Royal Trux : Classic or Dud ?

I still have never gotten that into any of the pre-Cats & Dogs albums but my general recommendation wrt RT is to just get everything they recorded from that point on plus the singles compilation because it's almost all great. Top three albums after Accelerator would be Cats & Dogs, Veterans, and Thank You.

Cats and Dogs is my go-to, but the preceding self-titled (with the gold pile of skulls) was my first and it made a big impression on my tender young brain almost 25 years ago (shit).

Singles/Live/Unreleased is a goldmine of killer Trux tunes, covers a lot of stylistic ground. Worth it for "Shockwave Rider" and "Back to School" alone.

Cats and Dogs is my go-to, but the preceding self-titled (with the gold pile of skulls) was my first and it made a big impression on my tender young brain almost 25 years ago (shit).

knock five years off that timescale and this is me also

To echo the posts above... start with Cats and Dogs, then work forward/backward from there.

still have never gotten that into any of the pre-Cats & Dogs albums

Same here, the early looser stuff doesn't appeal to me much. Sweet Sixteen is my favorite.

Cats and Dogs is my go-to, but the preceding self-titled (with the gold pile of skulls) was my first and it made a big impression on my tender young brain almost 25 years ago (shit).

Yes. Junkie Nurse and Sun On The Run and Air and a bunch of others make this a must.

Junkie Nurse is so spooky. Love the guitar-playing on that one.

https://www.thewire.co.uk/issues/399

https://www.thewire.co.uk/img/scale/1240/1528/2017/04/04/May-OFC-01.jpg

well well

noooo even the haggmeister has a beard now :(

new vid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BneR3bjueI

or not. duh.

don't get my hopes up like that

my bad.

GTFOH with that 20 year old "new vid" revive...

http://www.dragcity.com/products/platinum-tips-ice-cream

http://imgur.com/a/QQB2s

Then someone in the comments posts a link to the drone-jam 2nd part of "Half A Canyon", to which Jen replies:

"Their Royal Trux homage to Spike Cyclone at @ 2:22-2:45 is the best part" which is OTM!

New vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mlVzN4wbG8

wow this album's gonna be weird

Awwww I didn't know Kid Millions was playing drums for 'em! I was already crushed to find out I'd missed them in Detroit, this makes it like 100x worse

live album is streaming on npr: http://www.npr.org/2017/06/08/530279358/first-listen-royal-trux-platinum-tips-ice-cream

I haven't listened yet but is that the most platonically perfect RT album title ever??

Anyone else considering flying out to SF:

https://www.instagram.com/p/Ba7-dd_hz4-/

seeing them tonight at the Chapel

Great show! Rhythm section was killing it, played a lot of my faves incl opening w The Spectre. Platinum Tips, I'm Ready, Hot and Cold Skulls, Juicy Juicy Juice, Waterpark, Banana Question (the highlight imo).

Lights of the Levee too

My wife thought they got "kinda free jazz". Def wild and wooly.

wo jealous

sounds awesome, great news, hope they continue working together

who was the rhythm section? when i saw them last year it was hagerty's drummer and herrema's guitarist but i see a reference to kid millions upthread

I'm not sure who the bassist was but yeah I think the drummer was Kid Millions and he was in full-on Keith Moon mode the whole time, it was great. Hagerty fiddled with his pedals a lot and occasionally his guitar got lost in a haze of mud but that would be my only complaint sound-wise. Herrema had a little synth and a couple pedals and random things, I think she was also triggering samples or something because there were multiple points throughout the set where I couldn't tell where certain non-bass/guitar/drum sounds were coming from.

Trying to remember what else they did, there were a couple songs I didn't recognize. Something called "Sunsine" too, I think? I laughed when Hagerty said "this next one is from our last studio album" and then went into "Platinum Tips"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbRvLZKTwg0

JUICY JUICY JUICE

It was really good. Turn out was weak. Busy season in the Bay and Halloween hangover I guess. Kid Millions is really such a good fit.

I was in the balcony, looked like a pretty full house from up there...? Def a bigger crowd than when I saw Howling Hex at the Hemlock years back lol.

Right on!!

Okay, big news:

http://fatpossum.com/royal-trux-announce-signing-to-fat-possum-catalog-going-digital/

American rock & roll band Royal Trux (Jennifer Herrema and Neil Hagerty) have signed with Mississippi label Fat Possum Records which will re-release the entire digital catalog from the duo’s 1988 self titled debut up to 2000’s pre-hiatus gem Pound for Pound.

