“Goodbye to me and you,

-Bouncing Souls, “Night Train”

Nothing is more crucial than the ending.

A storyteller can make mistakes in the build-up. Sure, too many and you will lose your audience, but on the whole, if the overall thrust of your narrative is on the right track, people will forgive. But the ending has to be spot-on.
Look at the “Matrix” series. People can complain about the execution of the last two chapters as much as they want, but I was there the night the second film debuted, and no one in that theater was complaining. They were cheering, they were involved, they were on the edge of their seats. People were still with the story. It was when the third film’s resolution didn’t live up to their expectations that the judgment of pop culture turned against the trilogy.

I often wonder what would have happened if the Wachowski brothers had tried a different tactic with the last 20 minutes of “Revolutions.” If that third film had given the public a more easily digestible conclusion, would people’s memories of it be fonder? When you really look at the content of the sequels, they contain stellar action sequences, incredibly impressive effects, a lot of genuine imagination. But your average fan only remembers that ending.

If you give fans a great resolution or dramatic climax, they will forgive a lot. Two forms of entertainment that couldn’t be more different demonstrated this to fans around the world this weekend.

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2″ just had the biggest opening weekend gross ever. Current estimates have the film’s domestic gross at over $168 million in just three days, over $40 million for midnight shows on Thursday alone. Across Toledo, fans turned out by the thousands to experience the final act of a decade of storytelling. And their response to it was just as crucial: Many of them would return again to experience it all over again before the weekend was out.

It was the same kind of passion that was seen when the franchise came to a close in print in 2007. This is not to say that the final installment of the series did not have its flaws. But as long as the trip is entertaining and the climax brings genuine closure to an enterprise fans had invested so much passion in, folks will forgive a lot. And damn, does “Harry Potter” have a satisfying conclusion.

Then there was the WWE pay-per-view in Chicago. As a performer named CM Punk took to the stage in his hometown, he was the most talked-about figure in wrestling. The show’s main event was the culmination of a month-long storyline which weaved fact and fiction into the most compelling tale the company had concocted in years. Punk had convinced the world this would be his last night with the company. He promised he would win the title in his hometown, then leave, taking the biggest prize in the business with him.

For years, fans the world over — myself included — have become massively disillusioned with WWE storytelling. The company had lost all daring. Whenever a slight step forward occurred, the result would immediately be rendered moot and the status quo restored. Thus, even as Punk had become the hottest figure in the game, fans had little reason to hope that things would change. His opponent, John Cena — the ultimate company man — would beat him and things would get back to normal.

That was believed until Sunday, when Punk beat Cena and left the building, WWE’s title in hand. The company, and Punk in particular, played with the fans’ expectations, built them up based on the conclusion everyone “knew” was coming — and then stunned the world, which will draw even more eyeballs to the product.

Punk isn’t really leaving, of course — at least not immediately. He and WWE storytellers just knew how to use the fans’ jaded assumptions to perfection. And now, instead of the half-hearted conclusion that was expected, there was a stunning turn which will make people all the more interested when the genuine resolution comes. (Punk has played these cards before in a similar storyline when he left Ring of Honor Wrestling in 2005.)

This may not have been the end of Punk’s story. But by convincing folks that it was, then flipping the scenario on its head, he has successfully revived a product that was dead to many. The “end” may be the new beginning WWE has so desperately needed.

Home sales are down for Toledo through the first half of this year.

3,080 homes were sold from January to June of 2011, compared to 3,417 for the same period in 2010, a 9.9 percent reduction, according to the Ohio Association of Realtors.

Total revenue was $311,929,000, down from $365,639,000 through June 2010, a 14.7 percent reduction.

The average price of homes is also down 5.4 percent, from $107,006 in 2010 to $101,276.

Ed Sitter, president of the Toledo Board of Realtors, remains cautiously optimistic.

“I think there is a very fragile recovery taking place,” he said. “I think we are going to see an increase [in] the amount of sales over last year in the months of July, August and September.”

In this time of comic book reboots, relaunches and great uncertainty, it’s nice to know you can count on a few damn dirty apes. The “Planet of the Apes” franchise is enjoying something of a renaissance, with a new feature film and an excellent new comic book series.

“Planet of the Apes,” from BOOM! Studios, gives “Apes” fans what they want: stories set within the continuity of the original film series. Forget that Tim Burton “re-imagining” from a few years ago; the comic sets itself “1,200 years before a man named Taylor fell from the stars …” If you remember, the five “Apes” movies were something of a loop, each one feeding into the next. Writer Daryl Gregory cleverly plants the comic in a time period between the last film, “Battle of the Planet of the Apes,” and the 1968 Charlton Heston classic. It’s fertile ground for a fascinating tale: humans are losing everything that once made them masters of the world and the apes continue to rise in supremacy. Into this boiling kettle is sprinkled an assassin, who kills the ape Lawgiver and sets off further tensions between the simians and the increasingly subjugated humans.
All credit must be given to Gregory, a novelist by trade, for his characters. The denizens of “Skintown,” the human ghetto, are led by, of all things, a pregnant woman. Here is no buxom, bubbleheaded blonde in a loincloth; Mayor Sullivan is pretty, yes, but also intelligent, willful and full of action, despite her condition. The apes are represented by Sullivan’s former playmate, the Lawgiver’s daughter Alaya, and the towering Nix, a gorilla general who is released from prison to bring in the assassin. These characters crackle with life to the point that you’ll yearn to one day see them on the silver screen.
“Apes” artist Carlos Magno infuses the series with scruffy life and detail. While his apes tend to be a blend of the original film primates and the Burton reboot, Magno draws everything on the page with careful attention, making you want to go back and savor the art after devouring the words. He and Gregory have produced a book worthy of the “Apes” legacy.
Just in time for the new “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” film, August brings the fourth issue of the comic’s first story arc, the trade paperback collection of the first four issues and “Planet of the Apes” No. 5 for only $1. Get your paws on them, ape lovers.

