 Phantom Tollbooth was a strongly art-rock-influenced variation
on the raging-yet-eclectic post-hardcore of Hüsker Dü and the Minutemen, incorporating quick tempo changes, noise
experiments, and bits of jazz. The group was formed in 1984 in New York by Dave Rick, Gerard Smith and Jon Coats.
Hazey recollections - 1984-88 - Jon Coats-
I think we all read the Village Voice musician needed ads as soon as they came out. It was always interesting to peruse
the often bizarre ads and look at their idea of bands to reference. When we all saw one that referenced Saccharine Trust
we called in. Interesting character named Amore answers and tells us all, in separate conversations, to come down to a rehearsal
space to play. Well, we get there and there's a singer type with some really cool industrial / noise references and
a tenuous connection (supposedly) to Jack Brewer ( Saccharine Trust singer guy ).
I think we all made it through
that intial meeting and dug playing together, esp me, Dave and Jerry. By session #2 we started jamming and there was a moment
where Amore just kind of walked out. There we were just jamming away, lost in our weird connection, and he leaves the space,
never to return. Cool, we're a trio.
After that we'd get together and always start with at least a 30 minute
free jam. Many amazing moments lost in the early, we're just jamming mode. Quickly, we decide to capture the jams on cassettes
to use for pieces of songs. Spot welding these pieces into strange frameworks we create the first PT songs. Since
we all dig Void and Fred Frith it comes out as really damaged almost progcore. Counts are key and once into the new framework
we don't even consider being an instrumental band. Gotta have vox to be a band we think.
My 4 track recorder
is handy and we start to put together songs that speed like the core that we love but have seriously beautiful art damage
and sonic noise. The early 4 tracks are mixed at home and sent to music type folks who we dig like Gerard Cosloy and all the
hardcore folks.
A year passes, 1985. We have played and recorded enough for a live set. Maxwells ( Hoboken, NJ
) is our 1st gig and Cosloy has been invited with everyone we all know. At this show we will play all the early PT songs.
Jack of all Phobias, Filp Your Lid, White Out and Valley of the Gwangi. We also cover Bad Brains ( Right Brigade ) and Neck
Tie Party ( Stranger Still ). Cosloy amazes us by coming up to us and offering us a Homestead deal. We have dragged a homemade
oscillator onstage and all had a turn on the mic ( my 1st and last vocal outing ).
Now we start thinking about
recording, but where? I've been messing around with engineering recordings and get picked to find a studio. The problem
is to find someone who isn't some muso studio wannabe and who will let us really call the shots on the mix. Once
again, Village Voice to the rescue as I find a small 8 track studio with an open minded engineer. We prepare three tracks
for the session, Valley of the Gwangi, Fiip Your Lid and a free jam in the studio. Great studio and engineering make
the sessions easy. If you listen to Gwangi you can hear how we listened to the Meat Puppets but decided to find our own jam.
The Whaling Ulitmate track was recorded in one take to tape. This is my favorite track from the EP. We would always try to
challenge ourselves to come up with an on the spot jam in practice, but in the studio with time and $ running it's not
that easy. Anyway, it worked. No one in PT ever knew what to do with our artwork, so I decide to draw a picture of me from
a trip I took out to the Badlands of South Dakota.
The 7" EP is sent out by Homestead in '86. Lots'a
what is this stuff? kinda reviews but also some people who get it. Either way we're encouraged and continue to write songs.
We're listening to some really ecclectic stuff between the three of us. Our jams are also getting faster as we gain confidence
and stamina. The early songs are getting faster as we play them live as well. Maxwells is our base for some great shows
the next couple years. Moving Targets, The Minutemen are headlining as we open. Need to understand that these are the bands
that we revere. Pretty weird playing a show with the very people who made you understand the possibilities of music to begin
with. I stand there in awe of the Targets and watch them play. When I first heard the track, "Changing Your Mind"
on the Bands That Could be God comp it changed everything for me. If you know the song then you might understand. It rages
for the first minute or so in core mode before going into a transcendent jam at the end at half speed. This track, along with
Teenager(s) by the Meat Puppets made a deep impression on my idea of the perfect song.
