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Cult classic Toy Matinee back on vinyl

Coloured vinyl limited to 1000

By Paul Sinclair

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18

Short-lived American band Toy Matinee’s self-titled 1990 album is being made available on limited edition coloured vinyl in a small production run.

The band had an incredible pedigree and featured songwriter and producer Pat Leonard (who co-wrote half of Madonna’s True Blue album and most of Like A Prayer and would go on to work with Bryan Ferry and Roger Waters, amongst others), singer-songwriter Kevin Gilbert (who contributed significantly to Sheryl Crow’s 1993 album Tuesday Night Music Club), and heavyweight session bassist Guy Pratt, who played on Michael Jackson’s ‘Earth Song’, Madonna’s ‘Like A Prayer’, toured extensively with Pink Floyd and most recently was in Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets. Other contributors included Bill Bottrell (Sheryl Crow, Michael Jackson), drummer Brian MacLeod and Tim Pierce on guitar. Julian Lennon sings backing vocals on two tracks.

With Bill Bottrell at the helm, the album has a crisp, satisfying early 90s rock/pop production and is full of brilliant tracks sung by Kevin Gilbert and mostly co-written by Patrick Leonard and Gilbert (Guy Pratt contributes to four numbers)

Tim Pierce tells the story of Toy Matinee

This lost classic of an album has been unavailable on vinyl since its original release in 1990 and regularly sells for over £100 on Discogs. This new vinyl pressing is from Music On Vinyl and sees the Toy Matinee album pressed on 180g limited blue vinyl. And it really is limited. There are only 1000 numbered copies being pressed for the world with just 200 allocated for the UK! These are already sold out at the label/distributors.

I’m personally a very big fan of this record and would urge you to give it a go. It is not one you want to miss out on – you will not be disappointed. Check out guitarist Tim Pierce’s great YouTube film above and take a listen to a few tracks from the album, below.

Toy Matinee is released on blue vinyl on 8 April 2022. Place your order from the SDE shop using this link or the button below. We have a guaranteed allocation and shipping starts in a few days.

EU SHIPPING NOTES: If you are ordering from the EU please be aware that that goods may be subject to import VAT when they arrive from the UK. The prices the SDE shop charge you do not include VAT.
‘Queen of Misery’ from Toy Matinee
‘The Ballad of Jenny Ledge’ from Toy Matinee
‘Turn It On Salvador’ from Toy Matinee

Tracklisting

Toy Matinee Toy Matinee / Limited blue vinyl LP

    • Side A
      1. Last Plane Out
      2. Turn It On Salvador
      3. Things She Said
      4. Remember My Name
      5. The Toy Matinee
    • Side B
      1. Queen Of Misery
      2. The Ballad Of Jenny Ledge
      3. There Was A Little Boy
      4. We Always Come Home

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18 Comments

18 thoughts on “Cult classic Toy Matinee back on vinyl”

  2. I did it I got a pre-order in before they sell out. I was lucky because I checked a day earlier than preorder starts. Or maybe it’s because it’s April 8th in uk but April 7th in usa?

  3. Missed this in 1990 – the decade pretty much passed me by musically as getting married and having kids took over my life. Certainly sounds interesting. Reminds me of Alan Parsons, Steely Dan, and Steven Wilson, but it is also unique and sounds very good. For me, who has no use for vinyl, and no desire to track down or pay $100 or more for the expanded CD or DVD, I can get a CD-resolution download of the expanded version for $15 and save my pennies for planned boxed sets that I do want very much (e.g. Ultravox, Blondie). A win win I get the music for a reasonable price and the artists may even get some payment from the download vendor which they wouldn’t do if I bought a used physical copy from a third party.

  4. Thanks also from me for introducing me to new music I hadn’t heard of before. Quite pleasant, but can’t really see anything special. Dated drum sound, slightly cloying overall, very soft rock. Certainly not a patch on Steely Dan or on Steven Wilson (though not much is!).
    I must say there’s some great new, quirky, challenging British music coming out these days which I prefer – Wet Leg, Working Men’s Club, WH Lung, Black Country New Road, Anna B Savage, Wolf Alice, Beabadoobee, Black Midi, Katy J Pearson, Self Esteem, Idles, Wille Healey…..and that’s just off the top of my head.
    I hope readers here are exploring some of this stuff as well as rediscovering old stuff because there’s a lot happening.

  5. Sounds great, never heard of them but always nice to try something ‘new’ out. Initial listen to clips seems like there’s some Crowded House and Wang Chung type influences, and possibly an influence on Field Music (?) , which is all good :-)

  6. Yep, brilliant record, very Steely Dan-ish, I keep turning people onto it to this day…I have a deluxe CD with the 4 bonus tracks in a digipack…I may buy the blue vinyl from the SDE shop…I’m sure Steven Wilson is a fan, or would be…need the 3rd Matinee & Kevin Gilbert solo records…surprised Sheryl Crow is not on this record, as she was Kevin’s girlfriend at the time & the band was the future Tuesday Night Music Club…

  7. I finally got it on the US version of MusicMagpie earlier in the year and I wasnt disappointed, great album. Last Plane Out is the standout for me.

  8. Those familiar with this album will know 2 tracks feature Julian Lennon. 1,000 is not many and these will sell out fast. Is the number of 200 for the UK definite Paul? Any idea if the UK allocation is the first or last 200 or a selection of random numbers. I already ordered this and a few retailers have started to sell out already. If you want it I advise you to get it NOW from SDE. Cheers.

    1. The numbers are virtually always completely random! You get mixed ‘batches’ of numbers which are all over the place. Because these are limited to 1000 there won’t be a ‘1990’ sadly :)

      1. Never even thought of that but yes a ‘1990’ would have been highly sought after. Keep up the good work for us music lovers. Reading your recent hassles with some buyers maybe you should restrict to 2 items only on Limited Editions. Would that ease your grief with some moaners (resellers, not genuine customers) I wonder? (Even Amazon did this with the recent Rick Astley WYNS reissue with Signed Art Card – still available at time of this comment). Cheers, Col.

  9. Truly great band and record. A huge loss with Kevin Gilbert‘s passing. He had a lot of great material that just has to be ran down. They did release a semi deluxe Toy Matinee record a few years ago.
    I might also recommend 3rd Matinee which was a one off with Patrick Leonard and Richard Page. Pretty strong.

  10. This is a hidden gem and furthermore one of my go-to DTS surround reference recordings on DVD-Audio. The special editions were a treat, but there is still room for Kevin Gilbert’s ‘The Shaming of the True’ and ‘Thud’ in Hi-res surround.

    1. I have the DTS-CD but don’t actually own a stereo version of this album (!) so will be very pleased to acquire this vinyl.

      1. The ‘Toy Matinee’ DTS Entertainment comes in two versions. The 2001 DVD-A has 2.0 Dolby Digital next to 5.1 DTS (DVD-V) and 5.1 MLP (DVD-A), whereas the earlier 1990 release was indeed a DTS-CD, which is 5.1 only.
        The vinyl looks good and is very tempting. Good to see you are making waves for such a fine album. Tim Pierce’s YouTube videos are a revelation. Thanks for sharing!

        1. I seem to recall I bought mine on eBay a few years back and it was listed as if it was the DVD-A but was actually the DTS-CD, so I was a little disappointed, but hey it’s still a great 5.1 mix and of course the album is excellent.

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