Vanity First's New Album, Mikey & His Uke's New Cover, And More!!

News hasn't been super fast as of late, but here's a reasonably stuffed post on this Monday evening, leaning more to punk acts, including some new videos and big details on a new album, so here's what you should know!

As promised, local skate punk trio Vanity First released their new studio album "Identity Crisis" at their release party at Soo Blaster on Saturday night, and if you didn't attend to pick up a CD copy, you can also stream it online! No word on videos from the show, but Honest Job alum Drew Armstrong did snap photos at the concert, and a black & white one of drummer Keegan McAllister has already been posted to the band's Facebook page, with more promised to be coming. The band claims that "Identity Crisis" is available on "all streaming platforms", a claim immediately disproven by not being uploaded on Bandcamp yet (despite "Off With Their Heads" being posted there). In actuality, you can stream it on Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and Deezer, while mp3 copies are on sale on Amazon and iTunes for $8.91 if you'd prefer actually owning the mp3 files. 

As hyped in detail on MorningStar Records' website, the album can be bought via Kunaki's print-on-demand method on CD ($10) or vinyl ($40) at this link, though at press time, I cannot confirm if Vanity are stocking the album at The Rad Zone or another local physical retailer (members do have CDs if you contact them directly). "Identity Crisis" is effectively an expanded re-recording of their 2022 "Vanity" demo, now including the three advance singles posted this year, their late 2022 single "Get Out", and one more new song named "When I Fall". All songs from "Vanity" were redone for "Identity Crisis" except "Breathe", a campfire jam-esque acoustic ballad which ended that demo. Quite frankly, if one song had to be scrapped, they picked the right one, as it doesn't jive with their skate punk base, but it wasn't a bad song, if more suited to guitarist Mikhal Muto's folk punk solo project Agnosticism than a full plugged in band.

At present, I have "Identity Crisis" pencilled in for review on the SMS in June, as this month and next are already committed for the newest albums from Convergence and the aforementioned Agnosticism. Stay tuned for that, but local punk fans will definitely want to give Vanity First's brand new album a listen (or optimally buy it) above & below!

Next up, the long awaited eighth installment of local punk supergroup project Mikey & His Uke's series of covers of Green Day's breakthrough album "Dookie" finally dropped on their YouTube channel earlier today! Four weeks removed from song #7 in this 30th anniversary series (the longest wait yet between songs), project leader/Bookclub frontman Mikey Hawdon and crew are back to tackle the next song on "Dookie", that being the single "She". On this one, vocal duties fall to K.J. Jansen of Calgary punk mainstays Chixdiggit, while Pennywise bassist Randy Bradbury (in his fourth appearance in the last five covers) is back here, as is ex-Goldfinger drummer Darren Pfieffer, who has yet to miss a "Dookie" cover in this series. Once again, Mikey plays guitar after his usual ukelele intro. Everyone delivers as you'd expect on this classic cover, and K.J.'s vocals are a great match for a Green Day rendition!

After last month's "Basket Case" cover had no real visual frills, we do get more variance here, with K.J. notably singing while shaving his beard, which is a new one for me to cover! Granted, Sault Michigan readers will appreciate Darren's choice of hockey jersey more than Sault Ontario ones. Next up in Mikey & His Uke's "Dookie" cover series is the deep cut "Sassafras Roots", which could drop at any point between Sunday and May 20th (the current average would be May 4th), so keep an eye out for that, and check out "She" for yourselves below!

Finally for today, here's a brief new promotional video from local alternative/hard rock band Handsome Sandwich's Facebook page to plug their set opening for The Hazytones at The Distraction on Thursday! The 12 seconds long & vertical clip sees the entire band (all wearing sunglasses) promoting the concert, with each member handling a part of the sentence. No new information, but hopefully it helps get the word out, so give it a watch below, and check above for details on the concert! And of course, our best thoughts go out to drummer Johnny Belanger following the passing of his brother, the obituary is linked here. I went to high school with them, and I can't imagine losing a loved one so young like this.

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

HeadFirst Concert Review, Plus The Latest Mikey & His Uke Cover Videos!!

I hope everyone is having a good Family and/or Presidents' Day! This post leans more to readers who have Family Day off, specifically via a surprise Sault Ontario concert review and an ambitious new punk cover project, so here's what you should know!

For my first concert review of 2024, I went to see local hard rock quartet HeadFirst's solo headlining debut at Shooters Downstairs Lounge on Saturday night, also the first time that I've seen everyone except drummer Anthony Boudreau in concert. We saw the band's first two sets, in which HeadFirst covered multiple songs by Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Tragically Hip, along with songs by the likes of The Band, The Cranberries, Pink Floyd, Green Day, and... The Flobots? I did get the sense from the set contents that HeadFirst were backloading their heavier/metal-leaning songs for the end of the night, perhaps to appeal to a wider audience when things were busier early on. While pictured instrument roles were largely unchanged from their promotional materials, singer Red Jettison showed his multi-instrumental skills by playing guitar, bass, and keyboard on select songs, with bassist Claire Jeffrey took over lead vocals on three tracks.

Performance-wise, HeadFirst impressed with a strong talent base, with Raine Rancourt's lead guitar work & Liam Dinsmore's rhythm playing showing a lot of promise, and Anthony's drumming was as solid as fans should expect from his 2010s metal bands. As a pure frontman, Red exuded stage presence when he was just singing and not playing an instrument, which is instantly welcomed and will definitely help set HeadFirst apart locally! Much of that was negated when he was playing an instrument though. The rest of the band could be more animated too, but Raine & Anthony aside, they're new to me in local bands, so that should improve in time. On the songs with Claire singing lead, she did showcase a good voice, but I do think that they could pick songs better suited to her range, especially not The 4 Non Blondes' "What's Up", which I find to be exceedingly overplayed by local bands, even ironically.

