LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Tarnished) & Lots Of Recent Updates From Them!!

The news backlog continues to slowly get dealt with, and today, we have a single topic post, courtesy of new updates, LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS, and missed concert apologies all concerning a specific E.U.P. band!

Sault Michigan hard rock quartet Tarnished announced a pile of new concert dates on their Facebook page, both local and away! The guys have been surprisingly quiet for the last few weeks aside from plugging far-flung dates Gould City and Curtis, but they actually did play a local concert-ish on Monday, as they performed on a float during Sault Ste. Marie's Fourth of July parade! The band did not promote this in advance on their Facebook page, so my profuse apologies for not being able to cover it here (I would have if they had said something!). They did post pictures on Facebook, and Sara Eisinger of local news website SooLeader (a new sister site of SooToday in Sault Ontario) did get this picture of Tarnished rocking out during the parade as part of their coverage of the parade & fireworks on Monday. SooToday actually cross-posted that article, so maybe the Tarnished picture will pique some Canadian interest?

As for the new shows proper, the first one listed is allegedly THIS SUNDAY at Northern Light Cannabis, a new dispensary in Dafter, but the band's own schedule says this show is "TBA", so it doesn't sound like it's 100% set in stone as of that post's publication. If we hear anything about it either way, we'll let you know, but I'll hold it from our concert calendar until it's fully confirmed. Their first publically advertised concert in over a month will be on Saturday, July 16th when they return to Snows Bar & Grill in nearby Cedarville, with further returns slated for Saturday August 6th and Friday, September 2nd! Good to see the guys back at a recently familiar venue, so don't miss out if you're in the area! Expect these three shows to have 8:00 PM start times, no cover charges, and 21+ age limits. Their next show after that is on the road in Curtis (80 minutes west of here) on the 23rd.

Local fans can also see Tarnished back at Huck's Pub & Grill in nearby Rudyard on Saturday, July 30th, marking their first show back at the former Joe's Bar since Thursday, June 30th when Tarnished played at Huck's Thursday bike night series. Again, I profusely apologize for missing that date, Tarnished never plugged that show in advance on Facebook, so unless you follow Huck's on Facebook, you'll have missed online advertising for it outright. Hopefully it was a hit with fans and bikers alike! Their show on July 30th (thankfully with advance notice) will presumably be a 9:00 PM affair, and again, this is a 21+ event with no announced cover charge. Tarnished's next two advertised dates are out of town, in Toledo, Ohio on August 5th and then at the Grand Marais Music & Crafts Festival (almost two hours west of the Soo) on August 13th, but their last six new dates will all be at The Rapids Lounge at the Sault Kewadin Casino branch!

Last seen at The Rapids Lounge in March (unless there was another late notice/never announced online booking there), Tarnished are slated to return for Friday & Saturday night slates on August 19th & 20th, October 14th & 15th, and November 18th & 19th, and note that while Tarnished's own schedule does not list August 20th, Kewadin Casino's entertainment page does (yes, the other new hard rock shows there will be covered soon!). These six shows all have 9:00 PM start times, no cover charges, and 21+ age limits once again. Sounds like a busy summer ahead for Alex, Nathan, Isaac, and Josh, so definitely visit the above links for more on their upcoming dates, locally or otherwise! Before we wrap this post, I did want to briefly acknowledge Tarnished's newest TikTok video postings, and no, they didn't plug the Fourth of July parade or the Huck's show last month on there. Activity on TikTok has slowed, but five videos are new to us, so what can you see?

The new videos include frontman Alex Traynor being the victim of an early April Fool's prank from drummer Josh Fair, Alex getting back at Josh with "The Cranberry Challenge", Alex trying to give bassist Isaac Royer some canned cranberries whether he wants them or not, guitarist Nathan Webber having fun during gear loading for a recent gig, and the guys playing at a Burger King play place (yes, they were allowed in) before a recent concert! I'm unsure if this was filmed at the local Burger King before their Rapids Lounge shows in March or elsewhere, or if there's another Soo date that they didn't plug, but it looks like the guys had fun! I remember enjoying the play places at the McDonalds and Hardee's on the Business Spur as a kid! Definitely give Tarnished's new (and old) TikTok videos a look above, they are amusing, but I can't get the embed code for TikTok videos to work on the SMS (it's not Tarnished's fault).

