So over the weekend I ripped the Sarge 7" with their cover of Cyndi Lauper's Time After Time. Sarge was on Parasol Records, who were also very cool about sending me free records for my radio show in college. Then while I was at the record store over the weekend, I saw this Busy Toby 7" which is also on Parasol. I've never heard of them but decided to pick it up anyway. I just put it on this afternoon and was pleasantly surprised. Right away I realized they sounded a lot like this other band I liked called Wolfie. With a little research, I came up with this...connecting all three bands!
"The side project of Wolfie singer/bassist Joe Ziemba and his fiancee, singer/keyboardist Amanda Lyons, indie-pop combo Busytoby first began taking shape in mid-1996. Originally dubbed Stereotomy, they distributed copies of their debut cassette The Human Is the Keyboard’s Motor in 1997; although Wolfie remained Ziemba and Lyons’ primary creative outlet, the duo (who had subsequently acquired a vintage Wurlitzer organ) soon recorded another cassette, You Love the Crickets, and — with the addition of then-Sarge bassist Rachel Switzky — changed their name to Busytoby. A single, “Me, My Drums and You,” appeared on Parasol in 1998, and after adding keyboardist Jenny Mangun, Busytoby played their first live dates. As grad school forced Switzky to relinquish her duties, the remaining trio released their first full-length effort, It’s Good to Be Alive, in the fall of 1999."