Suddenly, we're going
to CBGB to see Sonic Youth and we're on the same label, as Bad Moon Rising is standard PT listening this is trippy. Everything
is in complete acceleration mode. Songs flying out at top speed and Cosloy gives us the okay for another recording. It's
decided that we will make this next one on a shoestring $ wise and make as much damaged noise as possible for the $.
Long Island, the land of BOC and tons of tiny wannabe metal studios. We pick a room with HUGE monitors and a
history of sub-metal records. The room is huge and the control room feels like a theatre to me. The seven songs from this
session will become the PT EP. Pure aggro and high speed, take no prisoners. A weird sounding recording but somehow it fits
exactly where we were at the time. Trips down to Philly to play in basements and other "fringe of hardcore" reality
have been condensed and repurposed. The EP ends up with a ton of strange atmosphere.
Tour time: stringing together
many odd bookings and hard floors we venture out into the U.S. Great times in many small core clubs with a sense that we are
already "post" core. Tiny rented van and we are the road crew...
On our return to NYC, we find that we
need a new place to rehearse. The reviews of the EP are either gobsmacked or strangely intense. This convinces us that it
is time to really let loose with the full jam ( not that we're slowing down much at all ). The Sonic Youth folks are heading
to Europe and need someone to take over their rehearsal space, so we take them up on it.
1987-
How to describe
the space? It is below street level in lower Manhattan. Thick carpet that seems like it could be hydroponic moss in one of
the dankest atmospheres I've ever been in. Thurston or Lee have left a couple Youth tuned guitars in the space and
I take great pleasure in pluging them in to see that the tuning is key to what they are producing. Instant Bad Moon.
In that space we will write and solidify the tracks that will become One Way Conversation. If you listen close you can hear
the Sonic Youth space in all of them. Inspirational and oppressive.
The Sonic Youth connection also gave us the
next studio to work in. If you've listened to Bad Moon Rising you understand that something really magick happened on
that recording. There are moments in Expressway to your Skull that can launch you off the planet. Who was the engineer? Martin
Bisi.
Homestead is cool with Martin as enigneer and we go in with the full record completely worked out.
We even have ideas for overdubs! Problem is, I don't care about the tuning of my drums. I'll go in and bash it out,
punk rock maaaaan. Along with my other two cohorts we are making a sound that would be really difficult to capture, let alone
mix, but the songs are there. In the oddly mixed mayhem we will define what the band is, for us anyway.
Around
this time, Dave has a connection with Kramer and his Bongwater project and decides (rightly so) to hit europe with Kramer.
Jerry and I keep the rehearsal sched going and start to write some really strange parts that will become
the pieces of songs from Power Toy.
On Dave's return, we learn that some in Europe are getting the PT
sound. It seems that we could possibly tour Europe. Either way, we need to record again.
I had always wanted to
record with SPOT. For me, he defined a sound and was instrumental in capturing hard to record bands. Question was,
where is he, and did he still care to engineer? Somehow, we make the SPOT connection and Homestead agrees to pay
for the sessions, if we can get to Austin, TX. Perfect, we'll tour down and record and tour back.
We
undertake a tour of the US again and meet many amazing people. Luckily someone will come along with us on this trek.
A young film- documentary maker, John Hull, having been turned down by Sonic Youth, realizes that we can be good company.
He joins us for this tour. On a Nov day in 1987 we pull into Austin and will play a show with Nice Strong Arm at the Cave
Club. SPOT is way beyond anything that could be explained in words. He is a warm and unique man with a huge love of life and
a complete understanding of the absurdity of it all. The session with SPOT at Cedar Creek is one of the highlights of
being in the band. Many great stories of cats walking backwards and lots'a great Mexican food. We spend Thanksgiving with
him in the middle of the session.
SPOT does not waste tape. We use every inch we paid for, jamming away at
what would become the bonus tracks of Power Toy...
