Before we get into today's post, I wanted to apologize for a missed concert to preview on here, as local classic/hard rock cover quartet Soundcheck actually played at Jay's Piston Broke Publast night. This one-nighter was only announced on Jay's Facebook page on Thursday, and the band has not posted on their Facebook page in three weeks. With the local concert calendar being very quiet given that today (Christmas Eve) is a Saturday, I frankly wasn't expecting any heavier bands to announce shows this weekend, but hopefully there was a decent turnout at the former Rosie last night, and I'd have covered this show had I heard about it prior!
Today's post is mostly video related, including two seasonal offerings as we near Christmas, but we'll start with a charitable update for an upcoming post-Christmas concert, namely the Northwest/Gambit show at LopLops Lounge on Wednesday! Our proper preview of that show will hit the site early next week, but on the 15th, the headlining indie/punk quintet announced that they would be holding a charity drive for St. Vincent's Place that night. If you bring non-perishable food items or hygiene products with you, you'll basically save $5 on admission (the ticket price is otherwise $20), so you'll either get in for $15 or you'll get $5 back if you bought yours in advance. In response, LopLops will match all donations by giving $5 apiece to St. Vincent's Place. Wonderful idea, and especially at a screwy time of year for many, so hopefully lots of money and food is raised for the needy at St. Vincent's Place on Wednesday night!
The charity drive is also addressed in this new SooToday article by Chris Belsito yesterday, which also looks at The Northwest's busy 2022, from high profile live dates to their EP release to their airplay on radio and during televised NHL games over these past 12 months. Frontman Wayne Watkins is quoted in the article, where he praises the grants that the band has received from the Ontario Arts Council, as well as the assistance that they have received from Cultural Industries Ontario North towards mentorship and networking in the Canadian music scene. Wayne teased that The Northwest already has "voice memo demos" for what they hope will be a full length studio album next, before closing by plugging Wednesday's concert. Strong promotion that points to what should be a big year for The Northwest, so click here or above to give it a read!
To cap off the Northwest portion of today's post, they did post a few new videos onto their Facebook page (mostly text-heavy "Reels" to promote the concert/food drive), but the only actual video (uploaded on Wednesday) features Wayne and guitarist Greg Callaghan plugging the show while also wearing ugly Christmas sweaters. Fellow guitarist Mike Yakasovich is also present, but says nothing, which isn't anything new if you recall prior speech-heavy Northwest videos. Good and light promotion for the festivities on Wednesday, so check it out below, and see more recent updates and content from The Northwest above!
Finally for today, here's one more video to watch by the fire... as it literally has one! As you may recall, Sault Michigan classical metal band Theatre of Night released their new/revised Christmas album "Dreams of Winter" on December 2nd, and it has made its way to YouTube for free streaming twice. Once is via the automated YouTube channel hosting select studio material for YouTube Music, but the other is in one batch video on their official YouTube channel as set to a 56 minute video of a yule log on the fire! All 14 of the new/re-recorded songs are present in order as seen on the album (and timestamped in the description), so this will surely be the most metal yule log video you'll watch this year, at least as far as local bands go! Looping it to run longer aside, the only thing I'd have changed would be to make the video in full widescreen, as having it in square Instagram dimensions seems counter-productive. Check it out below!That's all for today, but I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas, and I'll catch you back on the site on Monday or Tuesday! Thanks everyone!
As promised, we're finishing up this weekend's hard rock/punk concert previews in today's post (anything on super late notice excepted), and to round things out, there's an inactive band note and a couple of new videos to check out. Here's what you should know!
New and online page-less local alternative supergroup Bookclub and local funk/hard rock cover sextet The Wyld Stallyns will join forces for a special holiday season concert at LopLops Lounge TOMORROW NIGHT! Effectively a seasonal encore for two bands that shared the stage at Outspoken Brewing's Oktoberfest concert in the fall, this will be Bookclub's second concert period and first as headliners. With a stacked lineup featuring Inner City Surfers & Room 206 alumni playing a relatively new batch of songs compared to their prior punk-centric bands, hopefully Bookclub make a good impression at LopLops tomorrow! The Wyld Stallyns should do the same in this rare LopLops appearance from them, so look for a fun opener from Christina, Rob, Jesse, Alex, Derek, and Josh to kick off the festivities! No word on seasonal frills (poster aside), nor how LopLops' recent renovations will affect the concert proper, if at all.
