LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Frightlight), Striker Concert Preview, And Much More!!

Today's post at the SMS is focused mostly on Sault Ontario news and notes, including the complete schedule for a massive upcoming metal/punk show, and a preview for a special Tuesday night concert going down tomorrow, but we also have the last of our MySpace link changes & deletions to cover, mostly relating to Sault Michigan companies and venues. However, we're leading off with a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT for next month featuring two bands playing tomorrow night, so here's what you need to know!

Local horror punk/metal quintet Frightlight will play their second concert of 2013 on Saturday, July 27th at The Algonquin Pub! Barring any interim announcements, this will be their first Algonquin stop since October, and first headlining gig since then, and it'll be great to see the guys again following their return to the stage tomorrow (more on that in a bit.) This show will serve as a benefit to (I assume) raise money for the short film "The Kid Who Made The Face", which is being produced by bassist Mike Gingras (a.k.a. Eddie Fright), and all attendees of the show will be credited in it as a result. Mike's been taking college courses in filmmaking in Toronto in the past year, and hopefully this film will show the fruits of his labour, so come on out to support this movie! Two local opening bands have been signed on as well for July 27th, including local melodic death metal quintet The Bear Hunters (in their Algonquin Pub debut) and local punk trio Redundant, who should both add nicely to the metal and punk sides of the audience next month, so don't miss them!

Doors open at 9:00 PM for this 19+ concert, and there's an admission price of $5. For more details, check the above links, and the commercial below that Mike posted on his YouTube channel on Saturday, which combines advertising for the show with clips from the movie "The Warriors". Nice little ad, and hopefully it hypes you up for the concert, so check it out below, and stay tuned for updates!

Next up, here's a preview for a special and very intriguing metal concert going down TOMORROW NIGHT at The Roosevelt Hotel, as Edmonton classic heavy metal quintet Striker will make their local debut with a hard hitting faced paced set of original songs! Comparable in sound to recent local favourites like Skull Fist and 3 Inches of Blood, Striker have an exciting and energetic sound that fans of early 1980s speed metal should eat up, so definitely don't miss this stop on their Heavy Metal Rampage Tour!! Three local opening bands will also be on board, and though none are perfect genre matches, there's a nice diverse mix of sounds to enjoy, including the long awaited return of Frightlight after an 8 month stage hiatus, the aforementioned Bear Hunters, and local sludge/death metal quartet Giwakwa in just their fourth live concert, so heavy metal fans will almost certainly find something to like, and Frightlight's return is extra notable in itself! Admission will be $5 at the door for this 19+ concert, with doors opening at 9:00 PM. For more details, visit the official Facebook event page!

Also, promoter/Frightlight frontman Johnny Pints is also hosting a contest for the best 1980s metal costume tomorrow night, so get in on that to compete for a prize! This should be an awesome concert full of different and very intense heavy metal, so don't miss it, and I hope to see you guys there TOMORROW! For a preview, here's 14 minutes of Striker playing live in Edmonton in April!

Also today, the complete schedule has been announced for the third annual Sewer Swampstravaganza all ages show on August 10th at The Oddfellows Hall! Note that the lineup has changed at least once since today, but as best as I can tell, it was a minor change. As you might expect, Montreal thrash trio Warsenal will headline the event at 11:00 PM, with local punk/classical trio RedD Monkey (also the event's hosts/promoters) taking the stage at 10:00 PM. Melodic death metal standouts The Bear Hunters will play at 9:00 PM, to be preceded by local grunge/alternative band Haggith at 8:00 PM, local punk trio The Northern Tragedy at 7:00 PM, stoner/death metal quartet Giwakwa at 6:00 PM, "blue Chinese metal crash punk" notables Sykotyk Rampage at 5:00 PM, extreme metal quartet Winkstinger at 4:00 PM, rising death metallers Crimson Crusade at 3:00 PM, and young local hard rock quartet Ashes To Dust opening the show at 2:00 PM.

Definitely a return to the metal-heavy lineup of the 2011 installment, but with seven new bands (to the series), and at least 22 performers who haven't played in past years, there'll be tons of recent talent to enjoy, and for just $5! Check the above links for more details, and stay tuned for updates!

Finally for today, here's the remainder of our recent MySpace page deletions and changes in our link & venue listings, due to the recent design overhaul and information removals. Firstly, I moved a bunch of Sault Michigan & area links from MySpace to Facebook, including for local concert venues The Corner Pub Bar & Grill, Golanka's Bar (The Bird), The Savoy Bar & Nightclub, and Zim's, local music store Steve's Music Center, and local label/studio Werehold Records. I also moved local lessons/rock camp The Guitar Studio from MySpace to their official website, while the rest of the changes were page deletions, as the other links were for companies & venues that didn't have other known online pages. The deletions included inactive Sault Ontario concert promotion agencies Adamantium Productions, Big Voiced Records, Hitman Productions, and Infamous Productions, inactive regional recording studios idioRECORDS, Klusterfunk Studios, and Lucky Limb Studios, former local concert festival Bell Border Jam, defunct radio show The Mistresses of Metal, and Sault Michigan venue The Satisfied Frog (though I left it in the venue links as it still actively hosts shows.)

