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Ravine makes live debut Monday at Westside Bowl

Ravine releases its first EP today and plays its first live gig Monday.

More music is in the pipeline, but this may be the only chance to see the “sad boy pop-rock” trio of Reese Maslen, Frank Toncar and Hobie Butcher before the end of the year.

Monday’s show at Westside Bowl in Youngstown originally was planned for an audience of cameras, Toncar said. Westside has been recording performances there and presenting them on social media. Butcher leaves next weekend for an eight-month job as music supervisor at King’s Dominion amusement park in Virginia, so the band had a tight window to do something.

“We haven’t been able to play and wanted to do that now while we could,” Toncar said. “Things are starting to get more safe. I felt comfortable about having a live audience there and asked Nate (Offerdahl) at Westside Bowl if we could do it.”

Seating will be limited (tickets are available through Eventbrite), and the performance will be recorded and available online at a later date.

The half-hour set starting at 5 p.m. will include the band’s previously released singles, except for “Losing Grip,” which features rappers Tobyraps and James Begin.

“Reese and I can’t pull that off,” Toncar said with a laugh.

They also will play the title track from the new EP, “Charlotte,” and songs slated for release in May (“Imagine”) and July (“You Meant Something To Me”).

“It’s kind of cool to play them before they’re out,” Toncar said. “We haven’t had an opportunity to present anything live first.”

The last year has been a huge disruption for most musicians with live performances shut down. Toncar said Ravine may have benefited from the downtime.

The idea for Ravine — Maslen, guitar and vocals; Toncar, bass, guitar, keyboards and vocals; and Butcher, drums — was hatched on the drive back from a concert in Pittsburgh in January 2020. The plan was to focus on writing and recording, which they did while working as musicians at Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky and another amusement park owned by the same corporation in North Carolina.

“We found a genre that intersects with all of our interests and wanted to take a long time to write music and figure out what we wanted to do and what the identity would be,” Toncar said. “That’s hard to do. You get excited and rush things out. Not being able to play shows made it easier. We didn’t have anything to rush into.”

The band pretty much followed the path it mapped out, releasing a single every month or so, and putting out its first EP in the spring. “Charlotte” features the newly available title track, the previously released singles and two acoustic recordings.

The only part of the plan that hasn’t happened is a move to Nashville. Instead Butcher will work in Virginia, and Toncar and Maslen will return to Cedar Point. While many musicians were stuck at home last summer, Toncar said they played six shows per day six days per week at the amusement park.

“You’re not playing your own music or things you want to play, but that’s also a skill you need to have, being able to pull off a good show (under those circumstances),” Toncar said. “And I had a Macbook and mini keyboard working on Ravine stuff in the dressing room between shows.

“Once we’re back together, live music as a whole should be back to normal, and we’re hoping to make (Ravine) a live project.”

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