New topic
Printable| Author | Message |
TOTO's Done... 
...so sayeth guitarist Steve Lukather. <- LINK I'm sure many that don't care for the band will say, "So what, they were done years ago!" That would be a false statement as they've continued to record and tour internationally. The musicians in the band (past & present) were good enough to be used on a large number of your favorite and biggest hits from the 70s & 80s... Michael Jackson Boz Scaggs Elton John Aretha Franklin Donna Summer Al Jarreau Joni Mitchell Chaka Khan Earth, Wind & Fire ...Just to name a few. tA  Tribal Disorder
http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431 "Ya see, we're not interested in what you know...but what you are willing to learn. C'mon y'all." | |
- E-mail - orgNote -  Report post to moderator |
Funny you posted this. I was listening to them in the car on the way to work this morning. Great musicians, the lot of them. | |
| - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator |
latin lovers love the name  
Some people tell me I've got great legs... | |
| - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator |
RipHer2Shreds said: Funny you posted this. I was listening to them in the car on the way to work this morning. Great musicians, the lot of them.
 Looking at you I can read your mind I am the maker of rules Dealing with fools I can cheat you blind And I dont need to see any more To know that I can read your mind, I can read your mind 
tA Tribal Disorder
http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431 "Ya see, we're not interested in what you know...but what you are willing to learn. C'mon y'all." | |
| - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator |
WoW! They're on a lot of records by artists i no longer care about.  test | |
| - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator |
theAudience said: RipHer2Shreds said: Funny you posted this. I was listening to them in the car on the way to work this morning. Great musicians, the lot of them.
Looking at you I can read your mind I am the maker of rules Dealing with fools I can cheat you blind And I dont need to see any more To know that I can read your mind, I can read your mind
 I like that one too. I've been meaning to get your input on Parsons. I like a lot of the singles I know, but not sure about entire albums. | |
| - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator |
PFunkjazz said: WoW! They're on a lot of records by artists i no longer care about.
Yeah, but if you haven't noticed, there's quite a few folks that live in the MJ era. tA Tribal Disorder
http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431 "Ya see, we're not interested in what you know...but what you are willing to learn. C'mon y'all." | |
| - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator |
I was just listening to my favorite Toto song today, "99".  | |
| - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator |
Very sad indeed. Love TOTO then and now, never stopped listening or buying the new records. I love how honest Lukather has been the last few years in his views, i would love for him to talk more on the "contract" issues, i really dont understand sometimes how fucking greedy these labels are when it comes to their veterans, they will MILK them for every penny, doing countless re-issues and best of's but NEVER push or release their new work, so to the average music listener, TOTO is basically a one-two hit wonder to them. "We went where our music was appreciated, and that was everywhere but the USA, we knew we had fans, but there is only so much of the world you can play at once" Magne F | |
| - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator |
lastdecember said: Very sad indeed. Love TOTO then and now, never stopped listening or buying the new records. I love how honest Lukather has been the last few years in his views, i would love for him to talk more on the "contract" issues, i really dont understand sometimes how fucking greedy these labels are when it comes to their veterans, they will MILK them for every penny, doing countless re-issues and best of's but NEVER push or release their new work, so to the average music listener, TOTO is basically a one-two hit wonder to them.
It may come up somewhere on this site. He's brutally honest: http://www.stevelukather....ePage.aspx A couple of interesting tales from Steve Lukather's website... Jackson, Michael - Thriller Rock guitarist Eddie Van Halen was interviewed by Rolling Stone magazine in 1984. In the interview, he explained why he didn't ask for any royalties over the sales of Beat it, the song on which he plays a guitar solo. "I did it as a favor. I didn't want anything. Maybe Michael will give me dance lessons someday. I was a complete fool, according to the rest of the band [Van Halen], our manager and everybody else. I was not used. I knew what I was doing. I don't do something unless I want to do it." Steve Lukather: "Quincy Jones and Michael took a skeleton version of Beat it up to Eddie Van Halen's place as they wanted him to solo over the verse section. However, he played over a section that had more chord changes. So to fit his solo to where it went in the song, they had to cut the tape which took a lot of time to synchronise together." "After they had managed this, Jeff Porcaro and me were called in to bind Eddie's solo and some haphazard percussion which was a major headache. Initially, we rocked it out as Eddie had played a good solo but Quincy thought it too tough. So I had to reduce the distorted guitar sound and this is what was released. It was a huge R&B/rock success for us all really