Pavement vs. Royal Trux

I remember RT as a noisy band without hooks but it’s been a minute

think of them as more groove than hook though I still get "junkie nurse"'s irritating refrain caught in my head from time to time

not as irritating as juicy juice iirc

Both of these bands are like classic rock for me. RTX was more difficult / harder to get into, but totally mysterious / badass, and they seemed to lack that suffocating self-awareness that Pavement possessed. Good match up, but I think Royal Trux could beat up Pavement if it came down to it. Love Transmaniacon, NMH's first solo/self-titled album, and a lot of Malk's solo (+ the Jicks) material.

As for vocal skills, Royal Trux crushes Pavement.

Don't really listen to Malkmus anymore, but I'm still 'discovering' Royal Trux gems.

i honestly haven't listened to a whole lot of royal trux but i'll take "xi" by howling hex over anything pavement or malkmus did. hagerty is such an amazing guitar player.

weird thread

youre weird

fair

Trux Trux Trux

figured I'd break my post into two to avoid being so long, but basically Pavement created their sound and stayed with it til they quit, whereas Trux were continually re-shaping theirs as they moved along, which for me makes for a more varied and interesting body of work.

― whitehallunity, Saturday, May 19, 2018 11:23 AM(yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is u&k but I think merits even a little more elaboration. There's a familiar indie metatrope about projects which, initially mired in abrasive outsider/underground aesthetics--entirely listener-unfriendly--manage to pull themselves out of the muck & murk and embrace pop structure. This is a decent if generalized description of RTX's first four albums, but it could also apply to Ariel Pink, or Sonic Youth, or any number of classic indie bands: that's why it's a metatrope. Another metatrope is the band who plays with a specific genre and its well-established tropes but manage to throw in enough anomalous, quirky elements that no one could ever confuse their music for the real thing. Again, this is an okay summation of Trux circa Cats & Dogs/Thank You , where the residual scuzzy noise, spaced out vocals, and lo-fi sound marks the albums as distinctive, 'artistic' takes on Southern rock.

But usually bands and artists who go down this road, once they develop their singular signature modes of offkilter genre deconstruction, they tend to run with it and then run it into the ground. What they don't do--oftentimes because they don't have the real chops to do this--is actually work out a convincing 'straight' version of the genre they're fucking with, the way Trux manage, to an extent, with Sweet Sixteen and then wholly with Pound for Pound . Another thing they don't usually do is stumble upon an entirely distinct, secondary mode of quirky genre dislocation such as the batshit spectrum-analyzer plastique of Accelerator & the first side of Veterans . The higher impression one gets from all of this is not just of a bizarro version of rock but of a finely-calibrated tug of war between rock and bizarro elements that feel like the product of a lot of higher-level thinking about what rock is, and what it can mean.

great post, and 100% otm

more like Royal Sux

big 4:

Slayer = Royal Trux
Metallica = Pavement
Megadeth = ?
Anthrax = ?

I'm kinda thinking Anthrax might be Sebadoh, which would make the Folk Implosion SOD.

Royal Trux, IME, had in common with Beefheart a dissuasively-high difficulty level that served as an initial barrier of entry, but both bands ultimately rewarded my perseverance in spades and continue to do so. I went obsessively all-in with Pavement for a long stretch but it turns out that they just didn't hold my attention in the long run. Like there just didn't seem to be that many depths to plumb. Still love a lot of their stuff, though, particularly Wowee Zowee.

megadeath = jesus lizard

Jesus lizerd

i've made my peace with the fact that royal trux are a joke that i don't get. it amazing how their music totally reminds me of being around really annoying people who are really high though. i totally want to get away from them. so, just as a spot-on approximation of junkie annoyance and whining they are successful to me.

also, vocally they both just remind me of muppets in a weird way and that's a personal reason why i can't really take listening to them for very long. constipated muppets.

Come will always be my number one '90s Stones-loving junk-inspired indie rock band of all time. They had the best vocalists too. and amazing songs.

The 'Westing' collection plus the first 3 albums are absolutly classic in my book. Pretty varied and awesome.

I love the Royal Trux sound, but those four PAVEMENT albums have too many great songs.

"including solo careers" tips this over to Trux for me, I like NMH's solo stuff way more than Malkmus, and RTX/BB vs. Spiral Stairs is a blowout

"it amazing how their music totally reminds me of being around really annoying people who are really high though. i totally want to get away from them. so, just as a spot-on approximation of junkie annoyance and whining they are successful to me."

oh shit you might have just ruined RT for me

Verbena's Souls for Sale is my "number one '90s Stones-loving junk-inspired indie rock band"

Accelerator is the best album

Uhh..is that a kazoo on “another year?”
And uh maybe they could take the time to tune the guitars before rolling the tape on “yellow kid?”

