Winnipeg based instrumental jazz rock band Apollo Sons never stop.

The band, Ed Durocher - guitars ; Bryn Herperger - bass ; Anatol Rennie - piano, keyboards and synths ; Aaron Bartel - bari sax, alto sax ; Benjamin James Hill - trombone ; Garrett Malenko - trumpet ; Niall Cade - tenor sax ; Erika Einarson - percussion ; drummer Glenn Radley,  finished a tour that began in Lethbridge in May, released their first full length album “ Departures,”  Friday, Sept. 22 and are getting ready to depart on another tour that begins in Lethbridge on Wednesday, Sept. 25 at the Slice with blues rock band The Static Shift.

“We’ll go to Calgary and Edmonton and Lethbridge with them,” said guitarist Ed Durocher, who is already planning Apollo Suns’ next album for a tentative release in 2025.

“We’ve been back for five weeks, but we’re beginning the next tour in Lethbridge. Lethbridge has  always been good to us. We’ll play a nice mid-week show that will get you through to the weekend,” Durocher continued, adding the next tour will include  35 or 36 tour dates that will take them into December.

 They enjoyed their foray into  the United States.

“It was good. We we’re playing the Pacific Northwest. Sacramento was sold out and we finished the tour with some festivals,” he said.

“The volunteers were great and the crew were great and we had a couple thousand people,” he said.

Durocher is pleased with how ‘Departures’ turned out, especially because they didn’t have a chance to road test the new songs like they usually do and because they wrote it over the  pandemic over Zoom.

“We wrote it over Zoom. We had to use instrumental patches. We were  sending each other ideas. Then we recorded 12 songs over 10 days straight in 2022 with Ben Kaplan ( who has produced Mother Mother, Five Alarm Funk, Brass Camel and Snoop Dogg) The process was so much fun,” he said adding they got feedback from trusted friends and  people in the music business before recording.

Edmonton based progressive metal metal band Fall of Earth are ready to rock Lethbridge again in support of their second album “From the Ashes”  at the Slice, Friday, Sept. 29.

The band, including Brody Bauer – lead guitar, vocals; Myles Packer – bass, vocals; Alex Rye – lead vocals; Brendan Meilleur – drums, vocals and Matthew Lindholm – rhythm guitar, vocals​ , played the Studio for their last visit in May, but stop by the Slice this time, two weeks into a mammoth eight week tour.

“Some of us quit our jobs to do this. And it was the right move, because I love doing this ,” said lead guitarist / vocalist Brody Bauer from a tour stop in Kamloops, where he is already starting to lose track of time and locations.

“It’s been a ton of fun. People seem to like the sound of the band,” Bauer said.

“We don’t know what 10 week tour looks like yet. But we’ve done six week tours before. It’s fun to travel and see new places. This tour we‘re going to a lot of places we‘ve never been before which is really awesome,” Bauer said.

 They took advantage of a few days off in Kamloops to film a music video for the second single off the album, “The Dead and Soon To Be.”

“We went to Party Central and bought hospital gowns and acted like we just escaped from an asylum. We filmed ourselves doing ordinary things. It was fun and very interesting. But somebody called the RCMP because five guys running around in hospital gowns is suspicious behaviour,” he chuckled, adding this will be their third music video. They don’t have a release  date for this video. 

 It was 50s night at the Slice again as with Rebel Angels brought their ’ popular ’50s sock hop show back to the Slice.

The audience had thinned by the time  Rebel Angels brought the spirit of the ’50s  back for their last set of the night. The backdrop was silver lamé adorned with record and the entryway was adorned with pink and blue balloons.

 Frontman Ben Lamb showed his best ’50s moves as did the audience including the in the Pink Ladies in pink satin ’50s style  letter jackets, who remained to dance the night away to ’50s hits like “ Yakety Yak ” and “ the Great Pretender.”

 As usual Rebel Angels played an array of ’50s pop and, ballads and rock and roll like “ Twistin the Night Away,” and “ I Fought the Law.”

 Lamb wrapped his through around classic ear-worms like Neil Sedaka’ “ Calendar Girl.”

Everybody showing their best  dance moves including birthday boy Ben Lamb on. a popular hits of days gone bye like π the Isley brothers’ “ You Make me want to Shout.”

 They were called back for peppy encore of  “ Let’s Go to the Hop,” which had me singing the lyrics to Dash Rip Rock’s parody “ Let‘s go Smoke Some Pot.”

— By Richard Amery, L.A. beat Editor

  I missed most of a death metal show at the Owl Acoustic Lounge, Saturday, Sept. 16 but was just in time for Red Deer’s Hooker Spit who are touring in support of their new album “Krotch Splitter.”

The band Vlad Glyegore (Lead Guitar), Devin Link (Rhythm Guitar), José Garza (Bass), Daniel White (Vocals) and Scott Gooding (Drums), played most of the cuts from the album. The frontman giggles as he introduced songs like “ Flesh Feast, and noted he had never been so drunk while performing  a show.

 He growled out guttural cookie monster vocals  and a few unearthly shrieks and jumped all over the stage like a deranged B.A Johnston  trying his hand and voice  at death metal.

  The band delivered plenty of brutal riffs and searing solos from lead guitarist Vlad Gleygor and an cacophonic rhythm and wall shaking bass..

— By Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor