Project 421 Jam Session Recap, Emergency Festival Fallout, And More!!

Before we get too far into this post, we have a very late lineup change for TONIGHT'S Ballot Burner-headlined concert at The New American Pub, as local rapper Mikey Thomas has replaced grunge/hardcore duo Bad Back on the lineup, as per the Facebook event page yesterday morning. A reason for Bad Back's exit hasn't been announced, but seeing as frontman Jamie Vincent is still promoting the show, an external commitment for Nathan Sauve would make sense. Hopefully we see the guys back soon, and don't miss Mikey Thomas TONIGHT! Now, today's post features Emergency Festival fallout, some assorted updates, and first, a surprise jam session recap!

Due to personal family health matters, I haven't had a whole lot of time or opportunities to attend concerts recently, but that was partly remedied yesterday afternoon, as Project 421 guitarist Blair Burch invited me to check out their latest jam session! I don't live far from where they jam, which made things extra convenient! The roughly 2 hour jam was the first time that I've seen the guys with new drummer Chris Thompson, though guitarist Frank McGillivray couldn't make the jam due to personal commitments. As a result, the guys didn't play all of their regular songs, and some sounded empty without Frank's parts, but I got a first hand look at 4/5ths of Project 421 tackling classics from bands like Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, and Dio, along with their newer original "Into The Darkness"! You can't judge a jam session on the same level of a concert, as a lot of it is meant for practicing and getting everything down for a show, but the guys sounded really good, and it's nice to hear Curtis McKenzie's impressive vocals back with the band!

Me and Blair chatted for a while after everyone left, and it was a nice break from the hectic personal stuff I've been dealing with lately! I also saw and heard some intriguing things concerning future plans, but we'll wait for official public word before saying anything here. I got a handful of photos from the jam that you can see at this link or via our Facebook page, and here's Project 421 (minus Frank) jamming their song "Into The Darkness"!

Next up, here's some fallout from yesterday's second annual Emergency Festival at Rocky DiPietro Field, which appeared to be a hit (despite the hot weather) according to early social media reports! First, there was an act that dropped out of the festival, that being Saskatoon country artist Zachary Lucky due to bronchitis, as per his Facebook page on Friday, though he hopes to play here again later this year. Disappointing for fans, but at least he let everyone know beforehand! As for the festival itself, it was MCed by SooToday's Donna Hopper, and of course, she got lots of great (and colour) photos from the show that you can check out at this article! They include 5 photos of headliners The Fast Romantics, 4 photos each of Gnaeus, Northwest, and The Poor Young Things, 3 each of The Pixo Control, Tasman Jude, and The Sunparlour Players, 5 of concert attendees, and 4 of art vendors on site. Excellent work as usual, and I like how nightfall made the closing set seem like it was at a different venue entirely!

A likely Tuned episode is forthcoming, but Local2 cameras were on site for this (unembeddable) video from The Emergency, which features abbreviated video footage from The Fast Romantics, The Sunparlour Players, Tasman Jude, and Gnaeus' sets (I wonder why The Poor Young Things and the other locals didn't make the cut?) Strong footage, and nice to see fans dancing up front for The Fast Romantics, so give this video a look above!

Lastly for current festival fallout, here's the latest from local alternative/grunge trio The Pixo Control, as we can finally confirm that their new drummer (replacing the departed Keeghan Rosso) is named Matthew Thibert, who made his public debut with the band on Sunday. The band has yet to confirm this on their Facebook page, but photos from the show confirm his identity. I'm not familiar with Matthew from past local bands, though he did once play with the defunct Bawating Collegiate jazz band Reverse Fozmosis shortly before the school's 2010 closure, alongside The Boatload Killers' Liam Seymour and others. I'm curious to see how he does live with Michael & Steve in The Pixo Control, so stay tuned for more on the new lineup! And we were holding this for when we mentioned their new drummer, as the cover art for the band's upcoming debut CD "Probably Not" is now posted on Facebook!

Similarly to the defunct Habitat Shuffle's EP, it's of a picture hanging on a wall, but this picture of mushrooms will be familiar for Pixo Control fans, as a framed copy of it has sat on stage for the band's recent concerts. I'm unsure of the symbolism, or if it connects to the name "Probably Not" at all, but it's recognizable and to the point! Stay tuned for more from the guys this week!

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

• Just as a general site updated regarding our sidebar links, I've finally added The Emergency Festival and The Northern Vibe Festival to our links concerning concert festivals in the Sault Ontario area, while amending information on venues and dates for existing festivals, mainly concerning events impacted by this year's Downtown Association debate and cancellation of Queen Street East outdoor events. Hopefully things are updated there now!
• Sault Michigan bar/concert venue Golanka's Bar (commonly known as The Bird) has closed at some point in the last two years, though their (now-deleted) Facebook page wasn't updated frequently enough to post a statement on why that I've seen. According to London Gentlemen guitarist Mike Libertoski in a Facebook conversation, the East Portage Avenue building was bought by new owners who are turning it into an outdoor retail store of some kind. The Bird hadn't hosted a hard rock concert that we'd heard of since early 2013, but it's sad to see it go, and hopefully Yoopers have good memories of The Bird!
• Sault Ontario alternative hard rock duo Infinity Grinder have posted seven new demo recordings on their Soundcloud page in the past 3 weeks, which confirm that they play improvised jams as well as original songs, Brad & Terrence both handle drums and guitar parts in studio, and that they formed last year. The songs are solid, often hard-edged, and nicely varied, but only "A Few Weeks" has vocals. Give them a listen above, and don't miss Infinity Grinder's New A debut TONIGHT!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for last month's poll results and our newest poll tomorrow! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Powerslug), Recent Sault Star Hard Rock Interviews, And Much More!!

As promised, here's our first news post of February 2013, so what's on tap? Today, we have a lot of assorted shorter news stories from the last little while, along with a new solo original song, and some catching up on hard rock band interviews from a major local news source, but first, here's a SHORT NOTICE LOCAL CONCERT ALERT for TONIGHT (and check out this month's "Where Are The New Albums?" post below this one!)

There are indeed heavier concerts this weekend in the Sault Ste. Marie area, courtesy of Sault Michigan hard rock trio Powerslug! Their second announced concert weekend of the year, the band featuring I.S.O.M., Kilacel, and River Witch alumni are playing at Golanka's Bar (a.k.a. The Bird) TONIGHT, following a first concert either yesterday or Thursday. When drummer Bob Helsten announced the shows on his personal Facebook page on Thursday, he indicated the first show was that night, but bands in the area generally play Friday first instead of Thursday, so I'm not sure if there's scheduling differences at play, or if it was just a typo. Regardless, I missed the show until now, and I profusely apologize as a result! They could really use an online page to update show information though. As for tonight's gig, Powerslug will bring their hard rock covers to the stage at 10:00 PM, a cover charge wasn't announced, and you must be 21 to attend. If any more details pop up, I'll add them here! These should be good concerts from this talented trio, and with no online media either, take my word for it, and go occupy The Bird for some hard rock this weekend!

