...well, they didn't "influence" me, but, the updates in their sound(s) signified the 90's for me, and that was... ***DEPECHE MODE & U2!*** ...They were leading the charge in updating, and not being pigeonholed for their classic 80's output; "Violator", "Achtung Baby", "Songs Of Faith...", "Zooropa", "Pop"...they CAUGHT UP, and showed they can outlast the 80's, dictate the 90's, and go BEYOND....
Hate to sound cliché but, Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' was one of those very few moments in music that I knew exactly where I was. It just hit like nothing else at the time.
I was in Art College and it's all such a blur of bad music and fashion! A classmate of mine who would later become one of my best friends was heavily into Guns n Roses. I still liked all the 80s bands like Depeche Mode and Erasure. I remember so much I hated like Paula Abdul, Wilson Phillips and Toni Tone Tony and all that breakdance kinda stuff. I was heavily into gay nightclubs so there was a lot of Vogue, George Michael and the song People Are Still Having Sex. The Gulf War was scaring the shit out of us and we were watching Twin Peaks, Kids In The Hall, In Living Color and The Tracy Ullman Show mostly for the short cartoon bits The Simpson Family. There was too much spandex, spiral permed hair and bustin a move. I enjoyed the later 90s a little more at least we had comfortable clothes and Seinfeld!
In my country Mexico, they broadcast "walk on the ocean" on a local video channel and a friend insisted that I pay attention to them, I got hooked, I went to buy the album and Toad became a very important part of my life, his albums dulcinea, fear, in light syrup, pale, coil helped sustain me during my mother's illness and subsequent death. I hope someday seeing live.
Wow , I can’t believe you did something on Toad the Wet Sprocket. This is awesome. One of my secret little bands that my friends say, “ who the hell is Toad the Wet Sprocket?”. When I first heard Fall Down, it stopped me in my tracks and I had to find out who was singing that song. A completely underrated band. Well done for doing this.
Yes, that was me with Fall Down as well, I ran right out and bought Dulcinea and it's still one of my all time favorite albums. And I still have people I know that have no clue who Toad is and it's their loss!
Glen's mastery of harmony transcends decades. My wife and I drove from Redondo Beach up to Santa Barbera in my old 52 MGTD just to see Toad The Wet Sproket and the opening band shared Toads drummer, (so I bought their cd "Guitars Forever"). I loved the entire experience and years later we drove south to Orange County to see them at the Coach House. These guys created a big part of the soundtrack to my life and I know without their creative effort my world would not resonate the way it has.
I love that he talked about how we used to "do the work" to understand where an album or an artist was coming from. It's so true. You could buy the greatest album of all time and not be ready for it. It would sit on your shelf for a year, and you'd put it on that one day in the car and it would just destroy you. And you'd keep listening to it for weeks. That way of appreciating music has now become a discipline instead of a necessity, and that's something I try to stay aware of with the barrage of attention grabbing junk.
"All I Want" would get frequently played at Publix when I worked there from 2006-2012. I had never heard the song before until hearing it over the store's Muzak station. One day, I wrote down the lyrics and searched for them when I got home and discovered the band. I even made a joke CD compilation called the "Publix Megamix" featuring a bunch of the songs that got played there including this Toad song. Good Memories even though I was too young to appreciate it when it came out.
Toad the Wet Sprocket is absolutely one of my favorite bands. I started out with Fear before moving to Chicago, where a friend introduced me to both Pale and Bread and Circus. That was enough to hook me for 25 years. TTWS finds me on a good morning, a Saturday when I can throw together omelettes for the family. They are there when I’m in the mountains driving back to Ohio. My daughter is four, and TTWS is one band I cannot wait to share with her. Great video, thank you!
Love Toad the Wet Sprocket. The follow-up "Walk on the Ocean" is just as good, in my opinion. Also love "Fall Down" and "Good Intentions" (another hit from the Friends soundtrack - the others being "I'll Be There for You" by The Rembrandts and "I Go Blind" by Hootie and Blowfish, another awesome '90s band)
yeah, good call. Walk on the Ocean, amazing song. I got a total brain worm after Bobby Moynahan sung it in some indie movie. Let's not sleep on Something Always Wrong. And hey, they're playing Baltimore...in mid 2022.
