Mabel Greer's Toy Shop

• Genres: Rock

Biography

Mabel Greer's Toyshop didn't release any discs during the six months or so they were in existence, but did include a couple of future members of Yes (guitarist Peter Banks and bassist Chris Squire) in their lineup. Banks and Squire had been in the band Syn, which made a couple of good psychedelic pop singles in 1967. At the end of that year, while still in Syn, they began playing in Mabel Greer's Toyshop as well. Syn folded for good a couple of months later, but Mabel Greer's Toyshop continued until mid-1968; very shortly after they too broke up, Banks and Squire became founder-members of Yes.

In their short lifetime, Mabel Greer's Toyshop did manage to record a session for the BBC radio program Top Gear. Three of these eventually showed up on a compilation of British psychedelic rarities, Dustbin Full of Rubbish. The fourth, along with three studio demos, surfaced on Peter Banks' Can I Play You Something?, which in large part collated odds and ends from his pre-Yes bands. For all that, Mabel Greer's Toyshop were just an average if likable British psychedelic band, capable of churning out fluttering distorted guitar lines on oddly structured songs with pretty harmonies. None of the songs that are preserved are really outstanding, though, and not even close to as outstanding as the best ones Banks and Squire contributed to on Syn's singles. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide