...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!
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 .
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 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.
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.
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! 💖
"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.
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!
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!!
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
You got an interview with Glen Phillips! Nice one! TTWS was a seminal part of my adolescence and I still love Something's Always Wrong and All I Want as my favorites. Yay for you and for us, Professor!!! 😁🙏
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
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 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.
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.
Toad was the opening band for The Orgin back in '92 and they ran away with the show! I became an instant fan - albums are great, but their live shows were the absolute best. They are the most prominent soundtrack of my college days. Every song brings a flood of memories. Love this interview
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.
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.
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.
What a period of history to be a teen. One foot solidly in the 80s, and another in the early 90s. Wow, that was 30 years ago.....man I feel old. The music excited me, we had a type of music that just sprung up out of nowhere, and had a decade and a half of music that was spectacular, right before. It was sad to see older bands struggle with new sounds, yet exciting to hear new bands and in-between bands that ushered in a new decade looking to be unique. I think it succeeded.
Toad the Wet Sprocket was one of my favorite bands as a kid and still is. I was born in 89 and in 92-93 I got my first cassettes (Fear - T.T.W.S. and Ten - Pearl Jam). I still have both. Fear has this euphoric sound that clings onto that indie style from the late 80s. Its quite nice and feels great to listen to.
Got to see these guys at SunFest in West Palm Beach maybe ten years ago. They sounded great live and after the show they were just hanging out in a booth and anybody could walk up and say hi. Super down to earth cool guys.
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.
Love Glen and Toad! I had the opportunity to see them before they released their first album and to watch (and listen to them) grow as musicians over the years.
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.
Sometimes you hit the nail right on the head. I remember the feeling in the air here in New England when Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, and RHCP had shows in quick succession. Too bad the Gen-X revolution faltered and most of us became corporate slaves rather than change the system.
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!
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
90/91 school year...our freshman year when the fav five linked arms and became buddies through music, dress and being outcasts. That was a great year for music (outside the mainstream) and coming of age.
I loved in Naples Florida & don’t remember how I was exposed to Toad, but I loved every song on the album, start to finish. Please play more of them on a future video.
I may have only been a little kid but I was completely aware of how amazing of a time it was to be alive in every way. Music, movies, cartoons everything.
Glenn truly found his voice and the bands sound with this album. It's interesting to see how many of these artists say they were searching for voice,sound and style when they hit big with their lastest album, like they find it without even knowing they found it. Great interview for a great album
@@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.
I can still picture in my mind the living room television in my house in the early 90s and Walk On the Ocean or All I Want playing on MTV. This is another band that is near and dear. I still listen to many of their songs. I'd really love to see more videos from you on these guys
I love your channel so much Adam, I never miss an episode and I always look forward to seeing more of your content daily. I just love to see others who love music as much as I do.
I used to play the living daylights out of the album “Dulcinea”! It was given to me up in Orchard Park,Ny by my Cousins friend ( 1995ish) . Songs like Fly from heaven, Somethings always wrong and Crowing are just etched in my memory bank of Songs I love!
I have that Monty Python album and had listened to it several times, so I laughed out loud the first time I heard the name of the band on the radio. Great band, great melodic songs. Thanks Professor!
I would really love to talk to him about the song 'Fly From Heaven' and what his thoughts were writing that song. Also, 'Walk on the Ocean' is one of my favorite songs. I can just listen to that song on repeat.
He did a few FB live streams every week from 3/20 to a few months ago. He actually talked about the meaning of several songs, and the thought process behind them. Fly from Heaven is one that he talked about. He's a facinating man.
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.
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?
All I Want (and most of the other tracks on Fear) was pretty much my background music through all of 1991. A year of pinings and uncertainties, for sure. Wonderful interview!
The 90s started with so much happening in many genres. Aerosmith was back. Grunge was coming out. Alt music was cool and then music just died. Loved TWS and Monty Python. I actually made a tape of songs that had that "All I Want" feel and mood. I loved "All I Want," so much that I play and recorded it twice, back to back so that I wouldn't have to rewind. Fleetwood Mac's Hypnotized and Tom Petty's "Breakdown" drum intros always messed with my head - so similar and were being played in the same years.
