LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Fort Creek), A New Album Release, And More!!

After a quiet holiday season weekend, we're back on the SMS with a Monday night post including some updates and videos from two different local bands, a new and quite seasonal album to buy/stream, and leading off, a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT for the end of the year. With all of that said, here's what you should know!

Local southern hard rock quintet Fort Creek will cap off 2022 with a New Year's Eve party on Saturday, December 31st at The Water Tower Pub! As far as I can tell, this will be Fort Creek's first ever appearance at the Great Northern Road venue, and doing so on New Year's Eve is definitely a big way to debut there! Last seen with their "Christmas blowout" at Soo Blaster earlier this month, Fort Creek's new lineup continues riding high with assorted live dates and their recent charitable initiatives, and hopefully their hard rocking covers and select originals prove to be an ideal way for revelers at The Water Tower Pub to ring in 2023! This 19+ event does not have an announced start time (likely no earlier than 8:00 PM), but The Water Tower Pub is going all out with this, including an appetizer buffet, midnight toast, and party favours included in the $60 ticket fee, and if you believe their Facebook post, "tickets (are) going fast".

There is also an overnight New Year's Eve hotel room package at the on-site Water Tower Hotel with breakfast and a concert ticket included for $175 ($275 for two people), so see above if that interests you. The admission fee will scare many off, but they're just pulling out all of the stops to make this party one to remember, and hopefully there's a sizeable crowd for Fort Creek to end the year with! Visit the above links for more details!

Next up, here's a surprise (yet still long teased) album release, as Sault Michigan classical metal band Theatre of Night have put out their second full-length Christmas album "Dreams of Winter" on their Reverbnation page! On sale there for $9.99, it was posted on December 2nd, and is their first actually on-sale album (free Spotify playlists excepted) since they quietly released "Guntower Democracy" in 2018, and it 100% confirms their teasers and hints at putting out another Christmas album, effectively an expanded re-recording of their 2013 instrumental album "Christmas Night", but now with vocals from Rachel Mender on some songs. While every song on "Dreams of Winter" is a revision labelled as "V2" (version #2), two of the songs were not on the original "Christmas Night" album, namely "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" & "We Three Kings", and some songs have been renamed and re-ordered.

Song lengths are similar to the original 2013 versions, implying that they largely kept the old arrangements, but how different is "Dreams of Winter"? Due to the holiday season timing, I'm actually going to try and review this album before Sunday so it's timely for the holidays (it'd be odd reviewing this next month), and if this makes the site by Sunday, I'll bump our planned Chase Wigmore album review to early January, as it'll be still as relevant and about as new then. In any event, a new album review is coming, but if you want to hear some new-ish Christmas carols gone symphonic metal, buy or stream Theatre of Night's new album above!

Also, here's some new videos from one of new Sault Ontario metal trio The BAG's concerts at Reggie's Place this past weekend! Filmed & posted by attendee Stephanie Laplante to the band's Facebook group on Sunday, these were uploaded in a batch post along with a few photos from the gig. The videos see The BAG covering the instrumental bridge of Golden Earring's "Radar Love", playing an apparent new original song with a punk sound (if it's a cover, I couldn't match the lyrics up with anything), and as embedded below, them covering Marilyn Manson's version of The Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)". Alas, all three videos are under one minute long (the punk original clip runs for just 20 seconds), and they're also all shot and uploaded vertically, but luckily, the sound holds up across the board, and Stephanie was at a good angle to capture the whole band despite the aspect ratio and the somewhat dim lighting.

From what we hear of The BAG in these videos, they sound good and are rocking out as well as you'd expect, though I'm not sure that "Sweet Dreams" is the cleanest fit for Spencer's vocal range given how slow and creepy the Manson version is plotted out. Check these out above & below, and stay tuned for more from The BAG!

Finally, here's the latest from local/Toronto progressive metal band PROV3RB5, starting with a lineup addition, as they have enlisted former Role Models drummer Phil "Philly Gee" Greco as a full band member! He was officially announced via their Facebook page on November 25th, replacing existing bassist Bryan Lee, but his joining the band was hinted at on personal accounts in the preceding weeks (though he joined after the recording sessions for their debut EP "What Dreams May Come"). Phil is arguably better known locally as a punk drummer, but he has the chops to hang with Ben & Bryan, and it'll be interesting to see how he fits in on future originals! Elsewhere, their song "Treasure Forest" was featured & positively reviewed on the web series Local Band Smokeout last month (the relevant clip was posted to PROV3RB5's Facebook page), but just as a disclaimer, "local band" doesn't mean the Soo, the show covers local bands from any market who want their songs reviewed on air.

