Toadies have just announced new dates to their twice rescheduled Rubberneck 25th Anniversary (and then some, and then some…) where Toadies will be playing Rubberneck from start to finish. Fellow Texans Reverend Horton Heat are on all dates and will play their Al Jourgensen-produced Liquor in the Front in its entirety. Drakulas start West Coast dates, while Nashville Pussy kick off the bill on the East Coast.

 

“This tour was originally slated to go out in 2020” drummer Mark Reznicek says “Because of the effects of Covid, this is our third attempt at doing a tour celebrating the 25th Anniversary of Rubberneck. It’s been a long time coming, but the third time’s the charm, as they say. It wasn’t ever an easy decision to postpone tours, but we felt it was the right thing to do to keep everyone (ourselves included) safe. And we’re really excited to finally be getting out there to play the album in its entirety for all our patient fans across the country.”  Frontman Vaden Lewis adds “Really looking forward to finally getting back out there and seeing everyone!”

 

Rubberneck might be 25 plus years, old but it still has enduring staying power in pop culture. The LP’s smash hit “Possum Kingdom” remains one of the most played recurrent tracks on Active Rock and Alternative radio and still pops up all over the place to this day. Earlier this year, Ultimate Guitar named Rubberneck one of the Top 10 Grunge albums that survived the ’00’s, and the album also made Rolling Stone‘s 50 Greatest Grunge Albums as well as their list for 1994: The 40 Best Records From Mainstream Alternative’s Greatest Year. Tracks from the album continue to appear in unexpected places from Guitar Hero to as far away as England’s NME, including it in their A History of Rock’N’Roll in 100 Riffs, right along with Johnny Cash, Beatles, Stones, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, Queen, Ramones, The Smiths, Metallica, Rage, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Muse, and White Stripes. TV shows from This is Us to For All Mankind on Apple + have included Rubberneck tracks. Robotman in Season 2 of Doom Patrol even wore a vintage Toadies shirt. Girl Talk’s “This is the Remix” sampled “Possum Kingdom,” while Kelly Clarkson was seen and heard singing along to the song in her dressing room during an episode of last season’s The Voice. Indie chanteuse, St. Vincent also covered the song on a Sirius XMU Session.

 

More inspiration from Rubberneck has made its way to the written page with Marvel Comics featuring the band in two X-Men comics, and NY Times and USA Today bestselling author Xio Axelrod’s latest novel, The Girl With the Stars in Her Eyes, has the main character’s band cover Toadies “I Burn” off Rubberneck. Vaden Lewis has also done his own series of lyric comics including “Tyler” and “I Burn” (due out this August). More recently, during Covid, the band spent downtime going through Toadies archives. Reznicek says “A few months ago, we released the original recording, from early in the band’s career of ‘Got A Heart’ on a cool Flexi disc. And we’re preparing the first ever vinyl release of the very first Toadies single (self-released on cassette only in 1990), “Dig A Hole” and “I Hope You Die.” These two recordings have been totally remixed and remastered from the original master tapes to sound better than ever! There are also talks of an EP with tracks recorded during the No Deliverance and Lower Side of Uptown sessions.”