Hard News: Friday Music: Do not disturb
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Here’s a Toy Love performance some of you might have seen: the band playing at Auckland University on the same Orientation tour that I snuck into in Christchurch.
Quality. Mr Knox’s angry growl made me feel all funny, which is what good rock should do.
comes on cassette, because that’s what all the cool kids are pretending to listen to these days.
I need to stop pretending. I have a crate of vinyl that I’ve been acquiring since the ’90s. I’ve never listened to most of it, and I don’t even own a record player any more (or a stereo, for that matter). Now looking at it just makes me feel sad.
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But what continues to amaze (and depress) me is Six60 (I keep typing 'Sux60') winning awards for anything. They redefine notions of ordinary and humdrum.
Missed the whole Toy Love thing as I was studying in the US--Devo and The Waitresses were the local phenomena.
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auckland uni gym, shades pulled down
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It was nice that Toy Love got the recognition they deserve...even if the setting was hideous. We waited up all night...way past our bedtime...to see the lovely old folk get their gongs. But was it worth it?
The voice-over while the band were up on stage was an embarrassment. Most of it was spent telling us all how their album sucked and how they hated Australia. The crowd must have been left wondering, through the haze of substance abuse, "WTF?".
It was one of the most negative award rundowns I've ever heard and sounded like it was cribbed from Wikipedia. This kind of analysis is fine for a documentary...but an award? Bizarre.
If you want a nice story about Toy Love check out this tale from David Geary...it's about The Skeptics, but has a great Toy Love tale of their gig at Palmy Boys' High.
Go to: http://www.swampthing.co.nz/article/54/ -
comes on cassette, because that’s what all the cool kids are pretending to listen to these days
I might be finally showing that I'm not really down with the kids, but... why?
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Sacha, in reply to
They redefine notions of ordinary and humdrum.
I had successfully avoided hearing any of their stuff until last night. They do.
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Danielle, in reply to
I might be finally showing that I'm not really down with the kids, but... why?
You just haven't heard music properly unless it has a bed of tape hiss and occasional tempo irregularity.
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every time i see the 'Bride of..' vid I can't but help think that Gorrillaz must have caught sight of some of that imagery to inform their look.
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I saw Toy Love the once, the final ever Christchurch gig at the late, lamented Gladstone, August 1980. Forever indebted to a now passed away school mate for getting me a ticket. The wonderfully-named Stanley Wrench and the Monkey Brothers were support that night.
And what a fanboy’s dream indeed - 'I Don’t Wanna See You Again'! The Doublehappys made their Christchurch debut at the Gladstone, November ’83, hot as hell nor’ west day, caustic as hell Shayne Carter – with Herbie Fuckface on ‘drums’! Failsafe Records also captured 'Beer Cans on the Ground' on the Biding Our Time compilation.
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cheers for sharing the Stinkmix. Here's an interview i digitised and posted on Yotube, interview with Nathan Haines from 1995 (TV3's Frenzy) talking about his debut album...
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There's a fantastic photo doing the rounds on Facebook of all five Toy Love members on the red carpet yesterday. They all look in rude good health too, which is pretty good going, given Chris Knox's recentish tribulations in that regard.
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I remember first seeing upstairs at the Cook, general impression at the time was that they weren't the Enemy - no one likes change
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comes on cassette, because that's what all the cool kids are pretending to listen to these days
I was reminded by Paul Kean last night that I made the tapes that Toy Love played pre-band at their shows/on their tours all those years back. I had quite an (unpaid) industry doing so at the time and TL used to request these before tours.
I had completely forgotten.
Of course, it killed music stone dead....
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Alan Perrott, in reply to
yeah Anthony, that struck me too. It seems someone took the celebration and turned it into a moan.
and I know I'm an aging hack but what is the fuss over Home Brew? I've tried, but still don't think they're as good, or as outrageous, as they think they are. To my ears, their backing band made them appear rather amateur.
maybe it made better sense better live?