Despite the all-local lineup, this show will have paid admission of $15 in advance ($20 at the door), and you can buy tickets online through the Facebook event page. This is a 19+ event, and it starts at 10:00 PM. This should be a fun time for local music fans hoping to hear some talented musicians rocking out over the holidays, so definitely visit the above links for more details, and here's Bookclub live!
Next up, here's (one of) the newest Mikey & His Uke cover videos, courtesy of the project's YouTube channel! Of course, this features Bookclub frontman Mikey Hawdon, so it's a natural segue! Unveiled on November 23rd, this is a cover of Cyndi Lauper's verison of The Brains' "Money Changes Everything" featuring Mikey on ukelele (initially) and guitar once the full band kicks in. Joining him from afar are The Haunt singer Anastasia Grace Haunt, Warrant's Erik Turner and Mikey's Fairmounts bandmate/producer Simon Head on guitar, New Found Glory bassist Ian Grushka, Fenix TX drummer Damon de la Paz, and Huey Lewis & The News keyboardist Sean Hopper (a huge get for Mikey personally, as he loves that band and even briefly fronted a Huey Lewis tribute band in Toronto). Not the punkiest song going for Mikey & friends to tackle, but it's very well performed on all fronts, and Anastasia nails the vocals in particular!
While writing this post, December's (non seasonal) cover video was uploaded to the Mikey & His Uke channel, so we'll save that for an upcoming news post, especially given the people involved in that one. Nicely edited and shot, so fans of the Mikey & His Uke series will definitely want to check out their Cyndi Lauper cover below!
Also today, I have reluctantly decided to move local Celtic punk quintet Dustin Jones & The Rising Tide back to our inactive band links. The band has not updated their Facebook page in any capacity since a post share from another page on December 18th of last year, but they haven't posted anything themselves about new/future band activity since releasing their "No Control" music video in December 2020, and they haven't played live in three years. A factor in their 2021-2022 dormancy was fiddler Sheldon Jaaskelainen working out of town, and the pandemic can't be ignored either, but Dustin has been focusing his original music pursuits on his solo project Jonesy Land in the last two years, not to mention the revived Cover-Up and the aforementioned Bookclub. After their original 2007-2016 run and a year+ hiatus, The Rising Tide returned in 2018 and worked on an unreleased fourth album over the next few years, with two songs making it online.
They still gigged in 2018 & 2019 too, but dialed back their touring schedule in favour of staying local, while also expanding to a five piece lineup. It's a shame that The Tide's fourth album never got completed, but hopefully this isn't the absolute last we'll hear from them, and remember that Dustin does cover Tide originals in Jonesy Land's rare live sets. Best of luck to him, Sheldon, Marshall, Liam, Chris, and their former drummers in the future!
We'll close today by not straying too far genre-wise for a new video from former Brain Tuel guitarist Zach Reid's YouTube channel! His first upload in a year, this video (like that one) sees Zach cover a Christmas song on acoustic guitar, this time The Vince Guaraldi Trio's "Christmas Time Is Here" from A Charlie Brown Christmas. This is a well done, if spare rendition of this jazz Christmas staple, so give it a watch below!
That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and notes on the site in the coming days! Thanks everyone!
Things have been relatively quiet for news and notes this week, but let's correct that with some new videos from a few familiar faces for rock fans of different stripes, and even a little holiday magic at the end. Without any further ado, here's what you should know!