Next up, if you're a Sault Star subscriber, you may have noticed an interview last month with Sweet's Steve Priest in advance of their show with April Wine at The Dreammaker's Theater at the Sault Michigan Kewadin Casino next weekend! That alone was worth mentioning, but today, it's just part of a catch-up I wanna do for other recent Kewadin Casino hard rock performer interviews held with The Sault Star since the beginning of last year, so what'd I miss? All conducted & wrote by The Sault Star's Jeffrey Ougler, the recent SMS-suited articles included interviews with Buckcherry guitarist Keith Nelson (prior to their Kewadin show in August) and members of both of Stryper's opening bands last February (Slaughter bassist Dana Strum & Lynch Mob guitarist George Lynch), so click each link above to give them a look! I apologize for the late notice on most of these, but I'm not a Sault Star subscriber, so I miss a lot of their quality articles as a result.

If you're not familiar with Jeffery's concert preview articles/interviews, these all feature general discussions with the band member(s) on their history and recent events, along with promotion of the Kewadin concert, and they're all informative and deserve a look, even late! Check them all out above, and don't miss Sweet with April Wine on February 9th at the Soo Kewadin!

Also today, here's the newest solo track from Alterwhite mainman Mike Matthews! Entitled "Erase Me (Please)", he posted it onto the AlterWhite YouTube channel on Thursday, Mike recorded this for his "album "Something Left Inside", but how is it? The music's good, especially the heavy second half, but Mike really overdoes the clean vocals on the soft first half, and he should have done the first few minutes in a more reserved and less exaggerated style. The second half makes up for it though, so check out "Erase Me (Please)" below!



Finally for today, here's SIX assorted shorter news stories from the last little while, as we've had a bunch of these in the last few days! As usual, these are in alphabetical order by artist or band name:

• Former Skull After Betryal bassist Adam Brett is currently looking to join or form a new local metal/hard rock band, though he aims to play guitar this time around. I know he's been working hard to improve his skills recently, so give him a shout at this location or find his Musicians Wanted Facebook group posting from yesterday for more details!
• Prolific Sault Michigan guitarist Mike Libertoski is back with a new original demo! His first publically available new song since 2011,  this blistering & short technical metal demo is full of promise and shows a skill evolution from his other early 2010s work, so give it a listen at his SoundCloud page, and his solo project is now back in our active Sault Michigan metal band links! (Note that this is credited to himself, not his Galactic Alignment project.)
• Valentine's Day Massacre frontman Steve Rhodes has joined a new band, that being the London, Ontario death/thrash metal band D3athcharg3r! Early reviews are very good, and congratulations to him on this big opportunity! However, he was quick to point out on his personal Facebook page last month that The V.D.M. (who all still live in London) remain alive, and he'll be with them as long as they want him, so fingers crossed we see both of his bands up here soon!
• Last night, Sault Ontario hard rock quartet The Suicide Kings revealed on their Facebook page that they were working on their own debut EP, which should be "ready to go" by the end of the month. Nothing else is publically known yet, but keep an eye out to see how this progresses!
• Also last night, new Sault Ontario metal project Unbound revealed that they plan to make their live debut in March, though extra details (i.e. location, lineup changes, Justin Fratpietro tributes) have yet to be posted. I'm very curious to see how Unbound shapes up after all that's happened, so stay tuned for updates as they roll in!
• Has Jason Ladouceur rejoined Winkstinger? Nothing official has been publicized, but Jason plugged a Thursday night Winkstinger show on "the 11th" at The Rosie in a recent MSN status, which (barring a typo) would likely refer to April 11th. If true, this would mark the band's first show since July, and Jason's return to the band following his exit in May, with Anthony Orazietti replacing him on rhythm guitar last summer. If I here any concrete confirmations or denials, I'll let you guys know!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news at some point this week, as our cache of news slowly grows! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Banned & Nudge), Sault Michigan Weekend Concert Previews, And More!!

Now that I'm back home and settled in, let's help clear out this glut of news from the past week starting with an all-Sault Michigan news post! We haven't had one of these in a while, partly thanks to an overall slowdown in news across the river, but this weekend's pretty big for metal in the Sault Michigan area, so it fits to give everything some extra attention today! That said, our preview of LemmaFest is coming tonight, as I want to give it more of a focus than it could have in this post due to some new shows, so in this post, we have LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS for this month, a preview of a notable band's live return TONIGHT, and more news from them, so here's what you need to know!

Kinross hard rock quartet Banned will return to the Sault Michigan area TOMORROW NIGHT for their first ever concert at The Cozy Corners Tavern & Grill in Barbeau! Though they've kept busy in the last couple months with shows all over the Eastern U.P., their Cozy Corners debut will be Banned's first show within 45 minutes of the Soo since their March 15th stop at The Bird, so if you've missed their hard rocking covers, take note of their Barbeau gig tomorrow night! I apologize for the short notice too, as this show was only announced on the band's Facebook page on Wednesday, and I've only had time to mention it now. Also, if they're having any guest performers, their page hasn't announced them. Details are scant for this show, but Banned's set will come after the festivities wrap up for a walleye fishing tournament that The Cozy Corners Tavern is hosting on Saturday. A cover charge has not been announced, but a 10:00 PM start time and 21+ age limit are both likely. For more details, visit the above links! It's nice to see Banned back in the area on Saturday, and hopefully the guys deliver a great weekend of hard rock classics and maybe some originals tomorrow! For a preview, here's Banned playing their original song "Plaid Girl" last month in Gould City!



Also in new Sault Michigan shows, Marquette hard rockers Nudge have lined up another set of weekend dates at The Satisfied Frog next week! Just 4 weeks after their last shows at The Frog, this hard working and talented U.P. band will rock Sault Michigan once again, and with the frequency of their last 3 weekend engagements here (all are just 4 weeks apart), it's great to see Nudge making up for lost time following their early-2012 absence from the area! Also note that frontman Danzo McCracken's solo show will return to The Satisfied Frog on Wednesday and Thursday before Nudge crank up the rock on Friday & Saturday, so if you wanna mellow out a bit, keep Danzo's solo sets in mind next week as well! There's no announced cover charge for Nudge's shows next weekend, you must be 21 to attend, and there's an advertised start time of 10:00 PM. For more details, visit the official Facebook event page! Sounds like a good time to me, and hopefully Nudge can rock The Frog to it's core with plenty of great heavier covers next weekend! Stay tuned for updates on these shows if they come in!

Now to a preview of one of the metal concerts in Sault Michigan this weekend, and while our LemmaFest preview is forthcoming in our next post, the band that opens this year's Michael Lemma tribute festival tomorrow will also be playing a long awaited concert TONIGHT as well! Brimley metal trio Half A Man will play their first concert in 13 months tonight at The Bird (a.k.a. Golanka's Bar), and this has definitely been a long time coming for the guys following recording sessions, delays, lineup changes, and more! As such, this will also be their first show as an official trio (though they temporarily played with 3 members at their 2010 live debut), and it will be their first concert since the departures of guitarist Denny Breslin & singer Dillion Semasky, though only Denny had played at any prior Half A Man shows. Tonight's concert seems fairly standard compared to Half A Man's earlier concerts, but the Facebook event page does confirm that there will be a barbeque at The Bird prior to their set, so come on out for that as well! There's no cover charge for tonight, you must be 21 to attend, and the concert itself actually has a listed start time of 8:00 PM, which is oddly early. Check the above links for more details!

