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Profile article from The Rapid City Journal

 

 

 

Talking in the groove

 

By Eric Lochridge

 

 

Toadstool is tired.

            Gathering at Sixth Street Deli for an interview, the members of Toadstool Jamboree are dragging after the previous night's release party for the band's new CD, "Tongue in Groove."  As they perk themselves up with soup, sandwiches and an array of alertness-inducing beverages, the group's chemistry is immediately apparent.

            Vocalist and guitarist Tom Whillock does most of the talking, while drummer Chuck Loos throws in well-timed smart remarks. Sax and accordion player Mike Monahan jumps into the conversation where he can, and bassist Mike Brennan --the quiet one (at least today) -- smiles and nods for the most part.  It's fun just to observe the rhythm of the banter. Even their conversations seem to have a groove. 

            Monahan sums up Toadstool in one word: cohesive. 

"Nobody really believes in magic anymore. But that's what it is sometimes when we play," he says. "We can almost achieve a one-mindedness at times."  Monahan offers the example of a spontaneous jam that stemmed from a Brennan bass line and grew into a new introduction to "Avalokiteshvara," a song the band revamped from the first Toadstool CD, "Homegrown."

Loos adds that some of the band's most transcendent performances have been for nearly empty rooms, although he quips that the band's shows "sort of reek of amateurism once in a while. Sometimes, I wonder why people keep coming to see us."

            The band's synchronicity is so strong that Whillock says "Tongue in Groove" is "really the first Toadstool album."

            "'Homegrown' was a Tom Whillock project" with lots of help from other musicians, Whillock says. "'Tongue in Groove' comes out of playing in clubs and trying to get people moving."  As the band settled into its current lineup, its sound underwent a transformation.  "Homegrown's" acoustic folk morphed into "janglefunk," as Whillock describes it.  "The new album sounds as good as Toadstool can sound right now," he says. "Homegrown" was a record made as Whillock thought the band was breaking up.  But it sounded so good that the band felt that it had to play to sell it, Whillock says.  At that time, the band members weren't too familiar with Whillock's songs.

            "I'd played them maybe twice ever" during recording, Loos says.

            "Tongue in Groove" collects songs that the band worked with for a long time,

Loos says.  One of the disc's highlights is a cover of Bob Dylan's "Tangled Up in Blue.”

"It's almost like the Holy Grail," Whillock says. The band played the song for the first time at a practice, and "it just sounded like Toadstool right away," Whillock says.

Now that "Tongue in Groove" has been released, the band has turned its energy to promoting it.

Black Hills radio stations are playing the singles "I'm the Kind of Guy" and "Belly Dancer." But Whillock wants more.

Grabbing a pop audience was one of the prime motivators behind "Tongue in Groove." But Toadstool's long songs, intricate melodies and intellectual lyrics seemed the opposite of what radio offers the general public.

"Just a couple of lines that rhyme that vaguely have something to do with a broken love affair," Whillock says. "I wanted to ride that line between pop cheese and something that still can be on the radio."

Toadstool has its eyes peeled for a record contract, too, but they say it would have to be with a fair-sized, respectable company.

Playing full time, Loos says, "is hard to do unless you're fully backed."

"We're too old to starve," Whillock says.

But the band will send "Tongue in Groove" to as many record labels as it can, hoping to follow South Dakota bands Indigenous and Kory and the Fireflies, who both landed national record deals.

 

 

 

Eric Lochridge is a freelance writer and editor. You may contact him at eric@ericedits.com.

 

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