I love a well-written band bio. Nothing’s worse, after all, than the standard press-kit drivel churned out by music industry publicists, e.g.

“The Frayed Knots, based out of Portland, Oregon, met at Reed College in 1989 when singer Jon Yu was attracted to bassist Mary Byrne‘s remarkable collection of morose poetry LPs and scat-themed zines. The rest, as they say, is indie rock history.”

BLAH! Boring Town.

That’s why, several years ago, I squealed with uncapped excitement when I stumbled upon the biography for Seattle grunge pioneers TAD. Outside of some hyper-wondrous stuff that Gregg Turkington wrote for Amarillo Records and various obscure zines, the TAD bio was as irreverent, ridiculous and funny as anything around.

Years later, I’m happy to report that, aside from a stray typo here and there, the TAD bio remains a divine piece of rock’n'roll scripture. It has aged well. Strangely, a Google search yields various incarnations of the masterpiece. While digging through my hard drive a day or two ago, though, I discovered a version that is nearest and dearest to my heart.

Below are some excerpts.

The Early Years

TAD formed in 1988, when Tad Doyle and Kurt Danielson met at a Christian Youth Group potluck dinner, which featured baloney hors-d’oevres and turnip salad. After dinner, the sated lads (Tad was a svelte and slender nineteen and Kurt was a rock-hard and resilient eighteen at this historic juncture) gave solo recitals for the clamoring and downy-cheeked youths in attendence.

Tad played a moving solo on his custom-built autoharp; his piece was based on an almost unGodly translamination of Liberace and Flip Wilson. Kurt played a melodramatic yet scathingly paltry amelodic retard-gospel-turned-disco sonata on his American-made song-flute, which he’d purchased years before from his fifth-grade impresario-cum-song-flute teacher, the unbelievably talented Mr. Bruce Kollmar. Kurt’s majestic yet completely addled number was based on “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” Both boys received standing ovations.

After the potluck, Tad and Kurt realized they had a lot in common, both musically and spiritually. Consequently, they went on to form TAD. Shortly thereafter, however, Tad and Kurt went through a spiritual conversion, which culminated when the two former Christian Youth Group iconoclasts converted to an ideosyncratic blend of Scientology and Seventh Day Adventism [Editor's note -- at one point, I think Satanism was in the mix too -- MC].  The new and meaner version of TAD was soon signed to Sub Pop, where the band enjoyed several years of both critical and commercial acclaim.

At this point, the narrative sobers up a bit to describe the TAD discography. Following this important-but-tedious task, the saga continues…

Current Triumphs

After using android drummers for years, TAD has finally been fortunate enough to get the real thing: Mike ICEWATER Mongrain, drummer extraordinaire. Tad and Kurt met Mike through their management team, the esteemed and preeminently worthy duo of Andy Thomas and Dan Kurtz. It should be noted, however, that Kenny Withers, office assistant and all-around moron, actually hooked up TAD with Mike. In this way, Kenny Withers became an active component in the pageant of rock history. Andy and Dan are happy to count Kenny Withers among their friends and staff-members. God bless you, Kenny. If you are on the street right now, having a hard time with your crack problem, please contact us through this Web site.  We love you, Kenny. Without you, TAD would not have Mike on the drum stool.

The most harrowing passage details the extreme roller coaster that is a TAD tour:

Through the years, TAD has maintained a relentless recording and touring schedule. Highlights (or lowlights) include: TAD playing with Nirvana in East Berlin on the same day in 1989 on which the Berlin Wall crumbled into harmless piles of Cold War rubble. They also survived an IRA bombing in their Belfast hotel (the Hotel Europa, the “Most Bombed Hotel in Western Europe”); a U.S. tour with Primus in which TAD narrowly missed being struck by lightning in Southern Florida; a tour of Europe with Soundgarden during which members of TAD were accosted by a life-sized, sentient papier-mâché Easter Bunny; a U.S. tour in which the band and audience were attacked by skinheads in Philly (the show turned into a riot; several people were seriously injured, including the club’s soundman, who had his eye kicked out of his head); and a Canadian tour, during which a boulder crashed through their van’s roof just behind the driver’s seat. The mishaps — and the rock shows — continue. If you wish to play an active role in the shaping of rock history, you will not want to miss any TAD performance or sound recording.

The final bits are triumphant too:

Being part of the TAD experience is like waking up in the middle of a train wreck, or like turning over to slap the snooze bar on your radio-alarm only to find you have no arms. Look around you. Nothing but ashes and molten slag: You’re in the hypercenter of something big. Something that thinks, moves, DESTROYS. The TAD experience is rock history.

On a closing note, I’ll add that — of the two major car wrecks I’ve endured in my life — one of them was set to the music of the TAD twofer, Salt Lick/God’s Balls. Had Fate pulverized me into a corpse that day, I would’ve been proud to enter the void while “Pork Chop“ chiseled through the etheric membrane of my soul.

Tweet  Print This Post

Tags: Michael Cade's audio files // Add Comment »