Toadstool Shadow is a music & arts collective based in Yellow Springs, Ohio. It is reviving the lost genre of the fairy tale opera, using its own original psych-folk music to tell tales of wonder.
Currently, Toadstool Shadow is creating an original three-part fairy tale rock opera titled Rainbow Nights (and Rainbow Days!!). The three parts, each 12 songs long, are titled Rainbow Nights, Folk Songs of the American Wood Elf, and Journey to Glass Mountain. Some of the themes are belief, joy, and visionary experience.
Rainbow Nights has been performed live twice in Yellow Springs, Ohio in 2019-2020. In Rainbow Nights, Bunny, a seven-year old boy rabbit, is caught in a rain storm. He gladly takes shelter under the dome of a large toadstool. As the rain stops, night falls. Bunny then makes his way home through the rainbow night, encountering a strange world of elves and faeries. Arriving home, amazed but exhausted, the bunny knows, like Dorothy, that there is no place like home. Its 12-song album of original songs will be released on the full moon of July 5, 2020.
Folk Songs of the American Wood Elf has never been performed. In Folk Songs of the American Wood Elf, Bunny, now 19-years old, returns to the visionary landscape of his youth. As he never knew whether his childhood experiences were real or imagined, he brings a video camera to record everything. The songs are a taxonomy of visionary phenomena with individual songs about mermaids, leprechauns, unicorns, owls, robot elves, magic carpets, and faeries. It will be a 40-minute short movie of 12 original songs. It is being released gradually on YouTube, one music video at a time. The sixth video, "Telepathic Corridors," was just released on May 23, 2020. Its soundtrack album is half-recorded.
As yet, only two of Journey to Glass Mountain's 12 songs have been composed. The story of Journey to Glass Mountain is a closely guarded secret.
Musically, Toadstool Shadow aspires to be part of the New Weird America, electric freak folk, and elfcore movements. Artistically, it finds inspiration in many sources, including Richard Dadd's 1864 painting "The Faerie Feller's Master-Stroke"; Richard Scarry's classic 1963 picture book "I Am a Bunny"; 1960s rock music poster art, notably San Francisco's Big Five and Gary Grimshaw; 1960s Dutch art cooperative The Fool; 1970s British art collective Hipgnosis; rock photographer Karl Ferris, particularly his 1967 work with Donovan; 1977-era British punk rock, particularly the fashion and attitude; avant garde composer Harry Partch's theories of corporeal music; exotica music; 1970s performance artist Stacia Blake of Hawkwind; and, in general, late 20th century American and British psychedelic counterculture. Locally, it is inspired by Yellow Springs painters Chris Glaser and Pierre Nagley, Dayton musician M. Ross Perkins, and the defunct Dayton music and dance ensemble Rhythm in Shoes.
Toadstool Shadow is C.W. Till (guitar), Adam Gueth (bass), Larry Halpern (keyboards), Dale Hughes (percussion), Rhiannon Till (vocals), and Malcolm Oberon Till (Bunny), Gopal Till (West Coast photographer), Eli Bowsman (videographer), and a variety of special guest artists from the Yellow Springs area.
Currently, Toadstool Shadow is creating an original three-part fairy tale rock opera titled Rainbow Nights (and Rainbow Days!!). The three parts, each 12 songs long, are titled Rainbow Nights, Folk Songs of the American Wood Elf, and Journey to Glass Mountain. Some of the themes are belief, joy, and visionary experience.
Rainbow Nights has been performed live twice in Yellow Springs, Ohio in 2019-2020. In Rainbow Nights, Bunny, a seven-year old boy rabbit, is caught in a rain storm. He gladly takes shelter under the dome of a large toadstool. As the rain stops, night falls. Bunny then makes his way home through the rainbow night, encountering a strange world of elves and faeries. Arriving home, amazed but exhausted, the bunny knows, like Dorothy, that there is no place like home. Its 12-song album of original songs will be released on the full moon of July 5, 2020.
Folk Songs of the American Wood Elf has never been performed. In Folk Songs of the American Wood Elf, Bunny, now 19-years old, returns to the visionary landscape of his youth. As he never knew whether his childhood experiences were real or imagined, he brings a video camera to record everything. The songs are a taxonomy of visionary phenomena with individual songs about mermaids, leprechauns, unicorns, owls, robot elves, magic carpets, and faeries. It will be a 40-minute short movie of 12 original songs. It is being released gradually on YouTube, one music video at a time. The sixth video, "Telepathic Corridors," was just released on May 23, 2020. Its soundtrack album is half-recorded.
As yet, only two of Journey to Glass Mountain's 12 songs have been composed. The story of Journey to Glass Mountain is a closely guarded secret.
Musically, Toadstool Shadow aspires to be part of the New Weird America, electric freak folk, and elfcore movements. Artistically, it finds inspiration in many sources, including Richard Dadd's 1864 painting "The Faerie Feller's Master-Stroke"; Richard Scarry's classic 1963 picture book "I Am a Bunny"; 1960s rock music poster art, notably San Francisco's Big Five and Gary Grimshaw; 1960s Dutch art cooperative The Fool; 1970s British art collective Hipgnosis; rock photographer Karl Ferris, particularly his 1967 work with Donovan; 1977-era British punk rock, particularly the fashion and attitude; avant garde composer Harry Partch's theories of corporeal music; exotica music; 1970s performance artist Stacia Blake of Hawkwind; and, in general, late 20th century American and British psychedelic counterculture. Locally, it is inspired by Yellow Springs painters Chris Glaser and Pierre Nagley, Dayton musician M. Ross Perkins, and the defunct Dayton music and dance ensemble Rhythm in Shoes.
Toadstool Shadow is C.W. Till (guitar), Adam Gueth (bass), Larry Halpern (keyboards), Dale Hughes (percussion), Rhiannon Till (vocals), and Malcolm Oberon Till (Bunny), Gopal Till (West Coast photographer), Eli Bowsman (videographer), and a variety of special guest artists from the Yellow Springs area.