I think we're reasonably caught up on Tarnished's updates now, but stay tuned for weekend concert previews on the site tomorrow, with more news to follow! Thanks everyone!

New Paid & Free Local Album Releases, New Videos, And More!!

We're back with a new news post on this Sunday morning, including a look back at an almost 20 year old cover song from a local band from a major film soundtrack, recent videos from a prominent active band, and leading off, two sudden album releases, one free and one paid! Here's what you should know!

Revived local "shield rock" duo Swampgut have quietly released a proper self-titled debut album! Posted to their Bandcamp page on Friday, this confirms the vague hand-written teasers from vocalist/drummer Frank McCormick's visual arts page, and it features 11 songs, some that were previously available via the Bandcamp "jam room sessions" and elsewhere. The Bandcamp posting clarifies some of Frank & Rob's musical roles, while also confirming related personnel, including former 12 Gauge Ready bassist Dave "Beano" Barrett as a guest on two songs, and Oh!No co-owner Alex Moore as the "non-sinister minister of information". The album was recorded at Spiderpotty Records (I presume that's their home studio) and mixed by AlgomA bandmates Boyd Rendell & Kevin Campbell at 62nd Chamber Productions, who also provided sound effects. Nice to see them at it again!

As Swampgut are a studio-only project, releasing this during the pandemic won't come off as limited, so to speak, but it does appear to be a digital exclusive, with the album running for $5 (or more) in download copies. Yes, you can stream the whole thing for free there as well. It looks like Swampgut are getting their second run going on the right foot, and this is an early front-runner for this month's CD review at the SMS! Buy or stream Swampgut's true debut album above, and stay tuned for more from their camp!

Next up, let's stay in the realm of new album releases (albeit completely free in this case), as prolific local folk punk/metal musician Chase Wigmore has posted another free "album" to his YouTube channel! Basically an EP given it's 20 minute length, this is entitled "Ruins Of Life", and is credited mononymously under his last name. This appears to be one of the acoustic albums that Chase has teased on social media, but don't worry, this is basically an acoustic black metal release, with all of the manic guitarwork and shrieking vocals you could ask for. If you happen to like bands like Impaled Northern Moonforest, you'll be right at home with "Ruins Of Life"! Like his last few "album" releases, this is not for sale, but give Chase's new batch of original tunes a listen for free below!

Also, let's head to Sault Michigan to complete our look at local hard rock band Tarnished's TikTok video uploads so far! As of this writing, nothing new has been uploaded in the past month, though whether this is due to their focusing on recording their single or another factor is not for me to say. In any event, I still cannot get the TikTok video embed code to work on the SMS. On January 12th, frontman Alex Traynor starred in this non-musical video about paying it forward after his car got hit in a minor accident, while two days later, we got to see bassist Josh Fair's dog Barkley having a play date (very cute!) A January 17th slideshow video celebrated Tarnished hitting 200 TikTok followers, and the next day, we got to see their improvised quarantine recording studio in a surprise location, plus a hint from Alex towards something coming up tied into The Mandalorian, details forthcoming.

After a fourth installment of their series "A Note In Review" (with help from Barkley) on the 20th, uploads slowed to a crawl, including a video of Alex & Josh making ice cream (for real) on the 28th, and lastly, a video from February 7th of the guys working on their new single "SDR&R" in studio alongside producer Ryan Nicklas, with Alex playing guitar & drums in the clip. No sign of Nathan in any of these videos, but hopefully Tarnished continue posting entertaining content on TikTok when time and inspiration allows!