Overall, HeadFirst have a strong talent base and old school-leaning set to attract an audience, and I know the best is yet to come from them, so be sure to see them live to see what they bring to the table, including this weekend at Jay's and back at Shooters on June 1st! While an official band photographer got some much better/closer pictures of them on Saturday for their Facebook page, you can check out mine at this link or via our Facebook page (I hate being that guy in everyone's road). I also got a video of HeadFirst covering The Arctic Monkeys' "Do I Wanna Know?", so check that out for yourselves below!

Next up, it's been a while (4+ months!) since we've seen new content from local punk supergroup project Mikey & His Uke, but there may be a good reason for that in progress. As you may know, February 1st of this year marked the 30th anniversary of the release of Green Day's breakthrough studio album "Dookie", which founder Mikey Hawdon has noted as being a highly influential release that was his gateway into not just punk music, but towards playing and writing music of his own. To honour "Dookie" and Green Day for the anniversary, Mikey plans to record and release all-star covers of every single song on this album, which will add up to fourteen covers when all is said and done (fifteen if Mikey & crew decide to tackle the bonus song "All By Myself"). Each song is being released in order of the album's track listing to the project's YouTube channel, and three have made their way there at press time, spaced 7-8 days apart each.

Given the circumstances of this being a wider project covering the same album by the same three-piece band, each of the songs (so far?) has the same three instrumentalists. Mikey is on guitar and (initially as always) ukelele here alongside Buck-O-Nine bassist Andy Plafoot and ex-Goldfinger drummer Darren Pfeiffer, both no strangers to Mikey & His Uke. Each of the "Dookie" covers will feature a guest singer, and on the first three songs (the deep cuts "Burnout", "Having A Blast", and "Chump"), the respective vocalists are Loved Ones/Falcon alum Dave Hause, Pulley singer Scott Radinsky, and Ataris frontman Kris Roe. The "Burnout" video is mostly in black & white, albeit with some post-production filters, with Darren wearing a Soo Greyhounds jersey for his footage (nice touch!) On "Having A Blast", things are in colour, and Scott is filmed singing in multiple unique locales and angles.

"Chump" is also in colour and is moreso a straightforward remotely performance clip. In all three, watch for nods to Green Day, plus more hockey jerseys from Darren, and a newly shot outro/Patreon plug at the end of each, featuring Mikey and his baby daughter. As a fan, I think my favourite of these is "Having A Blast" (it helps that I was already a Pulley fan), but all three are tightly performed covers that Green Day and Mikey & His Uke fans won't want to miss! If the release pattern of 7-8 days between videos continues, then look for "Longview" later this week, and look for the rest of "Dookie" to crop up into early May, but give "Burnout" and the rest (so far) a watch above and below!

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

Lo-Fi Video Fanzine No. 1 Review!!

Merry Christmas to all readers who celebrate! I hope everyone is having a pleasant holiday and got lots of presents! On this holiday, I wanted to open a present of sorts, namely a disc that I found at Value Village a few weeks ago called "Lo-Fi Video Fanzine No. 1", credited on the spine as "a lo-fi film by Christopher Shoust". Long-time readers may recognize Chris Shoust as the frontman of the inactive indie/punk solo project Telephone & Address, from his work in bands like The Red & Black and Orange, and from his artistic pursuits as a painter and filmmaker, but I had no idea that he once worked on a video magazine project! Two DIY installments of this zine were made up in late 2012 (the first one is dated to September of that year), but I couldn't tell you how they were distributed at the time, as I don't remember him or performers openly plugging this on social media at all.

Interestingly, the disc is not a DVD, rather a data disc containing the 30 minutes of video in one file, so if you have either disc, your mileage will vary on if it will even play on certain devices. Given that I have only seen one of these in the wild in the past 11 years, I'd hazard a guess that their print runs were quite limited, but never fear, as Chris quietly uploaded both Lo-Fi Video Fanzines to his YouTube channel in April of last year. We'll focus on the first one today, which was largely shot across two dates in August & September 2012 inside the old Royal Canadian Legion building on Great Northern Road, aside from one performer, who was partially filmed playing on Queen Street East outside of Reggie's Place. It is worth noting that Chris said that the video is "deliberately low quality" to focus on documenting what happened rather than making the footage "look pretty". I don't necessarily agree, as our eyes see better than the camera was set up to, but Chris always liked lo-fi recordings.

I have no clue whether the Legion performances here were taken from public concerts or private events intended specifically for the zine, but if I had heard about them being public events, I would have at least covered them on the SMS at the time. The 30 minute video opens with defunct local hard rock duo Sounds From The Green Room, an online page-less precursor to singer/guitarist Brad Griffith & drummer B.J. Swire's later band Bizotic. S.F.T.G.R. even played a show in Ottawa in 2011, but their public dates in the Soo were very limited, and I didn't know they were still playing anywhere in 2012! Their song (which ended their set at the fuller Legion concert) was introduced by name, but I couldn't make out the title due to the lo-fi recording quality, though it sounded like Brad said "Fudgel". Very Sykotyk Rampage-esque sound to this song, but with more traditional melodic vocals, and it's definitely heavier than Bizotic were!

Second on the zine are two spoken word poems by Denis Robillard, though only the second ("Many Phones Sleep Here, Under The Earth") has its title introduced on camera. I'd have left in the applause after he finished, but Denis did write good thematic poems here! Next is the first appearance of fan favourite local pianist & street performer Damjan "Spider Fingerz" Binda, who performs some original music for 3 minutes or so, and his skill on the keys is as prevalent as ever! More spoken word follows when Cody Rydall reads a well written poem named "Like Flight", while his brother Jake (who we have covered here via the old Swampstravaganza open mic block) gets an almost six minute stretch of the zine next, where he does two original songs on vocals & acoustic guitar. Neither one has its title given on camera, but they may be called "Eye To Eye" and "Broken Guitar Strings".