and helped pave the way for the bands of today that fuse these styles." Steve Lukather in 2004: "I was doing all of Quincy Jones' records back then. I wanted to be a part of this one as Michael was way hot after Off the wall. I remember having a lot of fun and the music was good. Funny story: I was in the house band for the Grammy's "Album of the year" three years in a row. Quincy's The dude record, Toto IV, then Thriller. It was happening big time back then. The last great era of the 'session guy' scene. I had a blast at that time as we were doing almost every record that came out of LA. We took a lot of shit from the press for it; still do, but 28 years later I am still working!!!" http://www.stevelukather....aspx?id=33 Toto - Past to present 1977 - 1990 The compilation album Past to present marks out the David Paich era of Toto. Until 1990 David Paich (co-)wrote most of the Toto hits, some of them collected on this album. Next to these hits there are a couple of new songs (co-)written by Jean-Michel Byron (*), who supposed to become Toto's new lead vocalist. After a short period of time Byron didn't appear to be the ideal successor of Joseph Williams. "Sony wanted a couple of new songs for our Greatest Hits album and they gave us a tape of Jean-Michel Byron, telling us that this was the vocalist we had to work with. (...) Jean-Michel is a good vocalist and artist, but he doesn't fit into the Toto style. His musical world is third world r&b. That's what he's doing great. (...) He tried to immitate Michael Jackson on stage, with dance steps and stuff. It drove us mad. Especially my brother Jeff. Jean-Michel also thought he could make big stars of Toto again. That kind of bullshit. That was the last time we listened to our record company!" (Mike Porcaro in music magazine Oor, October 3, 1992) Lukather in 2004 about Byron: "So we do all this rehearsal and we go on tour, the first fucking gig and we see the guy putting on his fucking clothes. A little sheriff's badge on, he puts one golf glove on. We're thinking, man that's fucking funny, that's great, man that's a great joke. Hey says, “What are you talking about?” I go, “You're not going to go out there with a fucking glove, that's Michael Jackson's shit.” He said, “No it's not, it's my stuff.” I'm going, you've got to be fucking kidding me. We get on stage and we start the first tune, Love has the power and he starts dancing around like fucking Richard Simmons on acid. Some fucking fruity shit going on man. And the crowd is like looking at me and going, something's up. They're looking at him and flipping him the bird telling him to get off the stage. And I'm looking at Jeff Porcaro and he's looking at me going, what the fuck is that? I mean is was unbelievable…He thought he'd come to save the day. Like Christ had come down and blessed us. We get off the gig and we're like, what the fuck is that? We're nuts, we're psycho. You can't do that. He goes, “I'm going to make you all very famous.” He thought he was the shit, he was hysterical. And I was single, newly single at the time after my first divorce and I was out there for the chicks and every time I got with a chick, he'd try to get with her." http://www.stevelukather....aspx?id=15 The Miles Davis/TOTO Connection TheLastMiles.com: What did Miles and the music of Miles Davis mean to you? SL: I heard a lot of interesting things about Miles; that he really loved rock and roll guitar players and that he dug pop music. We all of think of Miles with such reverence, Four and More and all of that. Through the years I've worked with Herbie [Hancock], Wayne [Shorter], Tony Williams and Miles - I never thought I'd get to play with these guys. I listen to that music all the time - it's what I put on in the car on the long journey home. It makes you feel good and it educates you every time you hear that stuff. TLM: Can you explain the origins of Don't stop me now? SL: Originally it was just something David started out with the original melody. He just had a little piece and I jumped in said: "That's fucking gorgeous!" We were thinking of doing like a Jeff Beck Blow by blow thing, where I would be the featured melody and soloist on it, because I came up with the bridge and the turnaround at the end. And then the whole Miles thing happened and we changed our whole attitude about it. We thought, "He'll probably say no, but what the fuck - nothing ventured, nothing gained." A vortex opened up and he allowed us to share the honour with one of the greatest legends of all time. Of all the rock and roll bands to do something with him. I don't know why, I think he just liked our vibe. He was so nice to us; he was just the opposite of what we had heard. [The Toto connection came about because Miles was recording a couple of tracks with Toto keyboardist Steve Porcaro, who also co-wrote Human nature, a track Miles played live up until his last concerts. Miles was due to meet Steve Porcaro and producer Tommy LiPuma at David Paich's home to do some initial work on the tunes - there's more on this and the music they recorded in my book. Also waiting at the house was Steve Lukather, Toto drummer Jeff Porcaro (now sadly deceased), plus other members of Toto and the Porcaro family.] TLM: Can you describe that first meeting with Miles? SL: Miles was coming over to the house and we were all sitting there having a drink, because we just wanted to meet the guy. David had two grand pianos all set up in his living room. There's a real funny story about when Miles came in. David used to have a stuffed life-sized German Shepard [dog] by the front door in attack mode! Miles walks in and the first