For our last post of September 2026, here's this month's delayed YouTube Channel Profile! In our monthly look at a randomly selected YouTube channel whose uploads are at least half devoted to local metal, hard rock, or punk artists/concerts, we have conveniently drawn the channel of a musician covered in this month's album review, so here's what you should know!
Owner:Heavy Lies The Crown guitarist and ex-drummer Jaxon Massaway, also known as a solo musician under the handle Jaxon James
Channel Timeline:Launched on November 9th, 2018; Videos posted from November 2022 through this spring
Channel Summary: Actively uploading videos since a few months after he joined the St. Ignace, Michigan metalcore band, Jaxon has uploaded 62 videos here (34 proper videos and 28 "Shorts") over the past four years. Most of his mainline videos are from HLTC concerts, with the rest largely being solo performance videos on guitar and/or vocals, with Jaxon dabbling in his own original metal material in the past year as well. The "Shorts" are mostly brief vertical performance videos, some clipped from his longer uploads, but there is one Heavy Lies The Crown concert video in that section. A couple of videos here are non-musical, either for comedic purposes or to vlog about his time working in the culinary industry at festivals.
Why You Should Watch: "You filthy crowners" will appreciate the Heavy Lies The Crown concert videos here, though note that all come from Jaxon's time behind the drumkit, so you'll want to visit the band's Facebook page to see recent stuff since he moved to guitar. While Jaxon's music taste is more diverse than his band work may let on, he shows a lot of multi-instrumental talent across his solo videos, and a deceptively good voice for both extreme metal and country, so don't bypass what this rising young EUP talent has to offer! Note that the seven released songs in his solo original catalogue are not here, but you can stream them on his YouTube Music channel.
Our Recommended Videos To Check Out:
Choke - HEAVY LIES THE CROWN (LIVE AT THE FRENCH ROAD BASH): Of Jaxon's videos with Heavy Lies The Crown, the best in terms of actually seeing the whole band (as in, not at night and not a drumcam video) comes from their set at the annual French Road Bash in Alpena in August 2022, which they have played multiple times. Heavy were represented here by frontman Brandon West (the only other performer here still in the group) alongside guitarists Ted Olson and Christian Thanasiu and bassist Christian Cook. Between Brandon's long hair and Ted's headless guitar alone, it does give a good nostalgic feeling to see this era of HLTC again, and this performance of "Choke" captures them in their element with solid video and audio quality across the board! He also uploaded a video of "Choke" from their set at Summerbash in Gaylord the previous month.
Your Face - WISP (DRUM COVER): The most viewed video on Jaxon's channel is actually one of his solo cover performances, where he drummed along to the song "Your Face" by the shoegaze/hard rock musician Wisp in April 2024. This is actually Jaxon's only drum cover video, with every other cover here featuring him on vocals and/or guitar. I'm not the biggest shoegaze fan, but there is a Deftonesy vibe to this song, and the recording quality is strong, helping show off the drum skills that got him noticed by HLTC!
VØRRN (THALL): I wanted to highlight one of Jaxon's original songs here, but as already noted, he has kept uploads of his finished original music on the Jaxon James YouTube Music channel (you can also hear those songs on other major streaming services). Only three original pieces are on his own YouTube channel, including a demo named "Peripheral Vision", and two tracks given the project name Thall, one being a 34 seconds-long instrumental. Featured here is his newest Thall song, named "Vørrn" (possibly a misspelling of the German word for "front"). Brutal and technical song that death metal fans should be curious to hear, while also having a touch of shoegaze in the clean vocals, and Jaxon did good work to spice up the video in post-production! No word on if Thall will indeed resurface as a formal side project, but he hasn't posted a new video in the six months since this went live, nor released new original music on streaming.
I hope you guys liked this month's YouTube Channel Profile! This series should return closer to schedule on or around October 26th, so look for that then and for weekend concert previews next! Thanks everyone!
Merry Christmas, everyone! In today's largely seasonal post, we have new concert videos and a new batch of Christmas carol covers to check out, but let's lead off with something not seasonal that I have delayed for way too long. As you may know, Heavy Lies The Crown guitarist/ex-drummer Jason Massaway has been dabbling in his own solo material in the past couple of years, including his own solo YouTube channel featuring covers on vocals and/or acoustic guitar (some H.L.T.C. videos with him drumming made it there too). However, Jaxon (under the handle "Jaxon James") has recorded and released three original songs to major streaming services this year, entitled "Nameless" (no relation), "Evergreen", and "Nostalgia". The latter two songs are country influenced and fairly melancholy ("Nostalgia" is really short too), but if you wanna see what Jaxon as a solo metal artist, "Nameless" is where you'd want to go.
This is also short (1:46 in length) but it's a promising extreme metal song with a djenty riff and solid harsh vocals, and it does show what Jaxon is capable of as an original multi-instrumentalist! Jaxon doesn't have a proper social media/band page for his solo music that I'm aware of, and he hasn't played live with Heavy Lies The Crown for most of the year due to travelling commitments with his day job, but this is all promising for him as a rising young musician, and here's hoping we hear more from Jaxon in or out of the band in 2025! Check out "Nameless" below!
Next up, here's some new Christmas content from local classical metal band Theatre of Night! As you may recall, before they began doing Christmas tour runs with a full live band (well, not this year), Theatre of Night operated as a studio band, bringing on German soprano singer Gaby Koss in the early-mid 2010s as an official band member to sing lead on new Christmas carol covers at the time. Five old and new songs featuring Gaby were collected as a "Celtic Christmas metal EP" on their YouTube channel this month, where you can hear her singing with Craig & Steve via covers of "What Child Is This?", "Carol Of The Bells", "Silent Night", "The Little Drummer Boy", and "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen". The former two songs are older recordings featuring Steve's brother Greg Giles on drums during his stint with the band, while the rest feature his replacement Erik Sales. It is neat hearing Gaby on new material with Theatre of Night, and her classically trained vocals suit their material well!