After years with the Allman Brothers Band, Derek Trucks, 32, is starting a family band of his own. Trucks and his wife Susan Tedeschi are bringing the Tedeschi Trucks Band to the Centennial Terrace in Sylvania on July 24.

The Susan Tedeschi Band and The Derek Trucks Band were each formed in 1994, 10 years before the couple ever met. In 2010, Trucks and Tedeschi left their solo careers behind to combine forces.

“We’d been kicking around the idea for years, and the timing finally worked out,” Trucks said. “We had a lot going on the last 10 years between our solo bands. We released 10 records between the two of us. Between touring with the Allman Brothers and Eric Clapton, and having two kids, it was just really busy. A couple years ago the window finally opened up.”

Whenever Trucks and Tedeschi’s tours used to sync up, they would combine bands for what they called the Soul Stew Revival. While Trucks is happy to be playing with his wife full time, leaving his band was not easy.

“I’ve been with my guys for close to 16 years, so it was definitely a tough decision,” he said. “You have to continually move and change and shake things up to keep it fresh. The timing was right, and it seems to have worked out well for everybody.”

Trucks didn’t completely leave his band behind as his longtime keyboardist Kofi Burbridge joined the 11-member Tedeschi Trucks Band. Trucks also recruited Kofi’s brother Oteil, the bass player for the Allman Brothers Band.

“It’s great having that continuity along with some new blood,” Trucks said. “It’s nice having fresh ideas and the continuity of lifelong chemistry with people.

“We decided we were going to swing for the fences. It’s a huge personal, emotional and financial investment. You go all in and try to make it work. It puts your feet over the fire. There is no margin for error when you have that many people on the road.”

The band survived its first major road trip with a tour across Europe from June 29 to July 10.

“We had some really great shows in London and Paris and at the North Sea Jazz Festival and Montreux Jazz Festival,” Trucks said. “Those types of tours really solidify the band. Everybody digs in a little harder, and the next tour back home is that much better for it. You kind of have to build things from the ground up in Europe because our band is brand new over there. It feels like you’re going back in time about 10 years career-wise.”

Trucks began playing guitar at age nine and was considered a child prodigy shortly after. He started touring with the Allman Brothers Band playing slide guitar at the age of 12. In 2003, “Rolling Stone” ranked him the 81st greatest guitarist of all time.

“I feel like I can say whatever I want with the slide guitar,” Trucks said. “At this point, it’s pretty much an extension of what I hear in my head. It’s a very lyrical instrument. You can emulate the human voice and do a lot of things with it.”

At 15, Trucks formed his solo project. He has played with several music legends such as Buddy Guy, Bob Dylan and Joe Walsh, and he toured with Eric Clapton in 2006.

“Anytime you transition when you’re a ‘child prodigy,’ people show up for the novelty of it,” Trucks said. “They want to see you do a certain thing. Once you stop playing straight blues tunes they’re like, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ You’re not doing Allman Brothers covers and people are freaking out. In a great way, it hardened me to peoples’ opinions and criticism. You realize if what you’re doing feels right, it’s probably right.”

Trucks met his wife in 1999 after he officially joined the Allman Brothers and she was their opening act. They got married two years later.

“I can’t think of many singers that are still alive that can do everything she can do,” Trucks said. “Her name should be in the discussion with great living vocalists. She has an unbelievable instrument and a huge range with a very emotional sound. If I was a vocalist, I wouldn’t want to sing after her.”

He might not want to sing after her, but Trucks was pitted against his wife at the 2010 Grammy Awards in the “Best Contemporary Blues Album” category. Trucks won the award for his album “Already Free.”

“It was funny when I saw the nominations,” he said. “It was a long running joke. She was on my record and I was on hers, so it was a win-win either way. We were just glad it ended up in the house.”

Another thing the couple has in their house in Jacksonville, Fla. is a recording studio, which Trucks said was crucial to the development of the band.

“We couldn’t afford to make the record we did in another studio,” Trucks said. “We got to spend as much time as we wanted going out and really digging in. We made sure the sounds were right. Even after the band and [engineer] Jim Scott were gone, I was doing a lot of my guitar stuff and vocal overdubs.”

After forming the Tedeschi Trucks Band, the couple spent a year co-writing 30 songs, which they cut down to 11. The band’s debut album “Revelator” was released June 7.

“I’d been on the road for the last 20 years before we put this group together,” Trucks said. “This was the first time I could stop and take a deep breath and figure out what had happened. The writing process was pretty devoted that way. It allowed us both to dig in and figure out where we were and what we had done up to this point. It was a great process. Personally and musically, it brought us a lot closer together.”

The new band has been a transition for Trucks from extended solos to more story-driven songs.

“I had done plenty of recordings where I can play as long as I feel, and that’s kind of a trip, but this is a different side of your playing,” he said. “A lot of people can get boxed into ‘total freedom’ musically. I don’t think it’s always what serves you best.

“It doesn’t matter what category it fits into or what peoples’ expectations are. It has to be good enough to last. I’m at the point now where that’s what I care about. I want to make music that still sounds fresh and honest 20 years down the road.”

Trucks is confident “Revelator” is honest and has lasting appeal.

“I can’t think of any other project that I’ve been on that I can listen start to finish and not want to change anything,” he said. “I love the way everybody in the band treated the performances and the songs. This album went less for the instant gratification, smacking people in the face immediately, and went more for a piece of art that’s going to last. I think it’s going to age really well.”