I think that's the last of our changes related to MySpace's new direction, but I still wish they'd restore at least profile information, photos, and videos to at least the band pages, as they would further their aims of it being music-centric, but I'm not assuming that they ever will. I just want to keep you guys abreast of the changes, and hopefully next time a popular site for local band pages decides to delete/overhaul things like this, we'll know ahead of time. That's all for today, but stay tuned for some major Sault Michigan news that I know some of you are waiting for very soon. Thanks everyone!

MySpace's New Layout & Band Page Info Deletions, And How It Affects The SMS

This post is dedicated to outlining changes to one of our biggest band page sources, and what this means for our links and coverage at The Sault Metal Scene. In a nutshell, social networking website and popular band page resource MySpace had a new profile layout, format, and direction rolled out last weekend, which focuses on music and artists. You think this would be good for what we do on the site, especially as the past uses of it as a social networking portal have fallen by the wayside compared to Facebook and Twitter, but not quite. As part of the upgrades, almost everything has been deleted from old MySpace pages with the exception of songs (if you had any uploaded), your existing friends (now called "connections"), and your profile photo. Biography information, videos, blog postings, page comments, most external applications, and games are all gone, though other photos can be retrieved on request if you log in. I'll note that MySpace administrators did not give any advance warning about these deletions, and while there is a visible outcry from existing users, I have little faith that MySpace will bring the info back (though Microsoft did revert on some of it's unpopular Xbox One policies, so who knows.)

Now, what does this mean for the site and local metal/hard rock bands? This honestly won't have a direct bearing on most current artists, as few local bands primarily used MySpace for their online media anymore compared to Facebook or Reverbnation, but this is a major headache for me and local music fans who used MySpace to catch up on older local bands. Unlike the closure of GarageBand, MySpace didn't give advance warning that they were going to delete so much from pages, so we went from a vast resource of band information to a stripped down version that feels more like a glossed up Soundcloud out of nowhere. To be fair, there is potential for the new MySpace, as Sault Ontario hardcore band Destroilet have made effective use and updates of their MySpace page, but they lost all old info too when they upgraded early, and many bands had a lot of information, posts, details, and videos there that was really a benefit to fans of local music. If the goal is to turn MySpace music-centric, why delete things that would have supported that aim?

As a current use site, this won't be a major loss, but in terms of material and SMS usage, this is a huge blow, but to try and soften it as much as I could, I archived biography information and details on as many local metal/hard rock bands that I could using cached copies of each using Google, so save for blog posts and videos, I think I have much of what would be handy. However, I had to update, change, and in some cases, delete some band links due to the "updates", as they made almost all local band MySpace pages shells of their former selves, and no longer the most updated and representative page for their information, material, and concert listings. For some, I left their MySpace page linked here as it still had audio material, and still remains their most substantial (or only) online page, but I saved info for most via cached page copies. For an unlucky 15 bands, the MySpace changes eliminated all info that kept them in our listings, and because they have no songs there, or other surviving online pages, I had to regrettably delete them.

Just to outline all the changes to the band links on here, I'll run through them quickly, and if a specific band isn't mentioned, I either left their MySpace page alone out of necessity, or they weren't linked to MySpace in our band listings. Most of the link switches were to Facebook pages or groups, with Sault Ontario bands As It Stands, The Bear Hunters, Changing Waves, Destroilet, Detroit, Dirty Virgin, For All That Is Lost, Gates of Winter, The Issues, Lion Ride, Lorax, Paraside, Riverin, and Shit Liver, and Sault Michigan bands Clownsack, Drayton Fever, Insipid Brutality, Life's Eclipse, Nixxon Dixxon, Oddfellow, Scofflaw, Swampghas, and Unleashed now linked through there. I also switched 5 bands each from their MySpace to Reverbnation & PureVolume pages, with Bad Side, Elipzis, Integrated System of Machines, No Arrow, and Skull After Betrayl now linked through Reverbnation, and Apocrytha, Dark Salvation, Fitswitch, Infrastrate, and Mike Libertoski now linked through PureVolume.

I also moved two bands from MySpace to SoundClick pages (No Remains & Traces), while the other switches were for single bands, which now link to 2wo Man Baand's Freewebs page, ApocalyptiCDistroyeR's Wix website, Bent Rollercoaster's OurStage page, and Woods of Ypres' Bandcamp page. As for page deletions, as these artists had no songs on MySpace or other existing online pages, I regrettably have deleted 15 metal/hard rock acts from our SMS band listings, including Sault Ontario artists Caedis Omnis, Ephidel, The Pisstanks, Route 69, Steven Flint, When They Fall, and Wrathborne, and Sault Michigan-regional artists 7/47, Cherubic Red, Riot! By Night, Savage Roar, Shift, Traynwreck, Twisted Manikin, and Wild Fate. Most weren't too active in their heyday (Shift & Route 69 being notable exceptions), but even though I hate deleting links, I had to so we didn't link to barren, uninformative pages for the sake of preservation. No offense is intended to these bands' members!

The last switches that I have to make relate to MySpace links for non-bands on the site, and I'll tackle that soon. I hope MySpace administrators listen to their fans and bring back at least previous profile information, photos, blogs, and videos, as all would benefit their music-centric aims and show that they listen to their users, but I'm not holding out hope that they will. I just wanted to let you guys know about what happened and how it affects the SMS, and if your band has a MySpace page, I'd say spruce it up and make use of the new features, even if what's old is lost, as I can see it having some good uses. It's just a frustrating no-warning change, but I think we'll be alright in the long run. Stay tuned for more news soon, and thanks for the patience!