Search - the Toy Dolls :: Twenty Two Tunes Live from Tokyo

Dig That Groove Baby!

Patrick Stott | Rolleston, Canterbury, New Zealand | 03/26/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The Toy Dolls are one of those love `em or hate `em type bands. The band's odd sense of humour and less than conventional Punk style is quite divisive. Just take a close look: Vocalist/guitarist Olga has a reedy, girly sounding voice, despite being a bloke; their greatest hit is a cover of "Nellie The Elephant", a song popular in kindergartens the world over; and much of the subject matter of the songs is utterly trivial. So, as you'd expect, they're big Japan...



This live album was recorded in Tokyo in December 1989, at a time when Punk was apparently at a low ebb, only no one told the Japanese. Coronation Street obviously wouldn't have been huge in Japan in 1989, but the audience was still full of enthusiasm for shouting "slag, slag, slag!" at the appropriate moment in the irreverent, but still oh-so-relevant "Deirdre's A Slag", with kazoo intro intact. Other songs which might not have translated well include "Cloughy Is A Bootboy", "Ashbrooke Laundrette", "My Girfriends Dad's A Vicar" and "She Goes To Finos", but the sheer child-like joy of the uncomplicated melodies and the pure silliness of it all seems to cross all cultural barriers.



Elsewhere, there's sheer rampant absurdity. "Spiders In The Dressing Room" is the ultimate wimp out song. What bloke would ever admit to being scared of spiders? "Dig That Groove Baby" sounds like Spike Milligan on amphetamines, silly voices, nonsensical lyrics and all.



Anyone who tells you Punk is about three chords and 4/4 beats, and that's it, has obviously never heard this band. OK, most of the songs are fairly straight forward, but Olga is a great guitarist. "Wakey Wakey Intro", and "Wakey Wakey Outro" for that matter, show off the man's skills, but the best example is "Sabre Dance", a tricky little rearrangement of the traditional Cossack tune. There are also solos peppered throughout the set, not perfect, but fun anyway.



And then, of course, there's that song about that stupid elephant. Hear it once and you'll be hearing "off she went/with a trumpety trump/ trump trump trump" in your subconscious for days. The single originally sold 500,000 copies, so not hearing it live would be like Motörhead without "Ace Of Spades".



Mistakes by the band and in the mixing can't detract from the obvious riot of good time tunes. This will annoy "serious" Punk fans, and is too camp by far for most Rock fans. Surely that's more than reason enough to check this out!"