Metal Mayhem

Good friendly violent fun! That is what metal heads of all genres come for when Project Mayhem puts a concert on. Since randomly being asked to put a show on this spring, promoter/organizer/wallet and all around heavy metal lover, Shaun Urquhart has been busy putting jumper cables to the lifeless corpse that once was our music scene.

“It all just fell into place.” Urquhart chuckles, “my manager was asked to put on a show but was too busy, so she asked me if I was interested, and it all just took off from there.”

Since that first show in March of this year, Shaun has brought dozens of bands from across Canada, some as far as Ottawa and Victoria, to our remote prairie town. Some of the names he has brought to Brandon include Today I Caught the Plague, Dreadnaut, Unleash the Archers, Rapture, Tyrants Demise, The Hellsmen, Evil Survives...the list goes on. All in the name of promoting and supporting that segment of the musical spectrum that often gets overlooked. When I caught up with Shaun, he was editing video footage with his friend and colleague from their time in ACC’s media production program.

“I’m working with Westman Communications Group to make a t.v. show I’m going to call Liquid Metal.” he explains, “Each episode will have live footage from the shows and interviews with the bands. It was supposed to be out already, but I’m hoping to have a few episodes cut for December/January sometime.”

If you had to have a mission statement, I asked, what would Project Mayhem’s be? “I want to bridge the east-west gap” he replies, “In a word: underground music. I want to promote the hard working Canadian bands that don’t get the recognition they deserve. I want to get as many eyeballs as possible on these bands.”

Shaun has been very consistent in putting on the roughly dozen or so shows that he has over the past eight months. I have attended a few of them and I gotta say that they are amazing fun. The musicians are incredibly talented, the people are awesome, you get the opportunity to meet the bands (something inconceivable when attending a show at a venue like the MTS center), it’s just an all around good time.

The intent was to promote Shaun’s Halloween show but, due to either miscommunication or ineptness this article did not run in the last issue. But I just found out that the next show is at the North Hill Inn on Thursday November 12th, so come out and thrash to the sounds of We, The Undersigned and Ninjaspy.

Photos courtesy of, Alyssa Brewer