I remember my friend Denny at a college party telling a group of friends that we have to check out this new band, particularly to listen to their lyrics. Got to give him credit, a good solid band. Miss those days but glad we still have that music.
This takes me back to my teen years in the 90's- ah what a great memory trip this was Prof! Thx so much for the great interview and reminding me I need to dig out my Toad CDs and jam again-such great tunes! Loved their song in the Buffy movie ('92).
Great episode Professor! I was 16 in 91 and really related to and enjoyed Toad The Wet Sprocket, fell in love with All I Want, then we in Colorado Springs had an awesome radio station that had recently (at that time) changed format from a straight up Top 40 station to ",Alternative" and these guys were on heavy rotation on this station 102.7 Fm KIKX.. FOUND THESE GUYS AND OTHERS LIKE DINOSAUR JR, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, The Posies, The Lemonheads, etc.. and was enjoying this style at the right exact time of these guys breaking out! I used to record mixed tapes right off the radio back in those days and had this tune and Walk on the Ocean at arm's reach to play whenever the mood struck, great memories of the times!
My soon-to-be wife introduced me to her favorite band and I suddenly became a Toad fan. They never heard a non-harmonic tone they didn't like... chord progression comfort food for my trained ear
@@ProfessorofRock seen them live four times, including after they reunited. Had tickets for their covid cancelled tour as well, with BNL and Gin Blossoms
Great dialogue on the evolution of music during the early 90's. You touched on many of the important bands and defined this transition. 'The world can change at the blink of and eye' For SURE! -Jesus Jones
We just finished up the Duran Duran video and I turned to my wife and said, "I wonder if he did a Toad the Wet Sprocket video. Nahhh...I don't get that HOLY CRAP, TWO WEEKS AGO!" I graduated in 91, and Fear hardly left my tape deck during the end of that last great summer (usually swapping off with the Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Soundtrack and Escape by Journey). A local classic rock radio station played some of the songs when the album released and I got hooked. Of course, me being a Monty Python fan for a decade didn't hurt either. I was all set to see them in Providence around thanksgiving in the late 90's, but I caught the flu and they then went on hiatus, so I thought I missed my chance. Luckily, they played a club in Foxboro in 2009, and my wife and I were able to finally catch them live. GOD what a show. Great video and interview on one of my favorite bands of all time.
Saw them August 27, 1992 at the Rocky Point Palladium in Warwick, RI (sadly the amusement park and hall are all gone) with the Gin Blossoms opening up for them. Tremendous show and the small venue just put it over the top. Like the Prof. said, such an interesting time as the Cold War was just ending and music was making a cataclysmic shift. So lucky to have grown up during the 80s and early 90s
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.
Poll: What was the band and song from the early 90s that influenced you most as music was changing?
Tool, Sober and Faith No More, Epic
...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.
None. For me, music was changing for the worse and, in the early 1990s, I stopped consistently following the music scene.
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!
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.
I agree. The harmonies were chef's kiss. So freaking stellar.
@@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.
Coil is great
I’m nearing 50. Toad is my absolute favorite from the 90s. And I love all of the 90s but my go to is Toad. Harmonies, lyrics…. Amazing
@@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 .
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!
Nightingale Song is one of the best 2 minute songs ever...
Toad is such a good band. Deep lyrics, great melodies and the blending of vocals is just so good when mixed together.
Very true.
The catchiest pre-chorus of all time, "saying everythi-eeeiiiinnng"
Toad the wet sprocket, Gin Blossoms, Goo Goo Dolls, Cranberries, Collective Soul, Third eye blind....so many!!!
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.
Best song of all time. No joke. still gives me chills to this day, no matter how many times I've listened to this.
Same. It's so great.
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.
Cool! He is such a good dude.
They Played Epcot and had people standing outside the seating area every show. A treat to see they remain popular.
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.
Me too.
I hope that more of this interview is coming. I could listen to Glenn Phillips for a lot longer than 15 minutes.
