Saturday, June 22, 2013

YouTube Channel Profile Series: donmancrude's Channel

In our second post of the day, we have this month's YouTube Channel Profile to check out, but see this morning's post for a late notice show announcement, a recent older band discovery, and more! As usual, this monthly feature series looks at 1-3 YouTube channels featuring a 50% concentration of local metal/hard rock videos, in order to profile their content, videos, and featured artists, and encourage you guys to check them out! This month's randomly selected channel has some varied Sault Michigan-native performances from the late 2000s, mainly from one band in particular, so read on below for this month's profile! (Updated on October 15th, 2013)
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donmancrude's Channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/donmancrude)

Owner: Former Intrepid guitarist Donnie Hank

Channel Timeline: Launched on April 11th, 2008; Videos posted from October of that year through January 2009

Channel Summary: Ostensibly a personal use channel, Sault Michigan guitarist Donnie Hank largely devoted his YouTube channel to videos from two concerts he played with his now-defunct local hard rock band Intrepid in mid-late 2008. Those are the focus of 9 of his 11 videos, though his channel is rounded out by a solo guitar cover and a low quality rendition of the Christmas standard "Sleigh Ride" from a 2008 performance by the Sault Area High School band (though I can't 100% verify if Donnie was in the band at this time, or just filmed the video.)

Why Should You Watch: It's mainly worth watching for fans of Intrepid and younger (at the time) local metal talent, though people curious to see remotely recent video footage of a Sault Michigan metal band playing live in Sault Ontario may wanna take an extra look! They were a talented band for their age, and Donnie has guitar talent, so don't bypass these videos before checking them out! However, note that Donnie has not used his channel in over four years, though he is featured in some recent acoustic cover videos uploaded by former Hoist The Sails frontman Travis Theel.

Our Recommended Videos To Check Out:

Lonely Day Cover (Full Song): Donnie's first uploads come from a show that Intrepid played at The Soo Theater in the summer of 2008, presumably during a Guitar Studio rock camp concert, which featured their original lineup, including singer/bassist Mitch Goetz (now of The Highest of Fives), Donnie and Nick Pavlat on guitar, and Kenny Schirer on drums. The featured songs are covers of Metallica's "Enter Sandman", Thin Lizzy's "Whiskey In The Jar", and (as embedded below) System of a Down's "Lonely Day", which has over 10,000 views, by far the most on the channel. These songs are generally very well played, though Mitch's higher vocals aren't perfect fits, and they definitely played "Lonely Day" faster than it probably should have been. The video quality's mixed too, but their work in the rock camp really did hone their skills!



Before I Forget cover by donmancrude: Donnie's only solo video on his channel is this December 2008 cover of Slipknot's "Before I Forget", which seems to be well played, but the audio quality really suffers, and it's hard to hear his guitar work distinctively from the original song. I'd also like to see the camera zoomed out a bit to get a better look at both of his hands, but you can see that he knows the song and is (I assume) doing it justice!



Bark At the Moon cover live by Intrepid: Cross-border performances by local bands (metal or not) are rare in recent years, but Intrepid are one of the lucky few to buck the trend, as they were one of two regional youth bands that played at the International Family Fun Night on New Year's Eve 2008 at The Essar Centre in Sault Ontario! The subject of this channel's last uploads, six videos were uploaded by Donnie from their set that night, including covers of "Lonely Day" again, Autograph's "Turn Up The Radio", Velvet Revolver's "Slither", Papa Roach's "Scars", Alter Bridge's "The End Is Here", and (as embedded below) Ozzy Osbourne's "Bark At The Moon". The quality of these videos is very mixed, with staticy audio, but the different angles are handy, and it's interesting to see a unique performance like this all the same!


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I hope you guys liked this month's YouTube Channel Profile! Next month in this series, through completely random selection, I've chosen late Woods of Ypres frontman David Gold's YouTube channel for what should be a very interesting profile! With 129 videos featured there, it will be very hard to pare it down and pick only a few recommendations, or to even sum this one up, but I'll try my best, and how fitting that we randomly chose this channel the month that we're reviewing the Woods of Ypres tribute album? Stay tuned for this profile on or around July 22nd, and stay tuned for more news tomorrow! Thanks everyone!

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