Dangerous Toys formed in Austin, Texas in October 1987, growing out of an earlier project called Onyxx. Jason McMaster, previously the singer for Watchtower, was invited by Tim Trembley to join his band, Onyxx, which included Scott Dalhover on guitar, Mark Geary on drums, and Mike Watson on bass. The lineup solidified with McMaster on vocals, Dalhover and Danny Aaron on guitars, Geary on drums, and Watson on bass, and the band quickly earned a reputation on the Texas club circuit. Their distinctive sleaze-rock style set them apart from typical hair metal acts of the era , blending raw Southern rock grit with a hard-partying, tongue-in-cheek attitude and a memorably grotesque clown mascot.
The band's breakthrough came after signing with Columbia Records in 1988. Their self-titled debut album, Dangerous Toys, was released on May 9, 1989, recorded at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, California. The album gave the band its major breakthrough, peaking at number 65 on the Billboard 200, receiving gold certification by the RIAA, and the singles "Teas'n Pleas'n" and "Scared" enjoying heavy rotation on MTV's Headbangers Ball. Before long, the band was sharing stages with The Cult, L.A. Guns, Stryper, Faster Pussycat, and Bonham, and later that year they contributed "Demon Bell (The Ballad of Horace Pinker)" to the soundtrack of the Wes Craven-directed thriller, Shocker. The gold certification arrived five years later, in 1994, cementing the album as a defining moment for the band and for Austin's hard rock scene.
Dangerous Toys continued to record through the early and mid 1990s, though never matching that initial commercial peak. 1991 saw the release of the Roy Thomas Baker-produced Hellacious Acres, which featured the singles "Gimme' No Lip" and "Line 'Em Up," as well as a cover of Bad Company's "Feel Like Makin' Love," reaching no. 67 on the Billboard 200 , before the rise of grunge led Columbia to drop the group. Their album Pissed (1994) was not as successful as the self-titled debut but also received acclaim, and the commercial failure and poor reception of the band's fourth album, The R*tist 4*merly Known as Dangerous Toys (1995), led the band to go on hiatus. Along the way the lineup shifted considerably, with guitarists Danny Aaron, Kevin Fowler, and eventually Paul Lidel cycling through, while bassist Mike Watson departed before the final album of the era, leaving McMaster to handle bass duties on that record.
The band resurfaced at the turn of the millennium and has functioned largely as a live act ever since. Dangerous Toys resurfaced in 1999, and has since continued as mostly a live act, although they have occasionally been hinting at an upcoming fifth studio album. In 2001 they played reunion shows in Austin and Tokyo with original bassist Mike Watson rejoining, and reunited again for live shows in Austin and Tokyo in 2003, Austin in 2005, and at Bat Fest with Rhino Bucket in September 2006, with portions of that show intended for a 20-year retrospective release. In 2007 the band recorded a cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Simple Man" for a tribute album, and in 2008 they performed a handful of shows, most notably a 20th anniversary concert in Austin on November 8 with all original members. In 2010, Dangerous Toys was named one of the "Greatest Metal Bands in Texas Music History" by the Houston Press. The band's legacy endures through its influence on the Texas hard rock scene and its enduring cult following among fans of late-80s glam and sleaze metal.
That 2008 anniversary era is exactly when Dangerous Toys crossed paths with this archive. Wayne Dennon photographed the band during one show that year, capturing the energy of a group whose gold record and wild stage antics had already made them Austin rock legends. The 35 photographs from that night remain part of this collection, viewed by archive visitors 28,138 times, a small but lasting testament to a band that never stopped playing loud and never stopped bringing the clown mascot along for the ride.
