10/19/09

TAD

TAD, one my favorite bands and one of a many great bands that have gone largely unnoticed, existed from 89-99...birthing a total of 4 full length LPs and countless 7"s/LPs. Like most awesome bands, they now lie discarded to side, obscured from view by overrated releases from a bunch of other bands that don't really matter anymore.

Back in their initial years, they played alongside bands like Mudhoney, Soundgarden, Nirvana, among others. When touring with Nirvana in 89 out in Europe...they HEADLINED. People went to the gigs to see TAD, not Kurt Cobain's magical heroin caravan. Kurt Cobain had a falling out with the band in the following years, citing them as (paraphrased) "boneheaded grunge", even when the band had made clear signs of impending musical growth. Sure their final album, Infrared Riding Hood, was a cheesy, over-sentimental, poorly written piece of shit compared to 8-Way Santa and Inhaler, but fuck--it was different; I still enjoy it for what it is. Maybe if people threw a little more love their way back then, we would've gotten at least one more killer record from the band. Go back and listen to their single Kevorkian's Holiday. Listen to Demon's Seed off of Live Alien Broadcasts. That shit fucking rules; it breathes the same energy heard on 8-Way Santa but made it darker, even poppier to a certain extent, which isn't a bad thing at all. Had the band received more support, I have no doubt they would've had an eventual comeback.

TAD was dropped by their label in '93. They were picked up by another on a trial period after the release of Infrared Riding Hood. After terrible reception to the record, they were dropped from their label AGAIN, and left releasing singles with any independent label left that gave a damn. Attribute their demise to this or one too many years of the whole redneck shtick.

Why write about them now? It's 15 years too late for anyone to really start caring. This band embodied the spirit, the grime, and the filth that accreted to become the backbone of that fad that died once fuckheads like silverchair, pearl jam, and whatever over-generalized things, ran it in the ground, and kicked the shit out of it while it laid defenseless in it's toughest of times. This is a post invested in the hope that someone else will pick up the band's records, appreciate them for what they were, and stop over-generalizing something from 20 years ago that has only come to express the musical output of 4 or 5 shit bands in the public paradigm.

and so, I lay in front of you the majority of TAD's body of work:

1989/1990 Salt Lick/God's Balls
1991 - 8-Way Santa
1993 - Inhaler
1994 - Infrared Riding Hood

Banned by MTV in 1989:

Wood Goblins


Other TAD Posts
TAD (Salem) Post over at [shiny grey monotone]

--fred

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

YES!!!! One of the best bands ever. Thank you for this; hopefully it will bring some new fans to these heaviest of heavy masters. Do you know anything about a supposed unreleased final album? I read something about it years ago, something like he was looking for a label to release it, but have heard nothing since.

fred said...

Tad and Kurt have supposedly been looking for a label to fund the release of a "bits and pieces" sort of album; what I assume are the collected unreleased tracks they put to tape before they imploded in '98/'99. There have also been talks of re-releasing some of their old albums, as I'm sure you've notice, have all gone out of circulation. I've been waiting patiently...but the word has been out on their efforts ever since they originally PROPOSED the idea of the TAD dvd that came out a couple of years ago. I'm afraid that Doyle is too wrapped up in 'Brothers' and Kurt is busy doing whatever he does--so it might still be a long while before we see anymore info on it surface. Only time will tell.

Anonymous said...

The "Busted Circuits..." documentary is very, very cool! What do you think of the Hogmolly album? I always thought it was underappreciated and think of it sort of as an unofficial TAD album.

megaweapon said...

thanks for the TAD stuff... also, the Brothers of The Sonic Cloth demos were amazing

Trey said...

My 2 cents on Hog Molly is that they'e decent but certainly not TAD.

fred said...

Hog Molly was good for what it was. It was like Tad Doyle's pure-rock indulgence album...it was cheesy, heavy, tons of great riffs, although great on the lyrical side...

I wouldn't say it's an extension of TAD, but rather a musical extension of Tad Doyle...just one part of him that we saw pretty often in TAD's music.

Listen to 'Wrecked Nation' off of the 'Brothers of the Sonic Cloth' demos I posted a little while back. If you notice the similarity between that song and Hog Molly you'll agree.

Cheap Billy Elliot Ticket said...

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Online MP3 Songs said...

Thanks for sharing dude, you have really nice collection of songs.

guitar said...

nice collection !! ... keep sharing and rocking

Anonymous said...

great band I have a few of their early releases on Vinyl

Silverchair are truly shite, middle class aussie wankers of the higest orders.

Mike
Australia

Unknown said...

YOU FOUND OUT ABOUT TAD FROM WATCHING THE MOVIE 'HYPE' IN THE 90S DONT ACT LIKE YOU WERE INTO THEM WAY BACK IN TEHIR PRIME YOU FUCKING POSER

fred said...

haha, riiiight. I didn't see Hype 'til a few weeks ago...and when they were in their "prime", I was like 10. of course I didn't give a shit back then. I would be WAY into discussing with you the legitimacy of my writing, but I get the feeling it would be one-sided and a complete waste of my time.

a "thanks for the records" would be nice...but no matter--get the fuck outta here...

fred said...

and don't kid yourself...hole fucking sucks

Trey said...

YOU LEARNED HOW TO TYPE IN ALL CAPS FROM ME YOU FUCKING POSER

I\Iauseous VVizard said...

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