2021: A Look Back In The Year Of Local Metal, Hard Rock, And Punk

Another year is almost in the rear-view mirror, so let's recap all of the highs and lows from the local metal, hard rock, and punk scenes to end 2021 with! Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the increasing malaise with few concerts and minimal public activity from many local bands, this was the slowest year in SMS history, but I promised years and years ago that I would have a new post at least every three days, and throughout this whole pandemic, I have never broken that promise! The pandemic has absolutely affected everything once again, not helped by Ontario being thrown into lockdown from December 2020-February and again from April-June, not to mention the introduction of vaccine passports this fall, and now the omicron variant of COVID-19 running wild. I can only hope that 2022 brings a little more normalcy as we figure out how to keep everyone as safe as possible!

That all said, Sault Ontario did start to see the return of some big concerts this summer as vaccination rates went up and some restrictions started to ease, and there were some very promising signs of activity from established and new bands alike, so hopefully we can touch on most of the big stories and events from the past year below!

In terms of multi-act events, July saw Rotaryfest returning in a temporary(?) drive-thru format later that month with 15 bands playing to attendees at the former Lowe's Plaza parking lot. In August, a near normal concert experience hit nearby Ophir when The Northern Vibe Festival returned with a full slate of local and Sudbury musicians, while the expanded Wyld Stallyns headlined an Entomica fundraiser at The Bushplane Museum, and the debuting These Magnificent Tentacles (among others) opened for Sibling at The Klub in September. A relatively busy October was toplined by the long-delayed Buckcherry concert at Soo Blaster alongside openers Redundant & Bad Chug, while fans could also see Alien To The Ignorant at Mellow D's Underground and The Soo Fighters opening for Lockdown on Halloween weekend at The Rockstar Bar, with Sudbury tribute band Just Leppard playing there in November.

And of course, a number of bands hit the weekend bar cover circuit for shows from February-April and June-December, with Fort Creek, Soundcheck, and Tym Morrison playing multiple times throughout 2021, and bands like The Uncanny Valley and the reunited Handsome Sandwich & Tripod The Dog also headlined a few solo concerts in the past year. Hopefully many of the above bands (and much more) will play live in 2022!

Over in Sault Michigan and the eastern U.P., the biggest hard rock concert of 2021 saw Cheap Trick open for The Goo Goo Dolls outdoors at the St. Ignace Kewadin Casino in August, but anything planned for after then from heavier acts was called off, alas. A handful of touring bands hit Kewadin Casino lounges once they started booking live bands again in July, like fan favouites Peril, Scarkazm, and Spun, plus newcomers Fyrbird, and Wisconsin's own Sunspot during the Michigan Paranormal Convention. The busiest local hard rock band on the E.U.P. circuit was Tarnished, who got around to numerous headlining gigs and community events both locally and into the western U.P. and downstate, while 415E & their new sister band Rhythm & Brews also played live in late 2021, and Project 906 got to play a few shows in between their drummer changes. Here's to much more in the new year!

A lot of big news stories hit our news desk in 2021, but a pair of major local musician deaths on both sides of the border rocked each half of the Twin Saults, starting with the loss of former Highway 63/Monkey's Uncle frontman Henry Switzer in February at the age of 49, after dealing with some lengthy health issues. Henry was a very talented singer, guitarist, and instructor who is dearly missed by his family and friends in Sault Michigan and area, and it's still strange to not cover shows from his bands on the site! On this side of the border, fans mourned the sudden death of prolific local rock drummer Chris Thompson last month of complications from a heart attack, at the age of 42. Like Henry, Chris was a committed husband and father who was a mainstay of the local scene from his prolific work in bands like Fitswitch, Eclipse, Project 421, and Giwakwa, and I hope his family and friends kept the good memories close over the holidays!

