Walter Sickert & The Army of Broken Toys

Boston-based phenomenon Walter Sickert & The Army of Broken Toys are dada darlings of the steampunk world, sharing music for anyone who has ever been broken (-NPR). The Army of Broken Toys's stage show exorcises personal tragedies and cleaves its audience's hearts with rollicking apocalyptic waltzes and powerful rock ballads that seem to emerge from under their ringmaster Walter Sickert’s top hat. While The Toys are on stage one feels psychically kidnapped to their ‘Portable Carnival’. The WIREFOREST boasts 7 musicians (guitars, upright bass, drums, viola, mandolin, broken toys, melodica, accordion, ukulele, flute...) and rolls with a surreal troupe of any number of midway and burlesque performers, The Bunny Collaborative. The Army of Broken Toys offers a unique rock club run-away to the circus experience.

Walter Sickert & The Army of Broken Toys have been making as much noise nationally as they do locally. With a steady foundation of coverage by Boston press including The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, the Noise and The Phoenix; the Army of Toys has also been featured nationally on NPR’s Here and Now, All Songs Considered and on MuchMusic. Walter Sickert was named Best Artist 2011 and 2012 in the Boston Phoenix Reader's Poll and his visual art was part of the Art is Evil touring stage/music/art show and art book sponsored by Amanda Palmer’s million dollar Kickstarter with a small group of artists like Frances Bean Cobain, Neil Gaiman, DJ Spooky, Shepard Fairey, David Mack etc. Walter has also been featured for the last six years as a part of the RPM challenge sponsored by New Hampshire’s The Wire. The band has continued to participate in the challenge every year since its inception. The Toys have successfully funded two Kickstarter campaigns, and produced a 40+ show run of their original 'steampunk musical for people who hate musicals,' "28 Seeds" a cautionary tale for our time writ by the band's resident playwright/mustache, Meff and produced by Liars and Believers. The play originated from the "last radio show" RPM '10 project.

The “rollicking, raunchy sideshow of jolly, wheezing menace and delight” live experience of Walter Sickert & The Army of Broken Toys have taken the band across the US and beyond, playing such revered venues as the Hynes Convention Center for First Night for four years, The Boston Center for The Arts, Boston Symphony Hall, 930 Club in DC, Webster Hall in NYC, Royce Hall in LA, Mod Club in Toronto, the Stone Pony in NJ, and the Melkweg in Amsterdam etc. Their live antics have earned them a Boston Music Award nomination for Best Live Act and headlining spots at Steampunk World’s Faire. They have garnered opening spots alongside international contemporaries the Tiger Lillies, Super Furry Animals frontman Gruff Rhys, The Humans (featuring Toyah Wilcox, Bill Rieflin and Chris Wong), The Dresden Dolls, Amanda Palmer (solo), Chester French, etc. at several venues.

With their newest album, Soft Time Traveler and tour plans in the US and Europe, there is so much more to come from the BRoken TOys!


(((((((((THE PRESS MONSTER))))))))))))

“Through it all, Walter Sickert anchors the performance pounding out strong melodies and baying these fierce, fuming lyrics and damn if it doesn’t come off as revelry... Utterly brilliant. Utterly captivating” Concert Central, 2012
“The romantic drunkenness of Walter Sickert's voice pushes against the meter, and moreover, I love this tasty arrangement from the Army, which includes the sweetest little fiddle/mandolin hooks I ever did hear.” Jonathan Donaldson for Inbound Sounds on exclusive preview of ‘Droog and Devotchka’, Boston Globe, 2012
“In the tradition of Cobain, Reed, and Cervenka, Walter Sickert declines to banish his phantasmagraphy to the sonicsphere...
art and music are one within this impresario” - Boston Phoenix, 2012
“Sickert delivers.” —Stuff Magazine
“SteamCRUNK music that piles fiery vocal work atop jazzy double bass, violins, and folk guitars.” —Stuff Magazine
“More scraggly merriment than we’ve encountered since ‘It’s the End of the World as We Know It.’” —Stuff Magazine
“The amount of sheer talent...is evident in every detail.” —Daniprose
“An immersive performance experience.” —Social Caroline
“MultimediaBOOYAH!!! “ –NE Theatre Geek
“But the minds responsible have raised this potentially problem child to be a fun, classy rebel, a fighter, socially adept and sexually confident, with a healthy sense of humor.” – NE Theatre Geek

“Walter is a presence on the stage, commanding this troupe of performers through renditions of the classic Batman theme song, and an apocalyptic tune, and one written just for this show. It’s hard to fully process this band, with the dancers, singers, instruments, and general zaniness of the set. But trust me when I say this band cannot be absorbed via CD. You need to see them live. ”

– Max Bowen | 2/1/12 | The Noise
“This “steamcrunk” ensemble incorporates visual performance art with a unique rock, classical, and blues sound that pairs perfectly with Sickert’s powerful raspy voice. And they sure as hell know how to host a party”

– Christina Lacoste | 11/23/11 | Weekly Dig

“It’s this combination of wit and strength, aided by an imposing physical presence, adoption of eccentric and appealing steampunkery and fearlessly booming voice, that makes Sickert so seductive. He’s a shaman whose cult embraces dancing into the abyss, or at least strutting around the edge for a while.”

– Marc Levy | 5/30/10 | Cambridge Day

“A dramatic, churning maelstrom and vast musical ocean whose waves come crashing down, leaving one simply stunned.”