PROV3RB5 have also been selling a new line of official band clothing that you can check out/buy at this link, and on December 6th, and they shared this "Reel" from Phil's personal page of the early drum tracking for their first new song since he came on board. Not much to see/hear yet, but good to see things are underway! For a longer video, they did share this video of guitarist Benjamin Roswell playing the solo from "Particles", but I can't embed it here as he's playing along to the studio track, and Facebook content matched it to itself, so external embedding is not allowed. Solid work though, so check out all of the new PROV3RB5 updates above, and stay tuned for more on the site soon! Thanks everyone!

Bookclub/Wyld Stallyns Concert Preview, New Videos, And More!!

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!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Obsession, Tarnished, Project 906, And The BAG), Plus Weekend Concert Previews!!

Today's post is primarily devoted to weekend concert previews, as intertwined with LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS, with three bands confirming SHORT NOTICE gigs for this weekend within them! Due to the amount, I'll hold our preview of Saturday night's Bookclub/Wyld Stallyns show for our next post, hopefully hitting the site tomorrow. Now, here's what you should know to start off this weekend!

Sault Michigan hard rock quartet Tarnished will return to The Merchants Bar for one night only TOMORROW NIGHT! Apologies for the short notice, the band only confirmed this gig tonight on their Facebook page, and they said "this was also late notice for us as well", so alas, we'll take what we can get for advertising here. Full disclosure, The Merch's Facebook page has not mentioned this show at press time, but they routinely don't promote bands playing there on Facebook, focusing instead on general themed events and drink specials. Last seen opening for Steel Panther, TOMORROW'S show will be Tarnished's first at The Merch since July, and hopefully the guys continue melting faces for their fans and bar patrons alike! You can see Tarnished TOMORROW at 9:00 PM with a 21+ age limit and no cover. See above for more details, and here's Tarnished live!

Next up, new Sault Ontario metal trio The BAG will play their third and fourth public concerts TOMORROW & SATURDAY NIGHT at Reggie's Place! Again, apologies for the short notice, these dates were only announced by the venue's Facebook page on Monday. Arguably one of the heaviest local bands to play at Reggie's (a primarily country bar pre-2020), the genre gates have definitely widened with Randy LaPossie managing the bar, so it will be interesting to see how The BAG are received TOMORROW & SATURDAY! You can take in Spencer, Austin, and Bradley's hard hitting covers (expected and surprise alike) and early originals this weekend at 9:00 PM both nights with 19+ age limits and no cover charge. See above for more details, and for a preview, here's a new BAG live video from their Saturday nighter at The Esquire Club on December 3rd! Filmed by Val McGillivray once again, this was shared to their Facebook group on Sunday.

This sub-2 minute video features The BAG covering the ending of AC/DC's "Let There Be Rock", and while the quality is similar to Val's prior "Folsom Prison Blues" video, this one was shot horizontally from a closer angle, so you get a better view of the whole band. Plus, you don't hear this AC/DC song covered as often locally, and they acquit themselves well to it, at least the chunk we hear, so check it out for yourself below, and don't miss The BAG at Reggie's TOMORROW and/or SATURDAY!

Now let's hop back across the border for another newly discovered gig, as Sault Michigan hard rock quartet Project 906 will return to Huck's Pub & Grill in nearby Rudyard THIS SATURDAY NIGHT! Apologies again for the short notice, the band only confirmed this show via their Facebook event page earlier today, but Huck's Facebook page had been advertising their booking since late last month, if quietly. While Project 906 aren't mentioning this aspect of the event, SATURDAY'S concert takes place during an ugly Christmas sweater party at the former Joe's Bar, so if you're making the trip out to Rudyard for Project 906's blues and hard rock covers and select originals, pack an ugly sweater for the occasion! No word on if there's an attached contest or not. SATURDAY's show has a 9:00 PM start time, a 21+ age limit, and no cover, so see above for more details, and here's Project 906 live earlier this year!

