WE DON’T have too much faith in people getting our music.” That may sound like a pretty fatalistic outlook from Phil Tooth, guitarist for Mountain View’s Tolteca Extra. But it’s true that there seems to be no other band in the South Bay doing what they’re doing—which is, in a word, noise. Experimental noise-rock has never gotten a lot of attention from the mainstream, except maybe in Japan, which is the No. 1 exporter of the genre.
In this country, Sonic Youth is the best-known band to even touch the true sound of noise. Like math rock without the math or black metal without the church burnings, it’s more extreme than either. Completely free-form and liberated from the rules of any pop structure, noise is truly out there.
“There are a lot of people who aren’t into it, because it’s heavy, distorted and loud,” says Tooth.
But he and his band mates—bassist Gus Cadena, drummer Steve Campbell and recently added second guitarist Matt Edleon—see endless possibilities in their bruising sheets of instrumental rock. They’ve just finished their first, four-song CD; it gets a release party at the Blank Club on Wednesday, where they’ll open for Mexican rockers Gay Duo.
“What I’m going for, there has to be a little bit of anger there, but still be something kind of pretty about it,” says Tooth.
“There’s a bazillion riffs I’ll come up with, but only one or two will make it to the band, because they have the feeling I want.”
Tooth has been playing in bands for more than 15 years, since he was 11. A friend’s dad sold him a broken guitar and an amp for $20 (“I still owe him 20 bucks,” he admits). He fixed up the guitar and started “banging on stuff.” He loved experimenting but didn’t realize how far other people were taking it until high school, when he listened religiously to the noise-rock that KFJC played at night.
Tooth had a lot of material ready to go by the time Tolteca Extra came together in Mountain View a year and a half ago, but Cadena has been writing a lot recently, too. The band’s name could have several meanings, which Tooth is somewhat cagey about. Tolteca was the Aztec empire based in Tollan, and both Tooth and Cadena are of Aztec heritage. However, using the literal Aztec translation, the name could mean simply “Extra Sugar.”
Tolteca Extra quickly made an influential friend: Toshi Kasai, the much-sought-after producer and engineer who plays guitar for the Melvins-connected Seattle stoner band Big Business. Tooth sent Kasai a drum solo Campbell had done, and Kasai turned it into the bizarre six-minute track “Steve vs. Toshi Kasai,” which can be heard on Tolteca Extra’s MySpace page. Tooth and Kasai geeked out on circuit benders and looping, and Kasai went on to be a sort of spiritual adviser for the band, offering his take on the recordings they would send him.
“He’s a great guy,” says Tooth. “He helped us out quite a bit.”
One of the most fascinating things about Tolteca Extra’s music is the sheer number of influences it draws from, all over the musical map. Rock pioneers like Mission of Burma and Dinosaur Jr., metal bands like Hellhammer and Bathory, and all kinds of obscurities. Lately, Tooth has been drawing inspiration from, of all things, the soundtrack to the 1979 cult-horror film Phantasm.
“That’s one of my favorite albums of all time,” he says. “It’s super dark and experimental, but it has this classy sound. Just like the movie doesn’t make sense, some of the parts don’t make sense—the changes are so weird. It sounds like an old prog record recorded in a graveyard.”
Tolteca Extra is also moving in a more progressive direction, Tooth says, and he’s excited to play the band’s newest material at the Blank Club show. They’ll be bringing the new self-titled CD, which is also available at Streetlight Records.
As for nobody else around here making music that sounds like their songs “Psychic Intruder” or “Picnics Are for Dreamers,” that’s fine with Tolteca Extra. They’d like to make something that no one has ever heard, period.
“We try to get sounds that aren’t being used yet,” says Tooth, “or return to some that have been forgotten.”
TOLTECA EXTRA opens for GAY DUO on Wednesday (Dec. 23) at 9pm at the Blank Club, 44 S. Almaden Ave., San Jose. Free. (408.29.BLANK)
