LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Lion Ride & The Isosceles Project),Two Lineup Changes, And More!!

Well guys, as promised, here is that extremely packed new post! We have a lot more than just what is here now, but I don't like overloading posts and burying stories, so this is just the icing on the local metal cake! Today, we have news on a pair of bands with guitarist changes, the completed lineup for a major upcoming concert, and kicking things off, two LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS!!

Lion Ride are coming back to Sault Ontario next month for their first local concert of 2011! Over three months after rocking The Canadian Nightclub at an insanely packed show, the hard hitting quintet will make their way to The Rockstar Bar for their first show there in over a year when they headline there on April 9th! Like at their last show, local country punk quintet The Billy Bastards (featuring Destroilet & Harsh Heads alumni) will open for them, giving a nice Southern flavour to compliment Lion Ride's punk inspired metal attack! Also, ironically, this concert is the same night as the Sewer Swampstravaganja concert at The Oddfellows Hall (more on that later), making this the second straight Lion Ride show to fall on the night of a major all ages concert (their December show was the same night as Soo Music Mash-Up.) There will be a $5 cover for this concert, you must be 19 to attend, and the doors open at 9:00 PM! This sounds like a great concert, and with the all ages concert preceding it, I don't know if I can handle all this great live music! I'll give it my best though, and if nothing else, I'll try and be there for Lion Ride's set! For more details, check the Facebook event page, and I'll keep you posted if updates come in!

Meanwhile, a few well known metal bands from out of town are coming back to Sault Ontario in May! Last August, you may remember a high profile metal concert at The Canadian Nightclub that featured Toronto instrumental progressive band The Isosceles Project and North Bay extreme metal trio Thekillingfield as opening bands. Well, they're both coming back to town, this time on May 23rd at Foggy Notions! This time around, The Isosceles Project will headline with their brand of instrumental and very technical music on their upcoming "Total Vandemonium" tour, with Thekillingfield set to devastate as openers! A third opening band is also confirmed, and ironically, they're also a three piece! This band is Orillia, Ontario experimental progressive band Like Animals, who possess a unique sound of their own that you'll have to hear for yourself! Check all of the above links to hear the three bands in question! Promoter Rich Moreland tells me there will be a local opener (which one isn't confirmed yet) and there will be a cover charge of around $4. I'd expect this to have a 10:00 PM start time, and you must be 19 to attend. Sounds good to me, I'll absolutely be there for this one, as all three bands are very talented, and brutal! Click here for more details!

Next up, here is the latest news from local hard rockers Sense of Truth! Drummer Ryan Haryett sent me a statement yesterday by e-mail to discuss some recent events and their long hiatus, so here's all that you should know! The band have officially parted ways with founding member & guitarist Steve Myers. The decision was due to artistic differences, and was completely mutual. As such, the statement said that the band "may be looking for a new member", which might not mean they will get one. Steve was a member of Sense of Truth from their 2008 inception onward, and it's definitely disappointing to see him leave! I wouldn't be surprised if his next musical work resembled his old Odd Man Out material, given the reasons provided for his departure. Still, if any of you guys are interested in the vacant guitar position in Sense of Truth, click here, and best of luck to Steve! As well, Ryan detailed the band's recent hiatus (not having played live since May), explaining that the band haven't been active lately due to the editing problems with their upcoming EP's artwork and scheduling conflicts. However, they have been focusing on heavier & more complex material since last year's studio sessions, and the band are "confident that things are finally progressing to a new groove"!

Ryan also confirmed that there was still no word on a release date for the EP, but they are working with a media company in Northwestern Ontario on some mystery projects. This 10 month hiatus sure has been disappointing for fans, but it's nice to know that they're still plugging away! Ryan's return from work out of town should help get the band back in gear, and when I hear more on their next steps, I'll let you guys know here, be it for their possible guitarist search, their EP, or anything else! For more details, check the above links, and e-mail senseoftruth@shaw.ca for any inquiries!

