Finally, Feeler. Or: At Last, the Toadies Are Releasing That Rubberneck Follow. Kind Of.

By Robert Wilonsky Thu., Jun. 10 2010 at 12:47 PM

Categories: DFW Music News

As evidenced by this promo for Feeler, the Toadies are back in the studio 13 years later re-recording their "lost album."

One need not dig too far on the Internet to find copies of Feeler, which was intended to be the Toadies' second album for Interscope Records till the label ultimately scuttled its release. But those versions aren't quite the real thing; they are, instead, unmixed and unmastered iterations -- and most lack the three songs that would ultimately find their way to Hell Below/Stars Above.

For the past, oh, year or so, there had been talk that perhaps the band would finally release Feeler in some form. But as I understood it, Interscope refused to let the thing go all these years later. Which is why, at this very moment, the band is in a Los Angeles studio with producer Rob Schnapf re-recording the album for a planned August release. This morning, Kirtkand Records posted this video teaser.

Kirtland's Tami Thomsen tells DC9 that the album will be available as a digital release and as a tour souvenir almost as soon as the band finishes mixing and mastering the album in coming weeks. It is, she says, very much a "throw and go" project -- meaning, once it's done, it's yours.

She cautions those who've been coveting the lost album that "it's not necessarily the exact same album." Some Feeler songs didn't make the cut. And other songs, including, perhaps, a thus-far unnamed Beatles cover, may wind up on the newly recorded album. This version, says Thomsen, is "the band's interpretation of those songs, completely new and completely from scratch." Either way, about time.