Finally, here's another song from local/Toronto indie/punk veterans Treble Charger that was exclusive to a compilation, and was not on one of their five studio albums! Many readers will be familiar with FUBAR, the 2002 Canadian mockumentary film about two metalhead best friends shotgunning beer and dealing with life's highs and lows. Myself, I didn't love the movie, but is has a strong cult following, and it led to a sequel and TV series. The original film had a companion soundtrack CD named "FUBAR: The Album", largely featuring covers of Canadian classic and hard rock bands by contemporary bands, interspersed with short audio clips from the movie. Most of the songs weren't in the film, but the soundtrack was well advertised at the time. Readers may best recall Sum 41 (as Pain For Pleasure) covering Helix's "Rock You", but many familiar bands like Gob and Sloan submitted covers for the CD.

Treble Charger themselves covered April Wine's "Roller", and it's done relatively faithfully to the original, which is a staple of Canadian hard rock in the 1970s, and you go get to see Greig hit some high notes that their originals didn't call for! Nothing too drastic to report otherwise, if you can picture punk-era Treble Charger covering "Roller", then you'll know what you're getting. "FUBAR: The Album" is not on Spotify, but thanks to YouTube user dfbhcf, you can hear their April Wine cover embedded below!

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

A Look At Tarnished's TikTok Videos (Part 2!!)

Before we begin today's post, I wanted to note that Highway 63/Mama's Boys singer/guitarist Henry Switzer's obituary is now online at this link. There, it says that he passed away suddenly at War Memorial Hospital on Wednesday afternoon at just 49 years of age (he would have turned 50 on March 27th.) Listed survivors include his wife Kristina, three children, three grandchildren, his parents, and three brothers. Funeral services will be held privately at C.S. Mulder Funeral Home in Sault Michigan on Friday, with a public celebration of life planned for "later this summer", though with the pandemic, who knows what form that could take. The lengthy and well written obituary goes into great detail about Henry as a father, husband, auto shop owner, musician, animal lover, and overall, as a good person. It is definitely worth a read whether you knew him well or not, and our continued well wishes are with the Switzer and Brooks families at this difficult time. R.I.P. Henry!

Now, today's post otherwise keeps us in Sault Michigan for our second look at the videos posted by Sault Michigan hard rock band Tarnished on their TikTok page! We covered their first 27 videos there on the site last month, running through December 11th, so let's pick up where we left off! As was the case last month, I can not get the embed code for TikTok videos working on the SMS, and if you are Sault Ontario reader and find videos without working sound, then odds are the audio is geoblocked in Canada. 

On December 14th, the guys shared two videos of Alex & Josh's acoustic performance on Eagle 95.1 FM's morning show, where you can see them playing fragments of "Metalyn" with Alex & Josh, and the holiday classic "Run Rudolph Run" with Alex & Nathan, both of which have made their way to Facebook already. What didn't go there is this clip of Alex talking about their appearance on the Eagle, including brushing off the vehicle for the drive there, and clips of DJ/station owner Tim Ellis asking the band about availability of their "Down To The Wire" EP. Then-drummer Gary Croad even makes a brief appearance, despite not performing. Fun look at the behind the scenes stuff you can't seen when listening to the radio, if obviously short given the nature of TikTok! Ensuing videos include an example of "beautiful wall art" at "the band pad", and a handful of pre-Christmas uploads

These include two late-night rehearsal clips (one jokier than the other) that I believe were related to their studio version of "Run Rudolph Run" that you may have seen on Facebook a couple of months ago. The others in this batch are two episodes of their ultra-literal TikTok series "A Note In Review", where Josh reviews a musical note. On Boxing Day, Alex starred in this video showing off some of his Christmas gifts and teasing Tarnished's 2020 plans to put out some new music. Speaking of which, their next proper performance clips were posted on December 30th, where Tarnished (Gary included) covered Aerosmith's "Same Old Song & Dance" and played their own "Cabin Fever", with Alex manning the camera while singing sans guitar. Fun performances while they last, though whether the gratuitous lightning improves things on the Aerosmith cover is up to you.

On January 3rd, Tarnished uploaded a video of them setting up and having a Nerf battle at the private New Year's party that Alex & Josh performed at, and while video of that set was not shared on TikTok we already covered a Facebook video from that event on the SMS. That same day, a slideshow clip set to AC/DC's "Back In Black" was uploaded to commemorate the band hitting 600 likes on Facebook (though I'm surprised that they'd celebrate one social media milestone on a completely different social media platform.) Their next three videos are not musical whatsoever, instead having them sum up Jurassic Park in a nutshell using brief re-enactments, running commentary, and movie clips. Reminds me in a way of That Guy With The Old Glasses' old movies-in-5 seconds videos! Lastly for now, a January 10th video featured Alex & Josh shopping for furniture at Big Lots.