Sounds like a great show to me, and it's awesome to see Erik, Gary, and Mikey back on stage after so long! This caps off a busy Friday for Half A Man after being interviewed by Scott Cook & Brian Davie on Rock 101 this morning, and I hope many of you guys knew about the interview and tuned in, as I was busy this past week and couldn't get a moment in to remind you guys. I hope someone recorded it too, it'll be a great listen if someone did! Also remember to follow Half A Man on their new Twitter page too, especially as you can only read their tweets if you're a confirmed follower on your own Twitter account. Go see Half A Man TONIGHT at The Bird, stay tuned for our LemmaFest preview later tonight, and for a preview of tonight's show, here's the new "radio version" (less swearing) of their original song "Drunk", courtesy of their YouTube channel yesterday! Sounds very good and still potent, but make note of their live return tonight!



That's all for now, but stay tuned for our extended LemmaFest preview later tonight, and possibly more news! To accomodate that, I'm postponing this month's YouTube Channel Profiles to tomorrow so we don't flood the site with posts today or de-emphasize the LemmaFest preview by putting it up tomorrow morning, as it begins early tomorrow as it is. Stay tuned!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Half A Man), Concert Updates, A Woods Of Ypres Interview, And More!!

Here's another news post to kick off the coming week! Today, we have some assorted random news and notes, a new interview concerning a prominent local band, updates to the lineups of two shows this coming week, and leading things off, a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT, so here's what you need to know!

One day before their LemmaFest-opening set outside of Dondee Lanes, Brimley metal band Half A Man will return to The Bird (a.k.a. Golanka's Bar) in Sault Michigan THIS FRIDAY!! This will be the band's first live concert appearance in over a year, their first gig since the departure of guitarist Denny Breslin last summer, and their debut as an official three piece band, though they temporarily played with 3 members only for their first show in 2010. Details on the show are fairly scant at the moment, but the guys should have loads of brutal original material and select covers in store for their long awaited live return, so if you can't make LemmaFest on Saturday (or if you just miss Half A Man), go see them at The Bird on Friday night! There is no announced cover charge, you must be 21 to attend, and a 10:00 PM start time is listed. For more details, visit the official Facebook event page! Also, I understand that Half A Man will be interviewed on "Scott & Brian In The Morning" on Rock 101 on Friday morning at or around 8:00 AM, so tune in to 101.3 FM on your radios on Friday to hear the interview and maybe some studio material? Time will tell, but don't miss Half A Man's busy and long awaited return this coming weekend!

Next up, here's some lineup updates to a pair of upcoming Sault Ontario-area metal concerts this coming week! First, local grimecore trio Shit Liver have replaced Desbarats death metallers For All That Is Lost as the headlining act at Thursday's 46th Roosevelt Hotel metal night. The news was broken on the Facebook event page this past Thursday by promoter Mitch Sirie, but a reason for F.A.T.I.L.'s exit was not announced. Nice to see Shit Liver still playing at The Rosie this week following their dropout of the Battle for the Blood on Tuesday, and they and The Bear Hunters will continue their frequent alliance in this series well this time around! As for For All That Is Lost, you can still see them this week at both the aforementioned battle & at their own "F.A.T.I.L. Gathering" on Neebish Road in Laird on Friday, which has it's own lineup additions! Fellow Desbarats death metallers Inhuman Methods have been added to the lineup for their second show with new singer Anthony Tverdal, bringing the lineup of named bands to seven. Solid addition, hopefully their opening slot at The Rosie on Thursday is a harbinger of good things for the F.A.T.I.L. Gathering on Friday! As well, the Facebook event page also notes that "others" will be playing as well, but what could that imply?

I wouldn't be surprised if the "others" refer to a band made up of assorted musicians, possibly similar to the one-off band Blood Messiah from a F.A.T.I.L. event in Thessalon last August. That band featured ex-Bring The Misery alumni Dan Souliere, Daeson Lesage, and Travis St. Amour alongside a fourth member I can't place, and Facebook has a bunch of photos & videos from said event. Travis has indicated on the event page that a band he was in was playing as of June 4th, but is this the "others" being referred to, or is it something else? If I hear anything, I'll let you guys know, but check the above links for more details!

Third today, here's a new Woods of Ypres interview you guys might be interested in! The Indian music blog Trendcrusher interviewed guitarist Joel Violette towards a post in February, where Joel answered questions about the circumstances surrounding the release of "Woods V: Grey Skies & Electric Light", the songwriting process for the album, recording with producer Siegfried Meier and mixer John Fryer, why the "W5" sessions weren't documented much like for the band's earlier releases, the band's evolution from black to doom metal, and the future for both Woods of Ypres and Joel's Thrawsunblat project. Solid interview with Joel answering to the best of his ability when he didn't know the answers first hand (i.e. David Gold's though process and choices), and there's some interesting new tidbits! Joel did reveal that original pre-release plans called for video releases and studio diaries to chronicle material being recorded for the album, but none of that has been released (I'd love to see them leak out in some form though), and while there won't be a new Woods of Ypres studio album, Joel does plan to find a new drummer for Thrawsunblat, as David provided drums for them prior to his passing as well. Rae Amitay, possibly? Click here to read the full interview, it's definitely worth checking out!

And finally, here's three assorted shorter stories from the last little while, and as always, these are in alphabetical order by band name:

• Kinross hard rockers Banned apparently played a set yesterday at 5:00 PM at the Blaney Park Rendezvous motorcycle rally (east of Manistique) as per their Facebook page. Even if this was in our local range, there wasn't enough advance info or details to cover it here, but it's great to see Banned continue their slow spread across the U.P., and hopefully this gig was a huge hit!
• Sault Ontario classic hard rock quintet That's Chester also played a show with little to no advance word yesterday, that being at this year's local Relay For Life event, as per their Facebook page. A venue or specific details (i.e. if it was open to the public) weren't promoted on band pages, but this isn't the first time That's Chester have rocked out for this great cause, so kudos to them! Also note that this was likely their first show with drummer Ric Datson since March following a joint injury.
• Sault Michigan classical metal notables Theatre of Night have announced on their Facebook page that the final mixing and mastering for their second album "The Dawn's Early Light" is now underway. Awesome to hear, so stay tuned for the release of their very patriotic new album on July 1st, if all goes according to plan!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for last month's poll results and this month's new poll tomorrow, along with a bunch of mid-week concert previews over the next little while! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Powerslug) And Some New Videos!!

Well guys, last night's Sault Humane Society Battle of the Bands is in the books, and I have a recap (not a review, per say) coming tomorrow. Why tomorrow? Because the videos I filmed are taking forever to upload, but don't worry, it'll be a good one, and you can check out the videos from earlier bands last night and the results at our Facebook page if you wanna until then. So to keep things rolling here (and because of a SHORT NOTICE LOCAL CONCERT ALERT), we've got a post with some recent news today, including new videos, so here's what you need to know!

