Before we begin today's post, I wanted to apologize for missing a show in this past weekend's concert previews, as local classic/hard rock cover quartet Soundcheck played for a second straight year at Algoma Tree Services' annual community meet & greet outside of their homebase in Goulais River on Saturday night. Like last year, they joined classic rock band Angry Joe & The Growlers for this Kiwanis Club children's charity event, which was publically open with family activities. Also like last year, Soundcheck did not publicize their involvement on their Facebook page, though Algoma Tree Services did. I profusely apologize once again, I'd have covered it had I known, but hopefully things went well despite the forecast!
Now, today's post otherwise looks at some recent videos and updates from
an array of local musicians, starting with new album releases, one being from a new addition to our band links, namely local rapper Tristan "Bold Noize" Goslow! While active locally since at least 2015, Tristan (who originally rapped as "White Noize") only crossed our radar on multi-genre events that he performed at, such as the old Sky's The Limit mental health fundraiser concerts, The Soo's Got Talent in 2018, and that year's Rotaryfest Stage 2. That changed once I started covering Lopstock III's SooToday live-stream from late last month, and whether you saw Bold Noize thusly or in person at LopLops, you'll have seen him reveal that he was working on a punk album that was released as planned to major streaming services on Thursday! It is titled "God Save Me", reflecting his faith, with his Christian rap status being more prominent in his early years.
The nine song album indeed features Tristan singing rather than rapping along with full band instrumental tracks, and while I have not seen public credit given to who played guitar and such on "God Save Me", note that he sang along with recordings at Lopstock, as he did for his four proper rap cuts that night. The music on offer definitely leans toward punk way more than nu metal, and I was reminded a bit of Machine Gun Kelly's rock output in terms of how Bold Noize approached the shift in genre. Honestly, the songs come through better as punk rock songs via the studio recordings than they did at Lopstock, owing to the pre-recorded instrumental tracks being heard & mixed as intended on streaming services. Bold Noize can carry a tune well on the punk songs, and you can hear for yourself how he handles a totally different genre on Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube, while the album is definitely on sale digitally for $8.99 on iTunes.
I would suggest that Tristan get a live band going, even if just occasionally, to better reflect the "God Save Me" album/future punk dalliances live, but it's hard to say what his next plans are, as he doesn't update his Facebook page all that often. Beyond "God Save Me", Bold Noize is a skilled MC with a strong flow, as local rap fans over the past decade will be well aware, but how far will he go in the punk realm? It'll be interesting to find out, but I do plan to review this album on the SMS formally in January (we're booked solid through year's end), and check out "God Save Me" above & below!
Next up, here's one more new album release, as local "blue Chinese metal crash punk" quartet Sykotyk Rampage's have newly put out their 69th studio album, fittingly named "69"! The cover artwork obviously gives the title in Roman numerals as "LXIX". While this was released to their Bandcamp page on Saturday, the band gives a release date of September 6th there. hardly a new conceit for their albums since becoming a studio-only band in 2017. Production and personnel-wise, there's nothing shocking to report from their prior album from earlier this year ("Genius Mushrooms With Thoughts Of The Stoned Ape"), but "69" appears to be a normal album without an overarching concept. 19 songs are included, enough to force this to be a double album if printed on CDs, and there are definitely some suitably eclectic titles for longtime fans!
You can buy "69" via digital download for $15 on Bandcamp, and you can stream it for free there as well. A review of this album (if not another album if they surprise us with one beforehand) will likely hit the site in February 2024, given our continued backlog, but it's great to see the Beckers, Shane, and Tony back with more improvised & irreverent bluesy hard rock, hopefully befitting the "69" title for anyone inclined to put on their environ-mental suits! Buy or stream "69" above!
We'll close today with a new live video of local/Toronto pop rock cover veterans The Killer Hooks, courtesy of their set at White Pines Collegiate & Vocational School's 50th anniversary reunion at The Canadian Bushplane Heritage Centre last week! Odd that they wouldn't have it at the S.C.T.C.... maybe the seats were an issue for mingling Wolverines alumni? The Killer Hooks are the occasionally seen high profile cover band fronted by Gsis Murphy's Tony Marcello, and we have brought them up on the SMS on occasion when they were filmed doing a hard rock cover, though their sets are way more pop rock in tone and focus. I really should go through their own videos at some point to see what heavier tunes they've done since we last talked about them, but this video comes from Mike Blair at 705Live Sound Co., who handled sound at the White Pines reunion.
