Going Places
The ballad of Toy Matinee
They just wanted to make a cool record
by Elena Jarvis
As the curtain rises, Kevin Gilbert is caught in the drama of his ascension from solo artist to leader of Reprise Records’ hottest rock group, Toy Matinee, and almost back again.
Although there are five members in the group, today’s Toy Matinee is Kevin Gilbert, who, by necessity, handles all band publicity and business. Embarking on his umpteenth interview of the week, the multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and singer must be asking himself, “Is this all there is?” Since the release of Matinee’s debut LP last July, the musician has concentrated on just about everything but music.
Gilbert and keyboardist/songwriter Pat Leonard met in 1988 when Leonard was a celebrity judge for Yamaha Rock Music Showcase in Los Angeles. Leonard is a “celebrity” by virtue of production and songwriting credits that include Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” and Bryan Ferry’s “Bete Noire.” Gilbert, who won the contest with his band Giraffe, caught Leonard’s ear.
“What Kevin was doing really hit a nerve,” Leonard has said. “After talking to him and discovering he was into all the same source music I was, I started to think maybe this could work. There was immediate communication.”
And the rest was, and is, “Toy Matinee,” a winning collection of nine songs released in July. With its adept production, incisive lyrics and catchy melodies, the best description of “Toy Matinee” is as a unique, ‘90s hybrid of Steely Dan, Peter Gabriel, Genesis and Chicago.
A nightmare scenario
Putting together a tour band and taking care of business have left Gilbert with intense, stress-related back pain. Tuesday, bassist Spencer Campbell got a bad case of food poisoning and barely made it through the gig. Leonard decided not to tour at all.
“Originally, when we put the band together, Pat and I got together to write songs. Toy Matinee grew out of that partnership. Once we got signed and it began to be ‘putting records out, promotion and touring,’ Pat came to the realization he didn’t want to be in a band. He didn’t want to be touring in a Winnebago with five sweaty musicians,” Gilbert said Wednesday in a telephone interview from San Francisco.
Thus, while Gilbert and company hit the road, Leonard is producing a new record by Roger Waters of Pink Floyd. His commitment to the band remains, as long as it involves songwriting and production, not touring. As for the group’s first-rate debut, there’s no chance Gilbert will make a dime, because it cost so much. Meanwhile, Musician magazine refuses to print anything about the band, ostensibly because the editors hated the album.
Fame? The very word brings a roar of wry laughter from Gilbert.
“Financially, I’m not making any money yet. I don’t expect to for a long time. The record was very expensive. We probably will never recoup the money. We didn’t go in trying to make money, we wanted to make a cool record. Patrick is used to big ‘Madonna’ budgets and he spent tons of money. We wanted to reimburse him for the money he spent,” Gilbert said.
Unless you ask Gilbert point-blank, you’ll never know any of the above has ensued. His back may be shot, but his courage and sense of humor are not. Toy Matinee’s true believers are a saving grace. They consider the band one of the very few inspired, progressive, political rockers in an industry growing lamer by the day. But “artistry” is not next to Godliness in the dictionary of rock ‘n’ roll; it’s next to “artless”. Prevailing industry thought is, if listeners are inundated with banality, that’s what they come to expect, indeed, desire. But Gilbert isn’t selling his audience short.
“If you’re an intelligent, thinking adult who is aware of what’s going on around you, you cannot help but have an opinion. Songwriting and music are my life. If I don’t make comments on how I feel about my life, I’m not being true to the art that I’m creating,” said Gilbert, who lives in Sherman Oaks. “I’m not afraid of being political and I’m not afraid of writing a boy-girl pop song. I wouldn’t want to be overtly political all the time. Music is like good conversation with somebody; it should cover a wide range of topics.”
Despite the absence of major radio air play, the group’s three singles - “Last Plane Out,” “Ballad of Jenny Ledge” and the latest, “There Was a Little Boy” - continue to fan album sales. Why Reprise executives chose the bleak “Little Boy” for the third, and possibly last, single frustrates fans. “Queen of Misery,” the best dance track on the record, the song with the most Top 10 potential, is being completely ignored.
Regardless of the odds, setbacks and disappointments, Gilbert is confident. Toy Matinee may not survive, but the quality of the album and Reprise Records are making the ride worthwhile.
“Reprise is great. The were the only label that jumped up when we were shopping the Toy Matinee record as a finished product. They were the only label that stood up and said, ‘We know this won’t be a big hit out of the box, but we want it anyway. We want this type of material to represent our label.’ Everyone else was saying, ‘Well, if you guys would only go in there and cut a few more hit singles...’
“Reprise took us as we were, for what we are,” Gilbert said. “They knew it wasn’t going to be a quick payoff - that, hopefully, it would be a long-term relationship. They know they can get 20 albums out of me.”
It is ironic that a Catch 22 is sending Gilbert back to soloville. He’d like to resurrect some of the material from his Giraffe days, a band built around his first solo album. That record got so much press in the Bay Area that Gilbert was forced to create a band, Giraffe, which won the $25,000 Yamaha showcase, along with a trip to Japan. The same group - before Leonard and Toy Matinee’s entrance - took the gold prize during Yamaha’s International Band Explosion in Tokyo. With Leonard’s departure from Matinee, Gilbert’s on his own again. It’s complicated.
“OK, here it is politics...” Gilbert mumbled to himself, before explaining the setup. “Because I’m signed as Toy Matinee, I cannot be a member of another band. I can put out solo records. What will probably happen is, next January, I’ll put out a solo record called Giraffe and from that point on, we’ll see what happens.”