Jake sings well here and has a knack for good compositions! As the second half of the zine begins, we leave the Legion for the first time to catch Spider Fingerz playing outside on Queen Street (at 3:00 AM, no less!). One wonders what nighthawks must have thought of this, but as always, Damjan's abilities as a pianist are clear as day even if the video isn't! Cody Rydall returns for a second poem next, which isn't titled on camera but only runs for about 30 seconds. Once you're done snapping your fingers to it, you can check out the return of Sounds From The Green Room's Brad Griffith, who is otherwise best known on bass with No Arrow and SBD, and for his more recent solo pursuits under the Gortium85 handle. Brad's solo section is the longest in the zine, and the only one to feature two distinct camera angles. As seen here, Brad is sticking closer to his grunge/hard rock work of the 2000s and early 2010s than what we saw later from him.

His two songs include one possibly named "Black Shadow", but I couldn't catch a candidate name for the second song, which has a livelier classic rock flair, and was filmed beside Brad rather than in front of him. Strong stuff for fans of Brad's pre-Bizotic music in particular, especially his first song! Denis Robillard returns for one more poem next, whose title sounds "Woke Flow Aerodrome" but I may be slightly incorrect with it. That ends the Legion content of the zine, and after a break with Damjan skateboarding downtown, we end with him and Chris joining forces like they did in The Red & Black, but here, it is specifically credited as an improvised joint performance between Telephone & Address and Spider Fingerz. Also filmed outside of Reggie's in the middle of the night, this is basically what happens if you let two guys play piano simultaneously, with Chris playing the high keys and Damjan handling the low keys.

Rather than play side by side, Damjan is playing from behind the keyboard while standing up, and they do pair well together to create music that one pianist shouldn't be able to do alone! While I would have filmed these with better quality cameras/settings, this was a fun watch to capture this chunk of the local music scene from a bygone era, with some good poetry to break it up, and it's a shame that this didn't have a wider release or publicity at the time, as I'd have happily covered it 11 years ago! Give Lo-Fi Video Fanzine No. 1 a watch below, and click here to watch No. 2, which is more focused on the local arts community and does not feature hard rock or punk-leaning musical acts. Thanks everyone, and Merry Christmas!

Saultites In Out Of Town Bands Profile: The Dookies

It's now time for this month's Saultites In Out Of Town Bands Profile, as we once again spotlight a band that's not from here, but featured a past or present Sault Ste. Marie-area resident in any of their lineups! This month's selection features a very familiar face covering very familiar songs, so check out this month's profile in this monthly feature series below, and check out our latest news post from this morning below this profile!
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The Dookies (Toronto, Ontario)

Lineup: (Saultites in RED)

Mikey Hawdon (vocals/guitar)
Matt Leitch (bass)
Darrin Pfieffer (drums)

Official Facebook group: http://facebook.com/groups/310896088965878

Local Info: Dookies frontman Mikey Hawdon is arguably one of the most familiar and experienced faces in the local punk scene thanks to his extensive band work locally and in Toronto as both a frontman and drummer in numerous projects. Likely best known as the drummer for The Inner City Surfers and singer for Lion Ride, Mikey is also familiar from past work with bands like Dustin Jones & The Rising Tide, Bin Hawdon & the Taliband, Detroit, Tha Bombed Squad, and numerous others. Currently living in Toronto, you can see Mikey there in his original punk band The Fairmounts and their Ramones/Joan Jett tribute side project The Merves, not to mention his other active punk tribute band, The Dookies!

Band Bio: One of two active punk tribute bands fronted by Mikey Hawdon, The Dookies obviously pay tribute to Green Day, and have a fittingly familiar lineup, with Mikey joined by Crush Luther's Matt Leitch and Goldfinger's Darrin Pfieffer, both of which having national hit songs with their main bands. Debuting on stage at The Port in Barrie in March 2012, The Dookies would make their only local appearances to date at The Rockstar Bar that April & October, joining an array of Southern Ontario concerts during that timeframe. Due to Darrin's move to Los Angeles in early 2013, bookings have slowed down since then, but The Dookies still play the occasional concert, most recently in Toronto last summer, while they'll return to the stage on June 19th at next month's annual Amnesia Rockfest in Montebello, Quebec.

Like The Merves, The Dookies deliver a faithful sound to the original band with a fun live atmosphere, though I'll concede that Mikey's not a perfect vocal match for Billie Joe Armstrong. He, Matt, and Darrin are all experienced pros that know these songs inside & out, and they're always a fun time, especially if you like Green Day already, so consider checking The Dookies out if possible, especially as they often cover their namesake album "Dookie" in full! As a tribute band, online media is limited to videos from their concerts, but I wonder how the guys would sound in an original project? YouTube user fromstephtolast has videos from one of The Dookies' local shows, but the audio is scratchy on them. Arguably the best place for Dookies videos is Mikey's own YouTube channel,  which has a number of 2012-era clips, including this one from that September in Toronto!


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I hope you guys liked this month's Saultites In Out Of Town Bands Profile! Next month in this series, we'll stay in the punk realm for a look at The Sunk'n City Gypsys, a British Columbia "folk/punk/grass" band that formerly featured Honest Job frontman Mister Tahti in their lineup, so look for that on or around June 26th! That's all for today, but stay tuned for news, concert previews, and this month's CD review in the coming days! Thanks everyone!

Assorted News And Updates!!

Here's one more post for the opening day of December before we have two posts tomorrow (One being our next "Where Are The New Albums?" post, the other with weekend concert previews), but first, I want to note that if you saw an event page for a concert on Saturday night at Feedback featuring Espanola metal band Fifth Column and locals View To A Kill, don't get your hopes up. The event page for the show was deleted yesterday, so it appears to be off now, but if I hear anything to the contrary, I'll let you guys know! Now, to the news and assorted videos of the day, starting with some updates to a concert later this month!