Either I miscounted videos last month or they've deleted videos since, but only 7 TikTok videos are left on Tarnished's page that I haven't addressed on the SMS yet. We'll save those for an upcoming post, but that's all for today, and we'll be back with a new news post by Thursday! Thanks everyone!

A Look At Tarnished's TikTok Videos (Part 1!!)

With news still at a crawl during the current Ontario lockdown, and my 3 day limit between posts arriving today, I'm going to think outside the box a little for our last post of January 2021, by heading to TikTok for a look at some of the videos that Sault Michigan hard rock quartet Tarnished have been posting there since they launched their TikTok page in November! No local band in our listings has taken advantage of TikTok more than Tarnished (as far as I know), with 80 videos posted there as of this writing, though it won't take terribly long to run through all of them, given that TikTok users generally have a 60 second time limit on their videos, and a number of these videos don't come anywhere near the one minute mark. You may have seen some of these videos in Facebook re-posts, but most are TikTok exclusives, so let's begin looking at a few of these to see what Alex, Nathan, Josh, and Gary have been up to on this service in their first month or so there!

Note that TikTok's official embed code for videos does not work on Blogger, so until I find a work-around, just follow the links below to see the clips in action, or see what has been cross-shared on Facebook. Also, if some videos don't have working audio, it's likely because the music in the video is geoblocked in Canada, and I didn't have immediate luck with using an IP blocker. In any event, Tarnished's first video is a very brief clip of Alex using his hunter's instincts on a burger, while their second video has Josh introducing the band (minus Gary) and promising more content to come on their TikTok page. Their next few were largely re-shared on Facebook, including a teaser for their merchandise giveaway contest late last year, their "On The Road Again" video, their fox-headed mascot/Saw villain parody Puzzle Piece eating a shirt(!), and three videos of them making logos out of Yooperlites.

Eight of their next nine videos (from November 22nd-30th) are of (mostly) acoustic covers, all obviously incomplete due to TikTok's runtime limits. Of those, the only non-musical clip of the nine being of Josh Puzzle Piece tripping on camera. We already addressed the covers of Metallica's "One" & The Police's "Every Breath You Take" on the SMS, but the others include Metallica's "Fade To Black", AC/DC's "TNT", Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising", Quiet Riot's "Metal Health", Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song", and Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train". The above covers mostly have Alex & Josh alone, with Nathan only in a few, and Gary only in the Police cover on a cajon. These videos will give a good sense of the post-production clipart and effects available to TikTok users, though whether you necessarily like the accoutrements is not for me to say.

Tarnished seem to have a handle of what's on offer though, and the music's all solid while it lasts! The next few clips include Josh walking across a fallen tree, Alex plugging a winner reveal for their merch giveaway, and a nighttime stroll through the woods, before returning to music on December 4th with their drum-less cover of The Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Dani California". This one has geo-blocked audio in Canada, but luckily, this was re-posted intact on Facebook, and we reviewed it on the SMS already. Their next four videos are non-musical, including Alex showing off his dog doing tricks, and three more videos of Puzzle Piece: two for merch giveaway reveals, and a shoutout clip we mentioned on the SMS last month. After a video where Josh premieres an exceedingly literal segment called "A Note In Review", their December 11th video was of the guys procrastinating over video editing.

27 videos down, at least 53 to go for SMS coverage, such as some are! Despite the woes of video editing, the guys seemed to have a good grasp on TikTok as of last month, with lots of good musical and entertainment content, though I have a lot to learn about this site (maybe I've been spoiled by long videos?) Some of the non-musical clips are clearly meant for a laugh, and I tried not to give away pertinent details in that regard, especially given the runtime, so give these a watch above to see Tarnished's TikTok repertoire through early December, and stay tuned for more on them and elsewhere on the site next month! Thanks everyone!