This was posted on our facebook but incase you didn’t see it…

Sad to say that after nearly 2 years unfortunately I’m having to leave Toyger. It was always a struggle being the only member living away from Teesside and especially this year it’s really taken its toll. A lead singer needs to be able to give 100% and put the band first, so it sucks but it’s definitely the right decision for the band. I’ve had the best craic being in Toyger – played some truly amazing gigs, met some amazing people and listened to some very weird and wonderful instrumental math metal (courtesy of James) on countless round trips to Newcastle. I wish the boys all the best in the future – the new stuff is sounding better than ever, trust me. Rory xx

Yeah that doesn’t at the end of the day retort the absurd…

This is brilliant. You may have noticed that there are websites out there that re-blog almost everything for no apparent reason, but I’ve just come across an interview we did last year that has seemed have been chewed up and spat out by a thesaurus. “Being a five percentage group I speculate we all broach numerous influences from the plain” - fantastic stuff.

Crack In The Road » Interview: Toyger

No longer is the A66 the finery sentiment to clock on out of Middlesbrough.

To any reactive Teesiders reading this article, please agree to my abase apologies. However let us not converge on the perceived negativity, and a substitute alternatively let me bring in  Toyger . Anything but the ‘new kind of household cat that is being developed to have all the hallmarks a tiger’ , Toyger are a five on the knuckles from Middlesbrough who describe their tough as ‘speculative indie’. Having only formed 6 months ago,  Toyger have already attracted the acclaim of regional receiver and critics, and have featured in a showcase at any rate featuring some of the North East’s finest dulcet proclivity. All very appropriate paean for a corps that have created a wholesome that is full of fitful guitar riffs and sanguine percussion, which they somehow build into addictive, and very lyrical, tracks. While Toyger are by no means the finished outcome, they are certainly on the approach to becoming so.

CITR: If you had to cite one band/artist as a crucial leverage upon you, who would it be and why?

Rory: That’s such a difficult entertain to rejoin! Being a five percentage group I speculate we all broach numerous influences from the plain. For criterion we’ve been described as a math-pop bind but I didn’t in reality hear to math music before I joined, so I was more influenced by indie bands such as The Maccabees and Bombay Bicycle Lodge when we wrote our Demo E.P.

James: I’m surely into math bands such as Tera Melos and Faraquet so our music brand of falls between the two.

Rory: We all do as one is told to Foals a lot so you could perchance call them a primary move. And Tubelord. And Colour. Yeah that doesn’t at the end of the day retort the absurd…

Take in: Foals are a mountainous force for me, but so are bands such as Stain, Brontide and Lanky ships. I would say Foals are all things considered the most effective throughout the gang.

Source: http://x-land.org/Toyger-6990.html (about half way down)

Original Interview: http://www.crackintheroad.com/music/2916-interview-toyger/

Pre-order Karl’s Diary right nowww

After finally figuring out how to use bandcamp properly we’ve set up a pre-order link for the single! Basically if you order now you’ll get an immediate download of the single Karl’s Diary, and come the release date (24th of October) you’ll receive a download link for the b-side Purple Voices and a shiny limited run of 100 CD in the post. Good eh?

MASSIVE shouts to those of you who have already ordered, and to those of you who haven’t we’re only making 100 physical copies so get in there quick.

» Pre-order here «

Karl’s Diary: Debut single finally here! +NFM, Generator and Domino Records competition

Whuddup!

Our debut single is finally here and available to stream for your very ears. Crack In The Road have very kindly offered to do an exclusive stream, and you can click this link to go hear it:

http://www.crackintheroad.com/music/10782-exclusive-stream-toyger-karls-diary/

Just in the process of setting up pre-orders etc but we’re going to do it so when you order the physical CD you get an immediate download of “Karl’s Diary”, and then when the release date comes around (24th October) you’ll get a link to download the B-side “Purple Voices” and a shiny new limited edition CD in the post. We’re only doing a run of 100 physical CDs, so get them whilst they’re hot!

To coincide nicely with the release, NFM and Generator in partnership with Domino Records (Arctic Monkeys, Wild Beasts) are hosting a competition to find and commission a filmmaker with £10k to make a video for Bill Ryder-Jones (The Coral). The competition involves making a DIY video for one of 3 tracks by regional artists. One of those tracks is our single Karl’s Diary so check the deets here and get making music videos!

Peace,

Toyga

According to the internet

October the 24th is the 297th day of the year (298th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, leaving 68 days remaining until the end of the year. October the 24th is also the day we release our very first ever in the world single “Karl’s Diary” on Pay For The Piano Recordings. Eyes on the prize, people.

Evolution, new single and all things in between

We haven’t done a full written blog post in a while, mainly because we’ve been doing other stuff such as taking pictures of Jamie from Tall Ships when he’s passed out:

More on that later.

We had a pretty mad weekend a couple of weeks back starting on the 27th of May with Evolution Emerging. We played in The Cluny along side Vinyl Jacket, In Oceans, Polarsets and Lanterns On The Lake and it was probably one of the best gigs we’ve ever played. The vibe in Newcastle regarding new music is so good and it was really reflected in Ouseburn Valley that night. Generator did yet another amazing job of organising and promoting the event, so much so that by the time we’d finished playing it was a one-in-one-out job getting into the venue. This was also probably because Polarsets were on right after us but we like to pretend otherwise. Earlier that same day we did an interview and live session for Amazing Radio which can be found right… here.

Thennnnn the next day we were set to play on the UMT:Emerging stage at Evolution. As you may or may not know we were also lucky enough to be asked to open the Baltic Square stage. We found out like 3 days before the festival so we were walking round with smiles up to our ears for a good while. It meant that we got our own dressing room and everything (even though it did smell slightly like rotting vegetables). Got to give all our thanks to Bob Allan and Joe Frankland for hooking us up with that slot, I dread to think how much we owe them for all the stuff they’ve done for us over the past year. Needless to say playing two slots in one day at our first festival has definitely been one of the highlights of our short time as Toyger. Oh and prior to the festival we played a couple of gigs with Bravestation - they played the on the main stage and are definitely worth checking out, top lads.

Right, on to the single. Now I know we’ve been banging on about this for a while along with going away and recording a 5 track E.P. and not letting you hear any of it, but all I can say for definite is that we will be recording a single and a B-side next month which will hopefully, hopefully be released in Autumn. We did think it could be out by the end of August but that may have been a bit ambitious and we’d rather take more time to do things properly. It does mean we’ll be taking a back seat from gigs for a bit whilst we sort ourselves out. That said we will be playing with the mighty Tellison on the 26th of June (tickets here) along with Coal Train and Algiers which we’re dead excited for.

Now back to that picture. As you may know the wonderful Tall Ships are on tour with We Are Scientists at the moment and came to Middlesbrough last Monday to tear up The Empire. They very kindly put us on their guest list in exchange for a bed to sleep in (pretty good deal if you ask me) so after the gig (which was awesome by the way) we headed back to the house for a few beers. Would have been weird for anyone to walk into the living room to find us, Ric Matt and Jamie (Tall Ships), Dave (Tubelord) and Huddy (Rosa Valle) sat drinking Stella playing fifa listening to Papa Roach. Anyway the night got pretty heavy, drink offers were abused, R. Kelly was danced to and Jamie ate a rank looking kebab and fell asleep on the sofa. I am almost certain he won’t mind us sharing that picture with you.

So that’s what we’ve been up to in the past month or so. We’ll try and keep this blog up to date with whats happening recording wise etc, and we hope to see you at the Tellison show on the 26th!

Muchos Love

Toyger