Miller, meanwhile, had been off the radar for years: it turns out he'd been playing in a wedding band since moving back to the Bay Area in the early '90s — he grew up in Sunnyvale and later attended UC Santa Cruz — before finally connecting with fellow Bay Area improvisers like Henry Kaiser and ROVA's Larry Ochs a few years ago. When Walter found out, he sought out Miller and persuaded him to hand over all the old tapes he could get his hands on so he could put together their long-overdue "debut" — some three decades after their first live shows.

Not content to stop there, the group — or at least a new incarnation of it — is working on a new album that showcases founders Miller and Noyes along with newcomers Kaiser, Walter, and others. They plan on unveiling a new live Toy Killers later this year, although the elusive Noyes, who still lives on the East Coast, probably won't be involved. Still, Walter is excited at the chance to work with these battle-scarred veterans. "I feel like part of my job is to encourage these older guys to not be in the middle and not hold back," he says. "People who have counted these guys out for one reason or another are not gonna be able to count them out at all."

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