here is an article from a houston newsweekly put out by the radio station
107.5 the buzz, called The Buzz Word (December 1995 - Volume 1 Number 12):

     Over the course of four years, the toadies have evolved from sounding
like the Pixies to sounding like the toadies, creating a sound identifiable
only with themselves. From humble beginnings - frontman Todd Lewis began his
career, as it was, in the late '80's in a TCU frat-party cover band called
Gunga Din - emerged a band that proved it was OK to love pop songs as long as
you didn't like them.
     Lewis formed the band with Gunga Din's sound man Charles Mooney about
four years ago, employing bassist Lisa Umbarger almost from the start. The
band went through several drummers (including pop poppins/Course of Empire's
Mike Jerome) until, three years ago, they stumbled across Mark Reznick, who
had been in In The Midst with former toadies guitarist Tracey Sauerwein.
     "I was telling everyone I knew if there were any band I'd like to play
for, it'd be the toadies," Reznick says. "Nobody had a bass sound like Lisa
did at that time - real up and front and percussive. boom boom boom. And
Charles' guitar made incredible feedback. And there were Todd's vocals. The
only thing they lacked was a good drummer."
     The lineup would change some more: Sauerwein was replaced by Darrel
Herbert (formerly of Slowpoke), Mooney left the band to assume the
resonsibilities of Family Man (two months before they got signed to
Interscope). Now Lewis is back to playing guitar, fronting Umbarger,
Reznicek, and Herbert.
     To peg down the toadies sound is to define the difference between the
rock award and the alternative rock award - meaning, of course, it's
impossible.
     "When Todd comes up with a new riff, it's based on what he's been
listening to at the time," Reznicek says, "then it goes through a
Toadie-fication. We were all listening to Helmet's second album when it came
out, and 'Ruth' started out with a Helmet kind of riff. When we did 'Mister
Love' we were really into Ministry at the time. People probably don't get any
of that, 'cause other ones, man, they don't sound like anything."
     That goes twofold for Todd Lewis, who remains every bit the viable
contender to someone like Kurt Cobain or Henry Rollins. When Lewis is
growling about Jesus, heaven, and his father ( or His Father, as the case may
be), he possesses the raw scream of any post-punk hero worthy enough to call
himself a junkie suicide or to sport a body covered in tattoos. Just because
Todd's skinny and wears glasses and is a pretty nice, stable guy doesn't make
him any less of a power-house - maybe he's more of one, just because he's
that much more subversive.