Yeah, the guy comes off so very genuine. Good stuff.
@@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! 💖
"Glen" not "Glenn".
"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.
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!
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!!
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.
Great story! Thanks for sharing!!!
The Pride Of Santa Barbara !
That's right!
I danced to "All I Want" with all my kids when they were toddlers. Burned the best kind of mark on my heart.
90 alternative rock rules🤘🤘
Yes but not this band.
Alternative?...i guess you fell for the marketing scam!😂😂😂😂
It was nothing more than cheesey pop!😂
Have you ever listened to this band's catalog? They aren't cheesy pop.
To each their own.
I agree.
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)
There were some great bands and songs in those days.
Good Intentions is one of my all time favorites!! Didn't get the attention or play it deserved back then....but I still love/play it ❤❤❤
Would love a video on Walk On The Ocean
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.
@@davidjmazur have I got news for you...
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.
"You're writing about the heart but it's an organ that pumps blood..." What a great quote! 8-)
That Cerulean album by The Ocean Blue in the background is fitting when talking about 90s pop bands. I love that album.
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.
@@UToobin75 Amazing band with timeless songs for sure!
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.
This was perfect college music. Just a magical 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.
I’d love to see a Mike Scott interview here.
Waterboys, YES!!!!! Only heard them on 97X Woxy from Cincinnati.
Was a sophomore in High school when this came out. Soundtrack of my youth. LOVE it.
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.
Great album !! Thanks for the interview !!
Fear is still an awesome album. One of my all time favs, that I still listen too regularly. So many great songs.
They were a garage band when I was living in Isla Vista in the late 80s.
You got an interview with Glen Phillips! Nice one! TTWS was a seminal part of my adolescence and I still love Something's Always Wrong and All I Want as my favorites. Yay for you and for us, Professor!!! 😁🙏
Ha ha! Thanks!
I absolutely love this band! My fave songs of theirs are “Whatever I Fear”, “Walk on the Ocean”, and “I Will Not Take These Things for Granted”. ❤️🎶
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
California Wasted is a gem. So good. 💓💓💓
All I Want will forever be my favorite song. For as long as I could remember it hit me different than any other song that came on the radio 🙌
I love 'All I want'. I used to listen to that album over and over.
My favorite song, hands down. Brings me back to a time when the future seemed limitless, even if the present was quite mundane and precarious.
Dulcinea - a great album by Toad... I love "Something's Always Wrong" and "Begin"
Windmills is my fave!
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 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.
Toad is the soundtrack of my college years. Their lyrics are the poetry of my coming of age era. So much love for this band
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.
I like the first 3 albums. Great band that I never got to see live.
Toad was the opening band for The Orgin back in '92 and they ran away with the show! I became an instant fan - albums are great, but their live shows were the absolute best. They are the most prominent soundtrack of my college days. Every song brings a flood of memories. Love this interview
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 that Glenn was wearing a t-shirt from the Orange Peel in Asheville, NC! It's a great club if you're ever in Asheville.
"Walk on the Ocean" is always in my heart (every now n then in my playlist)
Me too.
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.
I love when your take adds a complete layer of new understanding and appreciation of a familiar song!
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.
What a period of history to be a teen. One foot solidly in the 80s, and another in the early 90s. Wow, that was 30 years ago.....man I feel old.
The music excited me, we had a type of music that just sprung up out of nowhere, and had a decade and a half of music that was spectacular, right before. It was sad to see older bands struggle with new sounds, yet exciting to hear new bands and in-between bands that ushered in a new decade looking to be unique. I think it succeeded.
Great way to put it. Thanks for watching.
'91 I was 12 years old❤🔥🤘🥂😝 GREAT MEMORIES!
‘91, a great year. The start of an awesome compact disc collection for SURE.
🤘
Toad the Wet Sprocket was one of my favorite bands as a kid and still is. I was born in 89 and in 92-93 I got my first cassettes (Fear - T.T.W.S. and Ten - Pearl Jam). I still have both. Fear has this euphoric sound that clings onto that indie style from the late 80s. Its quite nice and feels great to listen to.
