Releases by toenut

Now it can be told! The story of toenut. Way back in the summer of 1991, Skipper Hartley was holed up in a laboratory in Italy, trying to make computers behave like humans. Back home in Atlanta, his own little Hal 9000 was starting to sputter to life. Earlier that year, Hartley and fellow guitarist (and toenut clotheshorse) Richie Edelson planted the seeds of the 'Nut in the moist confines of a rehearsal cubicle. By the following January, they were working Atlanta clubs with a slow-morphing line-up that included Katie Walters singing timidly offstage and the notorious Elephants Gerald tweaking a batterie of tape recorders and Dictaphones, a bricolage of gear that hardly suggested the sampler stylings that would become the band's trademark. Skipper's old bandmate Chris Collins was shipped in from Columbia, South Carolina, to play bass, and a slew of drummers came and went. In 1993, a ragtag iteration of toenut straggled into Clint Steele's Atlanta studio to record their first single, "Heyward"/"Information," released on the wee Half Baked Records. By then, the band had such a rabid following in the Southeast that national attention was imminent. The 7" landed on the plate of ruthless indie starmaker Kramer, who invited the band to his Noise New Jersey studio to make a full-length demo. At Noise, the band met their production svengali, Steve Watson, who helped hone the toenut sound and has continued to work with them through the recording of their current LP. In the summer of 1994, Mute got their paws on Steve's handiwork and began the feverish pursuit of toenut for their roster. But the band had become something of an indie Alan Parsons Project, with a swirl of personnel. Although semi-temp sideman Jeff Sullivan kept the beat on all the band's studio projects prior to their signing, no drummer seemed marked permanent Nutdom. When Mute came calling, toenut was forced, under the hot, anxious breath of the label's A&R types, to scrounge up a committed drummer. Adroit stickman Colin English (the band's sixth drummer) answered the scrounge and joined just in time for the Mute signing. With a few modifications, the demo from Noise New Jersey was released by Mute in the summer of '95 as the Information LP. CMJ charts, MTV spins, world tours (England counts, right?), a dental plan, and a spattering of singles followed, most notably "Danger! Humans Approach", which was recorded at the modern-day Muscle Shoals Easley Studios and found a spot in John Peel's coveted rotation. Which brings us to the product at hand, 'Two In The Piñata', a milemarker in toenut's maturation as songwriters and, sadly, a souvenir of the band's recent loss. On April 5, 1997, bassist Chris Collins was killed in an automobile accident as he drove to a show in Athens, Georgia. Chris' many friends have lost a brother and a musician of indescribable merit. ''Two In The Piñata' is Chris' last recording and, in many ways, the most complete statement of his bottomless creativity, inventiveness, and complex sense of humor. He was proud of this record. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.