Back from the recording, we are offered a European tour
by Paperclip. We put together a set that we have been playing out, that covers all the releases with the newly recorded
Power Toy songs. 1988: We fly into the Netherlands on cut rate Royal Jordanian air and find it surreal. We have a real backline
and we are being fed and have a tour rider (borrowed from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, the bottle of whiskey
is interesting) that every club is making sure to fill. The people that we meet are amazing and enthusiastic. If you
watch the videos (on youtube and this site) of us playing in Enschede, NL on this tour, you can see that we are
having a good time. One of the highlights for me is watching our version of 45 Grave's "Wax". As a huge fan
of Don Bolles, I really enjoyed the PT take on that song.
One of my memories from that tour is
the night we played at the Melkweg in Amsterdam. Dutch public radio brought in their full mobile recording unit, supposedly
used to record Pink Floyd when they came through touring Dark Side of the Moon back in the 70's. Problem for me was that
I was sick from a really bad infection in my right hand from playing so hard every night. I remember sweating out a high fever
backstage and just going out and playing. I didn't want to let Dave and Jerry or the Dutch radio people down. There's
a tape of the show that circulated and listening to it, nice to know I could still pull it off. Nothing like playing an epic
song like Over The Pipes with every downbeat sending shocks up your arm and pouring fever sweat onstage. After another show
I was feeling better and the rest of the tour was great. Some interesting interviews. I read somewhere that this one interviewer
guy in the states wrote that PT were the worst interview ever. We could be really hard to get on track. We were always making
weird references or making fun of something, usually cracking ourselves up but making the interviewer wonder why they were
there.
Once back in the states, we started thinking about trying to capture some of the live work we had been doing.
CBGB had a full recording set up and Homestead agreed to pay for us to record a live EP. Part of the Daylight In The Quiet
Zone EP would be in front of a gig audience and part would be played and recorded live, no audience, all direct to tape. We
pulled out a couple covers that we had been messing with. They were tributes to bands that we felt connected to in some way.
We recorded the Dinosaur (not Jr yet) song "Quest" and also made a point of working up MX-80 Sound's "It's
Not My Fault". Along with our version of 45 Grave's "Wax" , we recorded a couple personal faves: Daylight
In The Quiet Zone, Landing is Gear, and More Paranoia. We also had written one new song after getting back from Europe, "Falling".
Quest would end up on Homestead's Human Music Comp and the rest on the EP.
Here is where the band kind of flames
out. Looking back, it's almost impossible to believe what we had put together in those years. If you've been in a
band you know how claustrophobic it can get, especially at the level we were on. Small clubs, small vans, losing money and
trying to keep it all rolling forward.
Here are some moments from the foggy memory of PT gigs and those we were
lucky enough to play with.
Philly - We are playing a gig in a basement and lots'a cool folks are there
going nuts. In mid set someone gets onto the exposed air ducts hanging from the ceiling and pulls one down. Black soot filled
the entire space. It was like being in the hazy dark and who knows what we all inhaled, but we never stopped playing. Finished
the set...
Maxwells with Big Black. I am a big Albini fan and Atomizer was one of my faves. We open up and Albini
walks by after we play and says,. " Well, you didn't suck", Ha, classic Albini. Big Black then get onstage and
light off a big chunk of a brick of fireworks to start their show. There's nothing like watching a brick of fireworks
blowing off in front of your face, with some shooting into the crowd and Big Black start the drum machine and stun guitar
grind.
Detroit - Playing at the Greystone. Man, this city is SO empty in places. just leveled and grey. Driving
down the street to the club it seems to go on forever. Inside we hang out with Scarey Carey. An amazing human.
Sweden
- PT are playing a youth center / squat - beautiful building that they all have helped maintain. Stage and sound downstairs.
It's snowing outside and we are in Sweden. Jerry and I go on a beer run and I get to watch him sliding around the snow
in his pointy toed street shoes. We had a blast.
Minutemen @ Maxwells - watching Mike Watt trying to play
Jerry's bass. It's not set up for a finger player like him and he just kind of looks at the Rick like it's something
mutant. Nothing like watching the Minutemen in full bloom. Their set list is on a list the size of a scroll, seriously that
amount of songs. Last time I will see D Boon.
Sonic Youth show - Nothing like watching SY play after your opening
duties are done. By the time Expressway to your Skull is ending, the room is starting to ebb and flow. They walk off letting
the guitars feedback in one of the most perfect drones that I've ever been inside.
Moving Targets @ Maxwells
- We open and damn I'm nervous to play in front of their drummer, Pat Brady. He comes back after the set and tells me,
" Your drumming's the balls!" Huge Boston compliment. I watch them tear it up through the Burning In Water tracks.
Less than Gravity just destroys. Still can't believe that Pat is gone. One of the drum greats.
Things Phantom
Tollbooth taught me:
- People are amazing and so good natured in general. Can't tell you how many people let
us crash at their house or cooked for us or encouraged us.
- Jerry and Dave are amazing musicians and people.
Feel lucky to have played with and been challenged by both of them.
- Music is STILL wide open, so much yet to
be done and explored.
- As the Meat Puppets once said: "Music is a gem in our world."
- All
those artists that you revere are just like you, sometimes they're just trying harder.
 Spin Magazine review 1986:
Valley of the Gawangi EP - 7"
"Flip,
flip, flip your lid / That's what she did," wails bassist and sometimes singer Gerard Smith over a dense tom-tom
pattern on the filpside and killer track of this 7" single. Phantom Tollbooth, a something-or-other punk band from
Long Island speaks to you in ejaculations: blurted out bits of infromation or flat our sprints. Like most s-o-o punk bands,
Tollbooth hauls out the requisite Neil Young/ Byrds influences. But at its best this band is a rhythm not a texture.
F'instance: the "Eight Miles High"-ish "Gwangi" loses its energy in an uninspired guitar solo,
then stops, inhales, and returns double strength with the drummer cracking and folding the music along new seams. The
stop and start "Flip Your Lid" builds in modular, unconnected blocks with Smith's othewise unaccompanied screaming
over the drums the central figure. "The Whalling Ultimate" is a deilberately aimless instrumental jam
that wouldn't shame Black Flag. from hoboken boards primitive sound system review - Phantom Tollbooth - "Flip
Your Lid" from the ep Valley of the Gwangi (Homestead Records cat. HMS 058)
Crazed vocals, time shifts, tempo changes
and incredible musicianship have kept this a favorite since I purchased it some twenty-two years ago. Phantom Tollbooth lost
nothing on stage. Improvised or extremely well rehearsed each song was captivating, moving and impressive. At one point during
"Flip Your Lid" the vocalists assures us, "Don't worry I won't hurt you," but it would not be
advisable to believe him. They ooze sarcasm and aren't afraid of injecting their heady creations with a little humor.
Artistically created mayhem on the edge of sonic destruction.
from banannaspam blog - “Valley Of the Gwangi” is a blistering three minutes
and fifteen seconds of super fast, psychedelia and free jazz inflected punk rock with the best start and stop on a dime
timing this side of Fugazi. It also feels like an early and raw manifestation of math rock and and is just straight up bloody awesome.
A certain something asphyxiates my breathing 
Hardcore
has always felt the most potent to me when the music reaches the same kind of frantic violence as the world that it's
responding to. The first song on the Necros LP. Crossed Out. Die Kreuzen. The entire second side of the Heroin LP. There's something so compelling to me about the balance, these short, super-tight
songs where it feels like everything is at the breaking point. Drummers hitting every single surface in front of them, exploding
bursts that cut and jab but always remain concise. Guitar and bass careening, like their strings are a staircase the players
are falling down. Listening to "Jack of All Phobias", the first song on Phantom Tollbooth's 1986 self-titled
EP, I sometimes can't believe there's only three people in the band.
I
spent a lot of the 90s feeling breathless and aghast, and those years were thankfully escorted by hardcore records. When life
felt hectic, instead of finding a song that could calm me, I looked for one that felt just as hectic. There was a few years
there where it seemed like Born Against were clearly the most succinct expression of this feeling; the songs swarmed and kicked
in a way that I wished I could. Their abrupt endings made the two seconds of silence before the next song feel like a new
kind of violence, a sudden elimination of air.
Somewhere along the line
I explained to someone how deeply I felt for Born Against, how original and telling their records were. In a very friendly,
hey-check-this-out kind of way he suggested I look for a 7" by the band Mecht Mensch. A few weeks later I saw a copy
in a record shop in Rochester and paid $50 for it unheard, begging my sister not to tell my parents how much I spent. I loved
it. Ran around the living room stagedive off the loveseat unspeakably happy. It felt like fighting every person that's
ever made me feel worthless, irrelevent, or unfit, and winning! It was everything I knew hardcore could be.
A while later my friend Isaac gave me the first 12" EP by Phantom Tollbooth, knowing
my love for this kind of brutality. The first song, clocking at 1 minute, 52 seconds, feels like it has somehow lasted from
the moment I put on the record until this moment, and will extend its savagery for the rest of my life.
What was going on in New York in 1986 when this record came out? The history books seem to think
there was just the Cro-Mags "Age of Quarrel" and Youth of Today's "Break Down the Walls", leaving
no room for this kind of storm. The art-damage of D.N.A. was far enough in the past that it wouldn't even signify, and
the band's reliance on sheer noise as a foundation seems to distance it from any of the midwest hardcore acts that reached
their levels of aggression. Their thank you list includes Sonic Youth, Das Damen and Yo La Tengo, which suggests the company
they were keeping. But if I try to imagine going to see Sonic Youth, even in their feedback-swirl mid-80s mode, and hearing
this, I can only think of it like waiting for the train and suddenly getting stabbed in the ribcage with a screwdriver.
The track begins with an evil squall, which fades just enough to introduce the bassline
before the drums and vocals kick down the door. Their initial impact is one of the harshest openings I can think of. The song
rages forward with a wild-eyed fury, the drumming running so many fills that it seems like he recorded three different takes.
It's a paranoia-inspiring flurry, makes me feel surrounded and harried. Just at the moment that you could become acclimated
to the pace, the song stops with a neck-grabbing precision, which isn't at all showy but does make you realize that everything
is carefully placed. Then they leap back into the fight.
This is where
the song almost derails, with a dis-ease and drama that only heightens the sense of paranoia and harassment, with the bass
peaking into this Minutemen-ish high-end speed, while the guitar restrains itself to tight, sparse chords. The drums almost
manage a typical 4/4 beat. Then the noise swells up underneath while the vocals maniacally repeat "laugh, laugh and survive."
It's harrowing, but clearly encouraging.
The other five songs on the
12" are good, they don't kill me the way "Jack" does but there is some gleeful dement on it, the lines
"blood on the stairs/still mine" from "More Paranoia" or the haunted nonsense of "Little green girls
with little green tails are telling tales, they're telling tales/about me" in "Sweat Blood." The thing
that does kill me is how much this record means to me and how little it's entered any kind of hardcore canon. These days
Phantom Tollbooth is best known for the remake of their 1988 LP "Power Toy" by Bob Pollard and by the bands they went on to form/join. Apparently the $50 I paid
for the Mecht Mensch 7" is nothing compared to what it's fetching today, but you can buy a sealed copy of the Phantom Tollbooth 12" for $9. Really. It's on ebay right now. And when I can't
breathe, and there are enemies on every side, it's impossible to say that one record signifies more than the other. And
the Phantom Tollbooth has a better cover.
from noise for zeros:
Phantom Tollbooth
Homestead
Records, 1986 Considering the year, the debut album from New York nutjobs Phantom Tollbooth
could be considered an influencial landmark of screamo mathcore — had anyone heard the fucker. Their back catalog was
a mainstay of cutout bins throughout the late eighties and nineties, probably the result of the lack of audience for the sort
of selflessly unhinged and intensely cerebral hardcore The Tollbooth was dishing up. You can trace back the explosion of fractured
mathy hardcore in the 1990s and early 2000s to this record, as demonstrated with bands like The Dazzling Killmen,
Last of the Juanitas, and Brass Knuckles for Tough Guys. With discordant shards of guitar
and jazzed-up rhythm section that wouldn’t find much of an audience until a decade later, this record should be considered
a reference point for the evolution of hardcore punk. from raveline.de - Markus Popp (Oval) top 10 records that changed my life:
Phantom Tollbooth - One Way Conversation (1987) I first heard a track of Phantom Tollbooth on the
„New York Noise “Tape Compilation Tape. Completely large „power trio “- rock band, for me the ultimate
fusion of virtuosos, meaningful and kickass. I like that Dave Rick actually could also sing to its Gitarreneskapaden.
