LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Riverside Stasis & The Nameless) Plus Related Updates!!

Before we get into another round of weekend concert previews, let's take a look at some LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS ahead next month, plus related updates from two of the bands in question, so we'll start today in the E.U.P.!

Sault Michigan hard rock quartet The Nameless have announced multiple gigs into the fall via this image on their Facebook page! Unusual to see them post a proper schedule, but I'll gladly take this over short notice plugs the week of! We already knew about next weekend's St. Ignace Car Show-timed gig at The Driftwood, and they're also playing a private party the following day, but when will you be able to see Josh, the Mikes, and Jamie after that? On Saturday, July 25th, they will be the house band at the third annual American Legion Riders' Hell To Paradise motorcycle rally, and the name is more literal than you think, as participating bikers are travelling from Stockbridge (15 minutes west of the town literally named Hell) to Sault Ste. Marie (over an hour east of the town named Paradise). That alone is a near 5 hour drive, as Stockbridge is outside of Lansing, so even over two days, kudos to everyone making that kind of trip for a good cause!

The Hell To Paradise ride is in support of post-traumatic stress disorder and mental health awareness, as those with PTSD or depression often literally feel stuck between Hell and Paradise, so click here for details on the rally proper! The rally will end with a buffet dinner & awards ceremony at the Sault Ste. Marie Kewadin Casino, and with The Nameless rocking out at The Rapids Lounge, but they have not (yet?) confirmed if they'll be playing there on Friday the 24th or not. Based on the FAQ page, you do not have to buy dinner to enjoy the band, but click here if you do want to participate or donate, and this will obviously be a 21+ concert at 9:00 PM. On August 15th, The Nameless will make the 3½ hour trek west to Republic for a gig at The Pine Grove Bar, which readers may recognize from multiple Exit 808 road trips during their run. The Nameless will end the summer with gigs at a Kewadin Casino branch over the last weekend of August, but which one?

Oddly, they have yet to 100% confirm which branch (Kewadin's entertainment page isn't even updated for July yet), and while they are debuting at The Rapids Lounge next month, their only prior public bookings under the Kewadin umbrella were in St. Ignace in July 2024. The last show on the calendar is just barely outside of our coverage range, as they'll play an early Halloween party at the Paradise Inn (one guess where that is) on Saturday, October 17th, but despite being in Chippewa County, it is a 70 minute drive from the Soo. Maybe not a packed summer for truly local gigs, but it's good to see The Nameless stretching their legs, so visit the above links for more details, and we'll have more from them soon!

Next up, four newer Sault Ontario rock bands will join forces for an all-local concert at Blaster Powerhouse on Sunday, July 26th, entitled "2 Stoned Crows In The River"! The name alludes to all four bands, as two have "Stones" in their name, and two have "River" in theirs. Whether the poster and Facebook event page's band order is reflective of the actual order come showtime or not, the "River" bands are listed first, including new local southern rock quartet Eli Russell & The River Fools (featuring Sylo, Sense Of Truth, and Pesto Shirts alumni) and alternative/hard rock quintet Riverside Stasis (featuring 3/5ths of Headfirst and half of The Barbarians). The show will also feature newer hard rock quartet Stones At The Alter in their first multi-band event without their sister band Doo & The Boyos, and blues/hard rock trio Stones & Crows (featuring Riverside Stasis drummer Anthony Boudreau). There's a lot of established and newer talent here, so don't miss out!

Promoted by Underground Events SSM (check out the lovingly hand-drawn and not-at-all-AI poster that Mikhal made!), this all ages concert will have a flat $15 admission fee at the door, and no advance tickets will be sold online. While it will be on a work/school night for many, this will be an early show, running from 7:00-10:00 PM. If you want to check out some new local talent in one convenient package, then come to the former Soo Blaster for all of the action next month, and visit the above links for more details!

We'll close today with new media from the aforementioned Riverside Stasis, who posted two new videos onto their Facebook page in the last few days! The first video sees the band jamming their new original song "Love You More" to promote their live debut at another all-local show from Underground Events SSM at Blaster Powerhouse on June 27th, though the beginning has no vocals, and Liam is nowhere to be found in frame (if he was there, this is another point in favour of shooting horizontally!). If you want more of "Love You More", let alone with Liam present and in view, then check out their newest video embedded below, which sees Tea and the guys jamming this song in another locale for 65 seconds (if you want to see it in full, go to Blaster next weekend). From what is heard, this will obviously appeal to fans of early-mid 2020s Handsome Sandwich, and it has a catchy groove to the guitar!

I do wish that this wasn't shot vertically, but it is good to get some more previews of what Riverside Stasis bring to the table, and hopefully fans are not in stasis when they debut one week from Saturday, so give their new videos a watch for yourselves above & below!

That's all for now, but stay tuned for weekend concert previews on the SMS next! Thanks everyone!