There's been a few changes to the Green Christmas Bash at Feedback near the end of the month, as confirmed at this new Facebook event page (the old one was deleted), starting with a date change, as the show will now take place on Christmas Eve rather than on Christmas itself. A reason for the date change was not announced, but December 24th does fall on a Saturday this year, so that could be related. That said, the lineup for the concert has been confirmed, though not without a band change, as local metal quintet Sativa Rose have dropped out of this show. According to promoters, they're off because frontwoman Marisa Valois will be out of town with family when this show takes place. Disappointing, but hey, family calls! Replacing them on the bill is a new folk/acoustic trio named Ye Olde Mold Pickers, who I believe share at least one member with the local band The Night Owl Meme Makers. They're actually the listed headliners for this concert, with local classical/punk trio RedD Monkey, local metal quartet View To A Kill (yes, they were Andrew Angelic's new band from the original event page), and "the original crash band" Sykotyk Rampage opening the festivities in that order. Admission remains $2, it's still 19+, and it all starts at 10:00 PM on Christmas Eve. Check the above links for more details!

Sounds like an entertaining and diverse night of music, and hopefully the promoters will be sure to bring more Green Christmas shows to Feedback in future years! If you wanna enjoy some live music over Christmas weekend, this show could very well do the trick! Stay tuned for updates!

Next up, if you're still uncertain on whether to buy Theatre of Night's remastered "Christmas Night" album (that we just reviewed yesterday), then this could be some incentive, as the band has uploaded their version of the Christmas classic "Carol of the Bells" onto their new YouTube channel! They launched the channel on Tuesday, but this song was only just posted yesterday. The video features various shots of the album artwork, band members, and other monochromed Christmas-relevant photos, with only minimal colour use. Decent effects, and they fit with the mood of the song, so if you want to get into the Christmas spirit and preview the full "Christmas Night" album, check out Theatre of Night's rendition of "Carol of the Bells" below!



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

• Apparently, Wishbone bassist (and former Silver Dream drummer) Steven Flint filled in on drums for Sativa Rose at their concert on Tuesday when they opened for The Unbelievers, as Alex Palmer was absent. Hopefully things went well, Steven should have been a solid fill-in! If I hear anything new on Sativa Rose's new lineup, I'll have it here!
  
• I updated our GarageBand Profile of defunct local hard rock trio Sin Stereo to update the video references, specifically because the video of their successors Stiffler's Mom covering "Enjoy The Show" is now on YouTube. Not a huge change, but I thought I'd mention it!
• Russell Garwood of Zero Tolerance Magazine posted this Woods of Ypres article last month which features exclusive comments from frontman David Gold about the upcoming "Woods V: Grey Skies & Electric Light", including comments alluding to what this album would mean to the band's legacy if it ended up being their last album. I sure hope it's not, but it's an interesting read nonetheless, so click here to see what David has to say!

And finally, here's this week's classic video! With a relatively thin weekend for metal concerts (despite the return of Helix), I won't tie in this week's video with a performing band, so we'll dip into the archives for this week, and I've chosen a video from the recently-inactive local grunge trio No Arrow! We haven't heard much from them since their one-off show at what is now Feedback in February, but there's plenty of old videos and music of theirs online, including this video of them playing their original song "Delayed Reaction" when they opened for Montreal punk legends The Ripcordz at The Speak Easy on August 5th, 2007! At this performance, frontman Dann Pichette and drummer Joe Falco were joined by guest bassist Dean Scheepmaker (now of the Manitoba band The Aral Sea), and they definitely rocked on one of their heaviest songs here, though the audio quality is kinda scratchy and the first minute of the song wasn't captured. Dann's got some great screaming here too, helps make me miss No Arrow all the more!

This video was uploaded onto Facebook by Dann a couple days after this concert, and you can view the original video at http://facebook.com/photo.php?v=4026989126. NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IS INTENDED!! All credit for this video goes to No Arrow, they did all the work here, I'm just sharing this video with a larger audience like it deserves! With that said, give No Arrow's 2007 performance of "Delayed Reaction" a look below!



That's all for now, but stay tuned for this month's "Where Are The New Albums?" post at midnight sharp! And also, on a sort of personal note, tune into Rock 101 (at this location or at 101.3 FM in the Twin Saults area) tomorrow morning at 8:10 AM during "Scott & Brian In The Morning", as I'm gonna be interviewed on air about the SMS! I don't know how I'll do, but be kind if I slip up, as I've never been part of a live interview like this before. Check it out if you're up, and stay tuned for more news over the next while! Thanks everyone!

SHORT NOTICE LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (As It Stands), New Videos, And Woods Of Ypres Updates!!

News time at the SMS, as we post what is probably our last news post until our review of "Lux Aeterna" tomorrow. I have some good stories though, including some Woods of Ypres articles, a classic concert video featuring a hard rock cover, and a video recently returned to the internet, but first, here's a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT!!

The 26th Roosevelt Hotel metal night goes down tomorrow, and for the fourth time in eight weeks, just two bands are making the trip to The Rosie for the festivities, including local metalcore quintet As It Stands in their record 12th Thursday night appearance! Nice to see them back at The Rosie, they'll be sure to deliver a hard hitting set of original hardcore songs for their wide local fanbase! However, the announced headlining band will be (in their metal night debut) the band formerly known as Motion Carried, who are still together and now called Redundant! This will be the local punk trio's first Rosie appearance since their name change earlier this month, which came shortly after they replaced bassist Jamie Whalen with drummer Rick White's brother James (ex-Browbeat.) This does reunite the lineup of The Quims from late last year, but don't expect a sound change from that, as this is a different band, so get ready for some solid punk rock covers from Redundant at metal night! Interesting choice for the show, but hey, the whole band has metal chops from their past local repetoires, so remember that! Admission is free with a 19+ age limit and no cover charge, as can be expected. For more details, visit the official Facebook event page!

Sounds like a fun concert with some varying styles, so head down to The Rosie on Thursday for As It Stands and Redundant! Dismembertainment have a lot of cool stuff in the pipeline for metal nights and beyond that we'll announce as official word is made!

