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Transcript of Toad's appearance on Todd Rundgren's "The Difference"
December 10, 1995

Todd Rudgren hosted a syndicated radio show, "the Difference." Toad stopped by the show in December '95. Here's where the story gets a little convoluted. A member of Toad's fan mailing list, Ameena Azzouni, was not able to listen to the show, so she asked a friend to transcribe the interview for her, then shared the transcript with the rest of the Toad mailing list.

[TR]
Eric Matthews from his Subpop debut "It's Heavy In Here" - that was
"Fanfare" and Reckless Eric from "The Golden Age of New Wave" -
"Whole Wide World" and Julian Cope, "Try Try Try" live for The
Difference. Julian has a brand new album out called "20 Mothers."
Check it out!

Coming up: which one is Pink? Which one is Toad? We talk with our
good friends Toad The Wet Sprocket after the break.

I'm Todd Rundgren.

0:25:04 Commercial Break
0:29:02 Intro

Welcome back, I'm Todd Rundgren, it's The Difference.

0:29:05 Toad The Wet Sprocket: "Good Intentions" (from 'In Light Syrup')
0:32:28 Song ID/Interview with Toad The Wet Sprocket

[TR] That was Toad The Wet Sprocket. You know Dave Letterman put
them on the strangest band name list along with Hootie and the
Blowfish so where did they get that name?

[Toad The Wet Sprocket]

You know, what it actually is, it's a reference, um, to sort of an
obscure Monty Python sketch of theirs called "The Contractual
Obligation Album," um, kind of their version of the MTV News thing
and they have a lot of, you know, humorous band names and things
like that and the first line pretty much goes like this: "Rex Stardust,
lead electric triangle player for Toad The Wet Sprocket recently had to
have an elbow removed following their recent worldwide tour of
Finland." And so we kinda lifted it from there, never intending to
keep it but we were going to think of another name and by the time we
did, it was too late.

I think our main goal with the name was just to see it in print once in
our hometown and we kinda backfired.

People have stopped misspelling it, which is kinda sad. It used to be
fun to go to every town and see "Todd and the Wet Sprockets" or,
you know, some excellent variation.

0:33:28 Toad The Wet Sprocket: "Fall Down" (recorded live for 'The Difference')
0:36:35 Song ID/Interview with Toad The Wet Sprocket

[TR] Toad The Wet Sprocket, live for The Difference, "Fall Down."

Toad The Wet Sprocket contributed a track to the new John Lennon
tribute album "Working Class Hero." We'll hear it in a moment, but
what other bands did they listen to growing up?

[Toad The Wet Sprocket]

Sex Pistols, Black Flags. Black Flags. No, we never listened to punk.

I did!

Well, if you call Husker Du punk and the Replacements punk. Dead
Kennedys.

Well, I guess we... we're into the post-punk bands, you know. Yeah we
kind of came around that era. The Police, they're punk. [heh heh heh]
Yeah, they were punk. U2, you know, that kinda stuff. Blondie was
punk. Crass was good. I liked Blondie.

I think what you end up hearing is just a generation of people, you
know, playing music that they used to listen to in the modern form.
And that's what we used to listen to. That's what our generation
listens to. At least some of our generation. So there!

0:37:25 Toad The Wet Sprocket: "Instant Karma" (from 'Working Class Hero')
0:41:28 Gary Glitter: "Rock And Roll Part 2" (from 'Jock Rock')
0:44:25 Song ID

[TR]
Rock and Roll! Gary Glitter, sports fans. That can be found on the
Jock Rock collection, along with a certain drum-banging song by a
certain radio host. And matching almost beat for beat, Toad The Wet
Sprocket - their version of "Instant Karma" from "Working Class
Hero," the John Lennon tribute album.

And yes, ladies, he's here, Chris Isaak...