After a year+ break from posting new videos onto his YouTube channel, prolific local rock guitarist/bassist Arthur Lacasse has made up for lost time with fourteen uploads there a couple of days ago! These all feature his three current bands, including reunited hard rock quartet Half Past, giving us our first visual look at them since their last public concert over a decade ago, and our first chance to see Jamie Labreche as their new drummer! These videos appear to come from a jam session, albeit with a very dolled up stage setup that does resemble a proper nightclub. All four are of modern hard rock covers, including Breaking Benjamin's "Blow Me Away", Staind's "For You", Seether's "Fallen" (which has the best angle of the band, albeit vertically), and as embedded below, System of a Down's "Spiders". Half Past sound good with these covers, they've more or less picked up where they left off in 2011!
Jordan's vocals have definitely gotten more confident since we last saw him with this group, and Jamie's drum skills are evident, while it doesn't hurt that only he is really well lit with their jam room lighting! No word on when Half Past will return to the stage, such as the concert scene is right now given the pandemic, but give their new videos a look above & below!
The other new videos on Arthur's channel are of his other two active bands, namely Foo Fighters tribute band The Soo Fighters and their sister pop rock cover band Lockdown (Art and Jules Cote are in both bands, as was the late Chris Thompson on drums). All of these videos come from the Northern Vibe Festival in Ophir back in August, which was the debut for Lockdown period and The Soo Fighters' new lineup, as well as Chris' penultimate live concert. These appear to be the same videos previously posted onto both bands' Facebook pages from the festival, including more from both sets, though Art didn't re-upload Lockdown's cover of The Arctic Monkeys' "Snap Out Of It". The Lockdown videos now on YouTube include the previously seen covers of The Tragically Hip's "Blow At High Dough", The Black Keys' "Gold On The Ceiling", and Elle King's "Ex's & Oh's".
The new videos have renditions of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son", Franz Ferdinand's "Take Me Out", and The Sheepdogs' "The Way It Is". These covers aren't of hard rock songs, but they are definitely well performed by this group of talented musicians, though the distant camera angle doesn't help at all. That gets worse for The Soo Fighters, who were the surprising closing band at Northern Vibe VI, so their nighttime videos from the same filmer/location suffer greatly in the visual department. You will have seen their version of The Foos' "Monkey Wrench" on Facebook already, but the three new covers are of "Learn To Fly", "My Hero", and as embedded below, "Bridge Burning", which was their opening song, complete with an introduction by River Stage curator J.D. Pearce. Given the late setting and the state of the crowd, I do wish the filmer had gotten a lot closer to the stage for their set.
Despite the lack of visual clarity and overly bright stage lighting as such, these are strongly done Foo Fighters covers, so musically, you're in good hands! Nice to hear Chris again in these too, in what may be his final new concert videos, unless someone belatedly posts something from both bands' Halloween weekend show at The Rockstar Bar. Give all of Arthur's new YouTube videos a look above & below!
We'll close today with a Christmas surprise from former Brain Tuel guitarist Zach Reid's YouTube channel on Saturday, namely a 39 second acoustic guitar cover of John Williams' "Somewhere In My Memory", the theme song for the first two Home Alone movies. If you know me personally, you'll know that I love Home Alone 1 & 2, so I totally approve of a local musician tackling this song, even if a short snippet! Spare but effective, give Zach's take a watch below, and watch Home Alone while you're at it!
That's all for now, but stay tuned for this month's Defunct Local Band Profile on the site next! Thanks everyone!
For our final news post of 2020, we're looking at some recent video uploads from a bunch of familiar faces from the local scene, including a few more belated Christmas-themed performances, and we'll start with a new old video from Sault Michigan classical metal quintet Theatre of Night in concert! Of course, their fourth annual Christmas concert tour did not take place in 2020 for painfully obvious reasons, but in a presumed Christmas Eve olive branch for fans on their YouTube channel, they did post a new-to-us video of them playing their set-opener "What Child Is This?" during the tour finale at The Park Theatre in Holland (40 minutes west of Grand Rapids) last year! If you want to see the whole concert from this night, click here, but this is from a separate camera that's closer to the stage. This is a very proficient and grand rendition from Theatre of Night that should help put you in the Christmas spirit, even 4 days late, so give it a watch below!