We also lost veteran local radio DJ, sportcaster, and former Rock 101 news anchor John Bell this year, as well as the late Sault Ontario actor/director Pirie "Bear" Kaufman, who had a well received benefit concert during his cancer battle a few years back. All will be missed by the lives they touched!

In terms of general news stories, the COVID-19 pandemic helped direct the path of many of them, like the cancellation or postponement of more concerts, like Black Label Society and Great White in Sault Michigan, and Queen: It's A Kinda Magic and The Sky's The Limit in Sault Ontario. For venues, The Tech re-opened with ambitious plans, The Canadian Nightclub became The Canuck after being bought by new ownership, and The Harp closed in advance of lockdown #3. Despite all of the obvious issues, The Sugar Island Music Festival (sans heavier acts) returned in August, while Coronafest returned for another go-around in the spring, and the ever prolific Mike Haggith brought back monthly live-streamed concerts in the last quarter of 2021, going along with his increased presence in Thompson, Manitoba, including Shaw TV hosting gigs and even a return to the stage there, complete with a full backing band!

Over in Sault Michigan, Heavy Lies The Crown & Theatre of Night released new music videos in advance of planned albums, while Tarnished entered their 2020 video for "Metalyn" in the Soo Film Festival, and kept busy otherwise with new viral video content and their new single "SDR&R". Project 906 also released songs for a planned EP, while Sault Ontario's Apocalypse Afterparty put out their own smokin' music video for their "List of Demands" cover. On the (internet) radio dial, The Borderline kept up a busy locally-devoted slate of programming on such flagship shows as Sev's Cellar, Across The Tracks, and starting in July, Josh Amendola's own Metal Morpheus, giving metalheads an hour of extreme metal and genre pioneers every Sunday night! As well, Lake Superior State University relaunched their campus radio station on Live365 with a better player and new music rotation. Here's to a bigger and better 2022 ahead with lots of positive news stories!

For new albums, no one had a busier year than Mike Haggith, who put out his delayed 51st canon solo album "Bridges" in November (and on vinyl too!), sandwiched between the expanded deluxe edition of his old local band The Din's 2016 studio album "Give In To The Din" from October, and that group's belated live album "Technically Live" on Sunday from the "Give In..." release party! Vinylphiles got another treat this month when Soolebrity Records re-issued defunct local punk trio Room 206's 1994 album "2 Innies & 1 Outie" in limited quanities! Also this year: St. Ignace, Michigan's Heavy Lies The Crown just put out their self-titled full length album, while earlier in the year, we got digital exclusive albums from Swampgut, solo projects Malignant Neoplasm, Slumshine, and Molten Imp, and as a score for their D&D podcast, the kinda reunited Late & Loud. Fingers crossed there's more ahead next year!

Mercifully, things opened up enough for both Sault Ste. Maries to get a handful of new local metal, hard rock, and punk bands. Arguably the biggest debut was for Jonesy Land, the punk/country supergroup from Rising Tide and Lake Effect alumni that played this summer at Rotaryfest & The Northern Vibe Festival, and even had a music video to show for it! While the band proper isn't new, local/Ottawa hard rock quartet Bad Chug finally played their first local date when they opened for Buckcherry in October, while the eclectic duo These Magnificent Tentacles also played live for the first time. Sault Michigan welcomed 415E sister band Rhythm & Brews to the live stage this summer, while other newbies north of the bridge included promising young punk band Vanity, industrial metal solo project Molten Imp, and the short-lived Dealing Without. Here's to more in 2022!

With bands back to playing live in one form or another, long delays and changes in personal lives did lead to a lot of lineup turnover. Sault Michigan's Tarnished were hit the hardest, with the departure of drummer Gary Croad, bassist Josh Fair replacing him behind the kit, new bassist Donald Alexander's brief stint, frontman Alex Traynor temporarily moving to bass, and ultimately adding Isaac Royer to restore their lineup. Gary also factored into Project 906's drummer shifts, replacing Tommy Korcal this year before ceding way for Odin Osogwin. In Sault Ontario, Taylor Emlaw & Mitch Sirie joined Jesse & Johnny in the new-look Handsome Sandwich, cousins Chris & Elijah Nielsen belatedly replaced Frank & Fred in Re:Born, Arthur Lacasse & the late Chris Thompson joined the revived Soo Fighters, and Ben Garcia joined The Wyld Stallyns on bass, among other lineup changes from the past 12 months!

