Toast was the greatest band ever, period. Listen for yourself.
Toast was my favorite band, bar none. With Michael Bergman on Lead Vocal/Rhythm Guitar, Bob O'Bannon on Lead Guitar, Frank West on Drums/Backing
Vocals and yours truly on Lead Vocals/Bass, Toast was a band for the ages. Sadly, our career ended far too soon. The problem was we were a cutting
edge pop band from Indianapolis before the thriving music scene that exists there today.
Talk about history, we had the pleasure of playing to an empty house at Charlie's Place on the night of the very first Indianapolis Colts football game. I say empty, but there
was at least one waitress. Our setlists consisted of a large number of original songs and covers by the likes of U2, REM and the Clash. Unfortunately, it
was U2 pre-War, Murmer era REM and pre-Rock The Casbah Clash. Nobady in Indy had heard of them, nor did they want to. They were weird, new-wave bands. They
didn't play that music on Q-95. The biggest cheer from the crowd came when we decided to pull out Communication Breakdown and play the only punk song Led
Zeppelin ever wrote.
We never could come up with a name we were happy with. We went by Presence, The Boats and ended up as Toast. Why Toast? Unlike most bands, we weren't into drugs
or drink but we would take breaks during rehearsal to make a round of cinnamon toast. It was also one of those double meaning names. But we liked it for the toast we craved.
Like I said, we were most interested in writing and playing our own material. We were lucky enough (or Michael was smart enough) to record a set of original
compositions at one of the last live performanaces. We already had enough original material that we could have recorded our debut album easily. That performance
appears here and it captures Toast at our peak. The songs are raw and full of energy.
Enjoy the live performance, as well as just over a half dozen studio recordings, some completed, others not yet with vocals or still in demo mode.
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