The Dallas Morning News Saturday, May 21, 1994 page 41A AMPHIBIOUS ATTACK Fort Worth's Toadies wake up and hop to it in rip-roaring Trees show By Michael Corcoran The Toadies from Fort Worth took the stage at Trees on Thursday night like any other local band. After about a 30-minute break following opening act Caulk, a lone ragged guitar aped the familiar-Tush by ZZ Top-and so you looked up and there was the band, standing around and plunking their instruments and glancing at each other to see if they were ready. They looked as if they were about to get on a bus but were unsure who should board first. And then, without introduction, they started into their first song, Backslider, calmly playing the tired riff that opens the tune. Singer/guitarist Todd Lewis, resembling actor Ken Berry with his sitcom looks and baseball cap, cocked his head back and sort of murmured and you wondered if these were the same Toadies that you had been raving about since they blew you away last year. They seemed tired, which was understandable since they also sat through Caulk's exhausting 45-minute set. Yet another one-name squawk and squall outfit with one-word song titles, Caulk sounds like the band that the little boy from The Tin Drum would grow up and start. One-name singer Aden wore his confusion well, with ripped cutoffs and a too-small T-shirt underlined by black nylon socks and mascara. Though they played with passion, some of it ringing true, the extent of Caulk's originality could be that their meld of glam-rock and metal invents a new subgenre: glunge. As if ears can register only so much sound on one night before going numb, it seemed that Caulk's voluminous thud had soaked up all the listening protons, leaving the Toadies to perform in the midst of so much used air. Something was missing, like maybe a pulse. Then, as suddenly as an attacker jumps from the bushes or wakes up from a nightmare where he remembers what he did, Mr. Lewis flew into a purple screech, while guitarist Darrel Herbert took a Page from Jimmy and drummer Mark Reznicek cracked a bottomless snare. Meanwhile, bassist Lisa Umbarger tightened her face and bobbed loosely, groovily in time to the beat. Ladies and gentlemen, would you please give a warm welcome to THE TOADIES! As they would prove during a set that kept heaping on the intensity like at an all-you-can-rage buffet, the Toadies are a remarkable band who should be sponsored by Rand McNally the way they're going to put the Dallas-Fort Worth scene on the map when their ferocious major label debut Rubberneck comes out on Aug. 23 on Interscope (Helmet, Snoop Doggy Dogg). Because they're from Texas and come off as an unassuming, unaffected anti-star band, expect the Toad road to be littered with the "slacker metal" tag, but don't believe it. Just because this band doesn't wear hair extensions or resort to the overblown histrionics that have somehow been mislabeled "high-energy stage presence," that doesn't mean they're laidback underachievers. Such tunes as Tyler, Happyface and Possum Kingdom are hard and heavy fast and furious. The kids are gonna love it. If you're looking for a musical reference point, think of a sandlot football huddle: Go out to Led Zeppelin and take a left at Devo, then hook around the Pixies, run between Soundgarden and Cheap Trick and go long. Even with such comparisons the Toadies took the stage Thursday like any other local band. But many of the 100 or so on hand no doubt left the club pretty sure they had seen the best in town.