Discography

Wally, Tall Toad’s first endeavor into recording, mixing and actually releasing a product, was dropped onto the world in 1991, independently. They entered Electric Eel recording studios in the summer of 1991 to record eight songs of heavy punk-like fury. The ambiance of Electric Eel and the sheer presence of engineer A. Zachary Lansdowne gave this record a certain quality that came through in the music. A little dingy and a whole lot brash, it came to be known as “punk as fuck and twice as ugly” by some local fans. It was recorded in one day in a blitzkrieg of anger and beer that can really sting your senses, and mixed on another.

The opening song, “Flopsweat“, gives a nod to classic New York punk ala The Ramones. It’s a deluge of fast pop rock that can render you blind if you’re not careful. There is a story there for the song “Jello-Face“, but I’ll damned if this writer can remember it. “Trudge” is as close to Black Flag as they could get, excepting the Black Flag cover “The Best One Yet“, but does that count? This album would also contain two songs that would be recorded three times each over the course of their ten year career, “Opened Eyes” and “Mollusk Blanket“. Even Mighty Mouse had a hand in the song “Twitch N’ Writhe“, which was inspired by the The New Adventures Of Mighty Mouse: Mighty’s Benefit Plan episode. But were Elwie and the Tree Weasels future-inspired by Tall Toad? There were three of them, just like Tall Toad. I guess we’ll never know. Unless Ralph Bakshi comes out and admits it.

Traveling to Seattle to record at a legendary triangular building, this record began its sound birth from this overzealous, non-bearded band at the hands of Phil Ek. This would also be the first album with a guest musician and other in a guest appearance on “Viscosity And Thermal Breakdown” from the mighty Ron Lenz, playing accordion and doing spoken word of some form of Lenz-jive. He managed all this after narrowly escaping a pee soaked arrival from trying to urinate into a plastic bottle because he couldn’t hold it, all while Tony was at the wheel of the Road Toad. The vocal shenanigans involved a water buffalo, a car and some sort of cloud. Recorded on February 23rd and 24th of 1993 and released later in that year, independently (this would continue to be a constant theme throughout their career), all on the magic of tape. Recorded in one day and mixed the next. A little more rock oriented, it’s more experimental than Wally.

What this album lacked in length, being a four song EP, it made up for in overdubs. Especially “Viscosity And Thermal Breakdown“, which Engineer Ek had to reign in. “Crummy” cruises along in sludgy mapleness. How much fuzz is too much fuzz? None! That’s the correct answer! Or “There is no too much fuzz” would also have sufficed despite its grammatical incorrectness. This would be the final time (out of three) that the band would record “Opened Eyes“. Having dubbed it the perfect version or giving up trying, we’ll never know. Unless we just ask them, but why bother?

When something that only comes along once in a lifetime arrives, you go out and buy that thing. That was not the case with Waltzin’ The Geezer. Which is too bad because it’s an album made up of songs that are about things. Recorded in January and released in the spring of 1995, independently (do we really need to keep mentioning this?). Recorded in two days and mixed in another two, this was a very ambitious project this time. At times psychedelic, sometimes a little poppy and other times incredibly loud, the band were trying to expand beyond their punk label. “Jesus Side Of Winter” clocks in at almost ten minutes (which is an epic for them, or not). Wolves stormed the Synergy walls (or doors, actually) and were caught on tape during the song. They managed to get international Dean Martin impersonator Scott West to do the vocals on “Skunkbutt“, a nod to both Dean and Jerry. It would prove to be the last full length they would release.

“Family Dog” has more chorus on the guitar than a group of singing people. It would prove to be a single. Nothing says clean channel guitar, then distorted channel guitar more than “Gravel Pit Stomach“. It also featured some spoken word/sort-of-singing from Mike that was based off the Salvador Dali painting Spider Of The Evening, for some reason. It may have been because he had a shirt with it on there. Who’s to say? “Rex Dart/Sweatbeetle Dickweed” is a song that needs no explanation. All of this with Sean Brown’s Dad in a suit with lime green stripes and brandishing a bouquet of flowers, dancing.

After managing to survive the wolf break-in earlier in the recording session, they caught on tape this cover of a Robyn Hitchcock song, which in no way reflects the feelings of the band themselves (nudge nudge, wink wink). The legend of why they chose this song to record and release remains a cloudy mystery. Some say it was because they liked the song, but others say the most likely reason was because they knew it. Whatever the reason, it was done as the B side to “Family Dog”.

Jared Jensen recorded this slab of riff-rollin’ sludge of a song. It was to be their first and only single. Although “single” is a deceptive word here, being that it never got released. Perhaps if you said it was “the single most unreleased song” you’d be correct, or even adequate. Just perhaps.

This album technically was the second album recorded by the band in the late spring/early summer of 1992 (well, not the second album they recorded that year, but the second album they EVER recorded. To say they recorded two albums in one year would claim they were successful.), but was never released due to money problems and distribution issues. In other words, they had neither. It was their first lengthy (for them) album, seventeen songs, and took two days to record and another day and a half to mix. It shows the start of the expansion of musical interests the band was having, with songs ranging from garage rock (“Strawberry Girl“) to weird experimental tracks (“God’s An Astronaut“, “Diversionary Monkeyman“) to Melvins inspired heavy riffery (“Twelve Hungry Leeches“). The album was recorded by Seattle shut-in/local luminary A. Zachary Lansdowne, once again at the helm. The band was becoming more and more comfortable in the studio, leaving dirty laundry and flecks of skin everywhere.

Of the seventeen songs, three were to be of the cover variety: “She“, “Hellhole” and the questionable version of the Kinks song “All The Day And All Of The Night“, along with such returning favorites as “Flopsweat“, “Opened Eyes” and “Mollusk Blanket“. All this, and the rest, would fall through history like the sand of an hour glass, or like that hour glass at the beginning of that soap opera. Whichever the metaphor, it was like sand: grainy and would probably just be made into glass.

This was actually a 7″ 45rpm EP featuring three of the “biggest” bands to come out of Yelm, Tall Toad, Diplomatic Immunity and Velvet Rain. Originally this was recorded at Velvet Rain drummer Todd Rice’s house by a guy they ended up hating who had no idea what he was doing. It was decided later by industry mogul John Ledington, who had put this project together, that the bands should reconvene at Electric Eel to rerecord this lost masterpiece. It was a day of alcohol, drugs and loud rock. The bonus track “Where The Hell Is Yelm” also features engineer A. Zachary Lansdowne accompanying on backing vocals.

Much like the BBC recordings and the Peel Sessions, this was recorded in a studio at the Evergreen State College on April 28th of 1995 without the benefits of time and any budget to speak of, but this wasn’t broadcast on the air. It was a project put together by former Diplomatic Immunity vocalist and soon to be legendary producer Brooks Martin. It was recorded in a single afternoon at this Olympia, WA based college. This was the first and only time the band ever professionally recorded the first original Tall Toad song “It’s A Dead Guy“, plus many more versions of “Burnin’ Baby Spider“.

If colossal could be a sound, it might be this record. Recording began on Friday 13th in January 1995 and This Could Get Ugly took a total of three days to record and three days to mix. It was the last album the band would put out. Incredibly diverse as well as more advanced musically than they ever were prior. Some say they should have released it as a double album, others say no. A smattering of previously recorded songs like “Orange Peel“, “Foggy God Pit” and “Diversionary Monkeyman” appear in the form of slightly different versions. The songs on this album go from wonderfully weird (“Diversionary Monkeyman“, “Circus Virus“) to rockin’ (“Brakeline“, “Asexual“, “Superzero“) to buffoonery (“Deuce“), all with some copyright infringement thrown in here and there.

Stuff about the last recording and how it was amazing and shit.

Stuff about early recordings.

Stuff about songs at this time.

More stuff about songs from this era.

More stuff about songs from this era.

More stuff about songs from this era.

More stuff about songs from this era.