The concert starts at 7:30 p.m. with gates opening at 6 p.m. on July 24. Tickets range from $28 to $47.50 and are available at Ticketmaster outlets. Centennial Terrace is located at 5773 Centennial Rd.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” Trucks said. “It’s such a new band. The live shows are stretching out and we’re still writing tunes. It’s going to be a fun story to watch unfold, even from the inside.”

During the past five years, Cold Conspiracy has shared the stage with Boston, Finger Eleven, Saliva, Framing Hanley, My Darkest Days, Taproot, Pop Evil, Flaw, Primer 55, Adelitas Way and Sevendust. For the Monroe-based rockers, getting good shows has not been much of a problem. Getting exposure has.
“We’re trying to get that started right now, but it’s so hard,” Cold Conspiracy frontman Jeff Prewitt said. “That’s what’s cool about Toledo. We like going down there playing and it’s easy for our fans to make it down that way. But when you try to book out of your range it’s really hard to get into places because they always want you to have a draw, and it’s like impossible to have a draw when you haven’t played in that area yet because all you really have is the Internet to show people.”
A five-piece outfit comprised of Prewitt (vocals), Brian Balk (guitar), Adam Champagne (guitar), Lonnie Stump (bass) and Sean Belcher (drums), Cold Conspiracy will perform at the Omni on July 23 as an opening act for Shadows In Red’s CD release party. Cold Conspiracy wants to expand its music beyond the Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan areas, and part of that effort has been through the Internet.

One of those online avenues for Cold Conspiracy is a battle of the bands competition to play on the Best Buy Music Gear Stage on Sept. 9 at DTE Energy Music Theatre in Clarkston as part of the Rockstar Energy Drink Uproar Festival. Highlights for the grand prize winner include a slot to play on every tour stop of next year’s Uproar Festival, an EP produced by Jay Baumgardner at NRG Studios in Hollywood and $10,000 in gear through Best Buy Musical Instruments.
“It’d be a big accomplishment, and it’d be another stepping stone for us,” Balk said. “It’s just hard for us, being a few of the guys in the band have families, so they know they have to put food on the table for the kids. So it’s hard for us just to get up and go like a lot of these other bands do that are established.
“We’re not established yet, so we just have to dig in when we can and hope we get our break. Plus, winning something online that our fans can help put us through on would be amazing.”
Cold Conspiracy recorded its self-titled, debut album in the home studio of Champagne’s stepfather Jerry Gysin; it was released on March 10, 2010 and is available for mp3 download on Amazon.com. The band also has a three-song demo — only available through Cold Conspiracy — featuring new tracks “Leave You,” “Break Free” and “Never Let You Go,” which were recorded with Ben Schigel of Spider Studios. The band wants to record its next album with Schigel, who has worked with Drowning Pool, Chimaira and Walls of Jericho, among others.
While Cold Conspiracy has struggled — like many bands trying to make it as full-time musicians — Prewitt said the group has a strong foundation in Toledo to build on.
“People — if they don’t like you — they’re not going to go out of their way to tell you, ‘Good job,’” Prewitt said. “It’s like, yeah, some people do kind of do that, but we have got such great responses from people down [in Toledo]. It’s kind of unbelievable.
“Of course, you always get your crappy shows now and then where you get booked somewhere and there’s five people standing in front of you, but for the most part any time we play in Toledo we always get a really good crowd reaction, and we just need to start spreading it other places, start spreading it further into Ohio, too.”
Cold Conspiracy and The Unknown will open for Shadows In Red at the Omni, located at 2567 Bancroft St.. Doors open at 8 p.m. and tickets are $5 in advance. For more information, call (419) 535-6664. To check out Cold Conspiracy, visit myspace.com/coldconspiracy or reverbnation.com/coldconspiracy.

It’s an easy narrative for a writer to latch onto: After charming younger audiences for quite a few years with its children’s albums, veteran alternative rock group They Might Be Giants is finally returning its focus to its adult fans with the new release “Join Us.” But in an interview with Toledo Free Press Star, TMBG co-founder John Linnell said he and longtime collaborator John Flansburgh are just resuming the status quo.
“This is the heart of what we do. We actually started writing this album a number of years ago,” Linnell said.
“It was back to business. And at this stage in our lives — maybe time goes by a lot quicker or something like that — but we’ve been making this kind of album for 25 years now. Yeah, it maybe didn’t feel like as big of a gap for us. We just felt like we were getting back on the horse.”

