Royal Trux : Classic or Dud ?

On first listen through this sounds fine to me; it's neither as good as Veterans of Disorder or Electric Brick Wall but it sits comfortably between the two, and I 100% have time for that kind of album

Amen

can't listen to that interview at work. what's the short version of her leaving drag city?

one thing notale about drag city is how much loyalty they seem to inspire. royal trux are exceptional in being long time or old time d.c. acts that have left the label not once but twice. cf. bill callahan and will oldham who have stuck with them for 25+ years despite surely getting lots of offers from bigger labels.

*notable

Listening to the podcast now; Jennifer suggests that Drag City operates in some kind of groupthink fashion that was dragging them down (transcription is mine):

Neil and I have, like, all sorts of ideas[...] We don't want to be held down, we don't want to be told no, and we don't want to be on a label that's a collective mind. When we want to do something, we can't wait for the label to determine if everyone else wants to roll that way. We're autonomous, and always have been[...] They're the label, and we're the artist. It's more of a 'project' than a seriously functioning record label at this point.

She goes on to say that when she finally overcame her skepticism around streaming, and wanted Trux's stuff out there, she was frustrated by the politics around how Drag City was approaching it at the time.

huh. honestly it's hard to imagine any label satisfying her desire to roll with whatever they want to do.

"they"

"our 2020 album will only be released on CD-ROM"

The specific incident she mentions is that she is/was pro-streaming and DC kept pushing back for months and then finally they acquiesced and let Royal Trux/RTX/Black Bananas be available on streaming sites and within a day or two the entire Drag City catalog started being available as well.

The way I heard/understood it, it was only after they had left the label, and their catalog was made available by Fat Possum, that all the DC stuff also came online (which was the "irony" of the situation).

Haha, I def like the accuracy of your take better than my 1/2 of one ear semi-listening take.

omg interviewer seriously just asked about "'white stuff' in terms of racism" I'm dying

Podcast interviews conducted via telephone are t-h-e W-O-R-S-T

I don't know what the story is with Drag City; but when you consider that even Neil "noted he was 'overjoyed' not to be working with the band’s previous label" (per one of the interviews linked above) -- something definitely went bad there.

is your ejaculate racist y/n?

I'm kinda glad I heard this after all the Neil/Jennifer drama and read some of the negative reviews, since it set my expectations to a point where I really kinda liked it. It's not great, but not the Black Bananas redux I kinda feared. I still don't like the Kool Keith track and a few others, but "Suburban Junky Lady", "Every Day Swan" and "Whopper Dave" give me what I like.

I agree, it's definitely a better album than what I / we had been led to believe

I think it's great fun. And it still feels like RT except for the Kool Keith track but I'm gonna guess that was Jennifer H's call so I'll give her that one weird outlier.

THE 1987 ROYAL TRUX PINK CASSETTE HAS BEEN FOUND AND RIPPED
http://tinyurl.com/rtx1987

Just making my rounds passing this out. If you know anyone who's interested in hearing this pass it along.

/\ cassette rip credit goes to Concentric Circles on instagram
https://www.instagram.com/concentric_circles_/

whoa

!

Oh weird, vocal on "Gold Dust" almost sounds like Daniel Johnston. Wonder if this has been uploaded at the right speed. Can't really tell Neil and Jennifer apart! Nice find.

Pretty sure it's ripped at the right speed. There was a 30 second clip released a year ago by another tape owner that sounds the same.

This is before Jennifer came into her rough vocal style. Just a kid at that point

https://scontent.flhr4-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/56462476_2039185006194155_3549618383689351168_n.jpg

dammit
https://scontent.flhr4-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/56462476_2039185006194155_3549618383689351168_n.jpg?_nc_cat=101&_nc_ht=scontent.flhr4-1.fna&oh=71e618db22d8a3cb0c7ed45948032438&oe=5D3C871A

Priceless!

Thanks for sharing the link to this demo; very cool.

"Cut You Loose" and "Luminous Dolphin" sound like the same versions on Singles, Live, Unreleased -- yes?

yes, and it seems like Bare Bones & Andersonville are the same as on the first LP.

Just got to those (and agree).

This tape is really good... fills in the gaps without shattering any of the "mystique" (...we have White Stuff for that).

https://66.media.tumblr.com/3b75adfc25afacf8504374849a6cec6c/tumblr_pqqe78MU7T1rkya77o1_540.png

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

sounds like the NYC show has been canceled too

Looks like the whole tour has been axed.

Ugh. Shouldn't be terribly surprised, but...

Definitely not surprised. Purchased the tix figuring that this would be the most likely conclusion TBH.

Still love that record tho.

hey they should have announced the tour was cancelled last june sorry they lied

— Neil Hagerty (@TheHowlingHex) April 29, 2019

Strange update. Facebook post by Jennifer

"So you wanna know....why? "TRUX BAND" Rehearsal ...waiting and on the hunt
few day ago
hit this cover in 15....obv liberties were took
"After the Fox" The Hollies / Peter Sellers"

https://www.stereogum.com/2041908/royal-trux-cancel-tour/news/

Permanent re-host of mp3: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aCaE-IRv7I6F_SnyCESMPQXKFY8pTQOb/view

I'm going to divert my Trux tix money toward the Flipper show.

I couldn't make it too far past "Is it the same guitarist on the Black Bananas album?" but if you want to hear Jennifer Herrema interviewed by Greg Gutfeld, here you go
https://radio.foxnews.com/2019/04/03/royal-trux-black-bananas-with-jennifer-herrema/

remember when they produced that make-up album? in mass mind? that record rules

The interviewer there keeps the narrative about the '90s band's exemplary career path going. Who are we meant to compare them to, Motley Crue? There were tons of alternative aesthetic/indie bands who were in and out with major labels in the '90s; someone would have to explain to me how Royal Trux's arc was more admirable than another's

someone once said (or maybe wrote) that the Royal Trux major label deal was the only one in history in which you sympathized more in the end with the major label than with the band

wrong

(as usual)

wrong as in somebody didn't actually say that? I just mean I read that quote in a zine or something many years ago and it stuck with me. afaik the band were paid to not record a third album for Virgin and were subsequently able to buy a big house. Obviously it's probably a little more complicated than that but if you have any insider knowledge please do share, I'm just going by what I'd always heard. Seems like they did OK, even as far as ending up right back where they started on Drag City

Accelerator was the third album; Virgin declined it and Trux owned it under the deal, so were able to release it on DC.

Re: how successful they were or weren't back in the day, looks like their top-sellers were:
Cats & Dogs - just north of 10K
Royal Trux and Thank You - a lil over 8K
Accelerator - around 6500

Everything else under 5K.

To put this in perspective, all the early Smog records sold 10-15K... most Jesus Lizard records sold between 20-40K...
Heck, Steven Jesse Bernstein's Prison sold 12K!

They were way more popular than Action Swingers and Helios Creed!

What are those, like, first-week numbers?

nope.

Total US Soundscan.