thing he does when he sees the dog is jump back! And Dave goes "It's okay Miles, the dog's fake!" And Miles takes one look at us all in the room and then at the dog and says: "I've got some shit to make that dog come alive!" We just howled laughing! Then he came in and we introduced ourselves. He was very gracious because we'd heard stories that he could be pretty tough if he didn't dig the vibe. We tried to be as mellow and respectful as possible. He was just talking shit asking things like: "What are you guys doing?" We were walking on eggshells because we didn't want to set the cat off. So we moved very slowly. He spent a couple of days hanging out with us and he got a chance to see that we had a sense of humour, we had respect, we had interests in lots of music and that we weren't just a bunch of rock 'n' roll punks. Then we seized a window of opportunity. TLM: How did you ask Miles to play on the track? SL: We explained we were making a record [Fahrenheit] and then said: "In fact, we've got a tune that we'd love you to play on." And he looks at us like "yeah, alright, I hadn't heard that one before!" Dave said: 'It's something like a Sketches of Spain vibe we're looking at, but we don't want to get in your face about it. Can we play the song for you one time? I sit down at one piano and Dave sits down at another and we start playing Don't stop me now. I was playing the melody and at the end of it he looks over at us and says "What is this? Fucking Ferranti and Tycher? [a piano duo from the 1960s]" - we laughed our asses off! Then he said "Yeah I liked that, it's a nice tune." We didn't think much of it and then he went to work with Steve and cut some tracks. http://www.stevelukather....aspx?id=66 Lukather Classic Quote: "Some were great sessions, some were great records, particularly in the late '70s and early '80s. That was the peak of when I was doing it. I would look forward to being there and then sometimes the artist would be terrible - you didn't understand how these people got record deals!" tA Tribal Disorder
http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431 "Ya see, we're not interested in what you know...but what you are willing to learn. C'mon y'all." | |
| - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator |
theAudience said: lastdecember said: Very sad indeed. Love TOTO then and now, never stopped listening or buying the new records. I love how honest Lukather has been the last few years in his views, i would love for him to talk more on the "contract" issues, i really dont understand sometimes how fucking greedy these labels are when it comes to their veterans, they will MILK them for every penny, doing countless re-issues and best of's but NEVER push or release their new work, so to the average music listener, TOTO is basically a one-two hit wonder to them.
It may come up somewhere on this site. He's brutally honest: http://www.stevelukather....ePage.aspx A couple of interesting tales from Steve Lukather's website... Jackson, Michael - Thriller Rock guitarist Eddie Van Halen was interviewed by Rolling Stone magazine in 1984. In the interview, he explained why he didn't ask for any royalties over the sales of Beat it, the song on which he plays a guitar solo. "I did it as a favor. I didn't want anything. Maybe Michael will give me dance lessons someday. I was a complete fool, according to the rest of the band [Van Halen], our manager and everybody else. I was not used. I knew what I was doing. I don't do something unless I want to do it." Steve Lukather: "Quincy Jones and Michael took a skeleton version of Beat it up to Eddie Van Halen's place as they wanted him to solo over the verse section. However, he played over a section that had more chord changes. So to fit his solo to where it went in the song, they had to cut the tape which took a lot of time to synchronise together." "After they had managed this, Jeff Porcaro and me were called in to bind Eddie's solo and some haphazard percussion which was a major headache. Initially, we rocked it out as Eddie had played a good solo but Quincy thought it too tough. So I had to reduce the distorted guitar sound and this is what was released. It was a huge R&B/rock success for us all really and helped pave the way for the bands of today that fuse these styles." Steve Lukather in 2004: "I was doing all of Quincy Jones' records back then. I wanted to be a part of this one as Michael was way hot after Off the wall. I remember having a lot of fun and the music was good. Funny story: I was in the house band for the Grammy's "Album of the year" three years in a row. Quincy's The dude record, Toto IV, then Thriller. It was happening big time back then. The last great era of the 'session guy' scene. I had a blast at that time as we were doing almost every record that came out of LA. We took a lot of shit from the press for it; still do, but 28 years later I am still working!!!" http://www.stevelukather....aspx?id=33 Toto - Past to present 1977 - 1990 The compilation album Past to present marks out the David Paich era of Toto. Until 1990 David Paich (co-)wrote most of the Toto hits, some of them collected on this album. Next to these hits there are a couple of new songs (co-)written by Jean-Michel Byron (*), who supposed to become Toto's new lead vocalist. After a short period of time Byron didn't appear to be the ideal successor of Joseph Williams. "Sony wanted a couple of new songs for our Greatest Hits album and they gave us a tape of Jean-Michel Byron, telling us that this was the vocalist we had to work with. (...) Jean-Michel is a good vocalist and artist, but he doesn't fit into the