Good to see some mention of the mighty Royal Trux on these here pages… Thought i’d follow it up with a word or two on what I consider to be the Trux’s (and recent US rock in general) finest hour… their mighty Veterans of Disorder …

This isn’t their current release (which is called Pound fer Pound and was cut over the same sessions and released soon afterwards… and is nice too). At the time this came out I was pretty tired of the Trux’s tried and true shenanegans (ie genral dopey larkin about, weird annoying collages and the occasional flash of a decent tune) but this record changed my opinion of the band massively… 

First up we are hit wit the massive “Waterpark” a tune so dumb as to make even Iggy at his most juvenile blush “i wanna go to the water park.. the water’s cool and the sun is hot!” barks truely scarey singer Jennifer… and in what fine voice too! Kinda like a chick version of Phil May with tonnes of Lemmyesque gruffness … truely an instrument of extreme coolness… anyhow the riffs are fast and furious played in a great slung low chugga chugga style … the track is totally scorchin and obviously played live live live… and the band is fuckin’ moster tight! it’s got that great early Zep feel of a bunch o wasted dudes playin in a hot sweaty room .. very nice… 

anyhow things move along fast with tracks like “Witch’s Tit” (with titles like this you know Jen is a total genius) which features some truely badass riffin’ from the mighty Neil Haggerty (the Keith of Jen’s Mick)… his tone is completely out of this world shitty but so dang hot you wonder why no one seems able to pull this kinda shit off anymore… 

Anyhow Neil drops in a nice kinda bluesy lil ditty called “Stop” which hits all the right wasted Keith takin’ the mic buttons…

We get some weirdness in “sickass dog” which is a sorta weirdo audio collage type ditty… but again featuring some genius lyrics from Jen “strawberries fer breakfast…chocolate fer lunch”…yeah … the munchies have obviously hit the Trux…

Anyhow what truely elevates this record to the status of jaw droppin mind blowing classic is the last track.. a huge 10 minute monster by the title of “Blue is the Frequency” …
a quick kinda funky intro gets things rollin.. the personal is different on this track.. with ex tortoise bassist Bundy K Brown joing the proceedings for some great dubby bass that really sets sparks flying … Ok so now Hagerty is ready to step up and light the shit up.. things start out nicely with some rather frenetic fret scramblin with a mighty squawkey tone… this ambles along barely under control fer a couple o minutes.. pretty nice but man the band is just kickin in behind him.. eggin him on.. the drummer suddenly becomes truely inspired and starts responding to everyone of Haggerty’s fractured note sprays .. huge fill after huge fill just keeps on building the track up.. so now Hagerty is in full demented harmolodic flight… think Edie Hazel meets Pete Cosey and yer in the right area… damn… then suddenly the band stops on a dime to let Haggerty take it down a notch fer some nice clean tone bluesy shit fer a lil while.. class.. and then with equal aplomb the distortion is switched back and way into the red fer a blistering outro.. goddamn.. so by now he’s been soloing with total abandon for about 6 minutes… very hot shit… a lil Page esque pedal steel is added to the proceedings and the track heads out into the ether on a beautiful note… 

The end of a truely mighty no punches pulled rock extravaganza … I can think of no rock record in the 90’s the lived up to these incredible highs … Hagerty and Hermina ride off into the sunset as the two baddest kids in the buisiness and its all tossed off like its the easiest shit in the world … fuck me! 

dubious