In terms of notable local bands to announce their demise or breakup, we didn't get much of that in writing in 2021. Sault Michigan's Mackinaw Trail basically ended when Henry Switzer died, Jack Spades as we knew it ended after J.D. moved out of town, Dealing Without were effectively absorbed into the reunited Half Past, and Black Cloud deleted their social media accounts, but most of the apparent dissolutions were via extended periods of inactivity. Notable acts like The Inner City Surfers, Shit Liver, Stegadeth, Foothill Road, Skeyes of Seven, The Bridge Heads, and Sault Michigan's SweetKenny and Hubbard hit our one year inactivity threshhold during 2021. As well, it has been over 6 months since we last heard from the likes of Destroilet, Kraken Mara, Swampgut, and Kush Wood, among others. The pandemic hits hard for many of us, and hopefully some of these bands will return next year!

As always, we'll end our retrospective with comebacks and returns, and given that a lot of bands didn't or couldn't play live between March 2020 and June 2021 (weekend bar cover bands excepted), the summer re-opening did allow for a few months of some bands playing live again, like the new Bad Chug, Handsome Sandwich, Soo Fighters, Uncanny Valley, and Wyld Stallyns lineups, plus the returns of A Dire Setback, The Apocalypse Afterparty, The Bear Hunters, Frightlight, Redundant, Tripod The Dog, and Sault Michigan's 415E. Outside of the live stage, Tool tribute Parabol returned after a pandemic break and social media relaunch, Kraken Mara resumed their EP recording plans, and solo acts like Mike Cliffe, Ted Olson, The Shaner, and Stonesmith GC came back with new original music. Hopefully everyone keeps at it as we enter what will hopefully be a better year ahead!

2021 was a challenging but still newsworthy year that had good stuff to remember and look back on, and 2022 can't be worse and less eventful..... I hope! Like last year, I'm not going to do a post looking ahead to what we may expect in 2022, as frankly, no one knows what to expect, with the COVID-19 pandemic still being quite prevalent in Ontario, Michigan, and elsewhere, but we'll be back with more news and notes on the site next week! Thanks everyone, and have a Happy (and safe) New Year!

2020: A Look Back In The Year Of Local Metal, Hard Rock, And Punk

To end this very strange year, here is our annual retrospective post on the what went down in the local metal, hard rock, and punk scene in the past 12 months! Of course, ⅘ths of it was spent in a pandemic largely devoid of concerts, so I have made necessary changes to how we usually block out our year-in-review posts, but hopefully I hit on every major relevant story in 2020! Now, let's look back at the year that was... such as it was!

Before everything changed, we were lucky enough to have 2½ months of normalcy in the local scene, with three major hard rock concerts taking place in February, including Mr. Big frontman Eric Martin & Trixter bassist P.J. Farley at The Dreammaker's Theatre at the Sault Michigan Kewadin Casino on the 15th, Theory of a Deadman & W3apons at The Sault Community Theatre Center the next day, and Tom Keifer, Kix, and Faster Pussycat at The Hair Scare Live at The Dreammaker's Theatre on the 22nd. Sault Michigan welcomed out of town bands like BRKN Love, Peril and Scarkazm to the area for pre-pandemic concerts, while Bon Jovi Forever returned to Sault Ontario on February 22nd themselves. Other notable early 2020 shows included The Apocalypse Afterparty joining other Soo's Got Talent finalists to kick off Bon Soo at The Machine Shop, and Handsome Sandwich & the debuting Bridge Heads helping close Room 21 on Valentine's Day, among other events.

