have a third Christmas tour planned for 2019!
Next up, here's the latest from local solo artist Chase Wigmore's active projects! On January 18th, Chase posted on his Facebook page to note that he'd be taking a break from regular posts to focus on his new music while also clarifying how he's dividing up his music for future social media attention. Going forward, he plans to keep his new death metal material on the new Facebook page for his new solo project Awokest, while keep his folk/experimental material on his eponymous Facebook page. If he truly intends to separate all further extreme metal work under the Awokest banner, than this is a good idea, but we won't drop Chase's solo project from our band links after this new distinction, as he still has older metal material under his own name, and his acoustic work still has heavier & punk glimmers. Also, what does all this mean for Chase & The Bastards and The Black Lodge Masters, let alone the remaining EPs of Christmas? Stay tuned!
To go along with the above Awokest news, Chase posted two new songs from that project in the last couple weeks, including the 7 minute title track from his upcoming album "Solving the Human Condition" (which is now credited as an Awokest release), and as embedded below, his new "live jam" named "Cosmic Joke". For reference, these were posted on his Facebook and YouTube pages respectively, not Awokest's. The former's unmixed, but the chaotic assault comes through nicely on both songs, and the vocals are more black metal reminscent, so genre fans may appreciate these in that way! Give Chase/Awokest's newest songs a listen above & below!
Also today, Chase's past Blood Shed Productions colleague Tyler Gibson has a new solo track to share from his grindcore project Crucify the Whore, entitled "Scab Transfer"! Posted to the Blood Shed YouTube channel on January 18th, this is credited to an upcoming C.T.W. EP named "Crucifition Inquisition" (sic), and its just the instrumental track at this point, with vocals to be added. The first half will please Blood Shed diehards with it's live metal attack, but the second half is largely the drum machine track and extra effects played backwards (I ran the song through Audacity to make sure.) Not a bad song at this stage, so give it a listen below!
We'll close today with a Sublime cover from new local alternative rock band Man Feelings! Filmed at their Room 21 show on Saturday (as live streamed to the venue's Facebook page), this is of the band covering "What I Got" with Id Iota frontman Christian Lemay on guest vocals, so if you've missed that band live in recent months, this may help tide you over. Nice to see Man Feelings dipping into the ska punk well, and Christian definitely makes the most of his stage presence on this well done cover, but the vertical camera angle isn't optimal. Give Man Feelings' new video a look below, and we'll let you know if any heavier or punk covers of theirs turn up!
That's all for today, but stay tuned for this month's CD review on the site next, so look for that if you're an Awokest fan! Thanks everyone!
I hope all of our Caandian readers are having a great Civic Holiday! Today on the site, we have some long overdue coverage of a unique new-ish record store, a lengthy full-set concert video, and leading off, a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT for later this month, so here's what you need to know!
Toronto pop punk quartet Carried Away will make their local concert debut on Tuesday, August 28th when they headline at The Rockstar Bar! Already making waves in Southern Ontario since their launch 3 years ago, this female fronted outfit have impressed fans with their high energy punk sound, complete with emo and alternative influences, and they should keep up their positive and proficient original material with Saultite fans in three weeks! The only announced opening band is Man Feelings, a new (and online page-less) local alternative rock band featuring Bizotic/Sounds From The Green Room alum B.J. Swire, though I don't know anything else about their lineup or sound. Other than a cancelled Downtown Street Party set last month, I have no other details on Man Feelings, but we'll let you know if we hear anything! This concert is a co-presentation of former A Dire Setback singer Larry Babic and photographer Josh Pace, in their first promotional booking of 2018.
This 19+ concert has a $5 cover charge, and it currently has an advertised start time of 8:00 PM, which may not be inaccurate given the work-week scheduling, but we'll let you know if it's actually later. The Tuesday night scheduling may not be optimal for many local punk fans, but if you can make it to The Rockstar Bar for this one, you should be musically rewarded! Visit the official Facebook event page for more details!
Next up, have you been hoping for some more videos from Rotaryfest's stages? Well, how does the entire Stage 1 set (more or less) from early-2010s classic/hard rock cover veterans Turner Up sound? Yes, the former Full Circle were the focus of this video from new local filmmakers Passionate Wolf Productions, as uploaded to their YouTube channel last week. After a nicely detailed introduction, Turner Up's set included covers of Led Zeppelin's "Good Times, Bad Times", The Stone Temple Pilots' "Plush", Billy Idol's "Rebel Yell", April Wine's "Just Between You & Me", Tommy Tutone's "867-5309/Jenny", The Outfield's "Your Love", April Wine's "Sign of the Gypsy Queen", Velvet Revolver's "Slither", and Paul McCartney & Wings' "Band on the Run", so visit each link to hear each song. Travis Sharpe's between song banter was usually cut from the final upload, and the audio is often somewhat muffled, but the video quality is great otherwise here!
While this is a composite lineup from across Turner Up's prior runs (and Travis was previously their bassist, not singer), this performance seems to have been a success, and Passionate Wolf had a nice close angle of the action, but will this be the last we've seen of Turner Up? Give their Stage 1 set at Clergue Park a watch below, and don't miss Travis with Soundcheck in the interim!
Also today, here's something that I admittedly should have acknowledged on the site long ago: A new local record store named Oosik Records! That said, it may be easy to miss, given that owner Al Bjornaa set it up in a used meat trailer, and it's believed to be the smallest record store in the world! I profusely apologize for the delay in covering this joint on the SMS, it has been open since June of last year, but better late than never! I can't find a firm address for Oosik Records, but it's home base is nearby Batchewana Bay along the highway. In it's trailer locale, Oosik (named for a specific part of whale anatomy in Inuit) plays host to hundreds of vinyl records and cassette tapes, plus books, art, stickers, patches, old record & tape players, and even vintage toys from local retailer Puke Skywalker. Hours are flexible to nonexistent at Oosik Records, with a come-and-go, pay-what-you-can model when Al's not around.
If you peruse the albums on past and present offer on their Instagram page, you'll find a ton of independent artists who I've never even heard of, plus many we all have, so you never know what you'll come across! And if a trip to Batchewana is too far or impractical, Al has brought stock with him for sale at Sault Ste. Marie events affiliated with Nicole Dyble's Dryer Fire promotion company, from the old Gore Street Cafe to her recent open mic, concert, and night martket events on the M.S. Norgoma. They even hosted an acoustic show at Oosik Records headquarters last month, so maybe more is on the horizon there in that regard? I don't have many Batchewana connections (partly hence why Oosik Records was off my radar for so long), but this definitely warrants a trip that direction! I like Al's ambition and generosity, and the eclectic selection is more than welcomed, so be sure to visit the above links and this SooToday article by Jeff Klassen for more on Oosik Records!
That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and notes on the site this week! Thanks everyone!