One of the best singer-songwriters of his era... Such thought provoking, intelligent lyrics! Glen and Toad are one of the very few bands that continue to get better with each release... Check out their last two releases- they are excellent!
I first heard “All I Want” in August of 1992 when it started getting massive airplay. It quickly became one of my favorite songs of that time period. By the end of the decade, it was still one of my favs,. And after more than 30 years with all that had come since, “All I Want” is still one of my all-time favorites! It always brings me back to a time when things were momentarily going great and i didn’t want them to end. But through experience, i instinctively knew that they were going to end. But still there was that glimmer of hope that helped (and still helps) to appreciate and enjoy the moment.
I became a big Toad fan when Pale came out (the album before this one). Also loved their first album, Bread & Circus. There was something a little gritty and real about those first two albums that I always felt like Toad lost on the later, more polished releases. I still liked them, but those first two albums were brilliant. Great live band too. First time I saw them was at a small club in upstate NY; before the show there was this kid puttering around on stage with equipment, then the rest of the band came out and the kid stepped up to the mike and started singing. I’d forgotten how young Glen Phillips still was at the time.
My all time fave song of there's is Walk on the Ocean. I was working a lot up by Santa Barbara at the time and they were from around there. I spent weeks alone on my job and in hotels and that song just hit me.
Loved the opening, but wish you had been able to have a longer look at the band and where they are now (just released another album). Love looking back at the music, as it brings back great memories of high school and university
I had heard and really liked "One Little Girl," but Pale - every single song - blew my mind. I still think ""Torn is one of the best opening tracks to any album ("I fear nothing besides myself"). I am the same age as Glen and so it felt like there was an artist who really understood that it was hard, complex, confusing trying to find your place in the world. "I Think About" is one of my all-time favorite songs, definitely my favorite of Toad's. As a writer, someone studying writing and wanting to be a writer, I was enraptured by the lyrics. "Strange to find the calendar my enemy. Scared that when I die so will the things I think about" still means so much to me. I am still a creative person, just not in writing, and the thought of not transferring my thoughts and ideas to something tangible scares me. So apropos that the next album would be Fear. And yet, the raw, quiet, fragility and force of Pale seemed to exude being scared and unsure and seeking meaning, whereas Fear seemed to be more about overcoming that trepidation and finding bearings. "I Will Not Take These Things For Granted," "Stories I Tell," "Pray Your Gods", "Walk On the Ocean"... I pulled hope from those songs, that album. I saw them live in support of Pale, which cemented my burgeoning reverence of the band. I saw them play 4-5 times for Pale and Fear, plus some in-store sets afternoons before their nighttime gigs. Honestly, this band means more to me than any other artist ever.
Their music reached my ears in Cebu, Philippines - 30 years ago! I collected all of their tapes, including PS. Love this band and feel fortunate to have the opportunity to see them soon in August!
Toad's album Fear is fantastic; better than most albums of that era, and yet not widely recognized as such. And Glenn Phillips has an incredibly distinctive voice.
As soon as I saw the reference to Love & Rockets, I smiled. Prof, when are you finally going to do a video on Bauhaus, Tones on Tail, Love & Rockets and Peter Murphy?
@@ProfessorofRock It's not like it gets performed without Cindy and Kate anyway. The important thing is it got recorded and I bought the album so I have it to listen to when I want. I love the vocal harmonies and that the chorus is in sequence.
He has got the bluest eyes that I have ever seen. Idk if it's his shirt or what, but they really pop. TTWS has been one of my favorites since I was in 7th or 8th grade. Dulcenia is the one o like the best, but they just released a new album a month or two ago, and their songwriting skills are still amazing.. something kind of rare these days with older bands. Seems after a while they start putting out less creative songs, but not these guys. They have still got it.