John Flansburgh, left, and John Linnell PHOTO: GIRLIE ACTION MEDIA

Don’t get Linnell wrong; he’s not minimizing the work TMBG did on its children’s albums — hit releases like “Here Come the 123s” and “Here Comes Science.” In fact, he said in some ways they may have been some of the most important pieces he and Flansburgh ever did.
“It occurred to us that we were doing music for people who were not just hearing us for the first time, some of them were hearing music for the first time. And that was a really different — that’s a much more serious gig, in a way. But it also, in a way, lets us off the hook, because we normally feel like we’re under this pressure to do music that will be compared to other music. And that is not the case when you’re writing for 4-year-olds.”
But the pressure is back on for the Johns. “Join Us” comes nearly 30 years into a legacy that has seen some of the most wonderfully unique music ever to hit the modern pop scene. For the artists, the passion their music ignites in fans can give every new album added weight and importance. But Linnell said that the duo’s writing process isn’t burdened by such thoughts.
“My sense is, we can appraise the flavor of the project after the fact. But we are a strikingly goal-free band. John and I don’t really know what we’re entering into when we start working on something. We’re just trying to do the best kind of work we can. And I think, maybe, this is the key to doing good work for us. It’s that we don’t try and create parameters for us. We just kind of relax and let our minds wander and make up stuff,” Linnell said.
So it’s like they can’t see the forest for the trees? “That’s pretty fair,” Linnell said. “I think we get to walk out of the forest and look at it when we’re finished, but we are very busily growing individual trees during the making and the planning of the project.”
But there still is pressure to make the overall work as strong as possible, Linnell said.
“One of the reasons that it took so long to make this album is that we’re really fussy about what passes muster. We wrote a lot of songs. We recorded, I think, something like 30 songs. So we have a lot of extra material that didn’t wind up on the album.”
The process of whittling down a work like “Join Us” can be painful, he said.
“Was it William Faulkner who said you have to kill your darlings? That is so horribly true. You slave over this stuff, you grow fond of it and then you realize you’re going to have to get out the long knives,” Linnell laughed.
That kind of effort makes having a strong collaborator all the more important. Linnell and Flansburgh have worked together longer than most bands exist. What’s the secret to their longevity?
“I don’t know. It’s a secret from us, I would say,” Linnell joked. “The secret is very well kept, because even we don’t know what it is. We still get along, and we respect and fear each other. I don’t look forward to having something I’ve done be rejected or frowned upon by Mr. Flansburgh, and I try to make him fear me in exactly the same way. So I think that’s part of our creative relationship —  we have someone we respect who will say something meaningful about what we’re doing, even if we’re not sure about what anyone else is going to think of it.”
Still, Linnell said he hopes longtime fans and newcomers get satisfaction from “Join Us.”
“This maybe gets back to the title of the album — I hope people feel that they’re included in it, that they are on the inside of what we’re doing, that it’s not some ‘too cool for you’ kinda thing,” he said. “The way that I want to consume music is that it’s just something that’s available, but it’s not pandering. It’s accessible.”

Email Jeff at PopGoesJeff@gmail.com.

The Arts Commission of Greater Toledo (ACGT) is highlighting the local music scene July 22 with Downtown SoundTrek, an event featuring more than 30 bands at 13 venues in Downtown Toledo.
SoundTrek is a new take on the former Toledo Jazz Festival. The cost of admission provides access to all 13 locations and bus rides between venues. The shows are split between the Warehouse District and the Uptown District.
“We were looking for ideas and ways to expand our services to the performing arts community,” said Ryan Bunch, performing and literary arts coordinator at the ACGT. “We wanted to present Toledo’s music scene in a new way. Instead of reinventing the wheel, we took the model we had from the Jazz loop. We made it a tighter bus loop and more multigenre. It’s representative of what’s going on in venues Downtown.”
According to Bunch, the main goal of SoundTrek is to showcase musicians in Toledo. There are only three bands performing from outside the Toledo area.
“These are Toledo musicians in venues that are working to present live music in the community,” Bunch said. “It’s about elevating and highlighting that. It’s getting people to come down and see the wealth of venues, how close they are, how walkable they are and what a diverse range of music there is. It gives the community a chance to get a broad sampling of everything going on in one night.”

Ryan Bunch

One of the artists the community can see is Kyle White as the acoustic rocker kicks things off at PizzaPapalis at 519 Monroe St. White is releasing her second CD “On With the Show” on July 24.
“Toledo is full of extremely talented people,” White said. “The music scene in Toledo would rival any big city. I was in a suburb of Chicago in April, and on a Tuesday night there wasn’t anything going on anywhere. In Toledo, you can go out any night of the week to numerous places and find live music.”
Old State Line guitarist Thomas Barden is excited  about the promotion SoundTrek provides for local venues. His band is opening at the Glass City Cafe.
“It gets more people out in the neighborhood going to things,” Barden said. “Glass City Cafe is great, but it’s hard because people don’t know about it. It’s a great place. The management is wonderful. After Friday night, a lot more people will know about it.”
While Bunch is excited about the music around Toledo today, he’s also proud of the city’s musical past.
“Toledo has a remarkably long and rich history in music,” he said. “It’s the birthplace of Art Tatum and John Hendricks. You have the kind of garage blues renaissance that started here and worked its way up to Detroit. There’s a wide-reaching, broad range of music that’s happened here. It’s always been here. We haven’t quite gotten our dues as the next hip explosion, but it’s really rich. There’s a lot of talent here. I’m constantly astounded by how many people are not just talented at what they do but can work across genres. The music community is really well connected and supportive.”
With such a diverse history, Bunch wanted SoundTrek to represent as many genres as possible.
“If we were going to do this, it needed to be representative of the broad range of styles happening in the area,” he said. “As time goes on and digital music becomes more prevalent, the idea of genres is melting away anyway. If you took a sampling from most peoples’ iPods, there’s a broad range of stuff on there.”
Because of the wide array of musicians and venues in Toledo, the ACGT formed a committee to select the artists and where they would play.
“We were feeling our way through the dark to figure out how it was going to look and work,” Bunch said. “The committee put their heads together and tried to come up with something that is broad in scope. Since we’re working with a lot of established venues that present music, we wanted to make sure they were comfortable with the music they would be presenting. It was a collaboration between the committee and the venue owners to figure out how we could stretch the borders but not go too far with it. It’s been really fun getting to know a handful of venues and working with them. They’ve all really picked up the ball and been excited about it.”
One venue Bunch is particularly excited for is Bozarts Fine Art and Music Gallery.
“[Owner] Jerry Gray put together a killer lineup,” Bunch said. “He was already putting together a show when we contacted him, so it worked out. He has The Staving Chain, which is kind of a traditional Delta blues group. They have Dooley Wilson, who for my money is the best guitar player in the tri-state area. He’s a killer guitar player. Danny Kroha is playing with them, and he’s kind of a Detroit music legend. That should be an awesome lineup.”
The lineup also includes Boom Chick, a rock ‘n’ roll duo from Brooklyn with Moselle Spiller on drums and Frank Hoier on guitar and vocals.
“I’m super excited about the lineup we have,” Gray said. “It’s going to be mostly blues-oriented rock. Boom Chick contacted me online, and the date worked out. It’s their first time in Toledo. They are excellent.”
Bunch said the ACGT plans to use SoundTrek as an annual fundraising event. Proceeds will fund programs such as Artomatic 419!, the art walks and the gallery loops, all of which are presented free to the community. The event also serves as part of an effort to integrate the performing arts into the ACGT.
“The arts commission has always typically been visual arts heavy,” Bunch said. “There used to be a specific performing arts council in Toledo until about 10 years ago. Since then, the slack has not been picked up. It’s been interesting to go through and see what a really broad and diverse array of individuals and organizations there are that are working and haven’t been brought together yet.”
SoundTrek partnered with the first annual Toledo Music Expo, which is July 23 at the Erie Street Market. The event features live performances and provides networking opportunities for artists, venues and vendors.
“That was kind of a serendipitous aspect of the event,” Bunch said. “When we were brainstorming, we thought it would be cool to have a little expo of people who weren’t going to be on this loop. There are so many music related businesses and companies, so we thought we could have people come down and promote their business and show there is a wide network that reaches across the state. It seemed too daunting to take on for the first time. We just wanted to get the bus loop part right.”
“No sooner did we scrap that idea, and put it on the back burner for future years, than we were contacted. They pitched us an idea similar to what we were thinking. It made a lot of sense to cross promote each other’s events and show that over this one weekend there is a broad range of getting a sampling of the music scene. They very generously agreed to donate a portion of their proceeds back to the arts commission. We are incredibly grateful for it.”
The Toledo Music Expo is donating a portion of profits to ACGT and is offering a $5 discount to those who attend SoundTrek.
SoundTrek runs from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. Wristbands for the event are $15 in advance and $20 on July 22, and admission to individual venues is available for $5. Visit www.ACGT.org for more information.
“If you’re a music fan at all, I think it’s a pretty easy sell,” Bunch said. “If you have any interest in getting to know your city or getting to know like-minded people, it’s all right here. You get to ride around on a bus Downtown and go bar hopping, which is not something you get to do every day.”

