aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser
# 102: Toy Dolls – ‘Olga … I Cannot!’ (Volume Records ’85)
Dear friends,
for those of you sitting there right now, scratching their heads and thinking: “so now he has gone completely bonkers”: just wait, will you?
As mentioned before, I am not a great fan of labelling bands into certain genres. That’s unless a band has invented (or at least co-invented a genre), something which Toy Dolls certainly have done: punk pathetique, or, for our (two) German readers: fun punk.
Now, you could argue that there were other bands around in 1980 who were not as dead serious as their ’77 punk colleagues, Splodgenessabounds come to mind, so do The Golinski Brothers and of course Peter & The Test Tube Babies. But apart from the latter, who became shite very soon, those were just one-hit-wonders. So at least to me, Toy Dolls were always way ahead of the game and, furthermore, they remained true to themselves.
They started in Sunderland in 1979, had a few member changes, but soon Michael ‘Olga’ Algar ended up on singing duties – and still does so, as freshly as ever! The thing is with this band, you see, they are always numbered down to just one song, which isn’t that good compared to very many of their other tunes: ‘Nellie The Elephant’. A classic children’s song which went to # 1 (Indie Charts) in ’82 and to # 4 (UK Singles Charts) in ’84 as a re-issue. It’s therefore somehow understandable that people remember nothing else by the band, but still it is a shame!
For example just listen to their debut single, ‘Tommy Kowey’s Car’ from April 1980, which is just fantastic, but due to the fact that there never was a repress of the initial 1000 copies, one of those go for a median of € 423,- on discogs currently. You see, I love you, I really do – but I’m afraid I’m having to give you something else today! There are many other Toy Dolls – songs which, if you only know ‘Nellie’, I urge you to listen to, ‘I’ve Got Asthma’, which is a must – and basically everything from the debut album from ’83, and, for that matter, the same is true for the follow-up-album from ’85: great stuff throughout!
But today it’s none of the above, we are back to B-Sides again – to the B-Side of ‘James Bond Lives Down Our Street’ from ’85, to be precise. Today’s song has everything I need basically: a great story of unfulfilled love & romance, combined with a most sensitive humour and a Pavarotti-like voice:
mp3: Toy Dolls – Olga…I Cannot!
A masterpiece, I’m sure you agree! Then again that’s the way I was put together, sometimes things don’t need to be other than just simple. If you follow my advice above and listen to other Toy Dolls songs, you’ll find out that Olga is a class guitarist, once described as ‘a jaw-droppingly fast guitar picker’, perhaps that’s why Toy Dolls are the only punk band where guitar solos are a common thing.
I like Toy Dolls, mind you, ever did – hope I gained some new fan, who knows?
Either way, enjoy,
Dirk
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 