Sault Michigan hard rock quartet Powerslug are playing at Golanka's Bar (a.k.a. The Bird) TONIGHT! I apologize for the short notice, but guitarist Chris Gurnoe only just announced the show this morning on his personal Facebook page. This has become a common occurrence with the band formerly known as River Witch for about a year now, since their former Facebook page fell into disuse, as I've only tended to hear about their non-Kewadin shows late or on short notice. I'm doing my best to keep on top of things though, so bear with me! This will be Powerslug's second straight Saturday night concert at The Bird, and though I've yet to hear media of them in action, members' pasts in their predecessor band Blind Baby indicate a solid sound, so don't miss them TONIGHT! Admission should be free, you must be 21 to attend, and there's likely a start time of 10:00 PM. For what little I can gather about this concert, get more at the above links! Hopefully Powerslug knock it out of the park again this weekend, and go check them out tonight for some hard rocking across the river!

Now to some new videos, starting with a new song from prolific local solo guitarist (and judge at last night's battle) Mike Cliffe! Entitled "Nose Hair Sweater", it was uploaded to his YouTube channel last Wednesday, and it's definitely one of Mike's harder rocking and more upbeat instrumental tracks! Employing lots of time signatures and some interesting vocal samples & visualizations, Mike did note that it was "quite unfinished", but complimented how fun it was to play. It's a really cool track as it is, and has lots of creative heavy parts, so check it out below!




Also in new songs is a new solo track from Wearwithal frontman and veteran Sault Michigan singer/drummer Bob "Orb Hearthstone" Helsten! The former voice of bands like I.S.O.M. and End of Existence posted a new original solo song named "Destination" onto his YouTube channel on Tuesday, and it's pretty catchy! Completely clean sung, it's got a nice groove to it with solid melodic vocals, and if this is the direction is solo material is going now, I definitely wanna hear more (though with some harsh singing too, of course.) Very nice, so check it out below, and hear more from Orb's recent band work at the above links!



Finally for today, I'm sharing this last because it doesn't work in the United States, so it has a limited view range. Two weeks ago, former Swayze Train guitarist Scott Savoie uploaded a video of him covering the Devildriver song "Not All Who Wander Are Lost" onto his YouTube channel, but it was blocked in the United States shortly after on copyright grounds by WMG (probably because the original song was in the background.) That said, it was not blocked in Canada, creating the odd scenario of a video by a Sault Michigan guitarist that only Sault Ontario metalheads can watch without an IP switching tool. If you can see it, you'll get a very proficient and well played cover, and Scott's on high form here, but maybe he should redo it without the backing track for American fans? Check out Scott's newest solo guitar cover below if your country allows it!



That's all for today, but stay tuned tomorrow for my recap of last night's Sault Humane Society Battle of the Bands, and also, tune in to CBC Radio One (89.5 FM in the Twin Saults area) at 5:00 PM TODAY to hear Garden of Bedlam's song "New Rain" on the CBC Radio One program "Bandwidth", which is all about Ontario music! Not sure if they're just being played or if anything else will come up, but listen in at 5:00! Thanks everyone!

The Tym Morrison Concert Preview, Plus More Assorted News & Videos!!

After three days of just feature posts, we're finally back with a new news post at the SMS, and it's combined with weekend concert previews due to this being a very light weekend for metal and hard rock shows. Unless there's some concerts in twin Saults I haven't heard of or are getting a very late notice, there's only one show going down this weekend of a metal relevance, so we're previewing that first, but stay tuned after that for a local band's new singer, another's current status, and this week's classic video! Read on below, and also check out our Kiss Battle of the Bands Profile in the post below this one!

This weekend's concert preview is for Caveman Morrison frontman Tym Morrison's matinee show at Bossy's Pub N' Grub on Saturday afternoon, in his 12th straight Saturday show at the Pim Street restaurant! One week out from Caveman Morrison's new lineup's debut, Tym will be sure to deliver an entertaining set of acoustic hard rock and metal covers to his fans at the former Smack Daddy's, so keep his return to Bossy's in mind on Saturday! Tym will be on at about 2:00 PM as usual, I doubt there's a cover charge, it should be all ages given the timing. For more details, visit the official Facebook event page! Sounds like a fun time this weekend, and hopefully some of you guys can make it out to rock out with Tym on Saturday during this light stretch of metal shows! For a preview, here's Tym's newest solo original song "The Afterlife", which was self-recorded and posted onto his YouTube channel earlier today! It's an interesting rock track with some good atmospheric vocals and nice lyrics, and though it's not a blistering metal number, it's well written and has a nice feel for it, so give it a listen below!



Next up, new local doom/stoner metal band Giwakwa have announced the addition of Jason Bourcier to their lineup as their new singer, officially making them a quartet. He was quietly added to their lineup on their Facebook page earlier this week, and he notably rejoins former Fitswitch bandmate Larry Mousseau in Giwakwa. Jason's well known locally for his bass work in bands like Fitswitch, SIGHdEFECT, and Murder Playground, but Giwakwa brings him back to singing, a role he's handled very well with bands like Time of Ruin, Operation: Killdozer, and (most recently) Faithless Sin. It'll be good to see Jason back fronting a local band again, as I haven't seen him on stage officially fronting a band since Operation: Killdozer's 2009 debut, and hopefully he fits in well with Giwakwa! No other real band news has came since beyond some photo postings, all of which appear to be before Jason joined, but it does give us a glimpse at Giwakwa together performing! As I hear more on them and their next updates, I'll definitely have them here, so stay tuned, and note that I've edited our YMCA Battle of the Bands Profile to note that Jason has joined Giwakwa when mentioning newer notable bands from that battle's competitors!

Also today, I wanted to address a local band's current status, or lack thereof. That band is local old school hardcore quintet Destroilet, who haven't been seen on stage since February 2011 when they opened for Maximum RNR at Foggy Notions, and they last posted on their online pages in April upon the release of their debut EP. With that said, it was announced a few days ago that the members of Destroilet (minus guitarist John Conway) have formed a new pop punk band named The Belmonts, with Redundant's Justin Langlois on the second guitar, reuniting him with former SIGHdEFECT bandmate Matt Waples. Videos are posted on the new band's Facebook page of Ramones & Riverdales covers, so give them a look for some solid punk rock jams! Now, what does the existence of The Belmonts mean for Destroilet's future? According to their Facebook page, The Belmonts are "somethin' to do for fun while Destroilet takes a break", which more or less affirms the recent inactivity from them. I assume this is due to John having external commitments, but I'm not positive. If they don't return to activity soon, I still won't consider Destroilet inactive until the fall, as I remember that they were tentatively lined up to open for The Dayglo Abortions had they came here again in October, so I'm counting a year's inactivity from then.

Still, fingers crossed that Destroilet come back at some point in the near future, as their old school hardcore fury was welcome at local concerts in recent years, and even a year late, a CD release show would be fun to finally have! Also, just as a humourous aside, wouldn't Destrundant be a fitting alternate name for The Belmonts given the band members' other projects?

And finally, here's this week's classic video! With a very light weekend on the local metal scene, I'm dipping into the general archives this week for one of two videos I recently rediscovered of a local metal band in action, that being defunct Sault Michigan quartet Nixxon Dixxon! Though disbanded since 2010 (and with 3/4ths of the band now in Trail's End), they still developed a good local following during their run, and when doing research towards another post, I found two videos of them from mid-2008 concerts at The Bird (a.k.a. Golanka's Bar) that I hadn't seen in a few years! Possibly the oldest publically viewable footage of Nixxon Dixxon live, the first video (of them covering Van Halen's "Ain't Talking About Love") is of noticeably worse quality, so we'll start with this June 2008 video of them covering Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar On Me"! Brandon Carr's singing isn't as wide-ranging as it was at their 2010 peak, and the video's angle can be far from the stage and impaired by attendees' heads, but it's a solid performance of this Def Leppard classic, and it's good to see this video again! Note that I brightened the lighting in the video after uploading it to YouTube, as the original video was fairly dark.