I unfortunately never got to see them live. While perhaps many hear Prog here, I found the atmosphere rather sportiv. In addition:
Rickenbacker bass, which changed my life.
Engineer and producer Martin Bisi from his youtube video on his discography:
"Phantom
Tollbooth... ah this is a sort of classic from when indie rock first got progressive. Lots'a complicated changes...sort
of sloppy but somehow this is a seminal record. People like Season to Risk creamed themselves when they saw this on the
wall because this is like the first time people did stuff that like was really hard to play and called it indie rock."
From peacedogman.com - PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH- "Powertoy"
- This 3-piece juggernaut recorded what would be its swansong and best record over all
in 1988. While the self titled ep and full length “One Way Conversation” were enough to showcase the sheer brute
force, chops, and sonic suavity of PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH, this record put them over the top with some really choice songwriting
as well. Their demolition of HEART’s “Barracuda” is about the best cover version of all time. “Extinction
Plus”, “Criticize the Critters”, “Billy Holiday’s Nightmare”, “Paper House”
and the rest of this record’s wanton display of rock brutality bulldozed it’s way into my heart at the near end
of the 1980’s with the subtlety of an ax blow to the cranium. Feedback laden wah guitar, overdriven Rickenbacker bass,
piledrivin’ drums, spazzy vocals and crazy time signatures were the order of the day.
from peacedogman history of power trios: PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH: These guys were like
a bizarre cross between SONIC YOUTH and “Red” era KING CRIMSON. Though their tenure was brief, their impact was
quite colossal to all eight of us who shelled out our hard-earned greenbacks to bask in their brutal genius. From 1986 to
1988 the self titled Homestead Records debut, “One Way Conversation” and the masterpiece known as “Power
Toy” (to which I’ve periodically thought of naming a band after – trite though it may sound) were released
and have never left my musical arsenal no matter how streamlined it has dwindled down to in these hard economic times.
Splendid Magazine - Upon its release in 1988, Power Toy was instantly hailed as a groundbreaking
fusion of dissonant post-punk polemics and scathing art-house contempt.
trouserpress.com : New York's Phantom Tollbooth was more like a thrash-inflected version
of Fred Frith's Massacre than anything else. Various art-rock influences — quick tempo shifts, the occasional jazzy
swing and the use of noise as a genuine musical element (rather than a cheap way to telegraph rage or intensity) — gave
these guys away. One-Way Conversation and Power Toy (which has a pretty funny version of
Heart's "Barracuda" and two bonus tracks on CD) contain the band's best, most focused work, a striking synthesis
of the art-rock that so clearly influenced its song structures and the frenzied attack of hardcore.
from Dutch bootleg site on PT @ Melkweg recording:
Way back those daze of end 80s, a friend used
to scare the hell out of us/his hosts with
a LP of PT after a gorgeous spaced out sunday afternoon, tripping on some
DEAD CAN DANCE
or TEST DEPARTMENT, or even some old stuff like NICK DRAKE/KEVIN COYNE ect. The guy's been
always
up for something different in styles... PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH scared the hell of us all...
It's time to leave for another
weekend, soon...
ENJOY THIS, if you like it...Tough stuff, indeed...SB.
