Culture Greyhound

My thinking is you can’t be a true Texan and not love the Toadies.  They embody the spirit of Lone Star State Rock Music (along with Pantera, of course…sorry Drowning Pool), and they’ve been delivering their twangy punk since the late 80’s.  I’ve been a fan since I first heard them, which was around ’96 – my cousin Joe brought a copy of Rubberneck while visiting one Christmas.  I saw them twice in September 2008 (in Lubbock and Amarillo) and I recently caught their show at Stubb’s here in Austin.  The boys are still loud and rowdy, and the proper release of the lost album Feeler this year has reignited my never-ending love.

And so I bring you my twenty favorite Toadies tracks.  Some are from the new disc, only one is from the disappointing No Deliverance.  But most are from the group’s two classics – Rubberneck and Hell Below, Stars Above.  Turn the volume way way up.

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Once every three months I list the best of what I heard in albums/songs/remixes for the quarter. I do this to personally keep up with all the awesome music I hear, as it ultimately helps me at the end of the year when I do my overall listing for the previous twelve months. I also do it to introduce you cool cats to tunes you may have missed independently.

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When Interscope turned down Feeler, the sophomore effort from Dallas natives the Toadies, back in 1997, they probably had no idea what they were hearing – an alt-rock sound slightly more progressive and ahead of its time than what was filling up the airwaves at the moment.  The late 90’s were a transforming period for most of popular music; we had yet to see the short-lived Latin craze, the boy band saga, or the nu-metal movement take full swing.  The execs at the major label quickly tossed this promising album aside because they simply didn’t hear another “Possum Kingdom,” the track that helped the band’s debut Rubberneck go multi-platinum.

After the promising second album Hell Below Stars Above, the band called it quits for a while, then returned with the hit-or-miss comeback album No Deliverance.  But this retooling of that lost album is a shining point in the band’s catalog, no doubt.  The crew went into the studio this summer and re-recorded a portion of the tracks from Feeler, giving them a fresher, edgier, and louder touch.  Frontman Vaden Todd Lewis’ now-raspy Texan wail provides a more aggressive approach to the already-pristine material.  The new album reveals a refreshed band playing previously shelved masterpieces from the era of their creative peak.  An essential listen for all Toadies and Texas music fans.

Toadies – Dead Boy

Toadies – Waterfall

Toadies – Suck Magic

Josh Ritter – Change Of Time

from So Runs the World Away

Minus the Bear – My Time

from OMNI

The Tallest Man On Earth – King of Spain

from The Wild Hunt

Toadies – Dead Boy

from Feeler

Deerhunter – Helicopter (Star Slinger Remix)

from Star Slinger’s Bandcamp page

Up until about a month ago, I lived in the blue part of that “map” up there – I recently transferred to deep in the red, but I have been a Texan my whole life.  And there’s no place like it.  Anyone visiting will tell you: there’s something about the Lone Star State, a vibe, a sense of pride you can’t find anywhere else in the Union, or the world for that matter.  And I don’t plan on leaving anytime soon.

One of the best things about Texas is the music – from the country background of our capital to the rock and roll roots of the South Plains, to the Dirty South “Screwston” scene, to the metal movement based in DFW.  Harlem, Willie, Buddy, Pantera, Paul Wall, we’ve got it all.  I invite you to listen to the new mix Subservient Experiment has posted featuring only the finest in the state’s indie rock offerings.  It’s an awesome sampling of great tunes from such a huge land mass, and it has inspired me to make my own mix.

So enjoy a helping of tracks from the friendliest region on the planet.  I think you’ll agree: everything’s bigger in Texas, even the sounds.

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