The Tooners are a multimedia rock and roll band from Los Angeles who not only produce their own original music but also illustrate their songs. In the 1980s they were named WOMANIZER and released their songs on Flexi-Disc Soundsheets© inserted in PaperCuts, The Illustrated Lyrics Magazine which also included the songs' lyrics illustrated in comic book style. They also produced award winning (Chicago International Film Festival) fully animated music videos. When changing times, tastes and personnel instigated a change in name from WOMANIZER to THE TOONERS they continued to produce enhanced CDs which included music, videos, cartoons and games and then combined it all in their live, multimedia stage show, Rock & Roll Rehab.
Over the years there have been band members who have come and gone. The band was originally conceived by musician/animator Neal Warner who formed it with his cousin and childhood bandmate, Monte Solovy. Two more old friends, Corey Harris, a talented artist himself, as the third guitarist and Don Coorough on bass. An ad in the local newspaper brought in Tom Patrick as the lead singer and they found drummer Steve Bianchi when he participated in the Guitar Center Annual Drum-off Competition. This line up didn't survive till their first gig as Monte soon left the band.
The remaining five members began playing the L.A. Newwave club scene including multiple gigs at Madame Wong's, Club 88 and The Troubadour. After the third performance drummer Steve Bianchi left to join a Heavy Metal band. Patrick Meehan was a neighborhood kid who played in psychedelic bands with Neal while in Junior High School and with Neal, David Nigel Lloyd and John Bugbee in the proto Newwave band, Wild Oscare. He joined to replace Bianchi in time for the Wong's and Troubadour shows.
Womanizer was invited to be one of the house bands at the Troubadour on KWST nights, sponsored by a local radio station, and played regularly at Wong's West and Club 88 until bassist Don Coorough quit. It took six months to find his replacement, Michael Montrose, and another six months before singer Tom Patrick left to return to Rhode Island to be replaced by another of Neal's boyhood friends, Greg Piper.
Womanizer played the L.A. club scene off and on for a decade during which they produced PaperCuts, The Illustrated Lyrics Magazine and animated music videos. In the early 1990s the core of the band, Neal Warner, Greg Piper, Patrick Meehan and a former band mate of Greg Piper's, Richard (Buzz) Brissette, recorded the CD, Rocktasia and named the new version of the band The Tooners due to their multimedia productions.
Neal and Greg continue to record, produce videos , enhanced CDs and the live multimedia stage show, Rock & Roll Rehab.
Read more...