Also, I just wanted to add that I've returned a Dismembertainment-relevant video to the internet! As I mentioned earlier this month, Shaw TV's Christian Lemay did a piece on Dismembertainment at the June 26th metal night, featuring an interview with owner Rich Moreland & performance clips from Winkstinger & Unleash The Blackened Sky. After a week's rotation on TV and a stay on Shaw TV's website this month, it was finally pulled by Shaw in lieu of newer videos, removing it from the internet... until now! I saved the interview to upload on our YouTube channel after it's removal from Shaw TV's page, and you can now check it out below! NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IS INTENDED! This is a very nice interview that gives Rich, Dismembertainment, The Rosie, and both featured bands some great exposure, and it deserves a continued audience! I hope there's no issues uploading this, cause I only have good intent in doing so! With that said, check out Shaw TV's piece on Dismembertainment below!



On the subject of new videos, here's a new find of a hard rock cover from a band you wouldn't expect! This video comes from YouTube user Fred Kember of the 705 Video Magazine, who has uploaded tons of concert videos from the 2000s onto his YouTube channel (along with many extreme sports videos and so forth) for 705VM purposes. Now, the vast majority of the posted videos are older videos from punk shows (the most recent being the SNFU-headlined 2009 show at The Grand Theater), but there's a lot of cool gems there from bands like Bin Hawdon & The Taliband, Downshift, and Strictly Classified, along with out of town bands like The Endprogram, Far From Heroes, and the band we're focusing on today, Guttermouth! The California punk mainstays rocked The Canadian Nightclub on March 10th, 2005 with The Planet Smashers & Ghosts of Modern Man, and one of the songs they played that night was a cover of Kiss' "Detroit Rock City"! Oh yes, a punk version of a Kiss classic, but how does it sound? Marc Adkins' vocals don't fit the song at all, but the band admirably puts their own spin on this hard rock classic, though it is noticeably condensed. Nice to see some more bands throwing some heavier stuff in their sets, so give Guttermouth's take on Kiss a look below, and check the above links for much more from this concert (and many others) thanks to Fred's awesome YouTube channel!



And finally for today, here's three assorted Woods of Ypres updates from the last little while. As all deal with the same band, we'll go in alphabetical order by the name of the site with the Woods article:

• On June 21st, "merginator" of the blog Headbang or GTFO posted a short Woods of Ypres article where they were referred to as "the best thing to come out of Canada", heaping concise praise for their "dynamic & powerful" sound. Nice read, but short, click here to check it out!
• Yesterday, "bkrasman" from Meat Mead Metal gave Woods of Ypres some nice attention in his article on three recent standout bands signed to Earache Records. He says they "absolutely soar" at times, and called them a tremendous signing following a short review of "Woods IV: The Green Album". Nice writeup, and I like that he gave former guitarist Bryan Belleau some credit for his guitar work, an aspect many reviewers didn't mention. Check out this article at this link, as well as some plugs for two other Earache acts!
• On March 17th, Viktorya Kaufholz from Musique Machine gave "Woods IV" a mixed review of 2 stars out of 5, praising three standout tracks but criticizing it's length, occasional monotony, and what she called a "lack of passion". Disappointing, but she backs up her thoughts well, which I appreciate. Click here to see her review!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for my review of Gates of Winter's first full length LP "Lux Aeterna" tomorrow, and weekend concert previews very soon as well! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (WinkStinger), A Newer Local Band, And Lots More News!!

June's started off well in the local scene, and I have some more stories to share that should keep the good news coming today! In this post, we have news on our upcoming monthly feature post schedules, the latest on As It Stands' album, and news on a (possibly) SMS-coverable band we've referenced on here in the past, among more stories, but let's lead off with a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT!!

In May, fans of local cello punk trio RedD Monkey may have become aware of a concert they'd be headlining on June 11th (this Saturday) at Foggy Notions. Well, a full lineup for the concert is finally out, and good news, there's metal to be had! Local extreme metal quintet WinkStinger are listed as the third band of four on the lineup for this concert, so if you're bummed they won't be at The Rosie on the 16th, they still have some June concert action lined up! They are sort of outliers for this show, but there's a ton of diverse sounds to enjoy, so here's who else to look out for! RedD Monkey are headlining (of course), with the unique local trio The Night Owl Meme Makers as the first support band. They have an interesting mix of music that's hard to describe, but imagine acoustic folksy music with an accordion and banjo, and you may get an idea! Opening are Sounds From The Green Room, who I will have more on in a second, as I've learned a few details about them. This show is on Saturday night at 9:00 PM, there is no cover charge, and you must be 19 to enter. For more details, check out the above links and the official Facebook event page! Nice mix of styles here, it should be a fun concert, though spread the word and make note of it, given that is on Saturday! Stay tuned for updates if they come in!

Leading from that, I wanted to discuss Sounds From The Green Room. You may remember this band as one of the openers for RedD Monkey's "Swamp Donkey Romp" concert at Foggy's on February 26th, but I knew absolutely nothing on them. Well, seeing as they're back for the show on Saturday, I did some more research to see if I could dig anything up, and I think I have some real details to share! Though they still don't have a visible internet page, they have played at least one other concert, in Ottawa on February 21st (also with RedD Monkey.) Ottawa music blogger Andrew Carver was there and reviewed their set for his blog National Capital Rock, and it includes photos and a short review on the band! Judging by his photos and review, I was able to determine that the band is just a duo (not unlike Sue Inside in that respect), and if I'm not mistaken, their members are singer/guitarist Brad Griffith (of SBD & No Arrow fame) and drummer B.J. Swire. If I'm wrong, please correct me! Though I haven't seen audio or video yet, Andrew described their sound as "somewhat twisted classic rock" with "a nice fuzzy sound - plus drummer", and an ad for this Ottawa show on Eventful described their sound as "honky tonk metal". Sounds promising enough!

I have a hunch I'll be seeing Sounds From The Green Room long before a site pops up, though they should launch one already, as it'd help get their exposure up! They do sound intriguing, and hopefully I'll get to see them live one of these days! And if I'm right about Brad Griffith in this band, it's good to see him out there still, though hopefully SBD resurface again at some point! Stay tuned for updates on Sounds From The Green Room if I hear them!