Uploaded by attendee Lyzz Johnson onto her MySpace page on June 22nd, 2008, you can view the original video at http://myspace.com/video/vid/36775952. NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IS INTENDED!!! All credit for this video goes to Lyzz and Nixxon Dixxon, they did all the hard work, I'm just trying to share this video with a wider audience like it deserves! It's a solid early video of Nixxon Dixxon, so give it a look below!



That's all for today, but stay tuned for hopefully more news and notes this weekend, along with our Saultites In Out Of Town Bands Profile on Constructed Apocalypse on Monday and (yes) our "Woods V" review by the end of the month! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Banned), YouTube Notes, And Lots More!!

Here's a quick news post for you guys to check out this morning, which I honestly wasn't planning to have until perhaps tomorrow, but when a SHORT NOTICE LOCAL CONCERT ALERT calls, you've gotta get it posted with some advance word! That's this post's top story, but read on below as well for new audio recordings from a local guitarist, lots of assorted news stories, and a note on recent YouTube changes. First off, here's details on this new show!

Kinross hard rock quartet Banned are returning to the concert stage TONIGHT, just in time for a night of St. Patrick's Day live music! They'll be back at The Bird (a.k.a. Golanka's Bar) in Sault Michigan tonight for their first advertised concert in almost two months, as revealed on the band's Facebook page late Thursday night, and I apologize for the short notice, I only just heard about it yesterday. It's good to see Banned back, I was wondering where they've been over the last while! If you're looking for some St. Patrick's Day revelry with a heavier soundtrack in Sault Michigan, Banned at The Bird is about as good as it gets, so don't miss the show tonight! Details are admittedly scant, but the show should be at around 10:00 PM tonight with no cover charge and a 21+ age limit, but make room for green beer, and check the above links for more details! This sounds like a good time full of solid music and with the holiday setting, what better way to welcome Banned back to the stage? Go see them at The Bird TONIGHT, and for a preview, here's Banned covering Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child O' Mine" at their last show in January!



Next up, Sneaky Pete guitarist Mario Carlucci has posted some new solo performance clips onto his YouTube channel over the past three days! The newest is a slower instrumental with a nice groove named "Sequence 01 5" that'd fit a softer bluesy rock song pretty well, but I dig his upload from Wednesday named "Shut The Funk Up" more though! The title implies funk, and that's what we get in this funk rock number with more creativity and solo standout parts that add up to a very catchy and listenable tune! Neither of these uploads are videos, with only audio and an accompanying picture, but they're still worth listening to, so check them out at the above links, and here's "Shut The Funk Up"!



Thirdly today, here's three assorted shorter stories from the last little while, and as usual, these are in alphabetical order by artist, band, or concert name:

• Ex-Bring The Fallen drummer Travis St. Amour is looking for a singer for a new metal band he's part of (possibly a relaunched Unleash The Blackened Sky?) The start date would be late April, likely after Travis comes back from North Bay, and out of town shows are a goal for the band. If you're interested or want more details, reply on Travis' post at the Musicians Wanted Facebook group from this past Wednesday!
• A post on their Facebook page on Thursday implied that local extreme metal quintet Winkstinger have began recording sessions! Whether these are towards an album release of some kind or not is unknown at present, but a post on guitarist Jesse Cook's personal Facebook page mentioned that drum recording was done on Thursday with bass next. This is all news to me, but I'll keep you guys posted as more comes out!
• Tickets for April 7th's Ypres Metal Fest are NOW ON SALE! I'm 100% certain now, and you can pick them up at Northland Music, The Canadian Motor Hotel's front desk, or through promoter Rich Moreland or David Gold's sister Marie (contact links for both here.) Despite earlier mentions, I've heard nothing recent about tickets being at The Rad Zone, but I'll keep you guys posted if I confirm their availability there. GET YOUR TICKETS A.S.A.P.!!

And finally, I wanted to note a recent change to many local music-related pages that you guys may visit. Earlier this month, YouTube converted all channels on the popular video website to a new format that some users had already voluntarily began using. This is mandatory, similar to the MySpace layout changeover from November 2010, and if you had a lovingly created custom layout (or maintained one in lieu of the new format), it's mostly gone now. The background image (if you had one) will still be there, as will biography & channel details, but the pages now have a cleaner & simpler look that has less room for manipulation, though various layouts and page views still exist. No videos were directly removed from pages either with the changeover, so if any of yours were pulled, the new layout isn't why. As an example, see what the SMS' YouTube channel now looks like at this location. I picked a layout that let you guys see all recent uploads & various playlists up front like before, but info on what I've posted, liked, and subscribed to (along with channel comments) now have separate tabs. Other channels will look similar to this, and if you haven't logged into yours this month, it'll look pretty bare, so go make your channels look how you want again, and hopefully this new look will grow on us all!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for last month's poll results and this month's new poll TOMORROW, along with more news soon! Thanks everyone!

Another Local Metal Video Showcase!!

It's time to get some more videos out to you guys on this wet Monday afternoon, so here's what's on tap for our latest local metal video showcase! Today, we have the latest videos from two notable Sault Michigan acts and two covers from a pair of Sault Ontario musicians, so here's all that you should know! (EDITED: 5:54 PM)

Brimley metal quartet Half A Man have posted some new videos onto YouTube, and the newest of them gives us our first glimpse at new singer Dillion Semasky! As posted onto guitarist Erik Rintamaki's YouTube channel yesterday, it's of most of Half A Man (I don't see bassist Gary Croad) covering the Down song "Bury Me In Smoke", and though it's filmed in the same location as their "Gooodbye" performance from last month, a white effects filter is laid on the video for some reason. Maybe it's to build anticipation for the new lineup's full debut? Who knows, but audio wise, Dillion sounds good! He knows the song, and he can pull off an aggressive yet melodic track like this with Half A Man, so all seems good to me so far! Check the above links to give the video a listen, or view it below, and thanks to Erik for telling me about the YouTube copy! That said, they have two more new videos on the band's YouTube channel as well, and like their other new YouTube uploads, these are from their April 16th concert at The Merchant's Bar. They're of their cover of Prong's "Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck" and their original song "Life Goes On", so click each link to check them out! There's not much new to say on these in terms of quality, but these are solid and very heavy performances, especially "Life Goes On", so check out both of their new videos, and here's their new Down cover from yesterday!



