Surly Brewing and 93X will be bringing Toadies and Reverend Horton Heat to First Avenue on Friday, October 7th for a show that you don’t want to miss!
It’s been 25+ years since the Toadies started playing rock music in Fort Worth, Texas. Through lineup changes, shelved albums, band break-ups, and reunions, the Toadies have experienced nearly everything.
They burst onto the scene in 1994 with the breakthrough Rubberneck, including the singles “Possum Kingdom,” “Tyler.” Toadies returned to the studio in 1998 with the pressure of trying to match their first album’s success. That success didn’t translate to label support. “We got approval for a record,” says Vaden Todd Lewis, “ somewhere it got unapproved. So we went back to the drawing board.” Eventually some tracks made it onto Hell Below/Stars Above which came out seven years after Rubberneck. Disappointed and dejected, the band dissolved just a few months later.
Meanwhile, “Possum Kingdom” never left the airwaves, enjoying constant rotation at modern rock stations. Fans clamored for a Toadies reunion. “The band never went all the way away,” says Lewis. A one-off show in 2006 became a full-fledged reunion and ever since, the Toadies have steadily built momentum. A third album, No Deliverance, came in 2008 and saw the band selling out shows nationwide while also playing Lollapalooza and ACL.
The “lost album,” Feeler, finally materialized in 2010 followed by Play.Rock.Music. in 2012. In 2014, Toadies celebrated the 20th anniversary of Rubberneck. In 2016 Toadies released Heretics, an acoustic twist on classic songs. The band is currently finishing a new record, The Lower Side of Uptown, with Rubberneck producer Rob Schnapf for a September 2017 release.
Loaded .38s, space heaters, and big skies. Welcome to the lethal, littered landscape of Jim Heath’s imagination. True to his high evangelical calling, Jim is a Revelator, both revealing & reinterpreting the country-blues-rock roots of American music. He’s a time-travelling space-cowboy on an endless interstellar musical tour, and we are all the richer and “psychobillier” for getting to tag along.
Seeing REVEREND HORTON HEAT live is a transformative experience. Flames come off the guitars. Heat singes your skin. There’s nothing like the primal tribal rock ‘n roll transfiguration of a Reverend Horton Heat show. Jim becomes a slicked-back 1950?s rock ‘n roll shaman channeling Screamin’ Jay Hawkins through Buddy Holly, while Jimbo incinerates the Stand-Up Bass. And then there are the “Heatettes”. Those foxy rockabilly chicks dressed in poodle-skirts and cowboy boots slamming the night away. It’s like being magically transported into a Teen Exploitation picture from the 1950s that’s currently taking place in the future.
The 11th studio album from REVEREND HORTON HEAT, boldly titled REV, released on January 21, 2014, stands as the bands highest charting album in their 25-year career. Debuting on Billboard’s Top 200 Albums Chart at #111, Top Current Albums Chart at #104, #26 on the Independent Albums Chart, and #2 on the Heatseekers Chart, Rolling Stone called REV “a throwback to old-school psychobilly-style Horton Heat” and “13 tracks of pure psychobilly mayhem” by Guitar World. On tour forever, don’t miss the Godfathers of Psychobilly, REVEREND HORTON HEAT. Rev your engines and catch the sermon on the road as it’s preached by everybody’s favorite Reverend.
Nashville Pussy will be opening up the show so get there on time!
Lemmy personally blessed Nashville Pussy calling them “America’s last great rock ‘n’ roll band” — and Lemmy should know. Formed in 1997, Nashville Pussy preached its sleazy gospel over the past couple of decades alongside MOTÖRHEAD in every rock outpost from Asia to Europe and back again.
Raised on a diet of Marshall stacks, Gibson Guitars, Jack Daniels, and weed, Nashville Pussy are the bastard offspring of foul-mouthed, demented hillbilly ice-cream man Blaine Cartwright and tractor-driving, nude art school model, and guitar prodigy Ruyter Suys. Nashville Pussy quickly gained a reputation for being like “AC/DC with a female Angus” in Ruyter’s blues-meets-punk frenzied guitar solos and Blaine’s hilarious “jailhouse nursery rhyme” lyrics.
Tickets are still available HERE!