Sound Trek Spotlight: Kyle White reaches for the stars

Kyle White put her autobiography to music with her second album “On With the Show,” which she is debuting at a CD release party July 24.
The album is heavily influenced by White’s family. It features a variety of instruments such as violin, trumpet, dobro and mandolin. White’s father Don plays the banjo on three songs.
“He’s been a huge influence on me musically,” she said. “I’ve been surrounded by live music my entire life. My dad’s friends are all musicians. My grandfather [Robert White] is on the wall at the SeaGate Centre for the Lake Erie West Hall of Fame. My dad is an exceptional banjo player and a great bass player, guitar player and singer. It was great to have him on the CD. It’s something I’ll always have.”
The album was also heavily influenced by White’s sister Tamara. White wrote the song “Forever Friend” for her sister when she was sick.

Kyle White

“The album would have been done a lot sooner, but all of 2009 my sister was really sick,” White said. “We didn’t know exactly what was going to happen. I was sad and just wanted to write a tribute to her. She had to have a bone marrow transplant. There’s only a 20 percent chance a sibling will be a match, but luckily I was, so I was her donor. Out of the entire bone marrow floor at the Cleveland Clinic, only her and one other person made it. All of that was going on when I was planning on recording. I was driving to Cleveland every few days.”
Tamara made a full recovery.
“You would never even know anything was wrong with her now,” White said. “They said they’ve never seen anybody’s stem cells graft as fast as mine. I blamed it on all the Guinness I drink because it’s full of iron.”
The title track, “On With the Show,” was written as a not-so-subtle hint to her fiancé before they got engaged.
“We didn’t get engaged until we were together for five years,” White said. “I wrote that about a year and a half ago. It was kind of a message to him. It worked.”
Every song on the album comes from experiences in White’s life.
“I wrote a song about the river and sitting on my boat,” she said. “There’s a song called ‘August in Ohio’ about just hanging out on the front porch. I only write about my personal experiences. I’ve been writing for the past couple of years. I write sporadically. When a song comes to me, I just write it.”
Writing is still a relatively new experience for White. Her first album “Blue Holes in a Gray Sky” was released in 2009.
“I played covers for eight years before I ever wrote a song,” White said. “Singing so many different kinds of music hones you in to what’s going to come out of you.”
White might have never started a career in music if she hadn’t participated in a karaoke contest years ago.
“When I was 19, I worked at Primetime and they had karaoke on Sundays,” White said. “I used to sing ‘Me and Bobby McGee’ and win the contest. The prize was $50 to the bar, so I would get pizza and pop for my friends. When the cover band Tito Slack was starting out, my friend said, ‘My boyfriend has a band. Why don’t you come sing with them in the basement?’ I sang a couple of songs and I was in the band.”
After joining the band, White decided to take up an instrument.
“I didn’t just want to be a singer, so I started teaching myself guitar,” she said. “I played for a couple years before I played guitar at a show.”
White graduated from the University of Toledo with a degree in psychology. If she hadn’t participated in the karaoke contest, she might have been a school psychologist today.
“I was going to go back and get my masters in school psychology,” White said. “I decided to play music for a couple years and see how it goes. It never slowed down. I’m playing more and more. I’m lucky to be able to do something I love for a living.”
Along with her solo career, White also plays in a cover band called Johnny Rocker and the Hitmen. The band’s biggest claim to fame is playing at a John McCain rally.
“It’s a complete 180 from my solo gigs,” White said. “It’s so much fun. We play ’60s, ’70s and ’80s and we do costume changes for each era. Sometimes people don’t even know it’s me because I’m in a big blonde afro and a disco costume. They are really fun to play with.”
She also plays covers in her solo act and is happy to take requests. She learns two or three covers every week and has built a catalog of between 200 and 300 songs.
“I’ve always had the kind of memory where if I took notes in school, I never had to look at them again,” White said. “I just kind of remember things. I have a really good memory, especially for music.”
White has been playing in Toledo for 14 years and plans on sticking around, but she does love to travel. She has been to all but four of the 50 states and has traveled across Europe several times. The last time she went to Europe, she caught a surprise performance.
“We were jamming with these people at a bar in Amsterdam and Sublime showed up,” White said. “We didn’t know it, but they were playing at a place right next door to our hotel. They showed up to this open jam with only about 30 or 40 people and played a half hour set. I was jamming with the house band right before Sublime took the stage, so that was pretty cool.”
White’s CD release party starts at 7 p.m. July 24 at Mulvaney’s Bunker located at 4945 Dorr St. There is no cover, and the show features 17-year-old Claire Cooper as the opening act.
“I like giving younger people experience playing in front of people,” White said. “She’s a natural. It’s crazy. She is never the least bit nervous.”
White is also the opening act at PizzaPapalis on July 22 as part of Downtown SoundTrek. The event features more than 30 bands at 13 venues downtown from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. Wristbands for SoundTrek are $15 in advance and $20 on July 22, and admission to individual venues is available for $5. Visit www.ACGT.org for more information.