Next up, here's some new videos from Kinross hard rockers Banned! No less than FOUR videos from their set on Saturday night at The Bird have been posted onto band members' Alex & Don Traynor's sister/daughter Ashley Traynor's YouTube channel over the last two days, which is awesome, so kudos to Ashley for filming these! The videos are of Banned covering Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child O' Mine", Eric Clapton's "Wonderful Tonight", Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World", and (as embedded below) Alice In Chains' "Man In The Box", so click on each link to see her videos from Saturday night! For reference sake, Alex sings lead on each posted song except "Wonderful Tonight", which Don sang lead on. I find it odd that Banned's new singer/keyboardist Mike Straw doesn't seem to do much of either in the posted videos we've seen of Banned's current lineup, beyond backing vocals. Maybe it's just a coincidence or a slow build, but I'm curious to hear more of his talents! Overall though, these are fairly solid performances by Banned, though Alex definitely handles vocals better on songs that had higher-voiced singers originally. Good stuff all round, so check the above links for all the new (and old) Banned videos, and here's their cover of "Man In The Box"!



Finally, here's some new solo performance videos from a pair of Sault Ontario musicians, starting with the latest guitar cover from Neno Jovanovic! Like his other recent covers, this is of him playing the guitar tracks along with the rest of the original song, and in this case, it's a cover of Mastodon's "Blood & Thunder". It's a good cover, he knows the original well, but it'd be nice if it was the full song and if it was a bit louder in the mix. Still, it's worth checking out, so here's Neno's cover of "Blood & Thunder", as uploaded to his YouTube channel on Thursday!



And finally, ApocalyptiCDitroyeR frontman Jesse Middaugh has posted two new solo performance videos onto the band's YouTube channel! These are two weeks old, so I apologize for being late to mention these on here, they just slipped me by. These are the first videos that Jesse's posted on his YouTube in over four months that feature him on an electric guitar, which is good to see, and they're of his cover of Simple Plan's "Jet Lag" and (as embedded below) an original track named "The New One"! I'm not high on Simple Plan, but these new videos show off Jesse's guitar skills well, and the new track has promise as a hard rocking number, so definitely give these new videos a look above and below!



That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and this month's Saultites In Out Of Town Bands Profile later this week! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Banned & The Lust Boys) And New Videos!!

Let's keep the news rolling on this snowy Tuesday, as we've got a lot to get to today, including this week's classic video, a new solo cover from a local guitarist, and kicking things off, two LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS, including one show THIS WEEKEND, so here's what you need to know! (Edited at 4:50 PM)

Kinross hard rock quartet Banned are hitting the stage THIS SATURDAY at Golanka's Bar, a.k.a. The Bird! This will be their first Sault Michigan concert in about three weeks, though I'll note that Banned took part in a minimally-advertised talent show of some type named "Yooper's Got Talent" last weekend in Rudyard. For the life of me, I couldn't find anything on this event, save for older videos featuring mostly comedians, so I couldn't reliably cover it on here. Hopefully Banned did well, and I apologize for missing this event! This weekend though, Banned should deliver a great set of hard rocking covers for their fans at The Bird, so consider checking them out on Saturday night! My source for this show is a posting on Banned's Facebook page. I'd assume that this concert is a 21+ event, there's no announced cover charge, and everything starts at 10:00 PM. Check the above links for more details! Banned are definitely a talented rising local band, so don't miss their exciting sound on Saturday at The Bird! Stay tuned for more on this show later in the week when we preview this weekend's local metal/hard rock concerts!

Also for new concerts is a big metal show on March 30th, and it features the local debut of The Lust Boys! As you may know, this is the Victoria, British Columbia sleaze/glam rock quintet featuring Sault Ontario native Ben "Benny Blitz" Kemp-Reynolds on guitar, and it looks like their quest for a local booking here on March 30th paid off, as they're listed for a headlining gig at The Canadian Nightclub that night during their "Tour Before Dishonour" this spring! My source is the tour poster on your left, and the gig (with venue) is also listed on their Reverbnation page, but this is subject to change. Opening for them at this show will be local classic metal quartet Late & Loud, featuring Ben's old Glass Statues bandmates Benn Garside and Josh Hatherly, which makes them an especially fitting opening band for this show! I'd assume this concert would have a 19+ age limit, and Reverbnation lists a likely incorrect start time of 8:00 PM, but other details like admission prices, possible extra bands, and other ground rules are not out yet. Until we hear more, check the above links for more details! It's great to see The Lust Boys bring their sleaze onslaught to the Soo finally, and it'll be good to see Ben back on a local stage after three years away! There'll be lots of great classic metal sounds at this show, so keep it in mind for this spring, and stay tuned for updates and possible changes as they roll in!

We'll close today's post with some new videos, and first, here's the latest solo cover from local guitarist Neno Jovanovic! This time, he covered the guitar track from Rob Zombie's "Sick Bubblegum" and posted the results (as synced with the original song) onto his YouTube channel yesterday! It's a good cover, and he knows the guitar track well, but it sounds a bit reserved compared to the original song. Very good though, Neno's got real talent, so check out more of his solo covers at the above links, and here's his take on "Sick Bubblegum"!



And finally, here's this week's classic video! With the big metal show at The Roosevelt Hotel on Thursday (possibly the 41st metal night?), I wanted to tie in our latest classic video with a band playing that concert, and I've chosen The Bear Hunters! We're slowly gonna include 2011 videos more regularly in this series as the year progresses, and in that spirit, this week's video comes from the Rosie metal night on February 3rd. In this video, The Bear Hunters (including then-guitarist Mike Vincent) covered "Squirrel Buddy" by guitarist Mitch Sirie's April Eyes solo project, which became a fan favourite during it's brief time in their setlists early last year! I actually filmed this performance too on an earlier upload on our YouTube channel, but this particular video was filmed at a different angle by attendee Tiia Opala-Ollinaho. Good audio quality, though the original video was largely focused on Mitch and singer Nik Deubel, and it was very dark on her camera too. It's a good video though, and it's always nice to see extra perspectives! Tiia posted this on Facebook the day after the concert, and you can view the original video at http://facebook.com/photo.php?v=10150127795912527, but note that I fixed and brightened the lighting on the video after posting it on YouTube.

NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IS INTENDED!! All credit for this video goes to The Bear Hunters and Tiia for all of their hard work, I'm just trying to spread this video out to a wider audience! It's a solid video, and kudos to Tiia for uploading it, so check out The Bear Hunters covering "Squirrel Buddy" last February below!



That's all for today, but stay tuned for our next "Favourite ____ of 2011" poll tomorrow, and the final results of this month's poll, so if you haven't voted yet, VOTE A.S.A.P. at the form on the top left! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Banned & Powerslug), New Year's Weekend Concert Previews, Plus The End Of Splitshot!!

It's time for our final concert preview post of 2011, and though the Sault Ontario side of things is surprisingly quiet for metal concerts, there's some hard rocking for you guys to take in in Sault Michigan to send out 2011 and welcome 2012 with! So that's the focus today, but there's also some lineup details for one band and a note on one ending their run outside of town this weekend, so let's kick things off with LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS!!!

Kinross hard rockers Banned will return to the Sault Michigan stage on New Year's Eve to rock Golanka's Bar (a.k.a. The Bird) and send out 2011 in style! This New Year's Eve job (as they often call their shows) will be their first since their Pickford concert over Halloween weekend, and their first since confirming their new lineup (who I'll have more on in a second), but the music should be as varied and hard rocking as ever! As far as I can tell, they won't be playing at The Bird tonight, this is a one night only deal this weekend. They'll be on at 10:00 PM tomorrow night, there's no announced cover charge, and you must be 21 to attend. For more details, check the above links! It's great to see Banned back on stage, and hopefully they rock The Bird all night long as they welcome 2012 with their fans! And as for their lineup, Banned have added singer/keyboardist Mike Straw to their lineup, and enlisted bassist Jim Pentland to replace the departed Alex Schrovenwever, officially making them a quartet. The new members were quietly added to their Facebook page's lineup at some point in the past two months.

