New Wave Outpost Forum

The Toy Shop were a great one non-hit wonder for me. Their single Attack Decade is one of my favorites of the era. I always lamented they never had more output. But now they do! The Toy Shop just released a 7" of some rare and unreleased versions of tracks. It's available for purchase here: http://www.juno.co.uk/artists/The+Toy+Shop/ I'm surprised I haven't seen anything here posted about it. It seems the band uploaded some rare video clips to Youtube! I think you guys will enjoy em.

The Toy Shop - Attack Decade (1983)


They had a proposed follow up prepared. They even made a video for it. It's a remake of their 1981 single "The Maze"

The Toy Shop - The Maze (1983)


They also made two videos for the b-side to "The Maze" "

The Toy Shop - Live Wires Kill (1981) 1st version


The Toy Shop - Live Wires Kill (1981) 2nd version


Oddly, my favorite Toy Shop track "Never Trust A Stranger" which was the b-side to "Attack Decade" isn't on the new 7" release, and it seems to have disappeared off the internet. Since that's the case, I've uploaded the track to Youtube for your enjoyment.

The Toy Shop - Never Trust A Stranger (1983)


I hope you guys are as excited about this resurgence in Toy Shop activity as I am! That 7" is limited edition obviously, so grab it while you can. Enjoy!

Dominik

I would have picked it up if they had included the video mix of The Maze, that version is the best.

Nice, I was not aware they had posted some videos on youtube. I have the new 7'' and I agree with swerve, the video version of The Maze is better than the one in the EP, reminds me of early DM.

Anybody is willing to post "The Maze" and "Live Wires Kill" here? These are classic minimal synth and would be really cool to have it.

Hey guys!

Exciting news (albeit it's a few months old now, but I just discovered) Toy Shop have released an album! Not just an album, mind you, but a vinyl only 16 track album with a bonus 7" with 6 more tracks! I can speak to how good it is, as I've just ordered mine. It's limited to 200 copies, and an additional 300 copies are in some way too expensive minimal synth pop collection that looks pretty interesting. Thought you guys might be interested!

http://www.discogs.com/Toy-Shop-Synth-P ... se/7233575

When mine arrives, I'll be sure to let you know how it is.

D

The Maze (1983) should be the same version as the video.

I bought the LP + 7" a few weeks back and the quality is meh. Dominik, when you rip it, you'll need to use Audacity to adjust the bass specifically, and add a bit of treble. The other thing is that sound level is really really low so you'd need to amplify it. The strange thing is that sound level on side A is way higher than side B! Therefore each side should be adjusted separately. I think songs were likely transferred from a cassette or something, and not master tapes. So basically it's a mess you need to clean a bit. Overall an ok release and enjoyable.

Received it as well. The Maze (1983) is the same version as the video but as Daniel stated the sound needs to be vastly improved.

Wow, a lot of love in the room for my old solo then duo 'band' The Toy Shop! Thanks for all the nice comments, mucho appreciated! As to the quality of 'Synth Pop Art' being 'meh' (whatever that means) I spent a long, long time resurrecting old mixes and masters (and made one or two new mixes) for the album & actually think it sounds pretty good, bearing in mind that most of the original recordings were made on a 4 track cassette portastudio. The only studio recordings on there are Live Wires, The Maze, Attack Decade, Never Trust & Lip-Lock (originally a single under my name Paul Klein recorded after Toy Shop split) and some of those had to be cleaned up from the vinyl originals rather than using master tapes (I have those but no access to a reel to reel recorder).

A crazy thing happened to the masters - I sent an mp3 version of the whole album to VOD just for them to hear the full album. Then around the same time I sent them the actual wav masters they sent me masters they'd, ahem, mastered further (!) from the mp3 version I sent. I wasn't happy as I wanted my wav masters used obviously but they'd already paid their guy and didn't want to have to pay again so these mp3 sourced masters were used unfortunately. I did think they still sounded good but would have preferred that they used the wav masters. As for 'sound level on side A is way higher than side B' you are correct & strangely enough I've only just noticed this (been playing the digital masters rather than the vinyl)! It seems side one is more or less normal album volume whereas side two + the free bonus 7" single (which plays at 33 & a third speed) are really pretty quiet. I'll make enquiries but obviously it's way too late to do anything about it now. Side Uno was all solo Toy Shop (i.e. just me) & mainly all synths whereas Side Duo was mainly the Toy Shop duo and had more of a 'band' sound with guitars and more realistic drum sounds etc. so it's a different sound but it certainly shouldn't be that much quieter.

Finally, please bear in mind the artist's rights when requesting free downloads on here, all music should be paid for & is not a God given right as some people seem to think nowadays!

'Synth Pop Art' album & bonus single will be on Bandcamp soon for high quality digital download (plus possibly the usual streaming sites). Some songs remixed and all mastered by me, Paul Klein.

Hi guys, there is a chance to a reupload? It is no possible to find a rip that being out Youtube. Youtube audio quality is awful.

Album now live at https://thetoyshop.bandcamp.com/album/synth-pop-art

The 7" bonus single is not included but will be up soon as a separate download hopefully (not ready yet). Enjoy!!!

The digital version of the 7” single (synth pop art ep) is now up at https://thetoyshop.bandcamp.com/album/synth-pop-art-ep. Previous buyers of the album on Bandcamp should have received a 20% off message by now.

yes but that discount code Bandcamp gave out, does not work though

Apologies it didn’t work for you. I just tried the code and it seems to work OK. It’s just for the EP and won’t work for the album. Did you try it without the quotation marks and the space between the two words? I’ve just sent another message out with a new code to try.