You can pre-save the bands catalog on Spotify by clicking here. Expect the first slate of re-releases from Fat Possum on all streaming sites in March 2018.

Herrema and Hagerty have also confirmed plans to enter the studio this Summer to record a new album for Fat Possum. The band have performed spontaneous secret shows across the USA and Europe since picking back up where they left off in 2015. But 2018 will prove to be their busiest year with strategic headlining shows across the US and festival dates across Europe going in to 2019.

Strategic, you see.

if there's one word you'd associate with royal trux it'd def be 'strategic'

Is this due to digital intransigence on the part of Drag City or something?

xpost Man, you just conjured a vivid image of Neil & Jen interviews where they engage in hardcore corporatespeak about branding and synergy and it's killing me.

Weirdly enough ever since that article a few weeks ago talking about how they invested their 90s major label money in real estate and say they've still earned money off their back catalog all this time, yes, I would associate 'strategic' with them now!

Basically they just seemed like utter wastrel burnouts from the outside but they have it more together than we'd realized.

And related to that:

Is this due to digital intransigence on the part of Drag City or something?

Unlikely -- they've been putting up a lot of material last I checked -- but again, I could just as easily see them negotiating a better deal in general.

i wonder if drag city had to approve the digital distribution of the back catalog aspect?

This is overall great news, though it's slightly disappointing that "Sweet Sixteen" is not one of the albums being reissued.

Wait, whaaaat? That's stupid. I mean, I understand that it's probably logistically more difficult, but still stupid. Especially considering that Sweet Sixteen is the album is the one I'd most like to own in a form that had no packaging.

I always figured that people's problems with the cover art were due to the smallness of the cd format. I'll need to see it blown up to 12"x12" to really appreciate it.

We need a special edition package which features a note-perfect three-dimensional sculpture of the cover art which you have to reach into in order to retrieve the fetid, dripping disc.

Trux of the past is not Trux of the now- which in similar yet completely different terms- Trux of the past IS Trux of the now.

Uhh

They have no affinity for any one label. They're master negotiators and they're gonna either A: Swindle some big bux or B: Do whatever gives them the exact freedoms they desire. I wonder how much they kept of their old studio. I wonder how much of the new record will be completely new material or old stuff they never got to? Brian seems to be turning Neil on to the crazed Midi guitar shit he's been doing in Black Bananas. Also is it true Jen is bfgf with Kurt Midness? If Midness is in the mix too like, this could be some huge crash of Black Bananas + Royal Trux. This could be yuge or a big trainwreck. Here's to hoping they stick this out.

Trux died 15 years ago (iirc) when Jen's father passed away and she nosedived back into drugs. Neil couldn't take it. It was a premature death solely due to some lifeshit happening. Not even band related. They were meant to stay together. No disrespect to what they accomplished on their own. Hex is a pet project of absurdities and hidden genius. Bananas is sick af and should have been the biggest band of the 80s. I guess since Pound For Pound was mostly a retread of used ideas it's probably best how things went. Now they can come back with new inspirations and less fux to give.

Hype

Email just now -- the last paragraph is of particular interest:

Royal Trux (Neil Hagerty/Jennifer Herrema) are making their entire cumulative catalog (40 lps including Royal Trux, NMH, RTX, Howling Hex, and Black Bananas) available via their new home at Fat Possum. The releases will be made available to the public via streaming for the first time and the scheduled roll out has the first 3 chosen albums arriving on all streaming outlets including Spotify, TIDAL, Amazon, Google Play and Deezer this Friday, March 9th.

1993's Cats and Dogs, 1998’s Accelerator and 1999’s Veterans of Disorder

are the first 3 albums the duo have chosen to roll out. Since picking up where they left off, Jennifer Herrema and Neil Hagerty have gone back to work on their first studio LP in nearly 18 years. The band will self-produce, but will include an impressive roster of unexpected co-producers and collaborators on the new record's rumored 15 new tracks.

Stay tuned for the announcement coming via Instagram launching Royal Trux TV which will unleash a vault of previously unseen films, videos and live footage as well as the band's long out-of-print scripted films What Is Royal Trux? and Live At Gettysburg along with newly created content for the forthcoming new record created by Herrema and Hagerty.

oh nice, i don't really know the nmh/howling hex stuff that well so it'll be nice to be able to browse it

search the 1st one under the name "NMH & The Howling HEx", with the killer live version of "Rockslide"