I vaguely remember All I Want, but had kinda forgotten this great band until i heard "Fall Down" oer the closin credits of a "Billions" episode on Showtime. I remembered some of the lyrics, Googled them, and found out their name and the song. Tweeted at the showrunner and thanked him. Then I investigated nearby shows, and found they were playing with Gin Blossoms and Barenaked Ladies at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles in a few weeks! (Same thing happened with Joe Bonamassa a few years ago...same venue, even!). Anyway, saw them again at Coach House about a year ago...they were fantastic! Hope to see them soon.
1990 Chubb Rock Jumped up on the seat with the lean and the green, in 1991 Toad the wet sprocket, changed the scene up a little, and took you back into that 80s feel with a 90s twist
Dude you go deep with interviews with bands and musicians that many wouldn't expect to hear from so if you want to take the Alternative thing and hit that ball out off the park??? See if you can contact Johnett Napolitano and do an interview about Concrete Blonde?!?! Ask her what dealing with Harry Rushakoff (the original drummer) was like and how Crazy did he get???
Fear was my personal soundtrack for my first band trip. We spent 5 days driving down the East Cast, from Provincetown MA down to somewhere in the Carolina's (Provincetown stands out because it was the first time I had ever run into a real-life cartoon - "Flamboyant" is just too tame of a word for him.), I had a no-skip Discman and a bunch of AA batteries. I had 20 CD's in a soft case - all of them but Toad were Columbia House orders that my "dog" had made (she had the weirdest taste in music, from Enya to Metallica *cough*) - but by the last day when it was just a 12 hour drive back up to Canada, it was Fear on repeat. I still own that CD.
I remember that time of music purgatory all too well (89-90). I graduated high school in 1987 and I feel my youth was part of a special time in pop/top 40 music. From the punk and new wave of the early 80's to the popularization of the more heavy rock sounds of the mid to late 80's music was really good. I remember 1989, bands like New Kids on the Block, really cheesy metal hair metal bands like Slaughter and so many other knock offs, hip hop started seeping into the mainstream, Vanilla Ice and the like, Color Me Badd... It was all really bad. Bryan Adams Everything I Do, Right Said Frew and Geraldo, Mili Vanilli ... I remember in late 1991 when when Metallica's black album, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana, They Might Be Giants and many others hit mainstream. It was refreshing but I believe that ultimately after a promising start the 90's were really bad compared to the 80's. In 1992 when bands like Tool, Nine Inhe Nails, Primus, Megadeth had a hit record, Neil Young's Harvest Moon, Dr Dre' The Chronic, Cypress Hill... that was peak 90's and after that it went down hill. There were some highlight in the late 90's but by the end of the decade things got too weird for me, the Limp Bizcut Linkin Park stuff... no thank you
1991 was one of the best years for music. The Black Album/Nevermind/Use Your Illusions/Diamonds and Pearls/Blood, Sex, Sugar, Magic/Achtung Baby/Ten/Dangerous. And the list goes on and on and on. The early 90s felt like one of the last eras where multiple genres could exist on the mainstream radio (before stations and labels consolidated in the late 90s).
I agree. The 90s started off promising and then the major labels started pumping the airwaves with a lot of awful sound-alike bands. Someone (I forget who) pointed out that the record labels got caught off guard with the relative success of "college rock" of the 80s so they ensured that it wouldn't happen again when Nirvana caught on. There were a lot of great indie bands in the 90s that didn't crack the mainstream though.
