A familiar face

As we move toward the holiday season (Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa), seeing a fresh, but familiar, face will be a regular occurrence on the Broken Toyz stage. With Tommy Gunns, now officially, performing as his country alter-ego through a fair chunk of the next two months, 'little brother' J.J. Gunns will be taking the stage, all Gunns blazing.

Ok, so he's not 'really' Tommy's little brother. The band was touring through the deep south one year, in the late 80's, when they stumbled upon some kid sitting out on the porch, banjo in hand. Tommy could hear the faint strains of J.J. (not strangely, coming from the deep south, his full name is John John Johns, he adopted the Gunns moniker later on) plucking away. Tommy grabbed one of his guitars and they started cuttin' heads. Tommy would lay down the nastiest, dirtiest licks he could and that little redneck would fire right back, matching Tommy note for note. When the band found J.J.'s pa in the barn having a 'sexy-time' with one of his livestock, they figured he was much better off hangin' with them than facing a future of trying to splice his genes with that of a sheep or goat, and the rest, as they say, is history.

A few short weeks and J.J. was up to speed on the Toyz catalogue of songs and was ready to assist when ever needed. In the nearly 20 years since that day in the yard, J.J. dutifully hung with the band, never playing one note on stage with them, until earlier this year. But when finally given a chance, he ripped it up like nobody's business. I guess it's true that good things come to those who wait (although he didn't have to wait long for some groupie action, he's been picking up the scraps with me for years...).

So, there you have it. The man you will see in the coming months, tearin' it up on Tuesday's, is no longer a mystery.

Have a nice day...

Eli Finkelstein (Cy's kid)