No word on if they played with Banned at the Pickford show in October, and I'm not familiar with either Mike or Jim musically, but hopefully they complement Alex & Don Traynor well for the new lineup, and go see them all rock The Bird tomorrow night! For a preview, here's Banned covering AC/DC's "TNT" in Sugar Island in August!



Also new this weekend, local hard rockers Powerslug will return to the stage to rock Dan's Place in nearby Rudyard for New Year's Eve! No word on if they're playing tonight, I haven't definitively heard either way, so I'll assume they're only playing tomorrow. My source for this new gig, Powerslug's first since their Kewadin Casino weekend earlier this month, is guitarist Chris Gurnoe's personal Facebook page, and apologies for the short notice. As expected, nothing was posted on the old River Witch Facebook page, which was deleted from Facebook anyway earlier this month, so I've deleted it from our band links, but if Powerslug ever launch a new official band page, I'll be sure to let you guys know! This talented quartet will likely be on at around 10:00 PM tomorrow night, you must be 21 to attend, and there's no announced cover charge. Check the above links for more details, and I'd recommend calling Dan's Place to see if Powerslug are playing tonight or not before risking a drive out to Rudyard in case they are doubling up this weekend. Go check out their hard rocking sounds this weekend at Dan's Place, they'll be sure to impress, and I'll try to keep tabs on future Powerslug updates as they come in!

Now to the New Years Weekend shows we already knew about, starting with local hard rock quintet Swayze Train's debut at The Rapids Lounge at Kewadin Casino! We've seen this talented band from members of Electric Motor Fish, Clownsack, The Slackjawed Rats, and Insipid Brutality numerous times in the second half of 2011, and now they'll finally land at The Rapids Lounge tonight & tomorrow night to ring in a new year with some solid hard rock and metal covers! I wish I could show you guys how they sound or look in concert (hopefully some media will come next year), but don't sleep on Swayze Train, they're one of the more promising new bands in Sault Michigan, so don't miss them! They should also be on at around 10:00 PM tonight & tomorrow, there's no announced cover charges, and once again, you must be 21 to attend. Check the above links for more details, and definitely consider seeing this talented quintet at The Rapids Lounge this weekend for your year-end hard rocking needs!

Lastly for announced Sault Michigan-area hard rock shows this weekend is the announced return of local hard rock quintet NoXcape to The Satisfied Frog tomorrow night & Saturday night in their own New Years Weekend bash! Now, I want you guys to take these shows with a grain of salt, as I've heard extremely little from NoXcape since September regarding a real band update, and though their Reverbnation page still lists these shows, it's possible it's just scarcely updated. As far as I can tell, they're still together, and unless I hear otherwise, I'll treat these shows as on, but be wary in case there's nothing going down at The Frog from them this weekend. If NoXcape are indeed returning to the stage this weekend, they'll be on at 10:00 PM tonight & tomorrow, you must be 21 to attend, and there's no announced cover charge. Check the above links for more details! Hopefully NoXcape are playing this weekend, as their Absolute & Shift pasts indicate a solid hard hitting sound, but if I hear anything otherwise, I'll let you know. For now, consider these shows at The Frog tonight & tomorrow!

And finally today, though this is just out of our local range, I wanted to bring these up as they're the last chance you can see this local band before their breakup. Local hard rock quintet Splitshot are breaking up following the conclusion of their concert weekend at the Kewadin Casino in St. Ignace tonight & tomorrow night, as previously indicated by bassist Kyle Beaumont to me in an e-mail last month. I find it a bit odd that their last shows aren't local, but St. Ignace is only just an hour away, and if you wanna see them one last time before Splitshot parts ways, it won't be a huge drive. Of course, 3/5ths of Splitshot will begin to devote their musical focus to Trail's End next year, but Splitshot will be remembered for giving us a lot of great hard rock sets from their fall 2010 inception through the end of this year, and though the lack of posted audio or video from their sets was always a disappointment, their talents spoke for themselves live. They filled the gap between Nixxon Dixxon and Trail's End nicely, and they'll be missed locally! I'll likely be moving Splitshot into our inactive band links early in the new year, but go check them out in St. Ignace this weekend, and make sure to see most of their lineup with Trail's End next year!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for our review of Garden of Bedlam's "Everything Will Die" and our look back at 2011 below! Thanks everyone!

Half A Man News And The Winner Of March Mayhem!

In our final post for this Saturday three-for-all, we have three aims: Preview a concert tomorrow night, update you guys on some recording plans from that band, and unveil the winner of our March Mayhem tournament! Before we preview tomorrow's concert, remember that the previously announced punk show at Foggy Notions tomorrow featuring Dancing With Paris has been cancelled, but you can still see them at The Oddfellows Hall on May 28th, details of which you can find at this location! But there is still one metal show tomorrow, so here's what you need to know!

Brimley hard rockers Half A Man are back on the local stage tomorrow night for a special early concert at Golanka's Bar (The Bird)! Though the band have lots of great original hard rock in store for their fans tomorrow, there's a lot more going on than just their set. This show will serve as an afterparty for a softball team's opening game, though I'm not sure of the specifics. I'd guess it's either a Bird-sponsored team, a team made of Bird employees, or has band members or family/friends on the team. Aside from that, I have heard that Half A Man have giveaways planned for free band merchandise, and the people behind the upcoming "Yooper Bars" book will officially be on hand to gather photos and info on The Bird for their book, so if you want to make a cameo in the book or talk about The Bird, there's some added incentive! This show has a special early start time of 7:30 PM, you must be 21 to attend, and there is no cover charge. For more details, visit the official Facebook event page! There's a lot going on tomorrow evening, but remember to be there for Half A Man's set, as their hard hitting music is making a fast rise in the local scene, so they'll be on the top of their game! For a preview, here's Half A Man playing their song "Drunk" at The Bird in February!



Also, I wanted to add that Half A Man announced on their Facebook page last month that they've unveiled their official plans to record a full length album this summer! They're planning to hit McNally Smith Studios in St. Paul, Minnesota in June to record the album, with a hoped release date for late 2011. The band also noted that they could get former Machine Head/Soulfly guitarist Logan Mader to mix and master the album, presumably through his production team Dirty Mind Productions, but nothing is concrete. Click here for full details! Intriguing news overall, I hope everything falls into place, and I'll absolutely pick the album up when it comes out!

And now, here's the conclusion to the SMS March Mayhem tournament! So, who won the tournament, and how does the final bracket look? The results are below!