Unfortunately, everything abruptly started changing for the worse on March 13th when the first wave of concert cancellations and postponements were announced due to the arrival of COVID-19 in North America and the beginning of it's spread, leading to the 3 month lockdown through June, social distancing measures, mask mandates, indoor capacity restrictions, and smaller lockdowns in Ontario and Michigan in the ensuing months as case counts rose. The concert calendar locally ground to a halt, costing the Soo area major March-June concerts from notable touring acts like Black Label Society, Matthew Good, Candlebox, Buckcherry, Queen: It's A Kinda Magic, Sandman, Peril, Whoop-Szo, Scarkazm, First Jason, The Anti-Queens, The Lows, Destroyer, Tripp 'N Dixie, and many others. Rescheduled dates are unclear at best, if announced at all, given the unknown climate of 2021 ahead, but we'll keep you posted!

The pandemic also cost the area virtually every annual concert festival and yearly event you can think of, and public concerts only resumed on a limited basis at some venues in the late summer, notably including Tarnished's Rock The Block event at Crooked Music in Sault Michigan in July, and the Blood Shed Productions-organized Squatfest in Heyden in August. Otherwise, the hard rock concert calendar in late 2020 was primarily the domain of weekend bar cover bands playing at the few venues willing to host bands with capacity and business-hour restrictions. Fort Creek and Soundcheck defied the pandemic with concerts at both local Reggie's taverns, while Tym Morrison hit the downtown Reggie's and the new Motley Market in recent months, and The Wyld Stallyns played a one-nighter at The Rockstar Bar in August during that venue's brief return of live concerts. With the new Ontario lockdown, things are pretty dead again, but fingers crossed for a 2021 uptick!

A number of local musicians adapted to the new normal (especially during the first lockdown) by holding live-streamed concerts on social media, with Mike Haggith's #LockdownLive series, Tym Morrison's regular slate of at-home gigs, and Tarnished's numerous acoustic duo concerts (despite ongoing audio difficulties) the most prominent for heavier genre acts. Mike and A Dire Setback also moved their CD release parties to at-home streams to give them the launch they deserved, while some annual events like Rotaryfest and The Sky's The Limit shifted to virtual editions in 2020, The Wyld Stallyns made an unadvertised appearance in The Zonta Club's Purses, Pies, and Pinot gala, and new events like SooToday's Come Together Sault Ste. Marie, Coronafest, and Northern Superior Brewing's Songs & A Six Pack gave musicians an outlet to perform at a difficult time.

News didn't stop in 2020 outside of the pandemic, and there were good and bad stories to report that had nothing to do with COVID! In January, GFL Memorial Gardens welcomed the touring Queen musical We Will Rock You, while The Rad Zone re-opened in it's new Queen Street location. Room 21 closed in February, but the Soo welcomed The Borderline to the internet radio airwaves, giving a much needed local alternative! During the first lockdown, veteran local punk musician Mikey Hawdon launched his series of daily quarantunes on his uke(lele), which grew to much bigger and better things in recent months! Also this year: Shaun Antler kicked off her local musician archival project, Long & McQuade moved into it's big new location on MacDonald Avenue, Reggie's Place re-opened under new ownership, Tarnished got airplay on 9&10 News' The Four, The Inner City Surfers released their new single...

...frontman Dustin Jones' main band The Rising Tide (and Tarnished) released their own new music videos, Gary Croad replaced Tommy Korcal on drums with Tarnished, and Shit Liver released their long-gestating 2016 Canadian tour documentary. This was a difficult year, but thankfully, it was still a newsworthy one for unrelated reasons!