By the mid-eighties I had given up on popular rock and roll or what was being played on the rock stations, it was mostly just repeating about the same 40 songs on a daily basis. How many times do you really need to hear stairway to heaven her hotel California? I was fortunate in that there were a couple of alternative stations near me, one was a college station in the other one was a high school station that had just changed their format from playing what I will call my grandparents music to play modern alternative rock. There was a period from about 1986 to 2004 we're Rock exploded in a way then it had not since the early 70s. I know there's still a lot of great music out there being made but for the most part the last 20 years have been a desert. Fingers crossed there's another generation coming up and people are getting tired of listening to nothing but the same beats over and over again and auto-tune everything
I graduated in '87 as well, and I feel the same. It's interesting because you and I are coming from different music tastes, but our conclusions are the same. I'm a strait male, but Tori Amos' first two albums hit me like a meteor shower. I also fell for Sarah McLachlan, and Suzanne Vega's '90s material. And there were more yet, like Fiona Apple and Alanis Morissette. It's been posited that the '90s may have been the strongest decade ever for the female pop artist. As for Alternative, for a good while it was interesting, occasionally mind-blowing. Grunge was Grunge. I wasn't crazy about it in real time, but in time I learned to love the heavy-hitters. But all in all...with the exception of Beck, it was all over by the time Sugar Ray hit the scene, imo.
Living in So. California, just like the late Andrew Breitbart, I turned off KROQ and started to listen to talk radio beginning in 1990 when Grunge infected the airwaves. So I didn’t hear this or my favorite song from this band, “Fall Down” until many years later.
I was in an art school, and this new music sounded more like my vision of the world than the hairspray laden guys singing about t’s & a’s. Also, the world was changing, at least in the artistic world people went tired of all the Cold War narrative and “die, foreigner, die”, movies. Quentin Tarantino will soon win in Cannes with Pulp Fiction, and suddenly the scripts will have a higher IQ. And music will become more organic and with better lyrics, in a kind of late 60’s and early 70’s aura. It was a whole new and fresh air. I liked All I Want, but the one that made ask “who are the guys playing this was Walk On The Ocean.
Interesting interview. Enjoy TTWS. I remember the 'sell out' debate regarding some bands was a thing... seems odd and irrelevant now. Art will find its way.
For me the band was U2, Achtung Baby and the first single The Fly. I was never really into U2 the previous decade but this album blew the 80s out of the way.
There was also a British Heavy Metal band by the same name in the early’80’s. Disappeared after getting a couple of tracks on the Metal for Muthas compilation albums
Toad never got the 90’s fame they deserved, since they weren’t the “cool kids” of 90’s alt rock. But unlike the cool kids that fizzled out with the decade, they continue to put out great new music thanks to the loyal fan base they developed
I remember everything from Tom Petty to Jesus Jones from 1991. Working first job, I do remember what I had for lunch back then, thanks professor of Rock! This song apparently only made it to number 37 in oz that year? How great is it 30years later! Hoodo gurus! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-boN94tAFqZM.html
Wow. Got me thinking hard! I'm afraid I can't agree about early 90's "still the 80's". There was a shift, a period of transition. Yet, indeed the World changed radically in that lapse, '89 to '91. That's the year I entered college, and also got out of a stupid AND harsh emotional period. And yes, "All I want" is still charged with that sort of energy, and memories. Funny thing: I never got the name of the band, 'cause I never understood what the voice in the radio said! It was until I asked this bassist friend playing it, that I finally got it!
I used to borrow Toad the Wet Sprocket CD's from this cute girl I liked as an "anchor" to assure she would have to reconnect with me. It worked - I became a Toad fan, and she became my wife.
Toad is one of the most under rated bands of all time. Their albums Coil, Dulcinea, Pale are all albums you need to listen to from start to finish. There is nothing nowadays that compares in songwriting, blending of harmonies, and execution of performance. Glen and Todd are excellent guitarists that compliment each other. 90’s alternative bands were some of the best music that we will ever experience.
@@ScarletVoodoo The rest of their albums aren't too shabby either, and Dean is ridiculously talented bass player and singer too. Made me stupid happy when they got back together.
@@Schleppy625 I was a minor fan until i heard Coil and that changed my whole perception of the band. check out both of the refreshments albums very good grunge outlaw too from arizona .
What can I say about Toad... It's an absolutely amazing band that does not get enough recognition. Fear is one of my favorite albums of all time. Every song is a gem. I remember going on trips with friends, and Fear was definitely one of the albums we would listen to. When Walk on the Ocean starts, the whole car would start singing to the top of our lungs.