Got to see these guys at SunFest in West Palm Beach maybe ten years ago. They sounded great live and after the show they were just hanging out in a booth and anybody could walk up and say hi. Super down to earth cool guys.
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.
Love Glen and Toad! I had the opportunity to see them before they released their first album and to watch (and listen to them) grow as musicians over the years.
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.
Sometimes you hit the nail right on the head. I remember the feeling in the air here in New England when Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, and RHCP had shows in quick succession. Too bad the Gen-X revolution faltered and most of us became corporate slaves rather than change the system.
We just need time to think.
Vote today, even if you think it doesn’t matter. I did
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!
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 suspect that the Professor will produce another Toad episode down the road. 😉 They weren't one-hit wonders. ✌
We bought Fear when it came out, then Dulcinea and still listen to both quite a bit - and our kids know all of the songs!
Dulcinea is one of my all time favourite albums.
90/91 school year...our freshman year when the fav five linked arms and became buddies through music, dress and being outcasts. That was a great year for music (outside the mainstream) and coming of age.
Such great memories.
The you Professor...I love this song. Oh the 90's the last great decade of music..keep em coming from this decade 🤘
Will do! Thanks for listening
90s "alternative" rock is still my favorite.
I loved in Naples Florida & don’t remember how I was exposed to Toad, but I loved every song on the album, start to finish. Please play more of them on a future video.
I may have only been a little kid but I was completely aware of how amazing of a time it was to be alive in every way. Music, movies, cartoons everything.
For sure.
Glenn truly found his voice and the bands sound with this album. It's interesting to see how many of these artists say they were searching for voice,sound and style when they hit big with their lastest album, like they find it without even knowing they found it. Great interview for a great album
Fear is an amazing album especially I Will Not Take These Things For Granted.
@@ProfessorofRock I will check it out right now, thanks professor if you recommend it I know you know good music,
Just did beautiful song
@@ProfessorofRock They played it live when I saw them on their California Wasted tour a few years back. So powerful.
Fun fact: Michael Stipe hates Shiny Happy People.
He really does. It was a top ten hit but he hated it.
@@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.
I believe he doesn't like Orange Crush either. It's very rare for them to play it live. Pity, as it's my favourite upbeat song of theirs.
@@Elwaves2925 they played it so well from the Monster era. I think it lost it's luster after that
I have grown to hate it myself!
Toad the Wet Sprocket- What a great band!
I can still picture in my mind the living room television in my house in the early 90s and Walk On the Ocean or All I Want playing on MTV. This is another band that is near and dear. I still listen to many of their songs. I'd really love to see more videos from you on these guys
I love your channel so much Adam, I never miss an episode and I always look forward to seeing more of your content daily. I just love to see others who love music as much as I do.
I used to play the living daylights out of the album “Dulcinea”! It was given to me up in Orchard Park,Ny by my Cousins friend ( 1995ish) . Songs like Fly from heaven, Somethings always wrong and Crowing are just etched in my memory bank of Songs I love!
Dulcinea is a fabulous album.
I have that Monty Python album and had listened to it several times, so I laughed out loud the first time I heard the name of the band on the radio. Great band, great melodic songs. Thanks Professor!
In the late 2000s I scoured Hastings for all of toads back catalog! I love all their albums especially Pale and Dulcinea!
I would really love to talk to him about the song 'Fly From Heaven' and what his thoughts were writing that song.
Also, 'Walk on the Ocean' is one of my favorite songs. I can just listen to that song on repeat.
He did a few FB live streams every week from 3/20 to a few months ago. He actually talked about the meaning of several songs, and the thought process behind them. Fly from Heaven is one that he talked about. He's a facinating man.
@@kaypettit8362 Wow thanks. I'll have to check that out.
You should check out the new album too, if you haven't already. Their music is always so good!
@@kaypettit8362 I will listen if it's on RUclips. I don't follow music like I did in my youth.
Love your 90’s coverage!!! You get the best of each decade! 😁
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.
Love this group. Thanks so much!