Uploaded to 705Live's Facebook page on Friday, the video features The Killer Hooks covering Kiss' "I Was Made For Loving You", and if you want to get a dance floor going via a Kiss song, that'd be the one to use! The 42 second clip is obviously abbreviated, but Mike had a nice view of the stage with effective stage lighting to highlight the band nicely, and they handle this song pretty well! I'd have based it more on Kiss' later live versions where Paul sung the verses at full voice, but beggars can't be choosers. Give this Killer Hooks video a watch below!
That's all for today, but stay tuned for more of our Lopstock III fallout tomorrow! Thanks everyone!
Let's tackle some big recent news and updates on this Saturday night post, so what's on tap? An unexpected live cover video from a recent private event, a teaser for an upcoming music video, a very prominent local band's long awaited album confirmation, and leading off, a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT for next month! Here's what you should know!
A special fundraiser concert named "Arts Against Homelessness" will hit The Rockstar Bar on Saturday, October 6th featuring a number of familiar faces! Presented by Live705 in association with Suzie Deplonty and Celeste's Art & Photography (who you may recall from 2017's Guy Thiffault tribute concert), this event is being put on to raise money for St. Vincent Place, the men's shelter on Albert Street East. Very worthy cause that I'm surprised hasn't had more concerts held in it's name, hopefully this is a smash hit! As you can see on the poster, the performing acts aren't laid out in a way where I could state the lineup order, but here's who to look for. Naturally for Live705's non-death metal concerts, their resident alt-punk trio A Dire Setback will play this event, as well as power rock quartet Re:Born in their first show in almost three months. The rest of the lineup is of the hip-hop/DJ oeuvre, including DJ Seith and his duo project Planet Rock in separate sets, plus Christian rapper Bold Noize and deep house DJ Bobby Lawn.
A $10 admission fee is set for Arts Against Homelessness, either at the door or at this link, while canned food donations will net you raffle tickets, with multiple prizes promised. Yes, this is a 19+ event, and it starts at 9:00 PM. Live705 haven't put on an all-local concert with no touring acts since 2017, so this concert is welcomed on that note alone, but with a great charitable cause and a diverse lineup of rock and rap music to take in, I am hopeful this is a huge success for St. Vincent Place! Visit the official Facebook event page for more details, and Celeste's Photography is belatedly now linked on the SMS! She does great work, check out her page for lots more!
Next up, here's the latest from local/Toronto indie/punk standouts Treble Charger, who we haven't heard anything from publically since Rotaryfest last year, so what are they up to? Well, according to this new Sault Star article
from Brian Kelly last month, they are indeed working on a new studio
album! This had been teased in prior shows and interviews for a while,
but the article confirms that they began work on the follow-up to 2002's
"Detox" about six months ago. Four or five demos are recorded, though
the sessions are on hold until the new recording studio at the Algoma Conservatory of Music
(that frontman Greig Nori is managing) is completed, with Greig wanting
the album proper to be recorded there. The article also notes that Bill
Priddle's Pointless bandmate Dustin Goodall is recording bass for the
album, which is a huge feather in his cap to be sure, but it's not
firmly stated whether he's just a session musician or if he is their
first full-time bassist since their original breakup.
No
sign there regarding who's drumming on the album, but recent candidates
may include their most recent live drummer Ian McKay, Richard Mulligan
(who Wikipedia still lists as their drummer without credited sources),
or Bill & Dustin's Pointless bandmate David Peredun. I will be
honest, I had briefly moved Treble Charger to our inactive band links early last month due to their year+ wait for public updates, but it's a
good
thing I didn't write anything about that before this broke! It's great
to
see Treble Charger hard at work on a new CD, so stay tuned for updates
as they trickle in!