– Julie Stoller | 2/21/10 | bostonsurvivalguide.com

“What an amazing band. No, not band – performance art ensemble; traveling band of carnival sideshow gypsies; askew and off-kilter dinner theater burlesque troupe…. Complex and multi-layered, it’s an orchestral soundtrack suitable for a huge theatrical production, but with music that’s friendly and inviting (though in a morbid and slightly scary sort of way), beckoning to take you on a strange journey.”

– Julie Stoller | 6/10/10 | bostonsurvivalguide.com

“Ringleaders Sickert and co-singer/accordionist Edrie come across like a pirate and an exotic marionette, respectively, and the music, hinged to Sickert's remarkably grizzled voice, draws from the bloodthirsty side of folk and cabaret.”

– Brett Milano | 2/5/11 | Boston Phoenix

“Walter Sickert and the Army of Broken Toys isn’t a band as much as a collective of like minded outsiders frolicking in the band system. Or maybe they’re a cult, we don’t really know. What we do know is that their performances are marked with a barely constrained chaos, most times spilling from the stage into the crowd into some frenzied near orgy of steampunked bunny ears.”

– Richard Bouchard | 7/22/11 | bostonbandcrush.org

“A musical alchemy, a death-folk, steamcrunk, organic-industrial experience sliding down the rabbit hole of performance art. The end result is a combination of edgy and eerie sounds.” Subbacultcha! Amsterdam 2009
"Really, any fan of the Velvet Underground, the Dresden Dolls, or those haunted merry-go-rounds that turn up in horror movies shouldn't miss Walter and the Toys, who elegantly merge the essence of all three" Globe

"There is a curious blend of mischief and morbidity in Walter Sickert & the Army of Broken Toys, as the duo of Sickert and Edrie are called. They garnish their ominous doom-folk with the theatricality of a demonic circus troupe. Past performances have included storytellers, fire-eaters, glass-eaters, contortionists and, of course, Edrie's broken toy army." Boston Herald 2009

"Holy Damn this is so good...if Jim Morrison is walking the afterworld, he surely must audition for this band. And I shall be the one to tell him to!" - (Mike Loce) The Noise -OCT, 2006-issue 265

"Walter Sickert the Army of Broken Toys is about performance art as much as it is music" - Boston Herald 2009

"Something like Nine Inch Nails, horror movie soundtracks, and two radio stations that have their frequencies crossed." - BOSTON GLOBE January-9th-2007

"Their performance confounds the mind as much as it delights the senses." - (Nancy Neon) THE NOISE 2007

"Even the dreamy ambient numbers like "Sacrilege" dip into more nightmarish territory as Sickert's vocals, which are nearly always distorted, ebb and flow under the beauty." Ham radio static, reverb drenched piano, sinister synth line and Sickert's sidekick Edrie's creepy vocals make for a kind of Goth folk ride." - (Jon Nolan) THE WIRE 11 October 2006

"Turn and face the strange. Sickert has a real gift as a multi-instrumentalist and singer and he journeys into dark and eclectic material on his debut disc." - Maneating Lemur 2006

"Taken as a whole, the 13 track CD is epic poetry exploring the black pit of human despair. ...the sweet cooing of Edrie is the perfect haunting echo to Walter's murderous howl. Soul-crushing heartbreak never sounded so good." - (Lexi Kahn) Low Budget Super Hero 2007

"The duo behind the din manage to create a sound-scape that could pass for Lewis Carroll's nightmares or an opium-soaked daydream." - (Jack) www.liarsociety.com 0ct-10-07

"Sickert and Edrie are hunkering down for another RPM Challenge on the heels of completing a new studio album, which they hope to release this summer. One of the songs they originally recorded for the 2009 RPM Challenge made it onto their latest disc. That song, called “Off with Her Head,” was recorded live last February with audience participation and is now their most commonly requested tune." - The Wire - Interview for 5th Annual RPM Challenge 2010

"Holy Damn this is so good...if Jim Morrison is walking the afterworld, he surely must audition for this band. And I shall be the one to tell him to!" (Mike Loce) The Noise -OCT,2006-issue 265 ==========================
"Walter Sickert the Army of Broken Toys is about performance art as much as it is music" "Something like Nine Inch Nails, horror movie soundtracks, and two radio stations that have their frequencies crossed." (BOSTON GLOBE) january-9th-2007 ============================ "Their performance confounds the mind as much as it delights the senses." (Nancy Neon) THE NOISE 2007 ================================ "Even the dreamy ambient numbers like "Sacrilege" dip into more nightmarish territory as Sickert's vocals, which are nearly always distorted, ebb and flow under the beauty." Ham radio static, reverb drenched piano, sinister synth line and Sickert's sidekick Edrie's creepy vocals make for a kind of Goth folk ride." (Jon Nolan) THE WIRE 11 October 2006 =============================== "Turn and face the strange. Sickert has a real gift as a multi-instrumentalist and singer and he journeys into dark and eclectic material on his debut disc." -Maneating Lemur =============================== "Taken as a whole, the 13 track CD is epic poetry exploring the black pit of human despair." "the sweet cooing of Edrie is the perfect haunting echo to Walter's murdererous howl. Soul-crushing heartbreak never sounded so good." (Lexi Kahn) Low Budget Super Hero 2007 ================================ "the duo behind the din manage to create a soundscape that could pass for Lewis Carol's nightmares or an opium-soaked daydream." (Jack at www.liarsociety.com) 0ct-10-07