A funny thing happened...

I didn’t think I’d like this record when I first heard about it. There was no way that a band playing toy instruments could be worth listening to. There were a lot of jokes when we got the promo copy in at Cat’s Records. After about a half day of fun, somebody got around to putting the record on. We were wrong. The record was really good then and still sounds good today. After you’ve listened to it a for few minutes, you forget that the sounds are being made on toys.

I never knew a whole lot about Pianosaurus, I don’t remember ever seeing any magazine articles about the band while they were still together. I think they had been playing for a couple years when GROOVY NEIGHBORHOOD came out in 1987. Peter Holsapple of the dB’s produced the LP and I think he did a fine job.

Pianosaurus mostly played folk clubs and some rock places, there are a couple of self-released live cassettes from 1985 that I’ve never heard. The band members listed on the LP are Alex Garvin, Bianca ‘Flystrip’ Miller and Stephen Dansiger. I still don’t know what ‘Flystrip’ means but I did find an article about a country musician that played in a later lineup of the band. That guy did appear with the band when they played a song in the movie New York Stories.

The band was working on a second LP called BACK TO SCHOOL when Alex Garvin left town. He had decided that he didn’t want to play in a band anymore so he took his songs and went home. Bianca ‘Flystrip’ Miller and Stephen Dansiger have done some solo stuff, I’ve seen Dansiger’s CD but haven’t heard it.

GROOVY NEIGHBORHOOD is still available from Rounder Records. Every home should have one. And there are several other all-toy bands around including one that you may have actually heard of.

Stay tuned…