We'll close today with new videos, starting by going back to the aforementioned A Dire Setback, who released a teaser for their first ever music video to their YouTube channel on Thursday! The song in question is "Kicking & Screaming", and this was shot by rising local filmmakers Poindexter Productions with editing by the aforementioned Celeste Maurer. This just a one minute teaser for the full video, which will apparently be released in two weeks on September 21st. Curiously, it's just a 6x repeated clip of frontman Chris Nielsen throwing a toilet out of the second floor of a building for yet-unknown reasons, as set to the opening/chorus of the song. As such, if you've seen the first 10 seconds, you've seen the whole thing, but getting to hear a brief snippet of the final studio copy of the song is cool! Note that the video description says that A Dire Setback's debut album "will be released at the end of 2019." Will that hold? Time will tell, but give the teaser a look below, and watch for the full video in two weeks!
Finally, here's a surprise cover that just popped up on Facebook on Tuesday. Some readers may recall The Freshwater Sirens, a mid-2010s alternative/indie rock duo featuring ex-Danger Cats frontwoman Kate Hatherley (nee Drew) and her old Apocrytha bandmate Cody Gagnon. The Sirens weren't a hard rock band, so we didn't actively cover them in their heyday, but they had talent & chemistry, and are worth a look for genre fans. I bring them up here because their Facebook page is still used for updates on members' solo pursuits, and their newest update comes from Cody's recent wedding, where the band hired for the occasion were local pop rock cover quartet The Killer Hooks. For at least one song, Cody (still in her wedding dress, mind you) joined the band to cover The Darkness' "I Believe In A Thing Called Love", and the solid quality video captures everyone firing on all cylinders!
Cody's got a nice voice that hits all the high notes on this glam rock throwback hit, and Killer Hooks fans know they have the heavier chops when need be, and it's great to see this guest spot come together on a huge night! Give the full video a look below, and congratulations to Cody on the nuptials!
That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and updates in the coming days! Thanks everyone!
No need to wake up with September ending, as we're already raring to go with a new post to kick off the month of October 2018, and it is largely devoted to new videos, but leading off is a special Wednesday night concert preview, so here's what you should know! (Edited at 10:09 AM)
October will kick off with a bang at LopLops Lounge on WEDNESDAY NIGHT when Saskatchewan trash-punk duo The Faps return to Sault Ontario for another headlining concert! After three prior local concerts (one in 2014 and two last year), this fan favourite two-man band should be in fine form with another high impact set of noise rock intensity, so don't miss Blair and Skyler's fourth local jaunt on Wednesday! Local rapper Conika (who opened for The Faps locally in 2014) will pull double duty at LopLops tonight, as while she has been advertised with a solo set right along, she will also front her new jazz/hip-hop quartet Bom Cronik to kick off the show, alongside Honest Job, Blackwater, and Bananas Guerrillas alumni. While not a metal band, it'll be interesting to see how Conika, Mister, James, and Brendan do in a hybrid genre show like this, so keep Bom Cronik in mind as well! This stop on The Faps' Grimelda Goes East Tour is a 19+ event with a $5 cover charge and a 9:00 PM start time, as is often the case for LopLops concerts.
While the mid-week scheduling isn't optimal for many, you should consider a trip to LopLops on Wednesday if you can swing it, as The Faps are known for their fun and hard-edged live concerts, as anyone who saw them here will attest, and there's some intriguing hip hop to open also! Visit the official Facebook event page for more details, and here's The Faps live!
Next up, here's the newest video from local/Thompson, Manitoba solo hard rock musician Mike Haggith's YouTube channel, namely an entire concert set of his from Saturday! This was recorded at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Thompson as part of their acoustic coffee house series, which Mike first performed at back in April. Mike's entire 40 minute set was filmed, where he played 6/10ths of his upcoming studio album "Bridges", and in order, those songs are "The Nature of The Times","From The 55th Parallel", "Over Indecision", "Dangerous Town", "Bridges" (after talking about moving to Thompson and the inspiration for the title track), and "Come On Home". The set closed with two covers, namely his old band The Din's "The Price That You Pay" and Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird".... no, seriously, he actually knew/learned it! The church acoustics can make the audio a little muffled, but it's nice to hear more of Mike's new material in a casual setting!
While these may be stripped down compared to how the final studio product sounds, these showcase Mike's vocal and guitar talents nicely, and fans should get a kick out of this full concert! However, note that the camera angle changes to a side-stage position for the final three songs (there is a clear edit when this happens), and the "Free Bird" cover alone was also posted on Mike's Facebook page. Give Mike's recent concert a look below!
