TOY MATINEE: WANK VIBING IN PUBLIC
by Josef Woodard
Toy Matinee is living proof of the slow-blooming pop success. Released last summer, it took its time on the runway. The first single, "Last Plane Out," taxied sluggishly; the second, "The Ballad of Jenny Ledge" (the true story of a woman who took up with an Elvis impersonator), hit cruising altitude. Success has come knocking, but - apart from co-leaders Kevin Gilbert and Patrick Leonard - the original band members aren't home. On the heels of the delayed airplay, a Leonard-less version of the band played live dates this spring.
Is Toy Matinee even a band? "It was conceived, recorded and rehearsed, and to an extent written and arranged, as a band project," says Gilbert (on board were drummer Brian MacLeod, guitarist Tim Pierce and bassist Guy Pratt). "We're not Tears for Fears; it's not just the two of us brain-hemorrhaging on tape and then calling people in and saying, 'Play it this way.'"
The album was cut in Leonard's home studio and on his dime; as co-producer of Madonna's Like a Prayer he's hit paydirt before. "I had to find the time, and the right mind, to do this album," he says from London, where he's just co-produced Roger Waters' new record. Gilbert says the working process of the album had it's share of "what we call 'wank vibing'" - experimental touches and blissful accidents. "We were just playing our instruments and bouncing off each other. We wanted to keep that in, because you don't get to hear it very often.
"We just wanted to make a record," he says, "without gated reverb and Roland 808 cowbell. Now it looks like someone likes the idea."