If being locked down at home did one thing for local musicians, it encouraged them to write and record in studio, and we got a surprising number of local metal, hard rock, and punk albums this year! The aforementioned Mike Haggith ("If Ever Comes The Day") and A Dire Setback (their self-titled album) got their new discs launched via virtual release concerts during the lockdown, while Sault Michigan's Tarnished put out their own EP "Down To The Wire" in July, not long after their Rock The Block concert. Blood Shed mainstays Crucify The Whore released "P.C. Sells... But I Ain't Buyin'!" and their second "A Couple Of Degenerate Bastards" split with Chase Wigmore this year, while Chris Raginskis' debuting 9 Times Dark project released "Vicissitude" in August. 2020 ended with a bang with two long awaited album releases, namely The Bear Hunters' "The Dead Testament" last month and As It Stands posthumous EP "The Lost Tapes" two weeks ago. Here's to even more high profile new albums in 2021!

Given that most bands couldn't play concerts as normal in 2020, the lack of debuting bands was understandable, though we did see the public concert debuts of The Bridge Heads and Fort Creek this year, while The Isolation Sessions leaned into social distancing in their early branding and videos. It would be unfair to call out bands for being inactive in 2020 for obvious reasons, but there were a few notable bands to publically throw in the towel, like Sault Michigan classic rock mainstays Highway 63 this summer, while both X's & Y's and Sault Ontario's Parabol saw their Facebook pages quietly deleted with no public notice then or since. As well, a handful of groups have not been heard from since the second half of 2019, like Treble Charger, AlgomA, Rotopsy, Pillory, Telephone & Address, The Guitar Gangsters, and Coral Fang, who were all moved to our inactive band links this year. Hopefully 2021 is a better one for band activity!

As always, we'll end things with comebacks and returns to activity from prominent bands, and while few had the opportunity to play a concert as part of their resurgences, some familiar faces still made their presences known again in 2020! Acts like Ashoka At The Show, Black Cloud, Foothill Road, Mike Cliffe, Mike McCleary, The Shaner, and SweetKenny all came back to activity this year with new studio material or live performance videos,hopefully presaging more to come in the new year! Also, Ottawa's Bad Chug reunited and relocated to Sault Ontario with a Buckcherry opening slot still waiting in the wings, That's Chester posted a new Pink Floyd cover to honour late bandmate Eugene Orlando, Skeyes of Seven resurfaced to compete in a Corus Radio song contest, ex-No Arrow drummer Joe Falco resurfaced with solo videos on Youtube, and Destroilet came back to sell new t-shirts. Here's to more from them & others in the new year!

2020 was not a great year, but there was enough good in it where you can't completely write it off. That said, 2021 has to be a better year for the local metal, hard rock, and punk scene, how can it be worse? I'll be forgoing our usual "new year forecast" post tomorrow because, frankly, no one knows what 2021 has in store, let alone when we'll have some semblance of a normal concert calendar again, so why waste time when everything could be wrong? In any event, I hope everyone has a Happy New Year, and we'll see you back with next month's "Where Are The New Albums?" post on Saturday, with more news to follow when available! Thanks everyone!

Michigan COVID-19 Updates & Concert Cancellations, Plus Sault Ontario News & Notes!!

Here is our 80th straight daily post at the SMS, and it includes some assorted recent news and notes, details on an ambitious project to catalogue local music history (something readers should all care about), and leading off, the latest updates on the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in Michigan. Here's what you should know!

On Tuesday, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer lifted the state's stay-at-home order, and if you want to read into the minutia about that announcement, there's plenty of articles about it on state news websites. The Sault Evening News outlined what you can and can't do now in this article published yesterday, and sadly, concerts as we know them are still prohibited for the time being. Indoor gatherings of more than 10 people and outdoor gatherings of more than 100 are still not allowed in Michigan, and even if something were to be booked, social distancing measures of 6+ feet remain in effect. The announcement doesn't change anything re: restaurant and bars in the Upper Peninsula and Northern Michigan, which were previously allowed to open with appropriate social distancing measures and can still do so (the rest of the state can open these businesses on Monday.) As for casinos, the closure of Michigan casinos until June 12th actually only applies to those under state jurisdiction.