Lastly for today, Sault Ontario classic/hard rock cover quartet Obsession will play their apparent final shows of the year TOMORROW & SATURDAY NIGHT at The Esquire Club, but they will be back in 2023! As you may recall when I first rolled Obsession into our full coverage earlier this year (before Jess even joined the group), I noted that they were already listing shows for 2023 on their website's concert calendar, and it's now about time to list them on the SMS! They'll be back at The Esquire Club one weekend a month for the first half of 2023, with dates on January 6th-7th, February 10th-11th, March 17th-18th, April 21st-22nd, May 12th-13th, and June 9th-10th, and after an apparent summer break, they'll be back at the Second Line West nightclub on September 8th-9th, October 27th-28th (a.k.a. Halloween weekend), and December 15th-16th. Clearly you can tell that The Esquire Club is their favourite venue, so they're making the bookings there count!

The other already-confirmed dates are at Shooters Downstairs Lounge, where Obsession will return on March 31st & April 1st, September 22nd-23rd, and November 17th-18th. No word on other venues yet, but remember that less bars have booked bands regularly since the pandemic. This weekend's shows (and next year's Esquire Club dates) all start at 9:30 PM with 19+ age limits and no cover, and the same applies for the Shooters gigs except for earlier 8:00 PM start times. See above for more on Obsession's old school hard rocking shows in the year ahead, click here and here for this weekend's Facebook event pages, and here they are live!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for our Bookclub/Wyld Stallyns concert preview and more on the site next! Thanks everyone!

Local Metal/Hard Rock Video Showcase!!

Before we begin this post, I wanted to offer our deepest condolences to the family and friends of Sabra Rajput-Gingras, who suddenly passed away on Thursday at the age of 49. Fans of inactive local horror punk band Frightlight should remember Sabra as the wife of bassist Mike Gingras (a.k.a. Eddie Fright), and she was a frequent presence at their concerts and in their inner circle over the years, while also singing in punk bands many moons ago. Outside of that, she was a well liked and respected person who loved animals and horseback riding, and you may recall seeing and talking with her at The Vape Escape in recent years. My best memory of Sabra would actually be at The Marquee at Bon Soo in February 2014, which was held in freezing cold temperatures at The Roberta Bondar Pavilion. From the 6:00 PM hour onward, the only attendees that weren't in bands or working as staff were me and Sabra, so naturally we talked for a while, and it was good to have some company for Frightlight's abbreviated headlining set!

As per her obituary, funeral services will take place on Saturday at 11:30 AM (visitation from 9:30 AM) at Northwood Funeral Home with Helen Smith officiating, and with interment to follow at Pine Grove Cemetery. Memorial donations to the Sault Ste. Marie Humane Society would be appreciated by the family, and she is survived by Mike, her parents, brother, niece, nephew, and stepdaughter. This news came out of nowhere for sure, and to lose someone so close to Christmas is never ideal, but hopefully everyone keeps the good memories close at this difficult time. R.I.P. Sabra!

Today's post is video-centric from three acts playing live in some form or fashion this month, and let's start with local southern hard rock quintet Fort Creek, whose "Christmas blowout" concert successfully took place at Soo Blaster on Saturday night! As you can see, even Santa Claus (portrayed by Soo Greyhounds radio colour commentator Spanky Robinson) showed up for the occasion! Two videos were posted on their Facebook page of the stage before their set (linked here and here), and while neither has the band proper, you do get a sense of the more professional approach to this show than their standard nightclub gigs. One video of their set did get shared from attendee Lori Amendola's personal Facebook page, which sees Fort Creek playing 2+ minutes of their first original song "Hammer Down". Despite the vertical camera angle, the audio is solid enough and Lori got a good view of the stage!

Notably, this is the first public video of Fort Creek with new rhythm guitarist Bill Brouillard, and he does seem to fit in just fine here, helped by what looks like a good and receptive crowd! Good stuff, so give this video a watch below, and stay tuned for more from Fort Creek when it rolls in!

