new Howling Hex / Neil Hagerty brings the funk!

I YSIed the three vinyl-only deals in the Royal Trux thread.

Neil's blog is pretty confounding: http://hhex.blogspot.com/

nope, the keyboard player did previously play with smog and bright eyes tho.

i could be wrong but i don't think anyone who played these shows (the sax player matt bauder and the bassist josh abrams are the only ones i knew) played on the albums.

Will be curious to see what Hagerty fanz have to say about this one ...

What's wrong with the album, Tim?? Has it leaked?? Spill your guts, hombre!!

no-one saw the howling hex recently, did they?
i'd got quite used to the album-every-six-months rhythm, i think they're overdue.

According to the Drag City news page, Earth Junk is forthcoming. A little sleuthing indicates a 9/15 release date.

woo! alright. and on vinyl again, too.
i thought with the last one being only partially hagerty-songs, and the uncustomary delay until this one, maybe they were changing things around a bit. i can't wait, though.

Album cover / track list.
I've gotta say that Royal Trux tended to have much better album art than either principal's subsequent work. The 1st NMH solo album, All Night Fox and XI all had good covers, the rest are quite ugly.

UH transmaniacon has fucking amazing art

I saw 'em about 7 months ago at thee hemlock and it was amazing. XI was a little disappointing tho.

UH transmaniacon has fucking amazing art
I disagree! The skulls are merely okay, but the AC/DC font is awful.

Earth Junk is the best Howling Hex record to date. One of the many aspects that make it so unique is that many of the bass-lines are played on an organ. One feels unearthed by the lack of drums making it a very heady record with a strange sense of pop to it. One might appreciate Hagertys familiar fuzz or reverb. So many artists get caught in a web of familiarity with their discography. Many feel that if they stray too far away from their original vision that audiences may not warm up to something completely different. Though the sound on this record is completely unique, it still contains the new border sound found on other records especially NIGHTCLUB VERSION OF THE ETERNAL. The Southern New Mexican sound on the record that is much like traditional ranchero music that is also played in waltz time. This country pop record also reminds some of Mexican Polka music. The Howling Hex continues to challenge listeners and does not acquaint them with what they will expect.

Recorded in Austin in the late winter of early 2008, EARTH JUNK is a ramble in the dappled sunlight of the American southwest, twisted metallic folk-art in the ever changing breeze. Throw EARTH JUNK in your sound trunk - and keep on rolling. The Howling Hex will be there to greet you whenever - and wherever - you arrive.

i'm SO EXCITED about this. mexican polka?, no drums?, organ basslines? it's going to be amazing.

there's some youtube stuff from their last brooklyn show amid the incessant keyboard fumbling that is their website, too.

This is one weird ass record. It most closely resembles the first solo album, but is really it's own thing.

i wannit. i wanna spoil my appetite. the recent records have kind of cut down on the total sprawl of the earlier stuff, so it's strange to hear a comparison. is it great? are there no drums?

NO drums. Not sure if it's great yet. I really like it after two spins, though.

Crazily, the 'mexican polka' reference in the bio is shockingly accurate

i've been f5-aliving this thread waiting to hear about it, so thanks. i think drums are glorified clicktracks on a lot of music, so that's nice to know. have you got a promo? i don't think it's over the internets yet.

still super excited.

so how is "earth junk"?

pretty good according to the blog, ha-ha.

i'm picking my copy up on friday, because it sold out. i never knew anyone liked the howling hex til i found ilx.

So P4K gives it 4.5.
As far as I'm concerned, I am pretty convinced after 1.5 spin that it is a "grower"

neutral milk hotel rules at twitter, are you kidding me? if you can make a twit like "beisbol is the sport not crakerball [cannon v hammer, 1817]" and have it not have any hearts, comments, or recycles at all, yet still maintain 2K+ followers, then you're playing games and you're winning

Aesthetically, I feel like The Best Of was already sort of the “final” Howling Hex album, bookending the project that began with All Night Fox.

Denver felt like something different — it didn’t really feature the New Border Sound any longer (of course, Neil hasn’t lived near the border for years now anyway). The new album is, similarly, a return to more straightforward rock ‘n roll (though you could point out that XI also fit that description, and you’d be right).