Specifically, this means that tribal casinos (like the Kewadin Casino branches and Bay Mills in Brimley) could begin re-opening this past weekend, but both appear to be exercising caution, as both have clearly announced on social media that they will also remain closed until June 12th. The short term future of concerts at these casinos still doesn't look good, and they took another hit on Friday, when Kewadin formally cancelled the Tripp 'N' Dixie show at The Rapids Lounge in the Soo on June 13th, as per that show's Facebook event page. Also, Kewadin's website's entertainment page has announced that "all events are temporarily postponed until further notice", which covers any concerts booked through at least the Fourth of July. As such, I have removed Tarnished's Signatures Lounge dates in the Soo on June 18th & 24th from our calendar, as well as Highway 63's Northern Pines Lounge shows in St. Ignace on July 3rd & 4th.

As such, our Sault Michigan calendar is now empty until the rescheduled Black Label Society concert at The Dreammaker's Theater on August 8th, but if I was a betting man, I wouldn't be gambling on the new date holding up, alas. Stay tuned to the SMS and your preferred Michigan news source for further details on the coronavirus pandemic and it's effect on concerts as they roll in!

Next up, let's move to Sault Ontario, where Rotaryfest music director Shaun Antler is working on a big project, specifically to catalogue and archive a list of as many local bands as possible. The project was covered in this Sault Star article by Brian Kelly on May 28th, and began in  conjunction with Rotaryfest's Rewind anniversary stages two years ago, but recently resumed work during the COVID-19 pandemic. Shaun plans to wrap up things by the end of the month and share her results with the Sault Ste. Marie Museum, with plans to create a music exhibit at the museum in the future using her data. This is definitely a daunting project, especially when trying to catalogue and cite information on local bands before social media. I've given 2005 as my cutoff for reasonable online materials before, but as websites close and overhaul their layouts, that gets harder too. If you can help Shaun add bands or musicians to her database, message her at santler@shaw.ca!

A handful of SMS-relevant bands are cited in the article as needing member information, such as Free Beer, Smeltzer, and Them. I have helped Shaun with this project, and while members of those bands have been covered on the SMS in the past, social media aliases and common names may be tripping up some of her leads. I hope to send her some more info shortly, but contact her above if you want to help out! Finally for today, here's three assorted shorter news items from the last while, and as usual, these are in alphabetical order by artist or event name:

• This probably goes without saying, but this year's Algoma Ride For Autism (scheduled for June 20th) has been cancelled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Organizers confirmed this on their Facebook page on Tuesday, but they do hope to bring the event back in 2021. This is SMS relevant because live music has been a staple of the charity motorcycle rally's festivities, including a run of annual sets by local punk veterans Redundant. Hopefully the Ride does return next year, it's a great event for a great cause!
• Local guitarist Michael McCormick is looking for a singer for his current hard rock band project, who take inspiration from bands like The Foo Fighters, Halestorm, Metallica, and Poison. Specifically, he wants someone with "good frontman skills", but singing ability isn't necessarily his primary concern. I'm not familiar with Michael musically, but his post is attracting interest, so message him at this link or via his Musicians Wanted Facebook group post on Sunday for more details! Just use common sense given the pandemic.
• Had an active social media account existed for them, I would have recently moved Bear Hunters guitarist Mitch Sirie's solo project The Sorrow Fields to our inactive band links. This project last saw a public update via Mission Control Studios' Facebook postings on their unreleased debut album's sessions in January 2019, and Mitch's personal Facebook page (which saw occasional Sorrow Fields updates) was quietly taken down in recent months as well. Hopefully nothing bad happened, as Mitch is a very talented musician, and I hope we'll see The Sorrow Fields and Bear Hunters' long-gestating albums on sale down the road!

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