Next up, here's the latest on As It Stands' upcoming full length album! As announced on their Facebook page, their 3 day recording sessions at Metalworks Studios in Mississauga have wrapped up, as has tracking for said recordings. According to their Twitter page, the band also announced that they worked with producer/Metalworks chief engineer Kevin Dietz on the recordings, though it wasn't specified on whether he is the album's official producer or is operating under another role. That's all that we've heard since we included the sessions in Thursday's "Where Are The New Albums?" post, but I wanted to share it, as these do lead from and to big stories for the local hardcore quintet! I'm surprised they've kept things so concise and short compared to the updates some other bands have made during recording sessions, and the three day schedule seems short, but I have a hunch they're just keeping things secret until big reveals happen, like the album's name, artwork, tracklisting, and so forth. You can be sure that we'll have updates as they come in, and if the album doesn't come out by July 2nd, all the current details will be posted for our next "Where Are The New Albums?" post!

Now, here's some assorted shorter stories from the last couple of days, and as always, these are in alphabetical order by band name:

• Full Circle's shows at The Rockstar Bar this weekend have been moved to Foggy Notions and cut in half to just a Friday show (as cited here.) No reason was given for the move, though they're likely only playing on Friday because of the aforementioned RedD Monkey concert on Saturday. This is the only advertised Foggy's stop in 2011 for the former Turner Up, so make note of their now-moved show on Friday!
• Lion Ride have launched an official mailing list! To join and get band updates sent to your inbox, head to their official Facebook page, click the mailing list tab on the left, and fill out the information. It's free and painless, but you'll need to confirm your registration via a confirmation e-mail. I don't know how much they'll use this mailing list, but hopefully they'll have some cool news to share through it, so I recommended signing up!
• Marquette hard rockers Nudge have announced that a second band will join them for their concert at The Satisfied Frog in Sault Michigan on Friday! I believe the band is Oscoda, Michigan classic rock band Grounded, check them out at this location! Good classic sound, a couple harder songs too, they'll fit in well! They're NOT playing on Saturday too though, only Nudge are playing. Still, go rock out at The Frog either night!
  

And finally, I wanted to update you guys to our new schedule format on the SMS for monthly feature posts & profiles. Last month's features were way too log-jammed for comfort, and I decided to fix each of our monthly feature posts to a schedule that I hope will be maintained in future months. With that said, our "Where Are The New Albums?" posts will continue to be on the 2nd of each month, and polls (which return next week) will continue to be on the 18th of each month. That said, I've slotted the 10th of the month to be the new post date for our Defunct Local Band Profile Series, and our Saultites In Out Of Town Bands Profiles will now be posted on the 26th of this and future months. Hopefully this keeps things more spread out, so we don't get swamped again like we had been in the spring! CD reviews will still operate on a flexible changing schedule, and future monthly features will be addressed when announced. Also, in terms of our Defunct Local Band Profile Series (and other features where we have a balance of the twin Saults), I've decided to boost the amount of Sault Michigan bands covered or featured from 3 out of 10 bands to 2 out of 5, which is more if you round up. This is to keep things closer in line with the real ratio of Sault Michigan metal bands to Sault Ontario, as it's gotten closer since we started the blog.

Our old 2-1-3-1-2-1 schedule for the Defunct Profiles is now a 2-1-2-2-2-1 schedule until January, barring a 2 band month beforehand. It's mostly the same, but the projected September profile will be for Sault Michigan instead, so there'll be 2 straight profiles for Michigan bands in the fall! Next year, we'll permanently go to this schedule on a 5 month cycle: 1-1-1-1-1, which repeats after 5 bands, so there will still be 2 Sault Ontario bands in a row on occasion. I know this could sound unimportant, but it makes everything fairer for Sault Michigan, as their band totals have grown more than Sault Ontario's in recent years. Just wanted to get that out there!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for our "Soo Stories" review, Bad Side profile, classic video, and weekend concert previews as the week draws on! Thanks everyone!

More Assorted News & And Updates From Woods Of Ypres!

Hey guys, here's the first of (likely) two posts today, as we cap off another busy month at the SMS! If predictions hold up, we'll finish the las two months with 74 combined posts, which is awesome! Thanks for swinging by over the spring! I do want to note that the second post today, which will debut the March Mayhem tournament semifinals, will probably be late due to prior commitments (vacation plans and such, I doubt I'll be around a computer this afternoon), so there will be an extra few hours of voting today for the quarterfinals. That said, here's the first post of the day, and it's another Woods of Ypres-centric post, including tons of new CD reviews, and some more news, so here's what you should know!

Firstly, this isn't exactly a new "video", but it does give an interesting new interpretation on a Woods of Ypres song! Last year, you may remember when SoundCloud user anomaly88 posted ambient slowed down versions of two "Woods IV" tracks, which you can still check out at this location. Well, I doubt this is the same person, but YouTube user NightShadeGrimm has made their own ambient remix of a "Woods IV" song, and it's now on their YouTube channel to check out! It's a slowed down ambient version of "You Are Here With Me" (In This Sequence Of Dreams", which has been mechanically slowed down by about 350% to produce a 7 minute ambient dirge! If you don't appreciate extremely slow and methodical ambiances, you probably won't appreciate what's been done here, but what NightShadeGrimm made has a haunting effect going for it! This may not be your cup of tea, but check out this new ambient Woods of Ypres track below!



Now to some brand new "Woods IV: The Green Album" reviews! I'm badly behind on these, so let's not waste too much time! Firstly, Daryl Adolph of Metal Temple gave "Woods IV" 9 out of 10 in a March 26th review, meaning "Almost Perfect" on their rating scale! He admitted not being impressed with Woods of Ypres initially a few years ago, but highly praised their doomy bleakness, stating that they're turning metal into "a true artistic form"! As well, Marcel H. from the metal e-zine Lords Of Metal reviewed "W4" earlier this month, opting not to score it. He praised it's sounds and instrumentation, but seemed to base the lack of a score on it's running time of 78 minutes, saying it dragged on and became monotonous. Constructive criticism which has merit, but the lack of a score seems wrong to me. Click here to see his review! On a more postive note, Sam Thor Rhodes from the website SoundShock gave "The Green Album" 7.5/10, calling it a good place to first experience doom metal, while also tying in a lot of the album's themes to war, which is an interesting view! His description of what you'll like if you like this album is amusing itself! Click here to read this review as well!