I actually liked Walk on the Ocean more than All I want. It spoke to much more deeply than anything else at the time. I was a radio DJ on my college radio station during this time of Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Toad. It was pretty awesome.
@@bobdylan3013 He really is. He was doing daily then weekly live streams all through the pandemic. Super down to earth and authentic guy. And incredible live!
@@piccolotakesall Livestreams were excellent last year...then Glen’s poor boundaries with fans sullied the online shows this year. I think most of us stopped watching live because it was the same few fans requesting songs; not necessarily entertaining considering no other Artist allows (a small number of) fans to dictate what everyone gets to hear. Just a waste of a back catalog to me ✨.
@@Selena.H.I gradually watched them less and less, but not because of anything you’re describing. Just because life became busier as months went on. That said, I watched one in May 2021 that was really great and varied in content, and he even mentioned my name based on my comment in the chat. So, all I can say is I’ve only ever had good experiences, and will continue to think only good things of Glen and TTWS! 💖
I joined the Navy when I was 17 and ended up in Virginia Beach, VA in the late 80's. The first TTWS song I ever heard was One Little Girl on a local alt station...I was hooked. I saw them on the Pale tour with King Missile then, Fear, Dulcinea, and Coil while travelling in the military. Glen even brought me on the bus to hang out after a show in IL. Love, love ,love Starting Now.
Love Toad The Wet Sprocket!! Their album Dulcinea is one of my favorite albums. Superstorm Sandy left a foot of water in my home. I was in a rental for months, even during the holidays. I sent Glen either an email or message while there. He wrote back and we exchanged a few messages. He was so very kind, it got me through it all. He has written great songs as a solo artist as well. The Hole and Everything But You are two.
This was the first CD that fell apart because I played it so much. "All I Want" "Walk on the Ocean" were awesome (and "Ocean" became the first song I taught myself to play when I decided to take up guitar after college), but immediately fell in love with "Is It For Me" because that was the first song that ever had my name in it. Not only that, it used my name in a scene that I could actually envision myself in. A couple of years later, when Toad was playing the Orbit Room in Grand Rapids, it was a great setting for my first date with my then girlfriend (now wife) and "Is It for Me" was a part of the setlist that night.
I love Toad and have many fond childhood memories of which they were a part. I was in 5th or 6th grade when it came came out. I also have a vivid memory associated with that song. It was the middle of winter in southern WV and a particularly bad snow storm was barreling through the mountains. I was already in bed for the night but woke up in the early morning hours to the wind howling outside my window. I always went to sleep with my radio on so it was still going. I remember pulling back the curtains and staring down into the snow-swept street as All I Want played. Funny how strong the association between music and memory can be. I'm forever thankful for it, though, as it almost lets us go back in time.
Im always happy and amazed to hear ANYONE mention The Waterboys (especially an American). Woefully underKNOWN band stateside. Toad kinda suffers a similar fate but at the hands of time rather than for lack of North American distribution.
OMG!! I’ve LOVED Toad the Wet Sprocket SINCE 1991!! I found them on a lark!! I was working at TGIFridays in Wash DC back then and I was friends with one of the bartenders and he asks me if I wanted to catch a show across the street at Lisner Auditorium (it was located on George Washington University campus). Not thinking much about it and having NOTHING to do that evening, I said sure! I was 21 that summer and living FREE and ON MY OWN!! (I’d been living on my own in Logan Circle. A neighborhood in NW DC) I had no idea who was playing and didn’t really care! LOL…. The show was Gin Blossoms opening for Toad the Wet Sprocket. My impressions of Gin Blossoms was that they were okay. They weren’t fantastic, but they didn’t leave a mark on my soul…. But Toad the Wet Sprocket BLEW MY MIND!!! Every song was so MELODIC, Thought provoking lyrics and I didn’t really want the music to end!! I remember specifically that they closed the show with I Will Not Take These Things for Granted!! SUCH AN AMAZING SONG!! To this day, I am STILL a huge Toad fan!! I love Glen Phillips solo stuff!! He’s got a song called Easier that I think is…. THE SH*T!! THANK YOU ADAM for yet another interview but this time with a person who created music that TOUCHED MY SOUL!! How much more of that interview did you NOT use?! I wanna see the rest!!