Neil has also slowed down, output-wise, which adds to the sense that the old throughline has fallen away. His concerns seem more local and specific now (though no less idiosyncratic) — he’s getting older, we all are.

Lol @ "recycles"

Neil Hagerty

May 18 at 5:20am

Unlocked

BEISBOL

**working out some place sketches & maybe have an origin story [not wholly fact] by Tuesday

BEISBOL USA

The game many of us grew up playing [& it is a game a person can play into their 80s] was known as “Beisbol”— I learned it in southern california, southeastern atlantic coast, Florida, urban townhouse suburb areas, military housing areas, public schools, central summer league. It differs from Cracker Ball (steam hammer versus electric torpedo) in a few general, gentle ways. 

For example:

1 Ball is used for the entire 9 inning game. Ties stand. Ranking by pts.

2 pitching changes per team.

2 non-injury substitutes. Subs cannot be removed once placed, barring injury.

Advancing as a runner from bases may only occur with the standing runner(s) beginning the play with 2 feet touching the bag.

No steals or other between-pitch live ball action.

The outfield wall is deep, 450ft. minimum recommended. Home runs are rare. 

Pitching mound and home plate are the standard distance. 

The typical backstop should be close to the plate and rounded. Passed balls &c. advance runners 1 base and then are dead balls.

Balk rules are loose.

Infield fly = strike (incl. 3rd.)

Double if ball passes wall NOT on fly.

Foul balls are strikes, even 3rd strike.

Most the rules of Base-Ball are intact if not mentioned.

If you want to die, believe in lies.

I was listening to a Silver Jews live 7” from a rate early gig, I guess it was some sort of Drag City showcase. Berman says something along the lines of “before the gig we were playing monopoly with Royal Trux, and they had an interesting strategy. They bought Baltic Avenue, put one house on it and quit.”.

In the Patreon, Neil shared a pretty heavy story about his childhood, and how the incident shaped his character. I guess I won’t repost it here (even though he gave his blessing to the sharing of audio files and stuff), out of an abundance of caution.

Oh snap — his latest upload (from “the cassette vault”) is a 1986 track from the mythic Jet Boys of N.W.!

(...sorry, Jet Boyz)

(...) I must now go all the way back to the first band I had back in DC, Jet Boyz of NW— the band that I put on hold so I could do 1 tour and 1 record with another band— but one thing after another and now it’s decades later. The band name comes from a NY Dolls song with our local info attached; it was a great name because crackers would think it was some “gay” thing when to others it was a dig at private school kids. And everyone always finds it easy to dismiss and gain pleasure from dismissing “rock and roll” so it was a very uncool name, lots to clown with.

In Denver I LIVE in NW so it all fits, and the same kind of folks still plague me personally and professionally— so the mission is ongoing. We will see what the future brings. My only other next move after PATREON is playing on the street, if the city has a system to let musicians do that. If that happens I’ll be painting the Jet Boyz logo on a guitar and getting out there, hopefully get a band together that way. After all the false starts and dead enders I can finally get back to where I started and do it right. (...)

Cross-ref from the RTX thread:

(....)1 year ago, after they torpedoed the trux thing fat possum came back and said they'd let me do a record to come out in the fall of ’19 and they would back the record up with tour support and so on. They buried the record this may I think and still owe me 17K in unpaid invoices for travel, show expenses, sessions, musicians, artwork. The publishing company offered me 0$ for it. That’s 0$ I came away with for all the songs I wrote for the trux record and the solo record.

This is the work that I do and I don’t get to choose the 2 bosses who i work for but if things go bad they blame the musicians & listeners have no sympathy. Things get contorted.

All I know is to stay on the path my father set me on, keep working to get very good at a few things, don't listen to white lies, you can't go wrong with a song-- no one else ever had better advice for me.

A friend had an extra copy of the Hagerty-Toth record that he gave to me this weekend and totally killed me. Singing a little wonky in a few spots, but awesome guitar and fun grooves.

^I was just thinking about that record the other day - would like to revisit it...