It seemed like such a good idea at the time.



Sure, I’ll cover Glen Phillips — the former Toad the Wet Sprocket frontman – when he plays at the Urban Grace Church on Friday, Jan. 30. That seems like a good idea. Toad the Wet Sprocket —who doesn’t know that band?



Or something like that ran through my head, as I claimed the show on the big Weekly Volcano dry erase board.



Well, as it turns out — I don’t really knock dick about Toad the Wet Sprocket. For some reason I thought I must – because I somehow figured everyone knew at least a little about Toad the Wet Sprocket. But, in retrospect, I think I just saw the band on the Jon Stewart show back in the day or something — maybe I heard a song from the band on Friends. Maybe somewhere along the way I picked up a copy of Fear, the band’s 1991 coming out party — but in truth I probably never listened to it. At least I never really remember listening to it.  It probably just sat in that big black plastic CD book I had, back in the days before I counted my music in gigabytes.



But here I am, stuck with about 400 words to fill (how am I doing so far?) on Phillips — because I claimed it on the board, because it seemed like the thing to do.



At a time like this, one surefire way to eat up some words is by going to Wikipedia — a vast Internet collection of things usually true. A quick search of Glen Phillips should reveal some thought provoking space filler.



For instance:



Of course it has all the basic stuff, like Phillips started Toad the Wet Sprocket in Santa Barbara Calif. when he was 14, or 16 depending on where you look but did you know “Phillips injured his arm at home when a glass coffee table he was sitting on collapsed. Phillips had surgery to repair a damaged nerve and muscle in his left arm. Because his ability to play guitar has been hampered during his recovery, Phillips is now accompanied by Sara and Sean Watkins during his concerts”?



I sure as shit didn’t.



Or maybe, during a time like this, I could bounce over to Glen Phillips' MySpace page, and note that, after his solo performance at the Urban Grace Church in Tacoma, he’ll be headed to the East Coast for a string of four shows with the full on Toad the Wet Sprocket, a string that begins on Feb. 23 in Maryland, and concludes on Feb. 27 in Massachusetts.



Or if I was really desperate, I could take a bus on the information superhighway to Phillips' blog, where the former Toad the Wet Sprocket frontman offers his well articulated views on a surprisingly regular basis — at least for a guy you’d expect to be busy. He was in Toad the Wet Sprocket, after all.



Phillips' latest blog entry deals with just-ousted asshat Rod Blagojevich. (You know, the guy with the weatherman hair that was governor of Illinois until he tried to sell Obama’s vacated senate seat for three iPhones and a reach-around.)



“I shouldn’t be surprised any more when a guy like Blago essentially says 'yes, I did this unethical and illegal thing, but it’s ok because I’m so important and such a good guy.' We had eight years of the Bush administration saying the same things — it’s not torture if we do it, it’s not lying if we do it, it’s not a crime if we do it. It makes the head spin to see how much people can get away with this. It’s especially galling that those at the “top” of society — the rich and powerful — can get away with crimes that would put a regular joe in prison for decades,” writes Phillips on www.glenphillips.com.



“The House is voting on another bailout package today," Phillips continues on his blog. "Hopefully it’s got some provisions for transparency in it. Hopefully it will help us all. I honestly have no idea if it will or not, and the most I can do right now is cross my fingers and see what happens. All these top-down solutions to the economic meltdown fill me with a deep unease. It would be nice to think that there’s enough oversight in the bill to keep the narcissists from filling their own pockets at our expense, but somehow I doubt it. I’m used to disappointment, and it’ll take me a moment or two to get used to expecting more.”



Sure, I could do any number of things, but I suppose the right thing to do would be describe Phillips' solo sound, which — when he’s truly by himself — lives somewhere between 1992, a Steve Turner solo record, a community college drum machine 201 course and a Chevy commercial.



I could do a lot of things, really – but looks like I’m out of time. Crazy how that happens.



Check out Glen Phillips, former Toad the Wet Sprocket frontman, at Urban Grace Church in Tacoma tonight. It sounds like a big deal, doesn’t it? I’m sure it will be.



How could it not be? 



[Urban Grace, Friday, Jan. 30, 8 p.m., $20-$25 at Brown Paper Tickets, 902 Market St., Tacoma, 253.272.2184]