From the ashes of Negative Trend, and the Sleepers - the Toiling Midgets formed in late 1979 as an instrumental guitar band by guitar players Craig Gray and Paul Hood with Tim Mooney on drums and Nosmo King on bass.
In 1982 singer Ricky Williams joined the band to record 'Sea of Unrest' and barely lasted through a brief West Coast tour. Nosmo left at Ricky's insistence.
By 1983 the Midgets were once again an instrumental band recording what would become "dead beats" (released in 1984) with new bass player Aaron Gregory and 3rd guitar player Annie Unger. The band split by the end of that year, with Craig heading to the UK, and Paul briefly to Seattle.
In 1989, the Midgets reformed just before the famous San Francisco "World Series" earthquake.
Singer Mark Eitzel joined them live, and recorded 'SON' in 1990, but did not join them for their 1991 US tour, and essentially quit. The band did the tour instrumentally in support of the record that was supposed to be out by then, and they made friends with Vic Chesnutt, Dust Devils, Cop Shoot Cop and Pavement along the way.
After the tour, drummer Tim Mooney and bass player Joe Goldring left the band, and were replaced by long time producer Tom Mallon on drums and Seattle ex-pat Erich Werner (Telepaths, Blackouts) on bass.
This version of the band was together until 1997 and recorded instrumentally as well as with Joanna Hood on violin, Mark Sullivan on keyboards and David Ripley singing for a time.
A Midgets side project was recorded in 1991 with Ricky Williams singing and Mary Redfield on violin. Ricky died about a year later, following a show.
Toiling Midgets Media was started to release live, rare and in the future hopefully all unreleased Toiling Midgets music.
CD's that are available are:
1981 - 3 shows, rough quality, audience recordings
Do the Incendiary - The 1st Midget Demo recorded by Tom Mallon
1982 V1 - two shows, SF and Seattle, both board recordings, Ricky singing
1982 V2 - 1 partial and one full show from SF, full show was for radio broadcast on KFJC when we opened for Nico, Mallon on the board
4 TRK Mind - remastered from the original DAT master
1990 Live at the Parasite Lounge - Eitzel's 1st show w us, Mallon on the board
1991 - Ibeam show with Eitzel, Mallon on the board.
God's Man - 89-90 Demo recorded by Tom Mallon and Aaron Gregory
Contact Paul Hood at [email protected]
I edited my profile with Thomas Myspace Editor V3.6 !
If this works correctly, you should now be able to buy songs direct from the Midget's lair...
kinda scary!
