Toni Halliday

Antoinette "Toni" Halliday (born 5 July 1964) is an English musician best known as the lead vocalist, lyricist, and occasional guitarist of the band Curve.

Early life and career

Halliday was born on 5 July 1964 in Parsons Green, Fulham, and brought up in various locations across Europe. When her father abandoned his wife and children following a run-in with the law in Greece, the Halliday family returned to the UK, and eventually settled in Washington New Town, Tyne and Wear.

From 1978 to 1980, Halliday was the lead vocalist in a punk rock band initially named The Incest, which - for obvious reasons - was quickly renamed Photofitz. The band's other members were lead guitarist Ian "Kent" Mckinnell, drummer Graham "Pro" Littlewood, and bassist Dale Smith. After a demo track was laid down by the band in Newcastle, Toni left to start a solo career. The remaining members of the band then went on an extensive tour of the States, before breaking up in an ill fated gig just outside of Philadelphia.

The first commercially-released recording to feature Toni Halliday was the single "The Smile and the Kiss" (1983) by the group Bonk, on which she performed uncredited backing vocals. The following year, Halliday's new band The Uncles released the single "What's the Use of Pretending"; the singer then returned to performing backing vocals for other artists, and was featured on the Robert Plant album "Shaken 'n' Stirred" (1985), and its follow-up "Now and Zen" (1988).

In 1985, Halliday and multi-instrumentalist Dean Garcia formed the band State of Play together with Garcia's wife Julie Fletcher and Eurythmics drummer Olle Romö. The following year, State of Play released an LP on Virgin Records titled "Balancing the Scales" - a non-hit album that spawned two non-hit singles: "Natural Colour" and "Rock-a-bye Baby".

After the subsequent demise of State of Play, Halliday launched an only marginally more successful solo career. Her album "Hearts And Handshakes" (produced by the singer with Alan Moulder) was released in 1989, an entire year after it was finished, and four singles were taken from it: "Weekday", "Love Attaction", "Time Turns Around", and "Woman In Mind". Dean Garcia also played on the album, even though he and Halliday were not on speaking terms during this period.

Curve

Collaborating once again with Dean Garcia following the reconciliation of their differences, Halliday served as the lead singer of Curve from 1990 to 31 January 2005. The group released a number of singles, EPs, and full-length albums; the latter include the following: "Doppelgänger" (1992), "Cuckoo" (1993), "Come Clean" (1998), "Open Day at the Hate Fest" (2001), "Gift" (2001), "The New Adventures of Curve" (2002), and the compilation "The Way of Curve" (2004).

Toni Halliday's style of singing on the recordings released by Curve — influenced at the same time by the deep, warm tone of The Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde and the more exotic neo-Goth warble of the Cocteau Twins' Elizabeth Fraser — could be argued to have been an influence on Shirley Manson, vocalist of post-grunge pop-rockers Garbage.

Other work

Following the emergence of Curve in 1991, Halliday co-wrote and performed vocals on two songs for the 1992 Recoil album "Bloodline", and also put in guest appearances on The Future Sound of London's "Lifeforms" (1994) and Leftfield's "Leftism" (1995). Other artists with whom Halliday has collaborated include Paul van Dyk, DJ? Acucrack, Acid Android, and Freaky Chakra.

Toni stepped out of the spotlight and retreated from music with the demise of Curve in early 2005, but is enjoying singing again and is excited for the new work.

Most recently, Halliday has performed with The Killers on their 2006 Christmas track "A Great Big Sled". The same year performed on an unreleased track by english technopop act The Future, called "Night Makes You".

On March 3rd, 2008, two unreleased songs by Toni's new band Chatelaine surfaced on Myspace [ [http://www.side-line.com/news_comments.php?id=29941_0_2_3_C New Toni Halliday (Curve) project] ] . The songs are credited Halliday/Dowd/Salmon. Halliday is currently recording for her new project, Chatelaine slated for a 2008 release.

cylla

In 1995, a year after the first, temporary dissolution of Curve, Halliday formed the band Scylla with Ricky Barber (Bass), Lindy Pocock, Fiona Lynsky and Julian Bown. [ [http://www.noise-fest.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=4114#4114 Message by former Band member Ricky Barber] ] . The group toured through small clubs in the summer of 1995, with Toni stipulating, that her name be kept off the advertising. [ [http://helensface.webs.com/ Scylla's Music Available For The First Time] ] The group's only recording to have been officially released is "Helen's Face", which can be found on the soundtrack album for the film "Showgirls". Another Scylla song, "Get A Helmet", can be heard in the Gregg Araki film "Nowhere". Scylla recorded a 12-track demo with Alan Moulder and Flood producing. It never went anywhere, after Toni decided to dissolve the band.

In February 2008 the demo surfaced on http://helensface.webs.com/index.htm. The website offers the whole 12 tracks for free download as a compressed file.

Track List
* Trip To Another Planet
* Helens Face
* Get A Helmet
* Cruiser
* No Idea
* Afterglow
* Butter
* Rumour
* Under Her Command
* Missing
* Fools Rule
* Rag DollNow that these long lost tracks have surfaced on the internet fans are hopeful for a proper CD release.

Chatelaine

In February 2008 Toni introduced a new Solo project called "Chatelaine" on MySpace (http://www.myspace.com/chatelainemusic). The first track "Oh Daddy" can be sampled there. An album is in the works to be released in 2008, producers and collaborators have not been confirmed.A second track can be heard on Chatelaine's myspace page as of March 2008, called "Stripped Out".

Chatelaine tracks so far posted by Toni on myspace as songs or ideas:
* Stripped Out
* Oh Daddy
* Killing The Feeling
* Head To Head
* Life Remains
* Shifting Sands

Private life

Halliday is married to the British record producer Alan Moulder.

Albums

STATE OF PLAY
* "Balancing The Scales"

CURVE
* "Pubic Fruit"
* "Doppelgänger"
* "Radio Sessions"
* "Cuckoo"
* "Come Clean"
* "Open Day At The Hatefest"
* "Gift"
* "The New Adventures Of Curve"
* "The Way Of Curve"

SCYLLA
* Unreleased

SOLO
* "Hearts And Handshakes"
* "The Orchestral EP" Unreleased

CHATELAINE
* Untitled TBC 2008

COLLABORATIONS

* Original (With Leftfield)
* Budded On Earth To Bloom In Heaven (With Freaky Chakra)
* Cerebral (With Future Sound Of London)
* So To Speak (With DJ? Acucrack)
* Words (With Paul Van Dyke)
* Faults (With Acid Android)
* A Great Big Sled (With The Killers)
* What's The Use Of pretending (With The Uncles)
* Lola (With Headcase)
* The Smile and the Kiss (With Bonk)
* Things That Dreams Are Made Of (With Bias)
* Edge To Life (With Recoil)
* Bloodline (With Recoil)
* Falling Free (With Aphex Twin)
* The Future (Backing Vocals on "Night Makes You")
* Robert Plant "Now And Zen" (Backing Vocals)

References

* [http://curve-online.co.uk/faq/14.php "Curve: Frequently Asked Questions #14"] at curve-online.co.uk
* [http://www.stack.nl/~conrad/curve/discography/toni-vocals.html "Toni on vocals"] at recovery: unofficial curve website
* [http://www.myspace.com/chatelainemusic Myspace page for Chatelaine] Toni's new band Chatelaine