Phantom Tollbooth
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 slightly weaker follow-up records and 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.
DOWNLOAD:
Phantom Tollbooth – Phantom Tollbooth LP (21.1MB)
Tags: Homestead Records, math rock, New York, post-hardcore, spastic
October 8th, 2010 at 12:44 am
Super cool! Thanks for putting up the PT thing.
I stumbled upon your blog whilst bookmarking places I need to know about. I’m getting set up to start my own music “label” blog linking all my stupid music I’ve been making with pals that nobody’s ever heard. I assume it’ll largely remain unheard, but at least I can consider stuff “done” when it’s put up on Band Camp and linked to the blog. And I suppose your place wouldn’t be a venue anyway since it’s not in the archival sorta zone…
Sorry…what am I getting at…yeah, I was in Phantom Tollbooth! What a fucking hoot to see our first record digitized (it was never on CD). Now I can listen to it on my phone and cringe at the sound of my voice. Thanks, I guess.
October 15th, 2010 at 12:12 am
Wild! Seriously, I was grinning ear to ear the first time I heard this record. Totally unhinged. And unheard! I’m happy to propagate your underrated jamz. Lemme know when the blog is up — it sounds like something NFZ folks need to hear.
November 10th, 2010 at 9:32 am
Hey, Doug,
1) drop me a note at my email address, assuming it’s accessible to you–stumbled across this via Matt Exile & it’s been quite a few years;
2) I can’t agree with the statement about lesser follow-up records: Power Toy, to me, trumps them all. Opinions.
3) Also, above, are you Dave Rick, or are you Gerard Smith? Either way, kudos–loved PT and am looking forward to hearing what you’re doing. It’s true that a lot of people hated PT’s vocals, but whatever. You guys were on fire. Put up that link.