The Toy Trains

Hello Folks,

Vince here…our delightful and talented fiddler/accordion player Sarah Roy will be playing her last public-show with us on Saturday, January 24th at the Airplay Cafe.  Sarah wants to focus more on her background of traditional fiddling.  For those of you who have interacted with Sarah, you’ll know that we will sorely miss her.  As far as I’m concerned, she is a permanent member and a great friend to all of us.  She has promised me that she will be available to sit-in with us, if we need her.  Before or after the next show, go up to her, introduce yourself, and tell her thanks for all of her contributions to the Toy Trains.

Good endings bring good beginnings…stepping in for Sarah will be the talented violin player from the bands Rustica and Tin Silver – Patricia Rojas.  For those of you who may not know, our bass player, Paul Prato, was in both Rustica and Tin Silver with Patricia.  Therefore, I’ve had the pleasure of hearing Patricia play on several occasions.  She has been playing the violin since she was a child and brings some impressive chops in several genres of music.  In addition, Patricia will lend some of her killer vocal skills to the band, which will definitely add to our vocal dynamic.  Please welcome her at our show on February 5th at the Kennedy School Gym.

Looking forward to seeing you soon!

Hello and welcome to the Toy Trains’ official website!  Vince here…passing on the latest news about the band.  In November, we managed to scrape together a brand new (almost) set!  This took an unprecedented, 6 hour practice to pull together.  It features some of the usual suspects like: Dan Zanes, Lisa Loeb, and Jack Johnson.  However, this set has 3 ORIGINAL songs!

Since I started writing this, the number of original songs has continued to grow!  We will, most likely, debut 2 more new songs at the upcoming show on January 24th at the Airplay Cafe.  That will bring our total of originals to at least 6!  We’ll continue with all the great covers that all your kids enjoy so much.

Some other happenings…

1.  Many of you have probably not witnessed the violin/accordion shredding-machine “Sarah Roy.”  She has actually been in the band since early fall, but we’ve apparently kept her a secret.  We’re so happy to have her in the band – she has two young children herself, and she’s great with kids who wander up on stage. 

2.  Joe Howton is our new banjo player!  I haven’t played with a banjo player since the mid-nineties, and I’m thrilled to hear that unmistakable twang once again.  Joe is a very skilled player and already he has helped us unlock the door to more Bluegrass-ish music.  We’re psyched to have him in the band.  We’ve been thinking of adding a new instrument for sometime and the banjo fits the bill.

3.  We have brand new t-shirts in some awesome new colors!  Also, we have some women’s/mommy t-shirts that are very cute!  These are not your typical concert t-shirt, so please stop by the merch-table when you see the band.  We appreciate your financial support!  Hopefully, we’ll have these available online soon.

4.  Daren, our guitar/harmonica/back-up vocalist guy, suggested we start compiling all of our live recordings, demos, and practice sessions into a CD for release.  Isn’t that a great idea?  Kids’ music is so overproduced these days.  We think that kids might like to hear how a song starts with an acoustic scratch track and from there develops into a live track.  I believe kids are just as interested in the process of music as the products.  We’ll be able to reveal some of that process when we put together our CD.  Please stay tuned…AND keep bugging us about it when you see us!  That will put the pressure on us to get something out soon.

Okay…I think that’s it for now!  I did put up a lot more music today (practically the entire Christmas show at the Airplay Cafe).  Take a listen!

Hope to see you soon at a show.

Vince