History |
The history of Toby is fairly long and eventful, especially considering it has been two and a half years. Some historical information is missing and/or not entirely accurate, but you can read it all if you want to. If you really wanna go back, it all started when Matt Tansy, and a friend from middle school, Jake Sullivan decided to play some music together. Jake brought his drum set over to Matt's and they played a few times in the fall and winter of 99. Later, in November or December, Matt start talking to Will Giardino, another drummer, and they started playing together (Jake's drums were still at Matt's, so Will used those to start out.) Soon, they started playing more and more stuff, mostly Sublime and Less Than Jake covers, along with just random rock songs from the radio. A friend, Ty Jones played guitar with them for one gig, but never again after that. In the spring, Matt's older sister, Kacie, started playing bass with Will and Matt, and her friend Steph, who lived across the street, got a trumpet and a keyboard, and Toby started playing their own ska/punk songs. The first one was "Pants on the Chair," which Matt wrote in March of 2000. Soon, another song, titled "TMS" was on their original playlist as well. They learned "Superman," by Goldfinger, and "Face Values" by the Suicide Machines later, in the summer, they learned "No Face," by Suicide Machines, "Straight Edge," by NOFX, and "Dammit," by Blink-182. Besides another gig earlier that summer, they played all of their seven songs (five covers) at a party for Matt and Kacie's neighbors in late June. That summer, Matt and Will went to a music camp in Post Falls, Idaho, where they met three sax players. With Kai Hoffman on bari sax, Nick Price on tenor, and Erik Kvamme on alto, they started jamming and a learned "Lockdown," by Less Than Jake. They recorded it onto a cd, but only five copies were made, for each person. After the camp, Will and Matt played with all three sax players a few times, but not much was accomplished. However, Will and Matt started to play with Nick a lot, because they all went to the same school, so he became a member of Toby later that summer. During that summer, Matt met a bass player named Bryan Morgan, so Will, Matt, and Nick played with him a few times, jamming to Less Than Jake songs like "Johnny Quest," and "Automatic," and Mustard Plug songs such as "Beer," and "Go." After the summer, Bryan left to play in another band, the Green District, and Kacie and Steph started playing with Matt, Nick, and Will again. This would be the line up for awhile. but over the next six months, the band started playing some new songs. "Missionary," "Cheap," "Nothing Bigger Than Your Elbow," and "Straight, Left, Right" were all written in this time period, along with a cover of "My Heart Will Go On," by Celene Dion and the Ramones anthem "Rock n' Roll Radio." "TMS" was formally changed to "One Day Weekends," just because of a better song title, and everything was goin good for Toby. In the spring of 2001, Toby played a few gigs at their high school, and at other venues during the summer. Once school started in the fall of 2001, they weren't practicing as much, for many reasons, and lots of stuff changed - during a practice for a gig through Toby roadie Alex at Wild Walls climbing gym in the fall,, Kacie walked into the room and told Matt, Will, and Nick that her and Steph had quit. They had a gig to play in less than a week, so they recruited Will's older brother, Mike, on bass and left the trumpet position open until they could find some other horn players. Mike quickly picked up most of the songs, and the whole band learned a new one that Matt wrote, simply titled "Music," and a Spanish reggae song, called "Spanish/Reggae Song," along with Less Than Jake covers of "Automatic," and "Scott Farcas Takes it on the Chin." Next, they got a gig at the Big Dipper with bands Wadman, World Exempt and Victim of Circumstance and Soapbox. It went pretty well and a lot of people showed up. About a month later, they got a gig at Common Grounds Coffee House, and played all of their songs, along with a new one called "Wirgin." After that, they wrote two new songs, a reggae song called "System Financial" and an punk/swing song titled "No Consequences." Shortly before the recording sessions, Matt, Mike, and Will made up a pop-punk song titled "Take Off Your Sock and Eat My Poop," which was also recorded the cd. (Yes, we are making fun of blink-182 with that title and the song is devoted to pop-punk bands, telling them how much they really do, in fact, suck ass.) All of their current original songs were then recorded on the 12-track Toby cd "We Like To Call It Ska" and released by. towards the end of 2001. However, soon after the recording, many things changed in Toby again. Nick left the band by his own decision and by the decision of the band. Also, Bryan Morgan, formerly of Off to the Left and the Green District, became the new bass player for Toby and Mike Giardino switched to playing alto sax, and guitar, as well as doin some vocals. About a few weeks after that happened, they got a gig at Club Hearsay, which was good practice for their reocurrence with new members. Soon after that, Will got in touch with a trombone player named Shawn Heale, who used to play guitar in Kashmir Goat. They got together and Shawn became another Toby member. To start off 2002, they played a series of shows - with venues including the Big Dipper, Cafe Sole, Capone's Sports Bar, the Bayou Brewery's Fat Tuesday Room, the Cove Bowl, and others, including new songs in their line up such as "Happy Song." "Joff," "Sav-Core," and 2 other originals, along with Less Than Jake covers of "Automatic" and "Johnny Quest," while at the same time, re-introducing "Missionary" (it hadnt been played for about 6 months), and getting down various covers of Op Ivy and Rancid songs. Alex Bertolucci was added to the official Toby lineup, as a roadie and playing percussion, and in the spring of 2002, Nick Price began playing shows with them again, and joined Toby again in the summer of 2002., when they played shows at Cafe Sole, Riverfront Park (for Hoopfest), and various parties. That brings us up to present Toby: Matt, Will, Bryan, Shawn, Mike, Nick, and Alex. So, overall, counting everyone, there have been 13 people in Toby, and there are currently seven members, but it seems as if the future of Toby will be long, so you never know who's going to be joining (or leaving) it next. |