Sound Trek Spotlight: Veteran pilots band to new heights
Mild-mannered college dean by day, guitar hero by night, Thomas Barden plays with Old State Line alongside his wife and a few of their friends.
Barden, dean of the Honors College at the University of Toledo, has performed for more than 40 years after starting in music at 16 in Virginia.
“It was the folk revival,” Barden said. “Everyone was playing. Peter, Paul & Mary and Bob Dylan were big. Their songs were simple. I got an old cheap guitar to start with and had a group in high school. When I got to college, there was an old-time music scene with fiddlers and all those old guys. It was great. I hung out in a coffeehouse instead of a fraternity. It was just the time it was.”
He stuck with the guitar for years, but Barden’s folk background eventually led him to pick up a mandolin.
“I avoided anything but guitar until I was around 50, thinking it might confuse me,” he said. “One of the old guys at a jam in Toledo told me, ‘it doesn’t confuse you, it just helps you get better. The chords are upside down and backwards.’ As soon as he told me that, I got one from Durdel’s Music and just started trying it. He was right. It makes your guitar playing better.”

Old State Line

Barden figured out the mandolin then took up another instrument called a dobro.
“The dobro was a Christmas gift from my wife and kids,” Barden said. “They said, ‘Okay, you’re so smart, figure this one out.’ That one is open tuned with a slide. It is tough. I only do a few tunes with it, only three or four, but it’s such a great country sound.”
After years of watching her husband play, Rayna Zacharias said she decided to learn to play bass guitar.
“She was looking for a way to relax,” Barden said. “She’s been around the band for as long as we’ve been married. She figures it’s easier to be in it than to be a roadie. She’s really good, that’s the thing. We weren’t sure. That was going to be a little tense in the family if she was crappy. We won’t have to have that conversation.”
Zacharias has brought new ideas to the band from her lessons at Durdel’s Music.
“We’re partners in everything else, and being music partners is great, too,” Barden said. “She has such a great teacher now in Jason Gahler. She brings home stuff that’s a real stretch, and I get to practice with her before we take it to the band.”
Old State Line also features Cindy Lipman on fiddle and vocals, Larry Meyer on drums and Ramsey Abu-Absi on guitar, mandolin and vocals.
“I’m married to the bass player and I’ve been playing with the fiddler for decades,” Barden said. “Everybody knew everybody anyhow. It was just an occasion for this jam to go public. Me, Cindy and my wife just did jams on Sunday afternoons. We talked to Larry about trying to drum, then Ramsey came in. He’s an incredible guitar player and a really good mandolin player, too. We just would do afternoon jams in our house, and it got so good we had to take it out.”
Before forming Old State Line, Barden and Lipman played together in other groups, such as Midnight on the Water and Ten Mile Creek.
“She started playing because she found her grandfather’s fiddle,” Barden said. “I was a guitar player so I backed her up while she got started with it. We’ve been in band after band for 20 years. Ten Mile Creek was more blue-grassy than we are now, because there was no drummer. What’s nice about Old State Line is we have Larry Meyer who is a drummer. It takes us into more of a rockabilly and Johnny Cash area than we were with Ten Mile Creek. It’s really fun.”
Old State Line is without Lipman for the summer while she vacations in Maine, so Abu-Absi’s co-worker Ted Whalen is sitting in with the band.
“He’s a really good fiddler, but he also plays the harmonica,” Barden said. “We’ll probably move more into the Bob Dylan direction since we have a harmonica player. We added more Dylan to the set list because we can hear Ted play that harmonica. It’s such a Bob sound.”
The band plays mostly old fiddle tunes and folk songs, and Barden described their sound as Americana.
“Our style can be really wide-ranging,” Barden said. “Kansas City is a style my wife’s bass instructor taught her. She came home playing the licks to ‘Sunshine of Your Love,’ so we threw that in, too. Right now it’s anything we can do that sounds decent.”
Old State Line is the opening act at Glass City Café or July 22 as part of Downtown SoundTrek. The event features more than 30 bands at 13 venues Downtown from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. Wristbands for SoundTrek are $15 in advance and $20 on July 22, and admission to individual venues is available for $5. Visit www.ACGT.org for more information.