Continuing with "Woods IV" reviews, former Metal Edge editor Phil Freeman's review of the album is available to read at this location (among other sites.) He compares David Gold's voice to Brad Roberts of The Crash Test Dummies, and though he did have some criticisms, he called the obsessive gloom "hypnotic", recommending the CD for "those who are sick of fun." Interesting viewpoint! As well, "Guido" of the metal blog Dose of Metal reviewed "W4" briefly on April 5th in that week's Spotlight post, giving it 4 skulls out of 5! He admitted being fond of the depressing lyrics, praised the transition in sounds, and said he enjoyed it "as much as you can enjoy songs about suicide & loss." Check the above link for more from that review! Finally for today, Mathias Freiesleben from the German metal site PowerMetal.de gave "W4" 9/10 in this review from April 6th! It's in German, but a quick run through Google Translate will make it somewhat readable. It's positive in tone, but kinda long, especially when the translations come out jumbled like they did for me. Still, check it out and see what you can decipher!

Let's close with some assorted Woods of Ypres stories! I was hoping to include interviews here, but both the ones I was hoping to feature aren't loading for me, though I have more stuff to share! One is a very well written article on Woods of Ypres by the metal website Unseen Underground, which concisely details the band's history, evolution, and sound! Also including some nice interview excerpts from David Gold, check the above links to give it a look! I'll finish with some new Woods of Ypres concert photos from their most recent East Coast tour leg, including this extensive album from Woods of Ypres' set in Worcester, Massachusetts on March 17th by Return To The Pit, and these photos taken by blogger Phil M. Noir from their New York City show the previous day! The Return To The Pit photos are awesome & high in number, but Phil's have merit too even if the quality is lesser! Check the above links for all these, and more!

That's all for now, but stay tuned later today (at some point) for a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT and the newest SMS March Mayhem updates! Thanks everyone!

Woods Of Ypres Videos, Interviews, And Tour Dates!!

Finally, here's that Woods of Ypres-centric post I've been hyping! I'll probably have another like this soon too, but this has some of the best of the recent news, including a new live concert video, some new band interviews, upcoming tour dates, and first, their latest tour vlog, so here's what you need to know!

Yes, we're starting with the local blackened doom quartet's latest tour vlog, which was so long, it's in four pieces! Frontman David Gold uploaded the band's tour vlog from their Toronto concert on March 13th onto his YouTube channel last week, and here's what you need to know! Part 1 shows the process of making coffee, the band's "merch bag ritual", their pursuit of pancakes for breakfast, whether they lost a piece of their van or not, lots of (partly sped-up) driving footage, their arrival at The Mod Club in Toronto, before starting with concert footage 7:12 into the video, and that's how Part 1 ends. Part 2 & Part 3 continue with more concert footage straight through, so if you want 20 minutes of great video footage of Woods of Ypres on stage, from multiple camera angles, give them both a look! The footage from Woods of Ypres' set ends 1:18 into Part 4, but afterwards, you'll get to see the band's merch table in Toronto, moonshine tasting in Koreatown, Joel Violette's banjo skills (on Woods songs, no less), what David's alarm clock sounds like, and the band's trip to the bank. Not bad at all, nice to see a longer vlog this time around, ensuring much more video footage of Woods in action! Check all of the above links for more, stay tuned for the next vlogs from the United States, and here's part 1 of the Toronto vlog. The links above will send you in the right direction for the rest!



As well, here's a new concert video (coincidentally, also from Woods of Ypres' Toronto concert! YouTube user balsor12 uploaded this video on Thursday onto his YouTube channel, and it's of Woods of Ypres playing "Everything I Touch Turns To Gold (Then To Coal)"! Now, yes, you can see high quality footage of this song in Part 2 of Woods' tour vlog linked above, but unlike on there, this is the full song! Video quality is predictably not as good, notably being very dark & with a mysterious purple line on the right side of the video, but the audio's not bad! A bit muffled, but everything worth hearing comes through! Check out the new video below, and of course, I'll have more as they become available!



Thirdly, here's some new Woods of Ypres interviews! I have one audio interview with David Gold from Vision On The Net, but it's not loading for me, so I'm gonna feature it in a later post. One audio interview I can load and tell you about is this one conducted by Mind Over Metal writer Matt Longo with David Gold, which clocks in at over 24 minutes long! The interview features David discussing his roles in Woods of Ypres, the transition from black to doom metal, the status of what is now "Woods 4.5", David's love for Crowbar, his Kuwait employment last year (including some fake breakup talk) and the metal environment in the Middle East, The Northern Ontario Black Metal Preservation Society, Woods of Ypres' future plans, and more! Good interview, with lots of well detailed answers, though David's audio is very low and there is some choppiness with the reception later in the interview. If you wanna check it out, click here! Here's another interview too, a written interview with David Gold by the metal website Xplosive Metal, so click here to check it out! Though covering many of the topics from the above audio interview, this one features David mentioning more about the Earache Records signing, the "Woods IV" writing process, notable concerts and memories from the last 9 years, the future of black metal, and much more! Well worth a read too, so check the above links for more, and stay tuned for more Woods of Ypres interviews very soon!

