Toni Halliday

Toni Halliday
Toni Halliday live at The Garage, London in 1995
Background information
Birth name	Antoinette Halliday
Also known as	Toni Halliday
Born	(1964-07-05) 5 July 1964
Origin	Parsons Green, London, England
Genres	Alternative rock, electronica, shoegazing, dream pop
Occupation(s)	Musician
Instruments	Vocals, electric guitar, bass guitar
Years active	1978—present
Labels	Charisma, Anxious, FatLip, Universal
Associated acts	Curve, Chatelaine, Photofitz, State of Play, The Uncles, Scylla, Bonk, Robert Plant, Recoil, The Future Sound of London, Leftfield, Freaky Chakra, Headcase, The Killers, Bias, Acid Android, DJ? Acucrack, Orbital
Website	myspace.com/chatelainemusic curve.co.uk

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

She was also a member of the bands Photofitz, The Uncles, State of Play and Scylla. Halliday released solo work as Toni Halliday and Chatelaine. She collaborated with artists like Robert Plant, Recoil, The Future Sound of London, Leftfield, Paul van Dyk, Freaky Chakra, DJ? Acucrack, Headcase, The Killers, Acid Android, and Orbital.

Halliday has a contralto vocal range.^[1]

Early life and career

Halliday was born on 5 July 1964 in Parsons Green, London, and brought up in various locations across Europe, before eventually settling in Washington New Town, Tyne and Wear.

From 1978 to 1980, Halliday was the lead vocalist in a punk rock band named Photofitz (initially called The Incest), after which Toni left to start a solo career.

The first commercially released recording to feature 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", whereupon the singer returned to performing backing vocals for other artists, including the Robert Plant albums Shaken 'n' Stirred (1985), and 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 singles: "Natural Colour" and "Rock-a-bye Baby".

After the subsequent demise of State of Play, Halliday made another attempt at a solo career. Her album Hearts and Handshakes (produced by Halliday with Alan Moulder) was released in 1989, a year after it was finished, and four singles were taken from it, "Weekday", "Love Attraction", "Time Turns Around", and "Woman in Mind".

Curve

Dean Garcia had played on Hearts and Handshakes, and the pair now collaborated to form Curve, with Halliday serving as lead singer. Their partnership would last from 1990 to 2005. The group's main releases are the studio albums Doppelgänger (1992), Cuckoo (1993), Come Clean (1998), Gift (2001), The New Adventures of Curve (2002), and the compilations Radio Sessions (1993), Open Day at the Hate Fest (2001), The Way of Curve (2004), Rare and Unreleased (2010).^[2]

Scylla

In 1995, a year after the first, temporary dissolution of Curve, Halliday formed the band Scylla with Ricky Barber, Lindy Pocock, Fiona Lynsky and Julian Bown. The group toured small clubs in the summer of 1995. Scylla's only recording to have been officially released is the song "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 both Alan Moulder and Flood producing, but no album was released. A bootleg of these demo tracks can be found on the internet.^[3]

Other work

Following the emergence of Curve in 1991, Halliday co-wrote and performed vocals on two songs ("Edge to Life" and "Bloodline") for the Recoil album Bloodline (1992). She collaborated with The Future Sound of London for the song "Cerebral" from Lifeforms (1994), with Freaky Chakra for the song "Budded on Earth to Bloom in Heaven" from Lowdown Motivator (1994), and with Leftfield for their No. 18 UK hit "Original" from Leftism (1995). She was also featured on "Original"'s music video.

In 2002 Halliday recorded a number of songs with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra with plans to release an EP. By the end of the sessions there were enough songs recorded for an album with a working title of "For Tomorrows Sorrows". For unknown reasons the album remains unreleased with the exception of the title track which was unofficially uploaded onto the internet. One other song titled "All Flesh Is Grass" was made available on a very rare CDR by the label.

Halliday also collaborated with Headcase, Bias, Acid Android and DJ? Acucrack. In 2006, she was featured on the first The Killers Christmas track, "A Great Big Sled". She contributed vocals to Orbital's soundtrack for the 2012 re-make of the film Pusher.

Chatelaine

In February 2008, Toni introduced a new solo project on MySpace called Chatelaine.^[4] Chatelaine's debut album Take a Line For a Walk was released in June 2010. It featured nine new tracks: "Broken Bones", "Oh Daddy", "Life Remains", "Stripped Out", "Shifting Sands", "Killing Feeling", "Take a Line For a Walk", "Head To Head" and "Seen and Lost".

Halliday continues to work on the next Chatelaine album and other forthcoming collaborations. In April 2013 Halliday contributed vocals to a new track "Lost In The Noise", a collaboration with Huw Williams. The track can be found on the compilation Ethereal Electro Pop on Altitude Music. Another new Toni Halliday track for 2013 (co produced by Louise Dowd) called "Down In A Dark Place" can be heard in a trailer for the television programme The Vampire Dairies. Along with "Down In A Dark Place" two other new songs "Nowhere To Hide" and "Now The Time Is Here" appeared.^[5]

Halliday's song Nowhere To Hide was officially used in Sochi Winter Olympics 2014 promotion and advertising.^[6]

Halliday released a new song "Suffragette" in November 2016 on the compilation album The Song Method 2. It is available on I-Tunes. ^[7]

Halliday released four new songs in December 2017. "Deep State" and "Crashing Cars" can be found on the compilation album The Song Method 3, "Rebel Tattoo" is on the compilation album Psychadelic Indie and "Feel The Light" featuring Karen O on backing vocals can be found on the Swagger And Attitude 2 compilation. There are now enough new songs to release a compilation of solo recordings, whether Toni will release one in 2019 is still unknown.

Halliday remains reclusive and separates herself from her fan base and the music industry. In 2017 Dean and Toni contemplated a Curve reunion but ultimately Toni did not want anything more to do with the music industry and declined. Many other artists release rare music to their fan base independently through websites such as Bandcamp and Pledge Music. Hopefully Halliday will realise that her fan base is still strong and make her music more available to them.

Personal life

Toni Halliday is married to the British record producer Alan Moulder.^[8]

Discography

Collaborations

Halliday provided vocals on the following songs:

She also provided backing vocals on the following releases:

• Robert Plant – Shaken 'n' Stirred (1985)
• Robert Plant – Now and Zen (1988)

References

External links

• "Curve: Frequently Asked Questions #14" at curve-online.co.uk