Music fills the city streets

This past Friday and Saturday the Arts Commission of Greater Toledo arranged two new events for the area's art and music scene.

The first event being the inagural Downtown Soundtrek Friday evening.

Thirteen different venues going from Bretz Bar located on Adams Street throug the Stadium/Arena District and 42 local bands participated in the event. Local bands began playing at 7:00 p.m.

There was very little silence through the streets of downtown, the music lead those in attendance through the streets.

Starting just in front of Bretz at the Ottawa Tavern was Balloon Messenger, followed by Microdot. The Ottawa Tavern, as well as every other downtown venue, had full lineups all evening.

Along with Bretz and the OT, the Truth Art Gallery, The Attic on Adams, Manhattan's, Toledo School for the Arts, Wesley's Bar, Toledo City Paper Office, Glass City Café, The Blarney Bullpen, Table Forty4, Pizza Papalis and Bozarts Fine Art & Music Gallery served as venues for the bands.

Local bands at the various venues included The Faux Paus, Gold, Thirty Three & 1/3, Frank & Jesse, Chavar Dontae, Ben Barefoot and the Handshakes, GoLab and The Matt Truman Ego Trip.

Partnering with Downtown SoundTrek was the first annual Toledo Music Expo at the Erie Street Market Saturday. The spacious concert hall provided a great space for bands, merchants and artists as well.

Nineteen bands played from 4:00 p.m. to midnight. Some of the bands included The Glitch, Ryan Dunlap, Kayleigh Moore, Together on the Boardwalk and Murdock.

"People were exposed to multiple genres all in one night," said Nathan Sorg of Murdock. "People that were there to see hip hop bands, stayed to watch our indie pop set, it was awesome to see them open to different music styles."

The expo was Murdock's third show with the current band members. Sorg describes them as "an indie pop, jazz infused style band similar to Feist." They plan to play plenty more shows and produce an album in the near future.

The Loonar Station, Smashline Sounds, Stallion Studios and Artistik Tat2 were some of the vendors for the event. There was also a Red Eye photo booth set up and plenty of food provided.

There were also raffles throughout the night and an after party event.

"Downtown SoundTrek (as well as the expo) is a new fundraiser for ACGT, but it is also about supporting and highlighting Toledo's amazing local performing arts community," said the Downtown SoundTrek Committee. "Toledo has a long, rich and robust history in music, and tonight is about celebrating that," they said.

ACGT is the longest standing arts commission in Ohio, it has been enhancing Toledo's art scene for over 50 years. They serve the community with programs such as the award-winning Young Artists at Work Program and Art in TARTA.

Proceeds from SoundTrek and the music expo directly benefited the arts commission, which goes towards keeping its many community programs free and open to the public.

Upcoming events from ACGT include the downtown Art Walk which takes place every third Thursday of the month. The next one is Aug 18, maps and schedules are available on their website as well as participating venues the day of the event.

The Parkwood Gallery is featuring local artists Katie Christensen, Mitch Labuda and Nate Masternak until August 12. The exhibit delivers each artist's perception of life and space through both living and non-living objects. The Parkwood Gallery is on 1838 Parkwood, Suite 120. Hours of operation are Monday-Friday 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

For more information on ACGT events visit their website www.acgt.org.