Next up, let's head north to Sault Ontario for new videos from three familiar punk musicians, starting with Northwest guitarist Greg Callaghan, who was the special musical guest on a performance video uploaded by the Toronto-based podcast series Backyard Variety Tour's YouTube channel on Christmas Eve. Sadly, Greg couldn't host his usual Christmas Open Mic event at Coch's Corner this year (we all know why), but maybe this will help make up some of the difference! Introduced by podcast host Ian Pozz, Greg plays an 18 minute set of four Christmas deep cuts here, so if you don't want to hear the same old carols, this should do the trick. In order, Greg covers Tom Waits' "Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis", John Prine's "Christmas In Prison", Gordon Lightfoot's "Song For A Winter's Night", and to fill out the punk quota, The Pogues' "Fairytale Of New York" with his girlfriend Amanda Kemp joining in on vocals.
Greg offers some context about the first three songs in between, and I do like that he didn't do the same old carols here, even if some are decidedly darker than you'd expect! The close camera angle from a low angle is a little odd, and the audio quality on this camera isn't amazing, but Greg sings and plays capably on these covers, and he and Amanda harmonize well! Give it a look below, and here's hoping for a better year for Northwest & Greg ahead!
Also, here's a new video of former Brain Tuel guitarist Zach Reid playing an instrumental cover of Nat King Cole's "The Christmas Song", via an arrangement by Bruce French, as uploaded to his YouTube channel last week. Soft and intricate performance from a tight camera angle, this should put readers in a belated Christmas spirit, so give it a watch below!
Finally, let's close things on a non-seasonal note via a new song from Inner City Surfers bassist Brad Example's YouTube channel! While Brad's solo material has largely been of an acoustic folk rock bent, this song does feature his long-time Surfers/Role Models bandmate Dave Bahun, and this does share some thematic similarities with softer Surfers songs. Entitled "Girl Next Door" and set to footage of a shadowbox theater with lyric track, this song works well pairing Brad's raspy vocals and Dave's strong melodic guitar licks, so fans will want to give it a listen below!
That's all for today, but stay tuned for our 2020 year-in-review post by Thursday! Thanks everyone!
Kicking off a new and hopefully a much busier (and more positive) month at the SMS, we have a new solo clip to check out, but first, we have a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT for the Sault Ontario area, believe it or not, and much sooner than you think! Here's what you should know!
Over four months after the Sault Ontario concert calendar ground to a halt, Blood Shed Productions head Tyler Gibson is planning to host a outdoor concert festival called Squatfest on Saturday, August 8th (one week from today!) The Facebook event page is set to private, but Tyler confirmed there that the show is publically attendable and will have paid admission. To be held at 5 Dixie Drive in nearby Heyden (down the road from Christie's RV; look for the Loch Ness Monster statue), this seems to be formatted similarly to the Oh!No festivals, even down to encouraging attendees to stay the weekend and partake in outdoor activities in the vicinity. Of course, the COVID-19 pandemic isn't over yet, and while this is outdoors, use common sense if you take the trip north next week. The stacked lineup includes a lot of acts shared between prior projects, many with ties to the Blood Shed label, so I'll be deviating from the Squatfest's advertised artist order here, and it is subject to change.
Tyler himself will perform as his grindcore solo project Crucify The Whore and as his drum & bass side project Alegendary, while his frequent collaborator Chase Wigmore will be performing as himself (presumably doing his folk/punk originals) and as his extreme metal project Awokest. As well, Chase will reunite with Blackwater alum James Watterworth for The Strange Coyotes' second reunion set, though I have yet to hear publically if the band proper is back beyond one-offs, let alone if they will be formatted similarly to their December acoustic gig. James will apparently also play a solo set, much like he frequently did in the early 2010s. Blood Shed co-founder Austin McCrea is scheduled twice for Squatfest, including a regular solo set (perhaps doing Brutally Fatal or Revolution material?) and as his scarcely seen rap alter ego Miracle Man. The remaining acts are not shared elsewhere, including ex-Honest Job frontman Mister Tahti, death metal project Black Cloud, ...