Now, to the other guitarist change in a local band, and in this case, it's an addition! Local horror punk/metal rockers Frightlight have quietly announced the addition of rhythm guitarist Kevin Powe to the band, officially making them a quintet! To go along with the horror theme, Kevin will use the stage name "St. Mayhem". Local fans will no doubt recognize Kevin as one of the original members of the defunct local punk/metal band Fitswitch, playing with them at numerous local concerts through 2007, and being featured on their "Rust Angel EP" before moving to Sudbury for a few years. Now back in town, Kevin will reunite with his old Fitswitch bandmates J.D. Pearce (a.k.a. Johnny Pints) and Rick "Styles" White once again, which will definitely be cool to see on a more regular basis again! Plus, his graphic design prowess will be put to good use even more now, hopefully! Surprisingly, this news wasn't publicized on band pages, though he was added to the band's lineups on Facebook and on Battle of the Bands (more on that soon), so there's your sources. It's great to see Kevin back locally for good, he'll add a nice dimension to Frightlight going forward! But when can you see the new five-piece Frightlight lineup next?

...at The Sewer Swampstravaganja, that's when! Frightlight have officially been announced as the last band on the lineup for this massive 12 band all ages show at The Oddfellows Hall on April 9th, replacing The Fury! Sounds good to me, and it's fitting to see the new lineup debut at a massive old school all ages concert like this! With that said, a lot of the lineup has been shuffled, so here's what's changed. Frightlight aren't co-headlining in the old Fury slot, they'll instead be playing at 6:00 PM, bumping Shit Liver back to 5:15 PM. Now in the second-to-last slot at 10:30 PM is Bring The Fallen (saying they don't break up), with WinkStinger moving up a slot to replace them at 9:00 PM. The Bear Hunters will also jump a slot on the lineup into WinkStinger's old 8:15 PM placement, leaving Sativa Rose to make a large jump from the 5:15 PM slot to 7:30 PM on this final lineup! The previously announced set times for The Tenagens, Changing Waves, State of Misery, Late & Loud (replacements for SBD), As It Stands, and RedD Monkey are no different than before. For full lineup and concert details, click here! This concert will be awesome, and even if I can't stay the whole night (Lion Ride, again), I'll be there for the vast majority! Stay tuned for updates as they come in!

That's all for now, but I'll see you guys TONIGHT at The Rosie for their punk night, featuring Sykotyk Rampage! And yes, I have a LOT more news to share as well, so expect some of that tomorrow night as well! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Free Refill) And More Assorted Updates!