Defunct Local Band Profile Series: Drayton Fever

It's now time for this month's Defunct Local Band Profile, and after a Sault Ontario summer for this series, we're spotlighting a Sault Michigan band to kick off the fall season! As always, this monthly feature looks at a randomly selected local metal, hard rock, or punk band from the past, in order to showcase and promote their run and accomplishments for modern readers, and it is quite fitting that this month's selection is a band who readers in the early 2010s will remember from releasing music on Friday the 13th, a date that returns this week! Here's what you should know!

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Drayton Fever

Hometown: Sault Ste. Marie/Paradise/Hulbert Township, Michigan

Genre: Thrash Metal

Lineup:

Doug Reed (Bludgeoned, Half A Man), all instruments

Audio/Video: Surviving media from Drayton Fever's run is only publically available on their label Werehold Records' YouTube channel, which features four songs that they recorded for Werehold's former Friday the 13th new music posting events in the early 2010s, as well as this clip of Doug recording "The Browning" for the Friday the 13th event in June 2014. An album called "The Longest Summer" was in pre-production at his old Half A Man bandmate Erik Rintamaki's own Hot Box Studios in Brimley, which would have had eight songs, but it was never completed as planned. A song named "Mary Kelly" was once streamable on their MySpace page as well. Here's the intended opening song for their album, "And On With The Killing"!

Info/Analysis: Active from around 2008-2014, Drayton Fever was the long gestating solo project from veteran E.U.P. metal musician Doug Reed, who signed to his Swampghas bandmate Jason Mills' now-defunct indie label Werehold Records in the latter half of their run. Updates through 2011 are largely gone thanks to MySpace's degradation, but Doug was working on "The Longest Summer" throughout the turn of the 2010s, describing the album as "a brutal collection of (my) life journeys & interests over the past 12 years in sickly brutal musical form, none of which is pretty". The album would have featured unspecified guest singers and drummers, and the songs on offer were influenced by bands like Exodus, Machine Head, Slayer, and Acid Bath. Drayton Fever only updated their Facebook page in 2012, and while they took part in Werehold's Friday the 13th new music events through June 2014, they were not involved in the series' mid-2010s installments, and likely fell inactive by 2015.

Full-on "metal" like this hasn't always been an easy sell in the E.U.P. (not that Werehold managed to release completed albums from their roster), but Drayton Fever were a solid and reliably heavy project that deserved to get bigger in this area! Doug is a talented multi-instrumentalist with a good ear for what works in thrash and groove metal on songs like "Beatnik" and "Fleshwork", and vocals were optimally deployed when used. It's a shame that Drayton Fever could never publically break through beyond one-off songs on Friday the 13th, but hopefully we haven't heard the last from Doug in some musical form or fashion!

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I hope you guys liked this month's Defunct Local Band Profile! For the first time in over two years, this series will have two bands featured in the next installment, as the first randomly selected project doesn't have much in the way of public details, so a similarly slight project was picked to fill things out. As such, look for our profiles of Sault Ontario metal solo projects The Shaner and Sir Hell on or around October 10th, and for weekend concert previews on the SMS next! Thanks everyone!

Paradise Excuse/Mark Bowen Concert Video Showcase!!

As promised on the site last week, I wanted to touch on live hard rock and punk cover videos from Sault Michigan rock band Paradise Excuse and their frontman Mark Bowen that have been posted onto his Facebook page and YouTube channel in the past year+, so that's what we are doing today! We'll start in reverse chronological order on Facebook with a live solo set he played at Mission Point Resort in Mackinac City (just outside of our coverage range) in late August of last year, where he covered Ben E. King's "Stand By Me", Nat King Cole's "Stardust", and as embedded below, The Foo Fighters' "Times Like These". I get the sense that this was an intentionally reserved setlist given the locale, and while these are short videos, they are well done and have nice melodies! The lighting could be better though. Give these videos a watch above and below, plus this clip of him and bandmate Jason Haske covering Rod Stewart's "Ooh La La" there two weeks later!



Next up, let's stay in Mackinac Island for his evening performance on a boat from earlier that same month. I am 99% certain this was when Mark travelled there for a set at last year's Wood-Dock Music Festival, and he was joined by Mackinac musician Paul Bedour both on the boat and at a nightclub set that weekend. Across YouTube and Facebook, Mark & Paul were filmed for covering Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy", The Cure's "Lovesong", The Weeknd's "Can't Feel My Face", and, in two chunks, Sublime's "Santeria" (the first half is embedded below, part 2 is linked here). These are lively covers that suit the venue, and fans are receptive, so give them a look above & below!

We do have some proper videos of his band Paradise Excuse to share here as well, courtesy of a weekend set they played at The Rapids Lounge at the Sault Ste. Marie Kewadin Casino at the beginning of August 2019, and while some of them are on Facebook, a whopping twelve clips are on YouTube. Here, you can see Mark, Jason, and Brian cover Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean", The Go-Gos' "We Got The Beat", Prince & The Revolution's "Kiss", Mack Rice's "Mustang Sally", Niall Horan's "Slow Hands", ZZ Top's "Tush", AC/DC's "TNT", Greta Van Fleet's "You're The One I Need", Chris Stapleton's "Tennessee Whiskey", Bruno Mars' "Locked Out Of Heaven", Kiss' "Rock & Roll All Nite", and as embedded below, Poison's "Talk Dirty To Me". Paradise Excuse can sure play anything based on the diverse songs on offer here, and in spite of a surprisingly quiet floor, they have a solid batting average here, aided by Mark's distinctive vocal range. Give them a look above & below!