...party rap/metal trio The Apocalypse Afterparty, and rapper Joonas "JSK" Kamula, who has collaborated with Chase in the past. More yet-revealed acts are also advertised, we'll let you know if they are announced next week. Squatfest is an ALL AGES event with a recommended $5 donation upon entry, and merchandise from Blood Shed and performing acts will be on sale. Camping is welcomed, and while food & drinks will be on sale, Tyler is asking attendees to not bring glass. As well, Tyler is welcoming possible attendees to come to the site as early as Friday to hang out, jam at a planned bonfire, and help set up the stage. Given the climate with the pandemic, any ambitious multi-band concert like this would have to be outdoors due to indoor space limitations and what have you, and Squatfest seems like a workable alternative, if under somewhat limited notice! If you love Blood Shed Productions and Tyler, Chase, James, and Austin's back catalogues, this will be well worth a trip north to Heyden, so see above for more details!
Finally for today's post, here is a new solo performance video from ex-Brain Tuel guitarist Zach Reid's YouTube channel, as posted last month! An instrumental acoustic number, this folksier song is well done (if a little repetitive down the stretch), and it's nice seeing Zach still working on some new music during these crazy times. Give this video a look below!
That's all for today, but stay tuned for this month's "Where Are The New Albums?" post on the site tomorrow! Thanks everyone!
We're back with even more videos on the SMS today, and we're picking things up with Tym Morrison's fourth live-streamed concert, though this one is not on Twitch. Rather, this 2 hour set was streamed directly on his YouTube channel last night, so if you were hoping to see his acoustic home concerts on a more familiar and accessible platform, this should be preferable. Also, there's no 13+ minute wait at the start of the video for things to actually begin, and I can link individual songs by title, so this is easier all around! In order, Tym begins by covering Amanda Marshall's "Trust Me (This Is Love)", Bryan Adams' "Everything I Do (I Do It For You)", Imagine Dragons' "Radioactive", and Roxette's "It Must Have Been Love", before briefly pausing to adjust a side door due to the heat. When he returns, Tym tackles Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise", Supertramp's "Breakfast In America", Jim Croce's "Time In A Bottle", Yes' "Owner Of A Lonely Heart", Cheap Trick's "The Flame", ...
The repetition may not be to some viewers' liking, but this video is way easier to watch and share, so that may counteract things if you don't like Twitch. Give Tym's fourth live-stream concert a watch below, head straight to individual songs above, and look for the likely next installment on Thursday!
We'll close today with some solo performance videos from guitarists we haven't seen on a local stage in quite some time, starting with former Brain Tuel guitarist Zach Reid, who has posted three solo covers onto his YouTube channel in the past year and a half! Since Brain Tuel fell inactive in 2009, Zach has moved out of town, and fans of his old alt-punk band may be surprised to see the trajectory of these solo cover videos. One's a vocal/guitar cover of Bright Eyes' "First Day Of My Life", which will be the relative closest in tone for Brain Tuel fans, but the other two are classical guitar renditions, including Claude Gagnon's "Les Blues Des Grenouilles" and as embedded below, Agustin Barrios' "Julia Florida". These cover videos are largely spare and intricate, but Zach's growth and maturity as a musician is on full display with these three performances, though fans of his old local band work may be surprised upon listening. Give Zach's solo performance videos a watch above & below!
Finally, here's the first new solo performance video on former Ashes To Dust guitarist Alex Hemy's YouTube channel in over a year! Sadly, Alex has deleted all of his prior videos from his channel, leaving just this new rendition of "Driving Rain" by Slash featuring Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators. That said, it's nice to see him tackle a heavier song than we were tending to see from him in the mid-late 2010s! Alex is playing guitar only alongside the original song, and his skill level s still solid, so old local fans of his will be at home here! That said, why is the alternate camera angle only used in the last 30 seconds? Give this a watch (while you can) below!
That's all for today, but stay tuned for more videos and updates on the site soon! Thanks everyone!