hard to believe there were actually shows like this one,not only did we
get to play, but we got to see these amazing people:
NY Times - Feb 27, 1987-Jazz and Pop Guide- * *
*Roger Miller, Volcano Suns, Divine Horsemen, Phantom Tollbooth, CBGB, 315 Bowery, at Bleecker Street (982-4052). With bands
from Boston, Los Angeles and Plainview, L.I., CBGB has assembled yet another testimonial to the quality and ferocity of independent-label
American rock. The Volcano Suns and Roger Miller both sprang from the Boston band Mission of Burma; Mr. Miller left to play
keyboard-centered compositions with the structural complexity of classical music, while the Volcano Suns continue Mission
of Burma's guitar-charged attack - leavened, now, with a little humor. Divine Horsemen are on the dark side of Los Angeles's
rediscovery of country-rock; on their album ''Devil's River'' (SST), the singers Chris Desjardins (who
calls himself Chris D.) and Julie Christensen share tales about violence, tortured love and morality in songs that twang and
stomp. And on their debut EP, ''Phantom Tollbooth'' (Homestead), the Long Island-based band plays dissonant,
squalling songs with titles like ''More Paranoia,'' songs that grind and thrash, then turn on a dime. Phantom
Tollbooth opens tomorrow at 10:30 P.M., followed by Divine Horsemen (11:30 P.M.), Volcano Suns (12:30 A.M.) and Mr. Miller
(1:30 A.M.); admission is $8. $
 Phantom Tollbooth History according to Professor Scaruffi (Italy)
Italian
I Phantom Tollbooth di Dave Rick, Jon Coats and Gerard Smith furono forse il primo gruppo a tentare di
fondere l'hardcore con l'artrock. I loro arrangiamenti erano caratterizzati da dinamiche imprevedibili, da cacofonie
perfettamente mimetizzate, da passaggi jazzati e da epilessi thrash. La sezione ritmica di Gerard Smith (bass) e John Coats
(batteria) era una delle piu` creative del genere. Dopo l'EP omonimo di esordio del
1986 (Homestead), nei due anni successivi registrarono One-way Conversation e Power Toy,
i loro lavori meglio riusciti, lontani dai modelli dell'hardcore "progressivo" come Minutemen e Saccharine Trust.
Fu il primo a stabilire la loro "fusion", con strumentali eclettici e trascinanti come We're Paid By The
Word (in cui si alternano e confondono gli idiomi del jazz, del blues e del folk) e Last Exit Before Toll (una
filigrana di brucianti, supersonici fraseggi heavy metal in cui sono intessute e perfettamente amalgamate divagazioni di altra
natura), brani che ridefiniscono il rock strumentale all'insegna della liberta` armonica.
Rick ha modo di svettare
con il suo stile intraprendente e creativo, debitore nei confronti tanto di Hendrix (i glissando e le scordature maniacali
di Daylight In The Quiet Zone) quanto di Lindsay (le schitarrate atonali e minimaliste di Landing Is Gear),
due maestri che sa fondere in uno stile radicalmente anti-tradizionale e cio` nondimeno trascinante (gli assoli catastrofici
di Camel's Gak). Ballate movimentate come Significant In Ten Years sono invece debitrici di Rush e Yes,
ma con la nevrosi dell'hardcore.
English
Phantom Tollbooth, Dave Rick, Jon Coats and Gerard Smith were perhaps
the first group to try to merge the hardcore with the artrock. Their arrangements were characterized by dynamic unforeseeable,
by some cacofonie perfectly, passages from jazzati and epilessi thrash. The rhythm section of Gerard Smith (bass) and John
coats (BATTERY) was one of more creative of the genre.
After the eponymous debut
of the 1986 (Homestead), in the two successive years they recorded One-way Conversation and Power Toy, their intense activities
yielded better resolutions, far from the models of hardcore " progressivo" like Minutemen and Saccharine Trust.
It was the first one to establish their " fusion" , and this orchestrates them as eclectic and dragging
like Last Exit Before Toll and We're Paid By The Word as kings (in which they alternate themselves
and they confuse the languages of the jazz, of blues and folk) (a filigree of burning, supersonic fraseggi heavy metal in
which they are woven and perfectly amalgamated divagazioni of other nature), pieces that redefine the rock instrumental and
teaches harmonic freedom `. Rick has way to svettare with his enterprising and creative style, a debtor in the comparisons to
Hendrix (glissando and the maniacal scordature of Daylight In The Quiet Zone) and much of Lindsay (the atonal
and minimaliste schitarrate tones of Landing Is Gear), two masters who know how to fuse a radically anti-traditional
style and cio `nevertheless dragging (the catastrophic assoli of Camel' s Gak). Danced enlivened as Significant In Ten
Years is instead debitrici of Rush and Yes, but with the nevrosi dell' hardcore
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