Hey guys, before I head to Manitoulin Island, I have more assorted news stories to share with you today! Some are backlogged from last weekend's inactivity, while others still are newer! Let us begin with a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT!!! (And if you're here hoping for Kewadin Festival recaps and updates, you're out of luck, but I PROMISE to share what I know and have on Sunday!) Sault Michigan hard rockers Free Refill have announced another upcoming concert, this time at an upcoming battle of the bands! The United Way of the Eastern U.P. are holding a battle of the bands on August 5th at The Strahl Theater at Sault Area High School on August 5th as a fundraiser to raise money for Kids Against Hunger! Free Refill announced their involvement on their MySpace page and Free Refill's Devin Anderson confirmed the news with me by e-mail, so there's one act for the battle! I can't confirm any other bands, but the lineup isn't finalized or complete, so if you're in Sault Michigan, there's still time to enter! Registration is $25, forms are available at the Facebook event page, or e-mail Chrystal Tharp at this location for details! If you're interested in attending, it's at 7:00 PM at the high school on August 5th, with an admission price of $5. Check the above links for more details! Best of luck to Free Refill, I wonder who else will join the bill? Also, Devin gave me the news that apparently, they're playing at the Kewadin Casino 25th Anniversary Summer Festival at 1:00 PM tomorrow on the second stage! This would mean that they are replacing Electric Motor Fish on the bill for that day. I wonder what happened? No matter, great to see Free Refill again! I'll keep you all posted with more updates! Next up, I promised you all continued Mike Cliffe coverage after I discussed him in the GarageBand Profile Mini-Series, and I'm making good on that! The veteran local experimental hard rock guitarist has uploaded three new songs onto his Reverbnation page! My favourite is called "Waiting For World Cup", and it's a hard charging instrumental that is seemingly inspired by this year's FIFA World Cup! I can't picture this song fitting with a soccer game, but it's well played and catchy! A bit too much dead air between the chugging riffs, but it's a solid song that would work especially well with backing instruments! Another new song is a collaboration with Utah indie/progressive outfit Higher Than Pope (Mike has a wider reach for his material than you may realize!) It's definitely not the heaviest thing in his catalog, it has sort of a techno influence with bouncy progression to it, and decent vocals! Not bad, though don't expect metal out of it. The other new song is a cover of The Mothers of Invention's "Any Way The Wind Blows", which is a nice experimental carefree cover of the original! Not personally a huge Frank Zappa fan, but Mike breathes some nice energy into this cover! Check out the new songs, and much, much more by clicking here! There's something for everyone in his catalog! Thirdly today are some intriguing new YouTube uploads from Duane Roy, the Wawa-based author and metalhead who frequently attends major Sault-area concerts! You've likely seen his concert videos, but did you know that he also makes bootleg audio recordings too? Good quality ones, no less! Duane's uploaded ten audio recordings from local shows onto his YouTube channel, and lucky for us, five of them are metal! This includes Tesla performing their song "Gettin' Better" from their show at Kewadin Casino last month, Ace Frehley playing "Snowblind" at Kewadin Casino last fall, Alice Cooper singing "Is It My Body?" from his August 2007 show at Kewadin, The Scorpions performing their classic song "Holiday" at Kewadin in September 2007, and Kiss playing "I Love It Loud" from their Kewadin outdoor show in 2006! I'm really impressed by the audio quality here, I wonder what device he used? Particularly of interest to me are the Alice Cooper and Scorpions songs because we don't see a lot from their local concerts online! Check out the songs (really good quality all around) and more at the above links! I'll embed one here to show you guys, The Scorpions in Sault Ste. Marie playing their song "Holiday"! And finally, I found a pretty cool discovery on Facebook the other day that I wanted to share with you guys! Former Fitswitch guitarist Kevin Powe, it turns out, is a very talented graphic designer! Of course, if you were in and around Fitswitch and the local music scene in the mid-2000s, this will be no surprise to you, but Kevin recently uploaded his graphic design portfolio onto Facebook to share! I don't typically share Facebook photo albums on personal pages, but there's too much cool stuff on here for me to not share! Kevin's designed logos for bands like Fitswitch, Frightlight, Faithless Sin, Time of Ruin, what is now No Arrow, and classic local bands like Tyrants of Euphoria (remember them?) and others! There's also album artwork and scans for Fitswitch albums, including a few that I've definitely never heard of! Lost in my searches, or never released? If real, I'd love to get my hands on them, hint hint! Also, you'll find assorted other logos, and best of all, loads of concert posters! Everything from classic Fitswitch shows, to Gates of Winter, Lion Ride, No Arrow, Caveman Morrison, Behemoth, The Downfall, and more! Awesome to see some of these posters again, it's like a flashback to when bands like Coalesce, Soldiers of Misfortune, Hellbound, and much more were in their heydays! The Time of Ruin poster above is really awesome, but check out all of his work, cause Kevin's got HUGE graphic design talent, and I wish he'd get back into making posters and logos, cause his work really stands out! The posters we get nowadays, when we do get them, don't have a lot of graphical flair like Kevin's work did, and I never would have guessed this was all courtesy of a band member! Check out his portfolio at this location, you won't be disappointed! And if anyone out there knows if the Fitswitch album artwork posted there led to any albums besides "The Rust Angel E.P.", let me know!! That's all for today, hope you guys enjoy your Friday! An auto-post is coming TOMORROW AFTERNOON with the first installment of our Defunct Local Band Profile series, where we discuss AtrophiA! Stay tuned, and I'll be back home on Sunday!