Also today, here's another new rehearsal video from Sault Michigan classical metal band Theatre of Night as they continue their preparations for their second Christmas tour! As uploaded to their Facebook page on September 23rd, this is identical in composition to their most recent jam videos (Craig filming Steve, Scott, and Erik), but it is definitely the following day, and nice to see Scott dressed in some holiday red! The carol being rehearsed here is "Carol of the Bells", which sounds solid in this instrumental form, and is well filmed from behind the keyboard once again, so give it a look below, and watch for Steve and Scott getting close to the camera late!
Finally for today, here's a new video discovery of local pop rock cover quartet The Killer Hooks dabbling into a few heavier songs! This was filmed and edited by YouTube user DeMenezes-Erme (likely a relation of drummer Paolo Erme) when the guys took a road trip to Burlington for a concert there in February. It's basically a supercut of songs that they played during said concert, and in order, you'll catch the Tonys, Rob, and Paolo covering AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long" and Bon Jovi's "Livin' On A Prayer", alongside covers of songs by Walk The Moon, Rick Springfield, an artist I can't place, Robin Schulz, another I can't 100% identify, The Neon Trees, and Loverboy. When songs change here, DeMenezes-Erme changes the camera angle, orientation, and/or filter to match, so some clips will look better than others. The Killer Hooks are a diverse and appealing band for cover fans, and there's some solid hard rock within the poppier stuff, so give these a look below!
That's all for today, but stay tuned for this month's "Where Are The New Albums?" post next! Thanks everyone!
After a couple of days of convalescence due to a major cold, we are back with this month's YouTube Channel Profiles, our ongoing monthly feature series spotlighting 1-3 YouTube channels whose content is at least half devoted to local metal, hard rock, or punk artists and concerts. This month's randomly selected channels reflect a major concert from over a decade ago and a veteran musician in Sault Ontario, so here's what you should know!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Luoto Family (http://www.youtube.com/tokenfinn)
Owner:YouTube user and Eastern Upper Peninsula resident Cory Luoto, though the channel name credits it to his whole family
Channel Timeline:Launched on November 11th, 2006; Videos posted from July 22nd, 2007 through October 16th, 2017
Channel Summary:Half of Cory's eight videos come from New York hard rock legends Kiss' outdoor concert at Kewadin Casino in Sault Michigan on July 20th, 2007, filming them playing their songs "Let Me Go Rock 'n Roll", "All American Man", and with a channel-topping 53,000+ views, their opener "Detroit Rock City", plus a short clip of Gene Simmons breathing fire on stage. Though the now-11 year old videos aren't very clear in retrospect, the audio holds up well enough via Cory's footage, and Kiss Army diehards definitely loved this concert, as shown with their raucous reception, and this remains one of the better-stacked channels for footage from this show! Cory's last four uploads are personally geared without a musical tie, and they include a firefighting boat landing, a NBC 7&4 news clip, singing Samoan firefighters, and a kindergarten class graduation, with no channel activity visible in almost a year.
Owner:Killer Hooks singer/guitarist Tony Marcello, also previously known from bands like Gsis Murphy, Midpoint, The Hellfish Bonanza, and Your Mother, among others
Channel Timeline:Launched on March 16th, 2014; Videos posted from that day through September 17th, 2017
Channel Summary:In it's sporadic usage, Tony has focused his channel around some of his local music work, including one video of his old band Midpoint and two of his current band The Killer Hooks.
Why You Should Watch:This will be of the most interest to fans of The Killer Hooks, especially as this could be considered their de facto official channel, while the Midpoint video will definitely pique the interest of local music scene followers from 3 decades back! However, this channel hasn't seen visible usage in the past year, and despite the archive posting of one of Tony's old bands, there's no footage of any of his other former projects, in case that changes your mind on subscribing.
Our Recommended Videos To Check Out
Mr Crowley by Ozzy Osbourne performed by Midpoint: Tony's most popular and first video is of his old local hard rock band Midpoint, who were filmed on tour in Thompson, Manitoba for a local TV show there named "The Pit" back in 1991. Midpoint are represented here by Tony alongside guitarists Keith Davis & Rob Struk, bassist Steve Batenchuk, and drummer Mark Webster. Though the opening is cut off, the cover is well done with very solid guitar (and keytar!) work, but the vocals don't quite have the optimal range compared to the original. Still, seeing rare Midpoint footage is worth a click, let alone out of province! Tony, Keith, and Steve would later collaborate on 1998's "Local Steel" compilation, while Keith would later join Tony in Gsis Murphy.