Toto style. His musical world is third world r&b. That's what he's doing great. (...) He tried to immitate Michael Jackson on stage, with dance steps and stuff. It drove us mad. Especially my brother Jeff. Jean-Michel also thought he could make big stars of Toto again. That kind of bullshit. That was the last time we listened to our record company!" (Mike Porcaro in music magazine Oor, October 3, 1992) Lukather in 2004 about Byron: "So we do all this rehearsal and we go on tour, the first fucking gig and we see the guy putting on his fucking clothes. A little sheriff's badge on, he puts one golf glove on. We're thinking, man that's fucking funny, that's great, man that's a great joke. Hey says, “What are you talking about?” I go, “You're not going to go out there with a fucking glove, that's Michael Jackson's shit.” He said, “No it's not, it's my stuff.” I'm going, you've got to be fucking kidding me. We get on stage and we start the first tune, Love has the power and he starts dancing around like fucking Richard Simmons on acid. Some fucking fruity shit going on man. And the crowd is like looking at me and going, something's up. They're looking at him and flipping him the bird telling him to get off the stage. And I'm looking at Jeff Porcaro and he's looking at me going, what the fuck is that? I mean is was unbelievable…He thought he'd come to save the day. Like Christ had come down and blessed us. We get off the gig and we're like, what the fuck is that? We're nuts, we're psycho. You can't do that. He goes, “I'm going to make you all very famous.” He thought he was the shit, he was hysterical. And I was single, newly single at the time after my first divorce and I was out there for the chicks and every time I got with a chick, he'd try to get with her." http://www.stevelukather....aspx?id=15 The Miles Davis/TOTO Connection TheLastMiles.com: What did Miles and the music of Miles Davis mean to you? SL: I heard a lot of interesting things about Miles; that he really loved rock and roll guitar players and that he dug pop music. We all of think of Miles with such reverence, Four and More and all of that. Through the years I've worked with Herbie [Hancock], Wayne [Shorter], Tony Williams and Miles - I never thought I'd get to play with these guys. I listen to that music all the time - it's what I put on in the car on the long journey home. It makes you feel good and it educates you every time you hear that stuff. TLM: Can you explain the origins of Don't stop me now? SL: Originally it was just something David started out with the original melody. He just had a little piece and I jumped in said: "That's fucking gorgeous!" We were thinking of doing like a Jeff Beck Blow by blow thing, where I would be the featured melody and soloist on it, because I came up with the bridge and the turnaround at the end. And then the whole Miles thing happened and we changed our whole attitude about it. We thought, "He'll probably say no, but what the fuck - nothing ventured, nothing gained." A vortex opened up and he allowed us to share the honour with one of the greatest legends of all time. Of all the rock and roll bands to do something with him. I don't know why, I think he just liked our vibe. He was so nice to us; he was just the opposite of what we had heard. [The Toto connection came about because Miles was recording a couple of tracks with Toto keyboardist Steve Porcaro, who also co-wrote Human nature, a track Miles played live up until his last concerts. Miles was due to meet Steve Porcaro and producer Tommy LiPuma at David Paich's home to do some initial work on the tunes - there's more on this and the music they recorded in my book. Also waiting at the house was Steve Lukather, Toto drummer Jeff Porcaro (now sadly deceased), plus other members of Toto and the Porcaro family.] TLM: Can you describe that first meeting with Miles? SL: Miles was coming over to the house and we were all sitting there having a drink, because we just wanted to meet the guy. David had two grand pianos all set up in his living room. There's a real funny story about when Miles came in. David used to have a stuffed life-sized German Shepard [dog] by the front door in attack mode! Miles walks in and the first thing he does when he sees the dog is jump back! And Dave goes "It's okay Miles, the dog's fake!" And Miles takes one look at us all in the room and then at the dog and says: "I've got some shit to make that dog come alive!" We just howled laughing! Then he came in and we introduced ourselves. He was very gracious because we'd heard stories that he could be pretty tough if he didn't dig the vibe. We tried to be as mellow and respectful as possible. He was just talking shit asking things like: "What are you guys doing?" We were walking on eggshells because we didn't want to set the cat off. So we moved very slowly. He spent a couple of days hanging out with us and he got a chance to see that we had a sense of humour, we had respect, we had interests in lots of music and that we weren't just a bunch of rock 'n' roll punks. Then we seized a window of opportunity. TLM: How did you ask Miles to play on the track? SL: We explained we were making a record [Fahrenheit] and then said: "In fact, we've got a tune that we'd love you to play on." And he looks at us like "yeah, alright, I hadn't heard that one before!" Dave said: 'It's something like a Sketches of Spain vibe we're looking at, but we don't want to get in your face about it. Can we play the song for you one time? I sit down at one piano and Dave sits down at another and we start playing Don't stop me now. I was playing the melody and at the end of it he looks over at us and says "What is this? Fucking Ferranti and Tycher? [a piano duo from the 1960s]" - we laughed our asses off! Then he said "Yeah I liked that, it's a nice tune." We didn't think much of it and then he went to work with Steve and cut some tracks. http://www.stevelukather....aspx?id=66 Lukather Classic Quote: "Some were great sessions, some were great records, particularly in the late '70s and early '80s. That was the peak of when I was doing it. I would look forward to being there and then sometimes the artist would be terrible - you didn't understand how these people got record deals!" tA Tribal Disorder
