Toy Matinee, "the band" existed for about six months in 1989. We were funded by Pat Leonard who wanted to have a band like Giraffe. He saw us at the Universal Amphitheater and came backstage and said, "Man. I've always wanted to be in a band like this. Let's be in a band." I was already in Giraffe at the time, but the guys up there didn't want to continue it really. They didn't want to move to L.A. and become professional because they all had other jobs. It was kind of falling apart anyway. So anyway I said, "all right. Let's do it."
I called Brian MacLeod the drummer and Pat called Guy Pratt the bass player and we auditioned guitarists and decided on Tim. Then for about six months we hung out like a band and wrote songs together, worked things out, got drunk together and it was the Monkees. We hung out in a beach house and fell in love with the same girls.
Then as the record got close to being done, Pat decided that he wanted to control it as an entity. He wanted Toy Matinee to be his company. He gave everybody a contract essentially saying, "You work for Pat Leonard, Inc." The three other guys, Brian and Tim and Guy said, "See ya," and split. Bill Botrell who had produced it, who I think wanted to be a member of the band as well, realized that that was never going to happen and went on to produce other records. So we were left with this really cool record and Pat and me and I didn't want to sign to be owned and controlled by Pat Leonard, Inc.
They couldn't put the record out unless I signed the contract because I had written the songs with him and Warner Bros. needed to have the singer on the contract. So we went through a really major legal spell trying to work out contracts that would allow Pat and me to be Toy Matinee. It would allow him the freedom to make other records with other artists and allow me the freedom to make solo records. Because Pat wasn't going to be around and I didn't want to wait around on my hands ...I want to make records.
So the record came out with just the two of us on it. It came out in June 1990 and it sat on the shelf for about four months with nothing going on. There was no promotion because Pat had gone on to work with Roger Waters. Most of the midwest chains put Toy Matinee under 'religious music' for some reason. [laughs] Someone screwed up. It landed under religious music so no one could find it!
The record came out and sat for like four months, did nothing. I went to Warner Bros. and said, "Look. This is my career sitting here on the shelf. It's not moving anywhere. If this record doesn't sell anything I'm going to look like a pariah in L.A. because I made a record with Pat Leonard for a lot of money with all these people working on it, it cost a lot of money." So I'm going to walk out of Warner Bros., with no deal, one record behind me which nobody bought and this huge debt. Which is not good.
Pat was in England, I was here and I convinced the promotion department to give Toy Matinee one more push and that I would go out and shake hands and play an acoustic guitar version of the record, which was not easy let me tell you. Whatever was necessary. So I started doing this and people started responding. Promotion directors that I would talk to said, "Yeah I really like this record but we had been reluctant to play it because we thought it was just one of those L.A. projects." Like some producer gets a bunch of dudes together. "We didn't want to play it because it doesn't really fit our format as an L.A. project. But if it's a band, I'll play it because we think it's a great record."
So I started telling the story, "Yeah, it was a band. We made it as a band." There's certainly more demands as the single, "Last Plane Out" sort of had to fill pockets of popularity. There's certainly more demand for it.
Marc Bonilla, who I had met doing work with Keith Emerson, we used to jam on Monkees tunes together just for fun. Two guitars, and we sounded good together vocally. So I said, "Why don't you come with me on these promotional radio tours and it'll make it easier to play 'Last Plane Out' with two guitars instead of one guy. It just makes it a lot easier." It just sort of built up. We got this guy, Spencer Campbell, to play bass with us at one point and Toss Panos the drummer joined up and suddenly there was a demand for us to play in clubs.
We didn't have a keyboardist and I hunted all over the place for a keyboardist for a long time and this girl at my publishers had sent me tapes of Sheryl Crow. I had known her from song writing. She was the only person who could play the "Queen of Misery" keyboard part, so I gave her the gig and we went out.
So that's how Toy Matinee went on tour. That's why Marc Bonilla got involved. We did a lot of promo in L.A. and on the radio with Mark and Brian (KLOS). They seem to think of me and Marc Bonilla as Toy Matinee because we were always the ones going on and we were a good schmooze team. We bounced stuff off each other and he has the same sense of humor that I have. We even hosted the show for them once.
The name came from when I was looking for a metaphor for what happens when you give up dreams of greatness. Every kid has this dream of being great in some capacity whether it's I want to be the President or I want to be a cowboy. It's never I want to be an accountant, which there's nothing wrong with being an accountant. But there's a sort of an idealist state of wanting to be great.
There's a certain point in life where a lot of people just give it up. They'll say, "I think I'll do this thing that's easy because it's safe and comfortable and doesn't require much thought and everyone else is doing it and it'll get by." I was looking for this metaphor for that for a lyric I was working on. Not that it's a particularly good metaphor but I envisioned it as like I know lots and lots of people that want to write a book but instead of writing their book they'll go to the movies. It's like instead of sitting down tonight and working on the outline for my book, let's go see "Last Action Hero." The entertainment that's out there, to me, seems to get shallower and shallower and more the lowest common denominator.
I wanted to portray this thing that you go and do instead of the thing that you ought to do as being kind of silly and cheap and a Toy Matinee was it for me. You were at a puppet show in the afternoon for no money and you could sit down and be mindlessly entertained and all the puppets danced. It's like going insane.
I just thought for me that was the metaphor of what I don't want to do. I don't want to give up my dream of what ideally I want my work to be and I want the world to view me as. I don't want to sucked into blowing off and hanging out and watching the puppets dance. Turn on MTV, "Wow Madonna." "Wow rap." "Wow Beavis and Butthead." Be entertained by that instead of using my mind to create something. I just like music. And I'm really into lyrics.
KEVIN GILBERT -
Music News Network Nov.1994/Jan.1995