July 22 Sound Trek schedule:
UPTOWN ENTERTAINMENT DISTRICT
1. Bretz Bar 2012 Adams St.
(419) 243-1900 www.myspace.com/bretzthebar
DJs and Drag Show featuring:
11 p.m.: Charlie Slick (electro-pop/dance from Ann Arbor)
12 a.m.: Feleciana Thuderpussy (drag show)
All night: DJ Rob Sample (DJ/dance)

2. Ottawa Tavern 1817 Adams St.
(419) 725-5483 www.otavern.com
7 p.m.: Balloon Messenger (indie)
8 p.m.: Microdot (shoegaze)
9 p.m.: Great Uncle (rock/pop)
10 p.m.: Great Lakes Crew (hip-hop)
11 p.m.: GoLab (electro-pop/rock)
12 a.m.: Matt Truman Ego Trip (glam rock)
1 a.m.: Frank & Jesse (rock n’ roll)

3. Truth Art Gallery 1811 Adams St.
(419) 460-1343 www.thetruthtoledo.com/gallery
8 – 11 p.m.: 4 Deep (jazz/blues/soul)

4. The Attic on Adams 1701 Adams St.
(419) 243-5350 www.theatticonadams.com
7:30 p.m. & 9:30 p.m.: Leyla & Raq the Casbah
10 p.m. – 12:30 a.m.: Big Blues Bob (Chicago-style blues)
Plus live magic and more!

5. Manhattan’s 1516 Adams St.
(419) 243-6675 www.manhattanstoledo.com
7:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. :DFR (funk/R&B)
10 p.m. – 1 a.m.: Tom Turner & Slow Burn (blues/rock)

6. Toledo School for the Arts 333 14th St.
(419) 246-8732 www.ts4arts.com
Enter on 15th St., across from Manhattan’s
7 – 9 p.m.: Glass City Steel (steel drum ensemble)
9 – 11 p.m.: Benny and the Bricks (rock)
11 p.m. – 1 a.m.: The Groove Associates (groovy)

7. Wesley’s Bar 1201 Adams St.
(419) 255-3333 www.wesleysbar.com
7:30 p.m.: Lance Hulsey (of Kentucky Chrome) (rockabilly)
8:30 – 10 p.m. – Mighthaveben (The Band) (jazz/folk/funk)
10:30 p.m. – 2:30 a.m.: Old School Fridays featuring DJs Todd Perrine, N.Matimoe and Folk (DJs/old school funk, soul, & hip-hop)

8. Toledo City Paper Offices 1120 Adams St.
(419) 244-9859 www.toledocitypaper.com
7 p.m.: Raine Wilder (hip-hop)
7:55 p.m.: Ben Barefoot and the Handshakes (indie rock)
8:50 p.m.: Decent Folk (folk/indie)
9:45 p.m.: Stonehouse (jam rock)
10:40 p.m.: Shit Dang Monstertrucks! (alt-country)
11:30 p.m.: Thirty Three & 1/3 (blues/indie rock)
12:20 a.m.: Gold (funk/rock)

9. Glass City Café 1107 Jackson St.
(419) 241-4519 www.glasscitycafe.com
7:30 – 10 p.m.: Old State Line (Americana)
10 p.m. – 12 a.m. Black Swamp String Band (bluegrass)

STADIUM/ARENA DISTRICT
10. The Blarney Bullpen/Toledo Free Press Star 601 Monroe St.
(419) 418-2339 www.theblarneyirishpub.com
Enter on Huron Street.
7:30 p.m. – 12 a.m.: Hepcat Revival  (swing/jazz)

11. Table Forty4 610 Monroe St.
(419) 725-0044 www.tableforty4.com
7 – 9:30 p.m.: Bobby May & John Barile (rock/blues)
10 p.m. – 1 a.m.: The Chris Shutters Band (rock/blues)

12. PizzaPapalis 519 Monroe St.
(419) 244-7722 www.pizzapapalis.com
7:15 p.m.: Kyle White (acoustic/folk)
8:15 p.m.: The Faux Paus (indie rock)
9:45 p.m.: Chavar Dontae (electronic/soul/rock)
11:30 p.m.: The Quickness (rock/blues/jazz)

13. Bozarts Fine Art & Music Gallery
151 N. St. Clair St. (419) 464-5785
7:30 p.m.: The ‘Leles (ukulele/folk)
8:30 p.m.: Thirty Three & 1/3 (blues rock/indie)
9:30 p.m.: Danny Kroha (formerly of The Gories) (acoustic blues from Detroit)
10:30 p.m.: The Staving Chain (featuring
Dooley Wilson) (traditional Delta-style slide blues)
12 a.m. – Boom Chick (blues-surf-rock from Brooklyn)

Partner Event: The First Toledo Music Expo!
The following day, Saturday, July 23, J&L Entertainment Services will host Toledo’s first Toledo Music Expo. A portion of proceeds from the event will benefit the Arts Commission of Greater Toledo. Save $5 at the door with your SoundTrek wristband. The First Toledo Music Expo will take place at the Erie Street Market in Downtown Toledo. This event is for local musicians, singers, songwriters, engineers, recording studios, videographers, and more. For more information visit them on the web at ToledoMusicExpo.com.

Tricked-out cars, fast-paced action, and multiplayer options rule this PlayStation 3 action/racing game, “Cars 2” (Disney Interactive), which adds more credibility to games adapted from movies. There is no online mode, but players can access the special “World of Cars” feature for additional content including additional car characters. Beginning car characters include Lightning McQueen, voiced by Keith Ferguson, Holley Shiftwell and Mater, voiced by Larry the Cable Guy.

Players can unlock several options in the C.H.R.O.M.E. Missions career mode while the biggest plus is the four-player split-screen in all game modes. Other main game modes include garage and freeplay, which are a great complement to the regular training for beginning level drivers. Sub-modes include battle race, hunter, attack, survival, and squad series plus competitive (battle arena) and cooperative (disruptor) multiplayer modes.
Another outstanding feature is the 3-D TV option. The appealing color and lighting schemes help distinguish the visual elements even more as the action pops out in one of the best action PS3 games yet.
The familiar setup and unique actions create some satisfying action with easy to learn controls. Players get speed boosts by performing special moves like drifting, using the circle button, which is the easiest way to get boost.
Players can also drive in reverse for big boost additions by holding the right joystick down.
The trigger button scheme has a nice offense (R2 gas and R1 taunt) and defense (L1 look back and L2 brake) setup. Jump combinations impress as players use the right analog stick after pressing the x button to avoid attacks or attack smaller cars (aka the antagonistic lemons).
Improvements for the next likely installment include better car engine sounds and more original voice talent (***1/2, rated E10+ for cartoon violence, also available on Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, PC, and Xbox 360).

Many of Toledo’s underground poets are being included in the summer’s Art Walks.
“Poetry is definitely an underground scene in Toledo. Nobody really hears about it; it’s not talked about,” said Greg Peters, a local poet. “It’s not out there anywhere; it’s not really mainstream.”
July 21 in the Toledo Free Press warehouse at the corner of Huron and Washington streets Downtown, Peters and local poets John Dorsey, Michael Grover, Kayla Marie Williams, Christina Brooks and Mike Hackney will read their works as a stop on the Arts Commission of Greater Toledo Art Walk.
“I’ve been telling people for years that we’re in between two cultural meccas of writing that people aren’t aware of, Ann Arbor and Bowling Green,” Hackney said.
He said all poetry read will be original and most of it will be free verse, without a set rhyme scheme or rhythmic meter.
“I feel obligated to write [poetry] because I read it. It’s a heightened sense of awareness, a heightened sense of language, we all feel passionately about it. Passion is a good word,” Hackney said.
Despite the passion of the writers, they’re having trouble getting attention from the public.
“People get scared of poetry,” Grover said.
“I think the readings by and large are poets reading to other poets,” Hackney said.
Though Peters said about 15 listeners attended the last Art Walk readings, the poets are hoping for a much larger and more diverse crowd on July 21.
The free event will be open from 6 to 9 p.m.
Toledo Free Press is also co-sponsoring the Aug. 6 “Zygote in My Fez Poetry Festival,” from 4 to 10 p.m. at the Collingwood Arts Center. Red Fez and Zygote in my Coffee are the primary forces behind the event, which will feature nearly two dozen poets reading their works.
“It’s not only entertainment; it’s enlightenment as entertainment. And it’s free! It’s the best show in town for nothing,” Peters said.

What was just a dream two years ago will become reality this week as two native Toledoans open an art supply store Downtown.
The Art Supply Depo, at 29 S. St. Clair St., will be open 6 to 9 p.m. July 21, during the Arts Commission of Greater Toledo’s July Art Walk. Its first official day of business will be July 22.
Hours will be 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and closed Sunday and Monday.
Proprietors Jules Webster and Dana Syrek said the shop will fill a niche by specializing in difficult-to-find supplies local artists need.

Dana Syrek and Jules Webster.

“We knew the area needed an art supply store,” said Webster, owner of Shine Ceramics and a graduate of the University of Toledo’s art department. “There’s a real void.”
Webster, a Toledo Free Press Star columnist, said UT once had an art supply store, but it closed. Downtown business Scrap 4 Art deals in scrap art material. Sylvania has For the Love of Art, but there was nothing Downtown, Syrek said.
The business model was inspired by an art supply store Syrek frequented while a student at Miami University in Oxford. That owner caters mainly to Miami’s small art department, working with professors to align what the store carries to what students need for classes.
“A lot of art stores can be overwhelming because there’s just so much stuff,” Syrek said. “This wasn’t overwhelming. It had exactly what I needed.”
The pair is working closely with UT’s art department and has reached out to other local schools as well.
The Art Supply Depo will carry typical items like paint, pastels and colored pencils, but will focus mainly on securing hard-to-find items, including large format paper for printmaking and drawing, rolls of canvas and encaustic, a type of paint made of color pigment and wax.
“There’s nowhere else to get that in town, so we’re really trying to fill some specialty needs for materials,” Syrek said.
The shop will also offer discounted bundle packages containing all the supplies needed for an art class. It will also carry copy paper and basic office supplies, Webster said.
Webster and Syrek, who met through a mutual friend, first looked into buying a franchise but didn’t find one, so they decided to come up with their own concept.
“It was literally one of those things that came to me in the middle of the night,” Syrek said.
Plenty of market research helped focus and refine the model based on what local artists were looking for, Syrek said.
“The model really cares about what people are looking for and that’s the core of how we’re building the business,” Syrek said.
A gallery space will sell work by local artists and patrons will be able to use Wi-Fi, browse art books, read, study and exchange ideas in a lounge area, Webster said.
“We just want it to be a place that sparks creativity and just inspires a new mode of thinking,” Webster said.
Future plans include displaying local artwork and becoming a stop on the Art Walks as well as offering in-store workshops, Webster said.
The store’s logo and website were designed by local artist Jemma Hostetler of Studio Sans Nom.
The Downtown location provides proximity to the UT art department, the Toledo Museum of Art and Toledo School for the Arts, Syrek said. It’s also convenient for the core group of artists who live, work and have studios Downtown.
“A lot of the smaller retail businesses are moving back Downtown,” Syrek said. “We felt like St. Clair Street was really the right neighborhood for us to do well.”
Their idea is testament to the possibilities of small business in Toledo, Syrek said.
“We wouldn’t be able to do this probably anywhere else the way we’re doing it here,” Syrek said. “We really believe in Toledo, we believe in Downtown. Small business is possible here and people should embark on their ventures if they choose to. It’s going to be an exciting week. It’s been a long time coming.”
For more information, visit the website www.artsupplydepo.com.