http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431 Thanks for the stuff, I always felt that way about Jean Byron, he had such a "poser" look to him, he was like a milli vanilli/terence trent/mj impersonator, singing lead for a rock band?? He was just so WRONG for that group, he did have a good voice, but he didnt seem like a "team player", he seemed like a guy that would be looking in the mirror while the band was doing solos, very full of himself. I love the bluntness of Steve, i remember an article that you posted last year on his take on the history and things like that. "We went where our music was appreciated, and that was everywhere but the USA, we knew we had fans, but there is only so much of the world you can play at once" Magne F | |
| - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator |
Roseanna and Africa are amazing songs...They were one of my favorite groups...  | |
| - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator |
theAudience said: PFunkjazz said: WoW! They're on a lot of records by artists i no longer care about.
Yeah, but if you haven't noticed, there's quite a few folks that live in the MJ era. tA Tribal Disorder
http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431 All too painfully aware. You just had to bring up the Miles connection. test | |
| - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator |
PFunkjazz said: WoW! They're on a lot of records by artists i no longer care about.
You no longer care about EWF or chaka khan. Aww damn 
Don't laugh at my funk
This funk is a serious joint | |
| - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator |
phunkdaddy said: PFunkjazz said: WoW! They're on a lot of records by artists i no longer care about.
You no longer care about EWF or chaka khan. Aww damn
Nowadays, live and on record, EWF is a big bore. Chaka may have had a good record last year, i wouldn't know. test | |
| - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator |
PFunkjazz said: All too painfully aware. You just had to bring up the Miles connection.
Of course because these are the things your average TOTO-hater wouldn't know. 
tA Tribal Disorder
http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431 "Ya see, we're not interested in what you know...but what you are willing to learn. C'mon y'all." | |
| - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator |
lastdecember said: I love the bluntness of Steve, i remember an article that you posted last year on his take on the history and things like that.
You're welcome. He's a no b.s. veteran of the music biz. I had to play this during last year's NAMM show... ...Jake To The Bone (from Kingdom of Desire) Well written instrumental and a nicely constructed solo by Steve Lukather. tA Tribal Disorder
http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431 "Ya see, we're not interested in what you know...but what you are willing to learn. C'mon y'all." | |
| - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator |
theAudience said: lastdecember said: I love the bluntness of Steve, i remember an article that you posted last year on his take on the history and things like that.
You're welcome. He's a no b.s. veteran of the music biz. I had to play this during last year's NAMM show... ...Jake To The Bone (from Kingdom of Desire) Well written instrumental and a nicely constructed solo by Steve Lukather. tA Tribal Disorder
http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431 totally agree with that. Bands like Toto and Chicago or Journey and others always get lumped into this "Class" of disrespect and never get looked at for their musicianship which is TOP NOTCH "We went where our music was appreciated, and that was everywhere but the USA, we knew we had fans, but there is only so much of the world you can play at once" Magne F | |
| - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator |
I am aware of their past contributions but didn't know they were still formed as a group this decade, touring or whatever. | |
| - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator |
Cinnie said: I am aware of their past contributions but didn't know they were still formed as a group this decade, touring or whatever.
 That's because you don't pay me enough attention...
http://prince.org/msg/8/230617 ... 
tA Tribal Disorder
http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431 "Ya see, we're not interested in what you know...but what you are willing to learn. C'mon y'all." | |
| - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator |
I love Toto. I only have The Essential Toto now, but I'll pick up some albums eventually. "Whitney was purely and simply one of a kind." ~ Clive Davis | |
| - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator |
|
Toto - Waiting For Your Love,1982
Del Album Toto IV 1982 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6gu... I was just in Pampers when this came out but its my favorite by them. |
| - E-mail - orgNote - Report post to moderator |
