The Metal Files

I’ll preface this by saying that I was never a big Dangerous Toys fan, but I am a Jason McMaster fan. His work with Watchtower and broken Teeth is top notch. It is with the Toys as well, but their style of rock wasn’t my thing although I do like their debut. I’ve been living in Austin for 2 years now and I think this is the first local show they’ve played since then. Sold out. $20 a head. Jason offered to put me on the guest list but I passed on it. For my friend’s bands I always like to pay.

The show started with a slide show from photographer Greg Maston whose photo of Randy Rhoads is on the inside cover of Blizzard of Ozz. He ran 100s of shots ranging from Ozzy, early VH, King Diamond, Wendy O, early and late era Pantera and a ton of others.

Then the Toys hit the stage. Jason’s voice was in top shape and the band was great. This line up features Paul Lidel (f. Dirty Looks) on guitar along with original guitarist Scott Dalhover. They were supposed to play here about 5 or 6 months ago but bassist Mike Watson’s diabetes hospitalized him for a while and he couldn’t play. He gave a nice apology last night for being the reason the last Austin show was postponed. The highlights for me were Queen of the Nile, Outlaw, Gunfighter, Scared and Gimme No Lip and Demon Bell (from Shocker). The band was having fun and so was the crowd.

McMaster is one of the best frontmen in rock n roll IMHO.

Great time.