Tad

Depending on your viewpoint, the ’90s Seattle grunge movement is either Tad’s fault or claim to fame. Without Tad, rock’n’roll’s ugliest lumberjack coat-wearin’ son, there would be no Nirvana, Soundgarden or any other band you think invented the genre. Relatively unacknowledged, Tad stripped down the excess of hair metal on North America’s West Coast and redefined it as bastardised Black Sabbath riffs with a punk rock mentality. Sadly, the ugly part was real and this not-so-pretty quartet were quickly overlooked in the aforementioned movement. Striving to give credit where it’s due, Busted Circuits And Ringing Ears explores the way underground phenomenon that was Tad, from the earliest days of front-man Tad Doyle’s one-man band through to their modest acclaim, struggles and demise into obscurity. Interviews with Sub Pop, Krist Novoselic, Mark Arm and Kim Thayil are enlightening, though there is little to enthral the unknowing. At this point, the band’s once-innovative music has been ravaged so many times they now sound like everything else on the market and the Tad story is just another rags-to-rags tale of woe. Extras: music videos.