The Toy Dolls

One More Megabyte (Rotten)
by Scott Hefflon

Hi, I’m a dork. For 18 years, this here band, The Toy Dolls, has been shredding shit up, and I guess I’ve been sitting around with my thumb up my ass. Combining a crystal-clear Brit punk snarl that’d make Sir Rotten realize he’s a corpse just waiting to get over himself and rampaging thrashcore post-glam while-my-guitar-gently-whups-yer-stoopid-ass instrumentation, ya realize The Toy Dolls are score-writers to the American Wet Dream. Chills and spills, speed kills and tasty metal fills, not to mention a cover of them bespectacled Scottish flatheads The Proclaimers’ one-shit wonder “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles).” Makes Down by Law sound like a bunch of sissies, don’t it? Then again, we git down to “The Devil Went Down to Scunthornpe,” and yer reminded of that scene in Crossroads where that Ralph Maraschino cherryboy cuts up Vai. Yeah, as if.

So yeah, it’s a brand o’ punk we don’t get much ’round these here parts. It’s fun, manic, talented, destructive, sarcastic, and more fun than watching a fat-ass doughnut-eatin’ cop split a seam chasin’ your law-breakin’ ass. Think Schlong humping White Lion and you’ve got the idea. Unashamedly metalesque, The Toy Dolls can actually play their instruments, so if ya think that makes ’em unpunk, y’all can crawl back under the rawk. The punk rawk revolution is goin’ on and we’re startin’ to realize yer all a bunch of sappy wankers that pine about girls who think paperbacks have more spine than you, so go cry over your decaf, non-carb beverage (I get it free from the tap, ya turds). The Toy Dolls are throwin’ a punk rawk party, and while ya can’t really understand a bleedin’ word they’re saying, ya know it’s the balls. It’s funny ’cause an anthem like “One More Megabyte” has finger-snappin’ guitar fiddlin’ of ’80s rock, the building chorus of total cheese, yet gets ya singin’ “Gimme gimme gimme one more.” Punks that can play! Alert the presses!

Special guests include Knox (The Vibrators), Eddie (Inmates), Tom (The Lurkers/Sugar Snatch), and Eddie (The Wildhearts). If that doesn’t mean anything to you, perhaps you’re not getting out enough. Basically, you get the gist that these Toy Dolls are doin’ it right. With all the ole punk bands out the woodworks cashin’ in, it’s simply smokin’ to here a band that never gave up kickin’ both snot-nosed brat pack and Geritol punk ass. One More Megabyte is the first Toy Dolls record with stateside distro, but perhaps Epitaph will reissue their back catalog so I don’t have to spend all my crack money on over-priced imports. The Toy Dolls: know them, love them, smash the state and piss in the proverbial dog bowl.
(PO Box 56 Upland, CA 91786)