The Toy Trucks' latest release and in conversation with Jeremy Scott - a podcast by Richard and Tobin: Self confessed music addicts
from 2019-10-26T22:00:59
Toy Trucks kick of the show this week for a Wax Time Special where Richard plays 3 tracks from direct off the vinyl. Further to this, Richard has the pleasure of being in conversation with Jeremy Scott, lead singer and guitarist with The Toy Trucks. Jeremy is a likeable and laid back gent who effortlessly lets the conversation roll about the band.
Richard is also curating New Music this week, bringing back Sports Team to the show. The Jaggeresque Alex Rice reminds us why guitar bands work. Excellent music and lyrical jokers Sports Team make a welcome return to form and impress the hell out of Tobin. Speaking of whom, he brings us Meg Myers with her high-school indie rocker Lemon Eyes. It's easy to get lost in its crashing guitar sounds. And Tobin is indeed master of sounds this week. He brings us some Cool Sounds straight out of Australia.
Cool Sounds' latest LP is a massive hit with us here at Record Box HQ. Richard has been intermittently spinning this with Rockets, Bells and Poetry all week. All that's left is Tobin's Double Record Box Classic - it's his Nana exclusive 2-track playlist. It's the infectious sample-based early 90s classic by Chad Jackson and then something as suggested by his Grandmother. The Benny Goodman Orchestra featuring Peggy Lee remind us where pop music really started. Let's dive in.
Track Listing
- Don't Be So Easy The Toy Trucks
- Lemon Eyes Meg Myers
- Captain Remo The Toy Trucks
- Fishing Sports Team
- Hear The Drummer (Get Wicked) Chad Jackson
- Why Don't You Do It Right Benny Goodman & His Orchestra feat. Peggy Lee
- Around And Down Cool Sounds
- Show You Love The Toy Trucks
The Toy Trucks - as described by their label
Here's what Black & Wyatt Records, Memphis-based record label has to say about The Toy Trucks:
The Toy Trucks are collectively 180+ years old. They are fueled by equal parts cheap beer, cheap thrills and Cheap Trick. Over the band’s multi-year existence, songwriter/leader Jeremy Scott has developed an “anything but another crappy love song” ethos. This has resulted in the songs on the band’s first full-length, Rockets Bells and Poetry. (“We stole the title from Mama Cass Elliott,” Scott explains.)
Over the course of said album, the band prove conversant with, among other things, Rascals-like blue-eyed grooves (Don’t Be So Easy. Along with grisly true crime balladry (57 Bayview), updated Del Shannonesque psychodrama (Hot Tears). And there's honest flat out rock and roll (I’m on the Dish But I Ain’t No Rag). This LP is both a stand-alone statement and a teaser for the band’s revved up live show. Rockets Bells and Poetry should satisfy anyone’s rock/garage/power-pop itch quite nicely.
The Toy Trucks deliver stomping pop flavours on debut platter
The Memphis Flyer
Further praise from The Memphis Flyer
Jeremy Scott is familiar to any fan of Memphis music. He has played in the original Reigning Sound and groups backing Harlan T. Bobo and Dan Montgomery.
Although his ensemble playing reveals a fine sense of playing at the service of the song, it's barely offered a glimpse of his songwriting talents. For a time, he led the Wallendas, which also included longtime guitar ace Jim Duckworth, but that was ancient history in pop terms, and never resulted in a full length release.
Nonetheless, as Scott's Sunday night DJ slot on WEVL makes clear, he is steeped in the history of pop and rock, old and new, and something was bound to come of it. Now, with his band The Toy Trucks making their debut, rockets bells and poetry (Black & Wyatt), we can finally hear all that cumulative experience blossom into some fine material.
Memphis combo The Toy Trucks... Led by ex-Reigning Sound member Jeremy Scott, the group — which also includes guitarist Dylan Cranmer, bassist Ryno Hanson and drummer Steve Barnat — have crafted a killer full-length debut for the local Black and Wyatt label that bears the influence of everything from Del Shannon to the Rascals, from garage to punk to power pop and beyond.
Commercial Appeal
FTBOTRB review of Rockets, Bells and Poetry
Visceral. Well, you have been warned in the opening track that there is a distinct possibility you may get disemboweled. It's a raucous and driven way to open this excellent LP from the Memphis circuit's cheap beer driven rockers. However, you're in for quite a ride with Rockets, Bells and Poetry, it's not all balls out rocking. There's the self-effacing heart string plucker Show You Love which plays out the show this week. The whole sound of this LP is one of transition and exploration. The quite carnival-like C D B gives way to the anthemic Hot Tears without so much as a warning.
Despite band leader Jeremy Scott professing the band is past its sell by date this recording is much more than that. Its freshness belies Jeremy's statement and one can only wonder how much that tongue in cheek comment actually influences the bands' sound. It is boyish, scruffy and offers more than an occasional sense of childlike wonderment. Much can be learnt from a few listens of this new offering from The Toy Trucks, such as punk glockenspiel. You may never have been touched by it before, but from now on you'll never be untouched. Excellent and rewarding music from past-it rockers who are only just beginning their journey. FTBOTRB official verdict: essential listening.
Further episodes of From the Bottom of the Record Box
Further podcasts by Richard and Tobin: Self confessed music addicts