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
and I know I’m an aging hack but what is the fuss over Home Brew? I’ve tried, but still don’t think they’re as good, or as outrageous, as they think they are.
QFT. A very small data point in my theory that there’s few things more banal, in art or in life, than people trying so damn hard to be “outrageous” you can almost predict every outrage before it happens. Home Brew Crew isn’t even that good at awards show acting out. An incontinent goat, some swears and a feeble diss of God and the Prime Minister? Whatevs. Nicki Minaj would have done all that and gotten into a drunken, topless knife fight with a live-Tweeting Will.I.Am before she was halfway up the press line.
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Alan Perrott, in reply to
absolutely.
and while we're clearing the lawn; I noted Russell's txt about Emily's wee c-bomb. It may have sounded funny there, but it came across as contrived. I stopped watching.
still, really enjoyed Kimbra even if she threatened to go all rock opera on it. I'd like to have been there for that.
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Chip Matthews, in reply to
Kimbra was great. Really enjoyed the Toy Love dedication band.
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Robyn Gallagher, in reply to
I might be finally showing that I'm not really down with the kids, but... why?
1. The kids who are into cassettes today never experienced them as children. They were born in the world of the compact disc.
2. Now that turntables and vinyl are commonplace again, cassettes fill the gap of the rare music technology that most people don't have.
3. With music technology having been dominated for decades by dads obsessing over fidelity and clarity, the kids are subverting that and turning to hissy old tape.
4. Like vinyl and unlike mp3s, tapes are a physical format. But it's even more exciting than a record because it has so many moving parts, cogs and screws. Thrillingly, things that can go wrong.
5. Also, cassettes are cool. -
Not forgetting that cassettes are so useful for hanging on powerlines....
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I can still tell them to get off my lawn though right?
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Hebe,
The strangest thing about Toy Love is how soon it was all over. They played their first gig at Zwines in January 1979 and their last at Mainstreet in September 1980.
At the time it seemed to me that it went forever. I was in Christchurch and somehow I saw Toy Love somewhere early on and after that made a point of getting to every gig I knew about. Not in a groupie kind of way; actually speaking to dudes like the band and Ian was far too scary. The Gladstone and the students association seemed to have most of the gigs but given my, er, state of mind I couldn’t reliably say when and where.
I wore pink fluoro socks, plastic sandals and a black and white miniskirt and I liked to dance. Toy Love were wild, exciting and the gigs had the best energy of most anything I have been to ever. At the time we thought it was second-best to being in CBGBs or London, but it was probably the Kiwi version of early Ramones gigs: intense, amazing and great fun. Thanks guys.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
and while we’re clearing the lawn; I noted Russell’s txt about Emily’s wee c-bomb. It may have sounded funny there, but it came across as contrived. I stopped watching.
Seriously? Wow. You don't think you might have been taking things just a tad too seriously?
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Chip Matthews, in reply to
I mean, I'm not part of "that" part of our game, but I really thought that Em and the others totally captured some spirit of Toy Love. I maybe wrong, that's just how I saw it.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
QFT. A very small data point in my theory that there’s few things more banal, in art or in life, than people trying so damn hard to be “outrageous” you can almost predict every outrage before it happens. Home Brew Crew isn’t even that good at awards show acting out. An incontinent goat, some swears and a feeble diss of God and the Prime Minister?
I don’t think they were really trying hard to be outrageous, though. That Ben Boyce thing near the beginning was just insulting – I could see why Tom didn’t take it well. (As it happened, Home Brew weren’t smashed – they were working – but one or two others were.)
And the diss of God makes more sense if you’re familiar with ‘Good God’ from the album, which is an amazing piece of work:
Ditto for the calling-out of the PM. They’ve said all that already in ‘Listen to Us’. Like it or not, it's who they are.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
and I know I’m an aging hack but what is the fuss over Home Brew? I’ve tried, but still don’t think they’re as good, or as outrageous, as they think they are.
Really? You've heard the album? I think it's a really important record.
To my ears, their backing band made them appear rather amateur.
If nothing else you've made the bass player's day :-)
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