Finally, the band has announced a pile of new tour dates for their "Pain & Piss" tour! Though I won't go through them all due to the amount, and the fact that many of you might not be as interested in shows you can't easily attend, there are some notable shows here to mention! The new dates range from May 5th in Philadelphia during their next American tour leg, through June 8th in Charlotte, North Carolina following their Western Canada tour leg, which swings through the Southern United States back to the East. The closest of the newly announced shows is on May 11th, when Woods of Ypres play in Detroit for the first time ever at The Magic Stick! It's been a long time for that to happen, and I know some of you drive to the Detroit area for concerts, so hey, keep it in mind! Two days later, Woods of Ypres will hit Des Moines, Iowa for a concert on the night of the Hallows Die concert at Foggy Notions that Woods of Ypres were originally scheduled to headline. Given that we now know the tour routing for early May, I think it's a safe assumption that they dropped out of the local show due to it making more sense route-wise to play a show between Chicago and St. Paul, Minnesota (itself replacing a cancelled Thunder Bay gig) rather than backtrack to the Soo for one night. For all the current Woods of Ypres tour gigs, click here, or check out our out of town concert listings on your right!

That's all for now, but stay tuned for a big news post later today! Thanks everyone!

Lots Of Woods Of Ypres News And Updates!

It's an all Woods of Ypres post today at The Sault Metal Scene! As it turns out, there's a LOT of stuff that I couldn't just spread out from post to post, so I have to get at least one Woods-centric post in to cover some of this news! So today, we have the latest video footage from their current tour, a lengthy audio interview, some new "Woods IV" reviews, and a big confirmation for thisd Saturday, so let's get this post off the ground!

Metal Injection contributor Atanamar Sunyata (who reviewed "Woods IV" last month) has posted three new videos from Woods of Ypres' concert last week at The Bowery Electric in New York City onto his YouTube channel! These include videos of the band playing their songs "Your Ontario Town Is A Burial Ground", "Suicide Cargoload (Drag That Weight)" & "Halves & Quarters" and "Wet Leather", so click on each link to check them out! The video quality isn't bad, you get a decent angle of the band on each clip, almost suspended over the crowd! The big problem with these is that the audio is muffled, especially on "Wet Leather", with David's vocals almost sounding inaudible. Overall though, the videos are fairly good, I just wish the audio quality matched the video quality! Check the above links for more, and here's Atanamar's video of Woods of Ypres playing "Suicide Cargoload (Drag That Weight)" & "Halves & Quarters"!



Next up is a brand new audio interview with Woods of Ypres frontman David Gold, and this has to be the longest audio interview I've EVER heard for SMS purposes! This was conducted with Hellbound.ca's Jason Wellwood on March 9th, the day before their concert at The Roosevelt Hotel, and it's no less than 38 minutes and 33 seconds long, as broken up into 5 videos on Hellbound's YouTube channel! In my quest to make sure I have informed and accurate information on here, I listened to every inch of this interview, and without giving too much away, here's what to look out for! Part 1 of the interview features David talking about the band's recent press junket, their connections to Sault Ste. Marie, David's general living conditions of recent years, and rough details of their recording and touring plans for 2011, including a rough estimate on when we could expect "Woods V". Part 2 features David discussing Woods of Ypres' signing with Earache Records and his teaching work in Kuwait last fall, along with how both impacted the band then and now. Part 3 was focused solely on "Woods V", it's status in terms of what was recorded last year, what has changed, and what to expect from it when it does come out. Part 4 has David talking about the end of their "do it yourself" mentality, working with Earache Records, what he wants "Woods IV" to mean for them, and the possibility of Earache reissuing the first three Woods of Ypres albums. Finally, Part 5 features some discussions about Woods of Ypres' struggles with their Thunder Bay concerts, the Madden brothers' border travels, and info on some of the contributing artists on "Woods IV". Click the above links for each chunk of the interview!

It's a nice long interview with lots of well spoken answers and statements from David Gold, but a couple things would have been nice to add, like more "Woods IV" background from it's recording sessions, and insight into last year's "fake breakup". As well, each segment of the interview ends abruptly without continuing in the next video from where they left off, so there are missing parts. Overall though, it's a very good interview, if you can listen to it for 38 minutes straight! I'll embed the first part of the interview below, but the above links will direct you to the rest of it if you want to check it out, so give the first part of David's interview a listen!



Now, to some newer reviews of "Woods IV: The Green Album"! Laura Wiebe of Exclaim! Magazine gave a second look to the album after previously discussing it after it's initial release. She praises the album's atmosphere and scope, calling it "utterly satisfying" in this brief review of "W4", which you can read at this location! Dan Marsicano from About.com Heavy Metal praised "The Green Album" as "an emotional roller coaster" that can relate to anyone with relationship issues, though he did note that it runs out of steam late and can be exhausting. Positive review though, click here to check it out! Also, independent reviewer Zach Boucher (a.k.a. Vision & The Voice) posted a video review of "Woods IV" onto his YouTube channel on Wednesday, which you can check out at this location! Zach seems to be reviewing this on the fly, and he gets a couple points wrong here and there, but it's a good review, where he recommends the album to Type O Negative fans & doom and stoner metal fans! Finally, I came across two French reviews of "W4", so I recommend running them through Google Translate to get a rough idea of what is said if you're not fluent in French. A review on Pavilion 666 gave the album a 9/10 , with high points scored for it's emotional content, while a review on Metal France got a 4/5 score, and they described the CD as "a metal rich & varied flora". Good stuff, check the above links for all the new reviews!

And finally, I'd like to officially announce that TOMORROW'S CD review on The Sault Metal Scene will be for Woods of Ypres' 2002 debut EP "Against The Seasons: Cold Winter Songs From The Dead Summer Heat"! With no new local metal or hard rock albums to speak of this month (surprisingly), I decided to dip into the Sault Ontario archives for the first time since our Tym Morrison CD review last June, and fittingly, I wanted to tie in this month's review with a local concert. Woods of Ypres' local return on March 10th fit perfectly, and now, "Woods I" will get a long overdue look on the SMS on Saturday! Is it surprising that this will be our first Woods of Ypres CD review in almost 16 months? Hopefully it won't take that long to get to "Woods V" upon its eventual release! So look out for that at some point on Saturday, it should be a good one! That's all for now, but in case there's no news post later tonight, there will be one Saturday, I guarantee it! That day, we also close down the current March Mayhem polls and launch the next 4, as we continue to find out who's graduating to the second round of this tournament, so stay tuned for that as well! Thanks everyone!