Just saw Toad in Indy recently, they were great! Glen’s talks to the crowd were wonderful and he seems like a cool guy. I only bought their albums fairly recently, but I always enjoyed their songs that were videos. Fear is my favorite, Stories I Tell is my favorite deep track.
I have their first two albums on cassette. Plenty of memorable songs. Never hear anyone talk about them anymore. I just looked up their Wikipedia. Apparently they were formed in Hershey, PA. Weird, I always pegged them for a British band.
I just saw Toad at the historic Birchmere in Virginia. They still sound great!! Toad was one of the first bands where I really connected with their music. Good Intentions is probably my favorite but All I Want was my entry into the world of Toad.
Right as alternative was hitting the charts, our local radio station (which was total crap prior) was bought out and turned into an alternative station. It was amazing and I remember hearing "Until I Fall Away" by the Gin Blossoms way before "Hey Jealousy" became a huge hit and I was hooked. I'm like you, I love 90's music and have so many great memories connected to it. I met Glen Phillips last summer at a Toad concert and he is probably one of the nicest people you'd ever meet in addition to being a kickass songwriter/singer.
Hilarious! Who doesn’t love Monty Python?? Oh, great band too!!😄 I’ve always been attracted to melodic groups and great vocal harmonies like Toad, King’s X, Cheap Trick, etc. If they were hard rock and heavy metal, that was good too like Dokken and Stryper.
You can even misquote the Pythons in relation to this channel. "Modern music doesn't have the qualities of music of the past." "Yeah, you try and tell the young people of today that, and they won't believe you..."
Speaking of alternative/grunge, professor I might have an idea for an episode. There was a band called mother love bone that was formed in the late 80’s, but before their debut album released, the lead singer died. Is there a chance you could do an episode on the band and who was in the band and what happened to them?
Funny you should mention Columbia House. My brother 'forced' me to join when I was about 15 so that he could get the free CD's for signing someone up. At the time, I wasn't really into music at all. I'd watched Much Music and heard stuff that my brother listened to, but I just hadn't developed my own tastes yet if that makes sense. Anyway, I agreed and was left to decide what I wanted to buy for my own selection. The album Dulcinea made my list for whatever reason... and that album sparked something in me that changed my life forever. Toad, almost overnight, were cemented as my favorite band and have remained so for decades. They were the reason I developed any musical taste at all, and even inspired me to take up writing music myself.
TTWS is the best band ever and I am not kidding...they are still so relevant now too...Listen to Fly From Heaven and California Wasted.. Going to see them again Friday in Memphis!
I think he was saying that the band met when they were in the plays "Our Town" and "Oklahoma" together in Santa Barbara. That part threw me too until I listened to it again. I knew they had gone to San Marcos High.
Thank you for this video. Once again an excellent deep dive into this group. Excellent job of setting the stage and linking the disparate joints bones and tendons. Their big song melts my heart and makes me feel at peace in some way.
I love Toad, the song of theirs that always got me was walk on the ocean. I don't know what it is about that song but it is transformative in some way. I also really like the baseline. They had a lot of other great songs but that was the one that always gets me
Thanks so much Adam. I've been a fan of Toad and Glenn for longer than I can remember. I've had the pleasure of seeing Toad in concert and Glenn solo with a guest. He is a fantastic human being to his core. If you get a chance, listen to California Wasted. I just want to thank you for the enormous smile on my face this evening 😊. 73, Randy
Great band. Do not sleep on their newer stuff either. New Constellation is an AMAZING album with the title track, Rare Bird, What You Want Bet On You etc. Great!