What a great Interview! I've been waiting a while for you to do this one!
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?
"Bollocks! Those blokes took my drums." Andrew Eldritch (probably) 😎
this
All I Want (and most of the other tracks on Fear) was pretty much my background music through all of 1991. A year of pinings and uncertainties, for sure. Wonderful interview!
The 90s started with so much happening in many genres. Aerosmith was back. Grunge was coming out. Alt music was cool and then music just died. Loved TWS and Monty Python. I actually made a tape of songs that had that "All I Want" feel and mood. I loved "All I Want," so much that I play and recorded it twice, back to back so that I wouldn't have to rewind.
Fleetwood Mac's Hypnotized and Tom Petty's "Breakdown" drum intros always messed with my head - so similar and were being played in the same years.
I absolutely love this one on so many levels! High school was 1990-1994 for me. Everything in this video 💯
I remember my friend Denny at a college party telling a group of friends that we have to check out this new band, particularly to listen to their lyrics. Got to give him credit, a good solid band. Miss those days but glad we still have that music.
Great memories!
Just Saw them tonight in concert. Still amazing!
This takes me back to my teen years in the 90's- ah what a great memory trip this was Prof!
Thx so much for the great interview and reminding me I need to dig out my Toad CDs and jam again-such great tunes! Loved their song in the Buffy movie ('92).
Remember seeing toad at the bar scene before they gained national attention. Fun times
One of my favorite bands and my favorite song of theirs, thanks for doing this song!
First heard of TTWS in college, maybe 1993 (?) and loved it despite my head being almost completely in prog-rock. A great band and great performances.
They are really great! Thanks for watching.
Great episode Professor! I was 16 in 91 and really related to and enjoyed Toad The Wet Sprocket, fell in love with All I Want, then we in Colorado Springs had an awesome radio station that had recently (at that time) changed format from a straight up Top 40 station to ",Alternative" and these guys were on heavy rotation on this station 102.7 Fm KIKX.. FOUND THESE GUYS AND OTHERS LIKE DINOSAUR JR, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, The Posies, The Lemonheads, etc.. and was enjoying this style at the right exact time of these guys breaking out! I used to record mixed tapes right off the radio back in those days and had this tune and Walk on the Ocean at arm's reach to play whenever the mood struck, great memories of the times!
Another great interview.
My soon-to-be wife introduced me to her favorite band and I suddenly became a Toad fan. They never heard a non-harmonic tone they didn't like... chord progression comfort food for my trained ear
It's easy to become a fan, they are so melodic.
Exactly well said!
@@ProfessorofRock seen them live four times, including after they reunited. Had tickets for their covid cancelled tour as well, with BNL and Gin Blossoms
Great dialogue on the evolution of music during the early 90's. You touched on many of the important bands and defined this transition. 'The world can change at the blink of and eye' For SURE! -Jesus Jones
We just finished up the Duran Duran video and I turned to my wife and said, "I wonder if he did a Toad the Wet Sprocket video. Nahhh...I don't get that HOLY CRAP, TWO WEEKS AGO!"
I graduated in 91, and Fear hardly left my tape deck during the end of that last great summer (usually swapping off with the Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Soundtrack and Escape by Journey). A local classic rock radio station played some of the songs when the album released and I got hooked. Of course, me being a Monty Python fan for a decade didn't hurt either. I was all set to see them in Providence around thanksgiving in the late 90's, but I caught the flu and they then went on hiatus, so I thought I missed my chance. Luckily, they played a club in Foxboro in 2009, and my wife and I were able to finally catch them live. GOD what a show.
Great video and interview on one of my favorite bands of all time.
Saw them August 27, 1992 at the Rocky Point Palladium in Warwick, RI (sadly the amusement park and hall are all gone) with the Gin Blossoms opening up for them. Tremendous show and the small venue just put it over the top. Like the Prof. said, such an interesting time as the Cold War was just ending and music was making a cataclysmic shift. So lucky to have grown up during the 80s and early 90s
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.
You are becoming a voice for our generation with your reflections. I love it.