There's more from a Mark Bowen Band performance that summer to touch on (at least), but let's close with one more Kewadin video from Paradise Excuse, this time at The Northern Pines Lounge at the St. Ignace branch in March of last year, where the guys covered Temple of the Dog's "Say Hello 2 Heaven". Despite the filmer's close placement to the stage, I wish they didn't capture so much of the table. That aside, this is a well done cover with great vocals and strong instrumentation, so give it a look below, and stay tuned for much more from Mark and/or Paradise Excuse on the site soon! Thanks everyone!

Tarnished's New Facebook Live-Stream & Two New Live Concert Cover Videos!!

We're back with yet another daily news post at the SMS today, and while we do have a Sault Ontario concert video at the end, we're mostly heading to Sault Michigan for today's content, both new and from last year alike. With all of that said, here's what you should know!

After taking a week off from their live-streamed concert series to work on new songs, local hard rock band Tarnished (minus Nathan) returned for their 11th at-home concert on their Facebook page yesterday! If they spent time last week working on their audio setup, it appeared to be in vain, unfortunately, but if the audio's fine where you are, how does an almost two hours long set sound? Both yesterday's and tomorrow's scheduled live-streams will be 2 hours, so how's that for making up for last week? For some reason, yesterday's show is squished into a standard definition 4:3 video rather than the usual widescreen, and again, if the audio is as quiet and crackly as it always seems to be for me, crank your volume and/or manipulate the audio track in Audacity. In order, Alex & Josh cover Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' "Mary Jane's Last Dance", Kenny Wayne Shepherd's "Blue On Black", Poison's "Talk Dirty To Me", Metallica's "Enter Sandman", ...

...Three Doors Down's "Kryptonite", Green Day's "Basket Case", Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Proud Mary", Cameo's "Word Up", Alice In Chains' "Rooster", Sublime's "What I Got", and AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long", before Josh steps out to trade his guitar for an acoustic bass, leaving Alex to go it alone for four songs. Those include Warrant's "Uncle Tom's Cabin", Days of the New's "Touch, Peel and Stand", Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead Or Alive", and Panic! At The Disco's "I Write Sins, Not Tragedies". Josh returns with electric bass in hand for covers of Cream's "Sunshine Of Your Love", The Scorpions' "Rock You Like A Hurricane", C.C.R.'s "Bad Moon Rising", Skid Row's "18 & Life", The White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army", Billy Idol's "White Wedding", Deep Purple's "Smoke On The Water", and finally, Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train".

Despite the lack of complaints from live-streamers yesterday, I don't notice any appreciable improvement in audio quality compared to Tarnished's first 10 live streams. Some of the worst static comes from quick guitar strumming, maybe a microphone's too close? The performances are solid underneath it all though, and it's nice to hear some bass for a change, but I was surprised to not hear any originals, and not many of these songs were brand new. Hopefully some more kinks are worked out for tomorrow, but give yesterday's live stream a watch below!



Next up, here's a video of local cover rock band Paradise Excuse covering AC/DC's "TNT" live at The Northern Pines Lounge at the St. Ignace Kewadin Casino in August! This was uploaded to frontman Mark Bowen's Facebook page, which covers his work in both that band and his solo exploits. You can also find videos of theirs on his YouTube channel as well, plus videos with his past local bands like Absolute Magnitude, Broke On Sunday, and The Mark Bowen Band, but this video is a Facebook exclusive. Filmed from a side stage angle, this captures Mark on vocals & guitar alongside former Oddfellow frontman Jason Haske, as well as drummer Brian Duford, who I'm not immediately familiar with from other local bands. Paradise Excuse sound good and tight on this cover, and it's well filmed to capture fans dancing on the floor, though the high register singing sounds a little forced at times.

However, Mark does bust out some harsher vocals by the second verse, which was a surprise! There's more to cover from Mark's Facebook & YouTube accounts (we sure need it right now), but would Paradise Excuse fit in our band links? I need to hear more, but regardless, they don't have a formal social media page, sharing Mark's Facebook page with his eponymous projects. Give Paradise Excuse's AC/DC cover a watch below!



Finally, let's head north to Sault Ontario with a cover of Audioslave's "Cochise" by inactive local hard rock band Skeyes of Seven, as uploaded to frontman Cory Murchison's YouTube channel on Monday! This was filmed at their last public concert, when they opened for Project 421 at The Canadian Nightclub in September 2017, and it also marked their only live set with rhythm guitarist Kyle Sweet. The filmer's placement completely blocks off drummer John Mignacca behind a speaker, alas, but the cover is otherwise well shot! Muffled audio, but everyone delivers to the best of their stong abilities, so give this new old Skeyes of Seven video a look!



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