The language used with the description does not suggest that she has rejoined Theatre of Night (remember, they had been touring with live vocalists up to last year), but the collaboration has always produced quality material, and if the description of this "Reel" on Gaby's Facebook page is anything to go by, they may be collaborating on a full new album next year! Check out Theatre of Night & Gaby's free "EP" below!
We'll wrap things up in Sault Ontario via videos from two bands from last month's eleventh annual Toystock at The Grand Gardens! Prolific local concert filmer Christopher Paci's YouTube channel is the source, and he was in attendance that afternoon to see the two full bands from the first half of the program (in between DJ Dark Mark and the acoustic solo artists). The 3:00 band this year was local punk trio Redundant in their first show since last year's Toystock and since the departure of bassist Andrew MacDonald, with Chris filming them covering The Ramones' "Blitzkrieg Bop" and, as embedded below, playing their original "That December". I still haven't found a public reference to the identity of the new bassist who debuted at Toystock, but he and/or drummer Rick White should really add backing vocals, as that is definitely missing from their live sound
The new bassist fits in well from what I can see, no backing vocals aside, and the band sounds good here, so hopefully we're not waiting another year for Redundant to play live again! Check these Christmas Cheer concert performances out above & below!
Finally, the 2:00 PM act at Toystock XI was Mike Haggith & The Big Finish Band in their last gig of 2024, with Chris filming them playing Mike's original songs "If Ever Comes The Day" and, as embedded below, "The Nature Of The Times". Compared to Mike's live-stream of his set that day, this was filmed a little further out from the opposite side of the stage, but Chris got a good angle of Mike & crew rocking out while capturing some of the attendee action during this all-original set, and it looks like a good time was had by all! Check out these new videos of Mike and his band above & below!
That's all for today, but again, have a Merry Christmas and enjoy time with your families and friends! We'll be back tomorrow for weekend concert previews. Thanks everyone!
To try and get some of the news backlog cleared out, here's another full news post on this Tuesday morning, including a new drum cover video, and leading off, lots of updates from a prominent local band in the midst of quite a big week, so here's what you should know!
Here's some more recent news and updates from local alternative hard rock quintet Handsome Sandwich, in advance of their CD release concert at The Loftthis Saturday night! Our preview of that is coming later in the week, but there is more to talk about in the interim, starting with the confirmation on their Facebook page on April 14th that they will return to the Northern Vibe Festival in nearby Ophir in late August! The band debuted their new lineup twice over at the last two installments of this event, so it makes sense for them to return, but of course, it may be a while before we hear what day they're playing on. Organizers never released daily schedules in the past two years, and didn't do so for the DJ centric River Stage's lineup reveal last month. For the record, the full band lineup for the Forest Stage is expected to be announced soon, and we'll keep you posted when they announce everything, with or without dates.
To promote their recent activity, SooToday contributor/musician Chris Belsito spotlighted them in another article on April 27th, which features interview remarks from all five band members, including guitarist "Jessie Cooks" (odd typos there!). The article features talk of the positive response to the band's first two music videos (an unidentified friend of the band in Great Britain apparently covered "Better Off" in some form), technical details on their video shoots, saxophonist Josh Norling's contribution to "No Entry" (if not the video for it), and hype for Saturday night's release concert. The biggest scoop in the SooToday article is that they're planning to return to the studio to record a five song EP with Treble Charger frontman Greig Nori at the Algoma Conservatory of Music this fall, with a single planned to be recorded first "within the next couple of weeks". Remember also that they teased recording the release show in some form.
Informative and positive article that hypes up Handsome Sandwich's upward momentum towards the release show on Saturday, so give it a read above! While there were a few vague teasers about the release plans for their debut album "Deconstructed", the band confirmed on their Facebook page on Friday that the album will be released on CDs and not just via digital downloads and streaming services, and they're going the DIY route here rather than getting them packaged and sent back from afar. The album cover proper was unveiled on Saturday, and can be seen on the right. Kind of shows the titular sandwich in progress, as it takes some effort to get it to be handsome! Finally from the Sandwich crew, they posted a new video interview conducted by the aforementioned Greig Nori with drummer Johnny Belanger and release concert openers Man Feelings' guitarist Paul Gabrylewicz yesterday, so what do you learn here?
In the video, Greig promotes the release concert proper, and asks Johnny about the recording of and release plans for "Deconstructed", while asking Paul (a.k.a. Gabby) about his vision for "collaborative creativity" and Man Feelings' existing studio output, plus both Johnny & Paul's support for fellow local musicians and their past shows together. Not a deep expose or anything, but good promotion and it's interesting seeing Greig front and center here (gives me old disBand vibes!). Check out much more from Handsome Sandwich above and below, and look for our preview of the release show proper on Thursday or Friday!
Finally for today, let's hop across to St. Ignace, Michigan for a new cover video from Heavy Lies The Crown drummer Jaxon Massaway's YouTube channel! In the description for the video below on March 31st, Jaxon revealed that he had a full drum setup at home again, and plans to begin posting drum covers there, starting with this one of Breaking Benjamin's "Sooner Or Later". Playing in a well lit room, the cover (along with the original studio track) is solidly done, but I'd move the camera next time, as Jaxon's head is right behind a cymbal at this camera angle. Give it a look below, and if you like country, give his guitar covers of country songs from last month a look as well, as he has musical range!
That's all for today, but stay tuned for this month's "Where Are The New Albums?" post next! Thanks everyone!