Next up, here's a new video from fellow local southern hard rock band Bone Yard during their gig at Jay's Piston Broke Pub (formerly Reggie's West) on Saturday night! Purportedly their final show of 2022, their cover of The Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated" with bassist Warren Reville on lead vocals was live-streamed to their Facebook page that night. Alas, this too is shot vertically, but at least the filmer got up to the front of the stage to capture everyone in close-up angles, and while Greg does have a stronger voice, Warren fits the tone of Joey Ramone well on this rare punk cover from Bone Yard, so give it a watch below, and look for them in 2023!

Finally, we have a new video from prolific local extreme metal/folk punk musician Chase Wigmore, and following his Pink Floyd solo cover from earlier this month, he's dipping into that well again via his cover of Dire Straits' "Sultans of Swing", as posted on his Facebook page on Sunday. This time, it's of the full song, and Chase even recorded a backing track for it, but beneath his guitar, it's hard to make out most of the instruments aside from his vocals. The video is grainy as hell with poor foreground lighting (I'm unsure if that's a filter or not), but he performes this classic rock staple well as you'd expect! I'm not a Dire Straits fan, but Chase gets room to show his stuff, as you can see below!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and updates as the week continues! Thanks everyone!

Defunct Local Band Profile Series: Re:Born

After a return from vacation-aided delay, here is this month's Defunct Local Band Profile, in our last installment of this series of 2022! As usual, this serves to spotlight the active run and highlights of randomly chosen local metal, hard rock, or punk artists, and this month's selection is a talented and familiar metal band whose run was arguably curtailed prematurely due to the pandemic, so here's what you should know!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re:Born 

Hometown: Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario

Genre: Power Rock/Classic Metal

Lineup: (Members not in their last full lineup are in italics)

Elly McWatters, vocals
Blair Burch (Project 421), guitar/vocals
Chris Nielsen (A Dire Setback), guitar
Elijah Nielsen (Electric Church), bass
Brandan Glew (The Din, The Revolution), drums

Robert Nevitt (Big Mistake, Steel Sour), vocals
Frank McGillivray (Project 421), guitar
Fred Dunn (Eclipse), bass

Audio/Video: Re:Born largely took over guitarists Blair Burch & Frank McGillivray's prior classic metal band Project 421's existing originals like "Running Away" and "Into The Darkness", along with a similar cover set of old school-leaning metal and hard rock songs, but with distinct updates, including more influence from European power metal in some covers. Their Facebook page was quite good for uploading videos of every incarnation of Re:Born (even lineups that never played a formal concert), but Chris Paci's YouTube channel does have a few videos as well. Here's Re:Born playing their own original "Die Another Day" and covering Iron Maiden's "Die With Your Boots On" at The Grand Gardens North in 2019!

Info/Analysis: Shortly after the dissolution of Project 421 in the fall of 2017, Blair & Frank formed a similar new band named Re:Born (no relation) that publically launched in January 2018. Their original five piece lineup aimed to "keep that old-school attitude alive, while capturing a modern energy", debuting (with merchandise in tow) via Rockstar Bar dates opening for Archelon and All The Wasted Years in March & June, followed by the Pirie "Bear" Kaufman benefit show in October. After frequent guest singer Elly McWatters replaced Robert Nevitt later that month and Frank's move out of town in November, Re:Born's best known four-piece lineup debuted at Soo Blaster in March 2019, returning there in the following months to open for The Killer Dwarfs & Anvil, with some all-local and headlining gigs elsewhere into the summer.

Re:Born's final concert took place at Toystock that November, before a planned break was consumed & lengthened by the pandemic. Despite announcing a new expanded lineup featuring the Nielsen cousins joining Elly, Blair, and Brandan in November 2021, Re:Born threw in the towel in March 2022. Comparisons with Project 421 are easy to make, but Re:Born stood on their own with strong in-built talent, and both Robert and Elly brought their own unique styles to the table during their runs! Their style of power rock could attract old school and modern fans, and they were snakebitten by bad luck to an extent, but hopefully everyone's still musically active in new projects nowadays!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hope you guys liked this month's Defunct Local Band Profile! After spending the last quarter of the year in Sault Ontario, our rotation takes us back to Sault Michigan, where are next randomly selected band will be early 2010s grunge/alternative trio Plastic! Stay tuned for that on or around January 10th, and for more news and notes soon! Thanks everyone!