Dead or Alive As Performed by The Killer Hooks and Crowd: The other two videos on Tony's channel are of his current pop rock cover band The Killer Hooks live late last year, though neither exceeds 70 seconds in length. One is a cover of The Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night" at a private event, but featured here is their cover of Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive" at The Rockstar Bar. The Killer Hooks are represented here by Tony and Midpoint bandmate Rob Struk alongside bassist Tony Rota (Touch of Class) and drummer Paolo Erme (Glory Days.) Filmed by a friend of the band named Gillian, this better captures the crowd singing the opening verse than anything, partially due to the vertical camera angle and red lighting, but the performance sounds good overall! However, there are more substantial videos of the band online.
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I hope you guys liked this month's YouTube Channel Profiles! This series will return on or around October 26th with another multi-band month, as the first channel that we randomly selected only had one surviving video, and the second only had 5 videos (all from the same set), so we're tripling up next time! As such, we'll be looking at the YouTube channels of inactive Sault Michigan hard rock band The Highest of Fives, Cary Orsborne (featuring videos from a Half A Man concert in 2013), and 6Immortal6Fears6 (featuring Woods of Ypres' debut EP.) Look for these next month, and for more news and weekend concert previews(?) next! Thanks everyone!
Today's news post at the SMS is devoted to new and recent video finds on YouTube, so what lies within this post? Let's start with a source that I only just discovered via our Defunct Local Band Profile of That's Chester yesterday, that being guitarist Gabe Tessaro's YouTube channel! Launching back in November 2015 shortly after bandmate Eugene Orlando's sudden death, the current Obsession guitarist posted three exclusive That's Chester clips there from three late period concerts of theirs. I'll share the other two in future posts, but we'll start with this clip from Rotaryfest's main stage in July 2015 (the band's final traditional concert with Eugene), where they covered Deep Purple's "Hush" to close their headlining set. Filmed from a sharp side-stage angle, this isn't an optimal view of the guys (drummer Ric Datson's completely obscured by speakers), but it's a solid cover of this classic song with a neat nighttime ambiance, so give it a look below, and watch for Eugene on the keyboard!
Next up, here's a video of local pop rock cover quartet The Killer Hooks covering Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive" from a show of theirs last month at The Rockstar Bar! While not a hard rock-based group, you may recognize some of their members from prior local bands, like ex-Gsis Murphy frontman Tony Marcello, his former Midpoint bandmate Rob Struk, Touch of Class alum Tony Rota, and Glory Days drummer Paolo Erme. Filmed by a friend of the band named Gillian (source here) and uploaded to Tony's YouTube channel on Thursday, this video is just of the song's first minute, and it's very red from the bar lighting, but from what we hear, this hair metal ballad is well done! If anything, Tony noted that "the crowd does all the work on this one", referencing their eager singing-along of the opening verse, and it's great to see that everyone's engaged and into their set! Give this video a look below, and visit the band's website for more on their full setlist and schedule!
Closing with some audio-only uploads, here's the teased YouTube copy of local/St. Catharine's grindcore trio Shit Liver's half of their and AlgomA's split "Trading Faces"! All six of Shit Liver's songs for the album are featured in this video, which was uploaded to their YouTube channel on September 5th, it's day of release. I'll hold comment until our review of the split later this month, but if you'd rather stream or preview the songs here instead of Bandcamp, you have the option below! Note that AlgomA have not posted their half on YouTube yet, but a fan has uploaded the whole thing in a single video, which I won't share at present out of respect to the brand new release.
Finally, here's a cover of Alter Bridge's "Watch Over You" by Highway 63 frontman Henry Switzer, as uploaded to his YouTube channel last week! Recorded in his music room, and set to a montage of autumn scenery, this is a quality cover with clear emotion, and while I can't confirm if Highway 63 cover this song live, this shows off Henry's vocal abilities well in particular, so check out this Sault Michigan mainstay's newest solo cover below!
That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and notes as this week rolls along! Thanks everyone!