Congratulations to Sykotyk Rampage, the winners of the March Mayhem tournament! The local "blue Chinese metal crash punk" quartet took a surprising 207-83 win over Frightlight in the last week of voting to claim 1st place in this tournament! This was definitely a surprising result in both vote totals and pre-final round predictions, but Sykotyk Rampage did good to win all 5 matchups they were placed in! What does this all mean though? In terms of the spoils for the winner, it's just bragging rights, as the tournament was all basically an experiment in good faith. Some could point to band member-run voting campaigns for some of the results, but to me, it's just indicative of their devoted fan base rallying together! The results are interesting overall though, providing some interesting insights into some band's fan bases and how they can surprise you when the votes come in! Will we do this again, possibly with Sault Michigan bands? I don't know. I won't do one right away, as I do want to get back to some old school polls on the SMS over the next few months, but if I do do another, you guys will get lots of advance word, and it'll hopefully get an even bigger response! So congratulations to Sykotyk Rampage again, and here's hoping you guys enjoyed the tournament on the whole!

That's all for today, but stay tuned tomorrow, as I have a "surprise" post to share tomorrow to help make up for the delays the other day. What's the surprise? Well, if you see me at The Canadian Nightclub tonight, that could be a hint. Thanks everyone!

News From Sense Of Truth, Operation: Killdozer, The Bird, And More!!

Today's news post should be interesting, because all of the stories today relate to stuff from the past we've either missed or hoped to find! So today, we have some link updates, the discovery of pages (finally) for a local concert venue, a defunct local band's page, and this week's classic video, but first, here's some big news from Sense of Truth!

We're now 11 months removed from Sense of Truth's most recent local concert, and through that time, the rumours of their debut EP's eventual release have been ongoing. We know that there's been holdups due to band member work commitments, the issues related to the album artwork, and now, their guitarist search, and over that span, the most we've publically heard are some scattered radio airplay and the samples on their MySpace page. With that said, I was browsing the newly redesigned website of Stereo Soul Studios, where they recorded their EP with Miguel Gauthier in February before he moved to Los Angeles. Since the last time I've been there, I found some interesting stuff on the recording studio page: Two full songs from the EP and it's apparent artwork! The songs posted are "Push & Pull" (a current preview track on MySpace) and one new track unavailable on other pages, "Vicious Cycle"! Nice to see that on the EP, I was thinking it'd make the cut! This reminds me of when Woods of Ypres' "Our Union (In Limbo)" was posted by Miguel in 2009 before the band acknowledged it. I won't give detailed thoughts on either "Push & Pull" or "Vicious Cycle" yet, as I am waiting to review the full EP, but they're solid tracks, click here to listen! (third band down.)

Oh, and the artwork? Kinda plain, but it works well! As you can see by the picture, it's likely a self-titled release, and I still love their ambigram wordmark! Odd that this type of album cover could be so problematic, but really, I don't know much concerning album packaging. Nice stuff though, I'll keep you all posted!

Next up, here's a new band to add to the SMS listings! Well, not really "new", they broke up in 2009, but the page was only just added. Do you guys remember Operation: Killdozer? They were the local metal group from the spring of 2009 that featured notable local musicians like former Fitswitch bassist Jason Bourcier on vocals, WinkStinger drummer Jonas Gasperas, and Bear Hunters bassist Justin Lam, among others. I believe they only played two shows, the YMCA Battle of the Bands and at that year's SNFU concert, both taking place at The Grand Theater. I enjoyed them, but they didn't last too long, and for almost two years, I had no page for them.... until now! They in fact did have a Facebook group, which Jonas started, but the thing that threw me off was the self-deprecating tone of it, that featured fans and band members alike trashing Operation: Killdozer on levels that made the group look like it was anti-band. Well, it's in fact Operation: Killdozer's page, and it has some photos, amusing statements, and not a whole lot else. Still, there's enough to include them on the SMS, so click here to check out their Facebook group! If you wanna hear them, click here to check out a video of the band playing a song named "Pieces Of You"! Quality aside, it wasn't a bad performance!

Thirdly, here's some notes on a popular Sault Michigan bar/concert spot. Since we started covering Sault Michigan bands and shows in the summer of 2007, The Bird on East Portage Avenue have been a recurring sight when discussing local shows. However, we've never had an internet page for them... until now! As it turns out, they've had a MySpace page since at least April 2009, but it's not in use anymore. That's not all though, as they have no less than two Facebook pages! This one is a standard "fan page", while you can check out their page formatted like a normal Facebook account by clicking here. The latter page has been around since December, while the fan page was launched in February. What do they tell us about The Bird? Well, for one, that's not even technically it's name. Their official name is Golanka's Bar, a reference to the owner, but nowhere do people seem to call it that officially, as The Bird seems to be the casual use name for the bar (a'la The Rosie & The Frog.) Neither page has much in the way of concert news, though a past Splitshot concert weekend had a connected event page for it. Still, check the above links for photos, drink special news, and more! If anything metal concert-related pops up on a Bird page, I'll let you all know!

Now, here's some assorted updates to some of the links in our "Other Local Metal Links" section, where we store metal-relevant links that don't fit in other categories on the site. Firstly, I switched links for the defunct Northern Ontario music publication Northern Rocks Magazine, as their website has now expired, presumably due to a failure to renew the domain name. Shame, it was a good site, and the back issues were fun reads! I replaced it with their inactive Facebook group, so we didn't have to remove it! I did have to delete the MySpace page for Woods of Ypres' defunct independent label Krankenhaus Records, as it has no relevant information anymore, and the new MySpace layout crippled it's theme. Odd that there's no page for it's successor Practical Art Records yet, I'll let you know if I find one! Also, I deleted the link for SooNews.ca, which is now completely dead with all old archive news also shut down. I replaced it with it's successor site, LOCAL2, which is bound to have metal news eventually! Two more pages were deleted, those being the inactive local music forum The 705 Music Scene (which had all of it's threads taken down in lieu of it's replacement, the 705 Video Magazine) and the defunct concert venue Arcadia Coffeehouse, whose website was made private, so we can't view it anymore without an invite. For more, check the above links!

And finally, here's this week's classic video! I actually had two reasons for picking this one: A. The band in question is playing this weekend, and B. This video is being deleted from it's original site on April 29th. What do I mean? Well, Google recently announced that they're planning to delete all of the videos hosted on their old Google Video service, which basically became obsolete when they purchased YouTube. As such, this would cause the permanent deletion of all videos originally uploaded onto Google Video, unless you transfer them to YouTube or physically download them and re-post them elsewhere. I contemplated doing a miniseries of local metal-relevant videos from there on the SMS, but aside from the Gates of Winter videos that are now completely on YouTube, there's little there that would fit on the SMS. However, I did find one classic video on there, and it's a live video of As It Stands from before their initial breakup! This is of the band playing an original song (name unknown) at what I believe is the March 31st, 2007 Oddfellows Hall show where they opened for Dead & Divine the first time around! The band's current lineup is intact here, and the band sound good, but the audio's fairly scratchy. Despite the quality, you can tell their sound's really evolved since then, but it's still a good performance!

Uploaded by an uncredited Google Video user in April 2007, this video can be viewed through April 29th at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3172072824223605483, when it (and all other Google Video uploads) will be deleted. So I ripped it from there to post on the SMS' YouTube channel, and NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IS INTENDED! This video would be gone from the internet next week if I didn't grab it anyway, so give it a look below, and make sure to check out the much improved As It Stands TONIGHT at The Rosie!



That's all for today, but I will see you guys at The Rosie TONIGHT! Thanks everyone!