Not even going to bring up “banana question”

Sorry Brim, not to rank on you. I guess I had to be there

For my money, if I want to hear don't-give-a-fuck, splay-footed, ersatz, atonal Stones jams I'd probably listen to U.S. Maple.

fuck, imagine Jennifer Herrema singing for us maple.. with U.S. Maple

brimstead is very close to correct. Maybe not the best but probably top ten.

US Maple was great but they did their own thing (which, DGAF as it may have sounded, was revealed to be tight and calculated as hell if you ever saw them live) and Trux did theirs.

Another metatrope is the band who plays with a specific genre and its well-established tropes but manage to throw in enough anomalous, quirky elements that no one could ever confuse their music for the real thing. Again, this is an okay summation of Trux circa Cats & Dogs/Thank You , where the residual scuzzy noise, spaced out vocals, and lo-fi sound marks the albums as distinctive, 'artistic' takes on Southern rock.

The thing I actually liked most about RTX around this time was that I didn't think that they were playing with a specific genre. I don't think "Southern rock" encapsulates it. I mean, it was rock music for sure but that can mean many things and I think it did mean many things in their music. Like Richard Meltzer would have said something like "Rock is an eclectic form" - well sure, it was at one time. It was before most rock bands started identifying themselves with some particular strain, some particular sub-genre. Trux were one of the only bands around at the time, I felt, who were open to all kinds of things and also knew their records and could hit on all sorts of things. I saw them play a song from Pet Sounds once.

US Maple was great but they did their own thing (which, DGAF as it may have sounded, was revealed to be tight and calculated as hell if you ever saw them live)

this is otm, I don't think there's a single note out of place on any U.S. Maple record

neither one of these bands is remotely on US Maple's level

plus Skin Graft was it's whole own world and doesn't even belong in this convo, rtx and pavement were very conventional rock bands at the end of the day

this is my kinda '90s indie rock record. for the record.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzoCfZtE3v0

Would add the Grifters' One Sock Missing to the relatively-conventional 90s Stones-scuzz indie rock convo

US Maple, esp by the end of the 90s were in a completely different realm - including other Skin Graft people

i don't think i've ever listened to a us maple album.

come were and are my fave american 90s indie rock band. i like every song they recorded. which is unheard of!

I feel like Pavement had a more focused approach when composing and cared more about their music than Royal Trux.

I also think this counts as making their brand of slacker indie wrong.

pavement records sound sooooooo good to me. those guitars. like way better to me than most similar stuff. i don't know how they did it. its the reason i still listen to them.

Yeah, the “haunt you down” / “Fillmore Jive” tone is nice and warm

lot of weird opinions itt

i love both these bands but will not be voting in this poll because it seems weird to compare them. other than being contemporaries and briefly being on the same label, they don't have much in common in terms of sound or approach or goals or aesthetic. it's like doing liz phair vs. silkworm or something.

otm

it feels like the purpose of this thread is to make old people feel cool for voting for royal trux over pavement. which is a purpose i support. i pick royal trux.

thank you poll, I had not listened to Royal Trux since the 90s & now I have & I like it.

what's a good place to start w/ trux? ive been intrigued by them but haven't really gone in

pavement's okay, i could take em or leave em tbh

these guys here are pros but I've been playing Cats & Dogs

marcos get Veterans of Disorder or Accelerator

it feels like the purpose of this thread is to make old people feel cool for voting for royal trux over pavement. which is a purpose i support. i pick royal trux.

― na (NA), Monday, May 21, 2018 10:33 AM (twenty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol

cats & dogs isn't my personal favorite but it makes sense as a midpoint where you can listen to it and then if you want them to be noisier and weirder, you can listen to the earlier albums, or if you want them to be more cohesive you can listen to the later albums (which is not a diss, i generally prefer the "rock" albums)

^^That’s what I always say (you stole my wise counsel)!

Hagerty is top 5 guitarists for me.

Who are other 4(?)

I'm gonna guess shakey's other four as Lou, Verlaine, Hazel and...maybe the gang of four guy, how'd I do

I'll see your 4 and raise you: Jason Pierce, Sly Stone, Grasshopper & Pops Staples

jimmy nolen?

Other four? Hazel, for sure. Neil Young. Michio Kurihara. Maybe one of the founding metal guys - page or iommi or blackmore - for fifth.

Love a lot of the others mentioned but wouldnt say they are really virtuosos

bless you for bringing blackmore in, good call

Pavement never shocked me. Good indie rock band but apart from a few songs I never loved anything they did, it was just like ok it's 1994 and yr a teenager hanging in central AK,you have to like Pavement. When I heard RTX it was like wtf is this it's doing many weird unexpected things oh and then putting out a 70's rock record.

https://scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/34610540_10155616577271589_5008571413536178176_n.jpg?_nc_cat=0&oh=255468b59e0eb14906f03b9f6ba878d3&oe=5BB4AF6F

Royal Trux obviously the best answer
Wtf