Royal Trux : Classic or Dud ?

looool, this bodes well for the tour.

are they cleaned up? hag seems to have it together, idk as much about jen

Hag's been clean for years afaik

tbh a RTX w out controversy and shenanigans and arguments would not be a true RTX reunion

I dunno, my p.o.v. is that this was probably not meant to work out

yeah i thought the original royal trux breakup was because hagerty got clean and herrema didn't and he got sick of dealing with it, but that might be an oversimplification

Exactly - and it makes me wonder about some of the circumstances surrounding the reunion (and other things that aren't really my business).

somebody needs money, duh

Well, yes - guess there was a sort of risk/benefit analysis involved.

i know it's real because i have done 3 records in 18 months for 3 different entities w/ 3 different groups & all either did not come out &/or were redone and i got paid in $$, identity theft & calumny-- such is the life of a natural heel, it's everything i'd hoped it could be

— Neil Hagerty (@TheHowlingHex) January 17, 2019

hmmmmmmmmmmm

love the use of the word calumny as opposed to libel or slander

one of his many tweets that reads like it's responding to something specific but it's unclear what (he knows what's real?)

Suxx if true. Maybe should've hung w/Drag City.

(Unless DC is one of those "entities"... I don't know whether Neil & the Hex actually left DC, or just RTX.)

I feel bad for Fat Possum as they're probably going to feel the repercussions of all this.

investors jumping from windows

I've been thinking for a while I hope Neil didn't burn his bridges at Drag City. I don't think it'd be very easy to convince a label to put out Howling Hex records right now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfKblFXTh6s&feature=youtu.be

new video, with no neil (though not much jennifer either tbf)

love it

new MOJO has an awesome Trux feature with lots of infighting during and after the interview

Another new song... feelin' it even less than the others, TBH.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NONE3HlzhkM

It all feels like such a weak facsimile of the late-'90s Trux concept.

(plus, y'know, they're not very good songs)

everyone probably loved Accelerator because 'Liar' has the greatest riff ever.

"Mouth Breather" sounds like the "Dancing Days" riff, transmitted into 1990 Chicago via a scuzz-rock fax machine (this is not a value judgment, btw)

I've been seeing promos of "White Stuff" all over social media for the past three weeks but I finally listened to the full song just now, and it don't sound bad to me at all

I'm down with "Every Day Swan" too

and mark this for following this dumb b.s. but they put out a record that i hadn't heard and still haven't heard and then lied and said I had approved it

— Neil Hagerty (@TheHowlingHex) February 22, 2019

he was tweeting other stuff that seemed related to the new album this morning

"basically a debtors' prison situation" yeesh

The “tour” is back on, new dates announced y’day... but who would buy tix now?

dunno, literally the only place there's any indication of this stuff is hagerty's twitter! kind of surprised someone hasn't dug deeper into it (possible I've missed an article, not sure)

haw

TOUR TALK..... best believe. pic.twitter.com/e4XLIYJtcm

— ROYAL TRUX (@realroyaltrux) February 22, 2019

(of course this is from last november)

Wonder if he’s cool w/his email addy getting out there (remember in the ‘90s when it was something like “karlmar✧✧✧@a✧✧.c✧✧”?)

(weird, that censorship was some ILX auto thing)

neil hagerty has the weirdest range of interests of any 'celebrity' i can think of. just a strange dude.

i mean for long stretches he seems almost painfully 'normie' and then he posts about some truly strange shit and you remember he was (is?) in royal trux.

he's also incredibly online, which i would not have predicted had you asked me a decade or two ago.

he seems like a chill guy who likes cool stuff

that's another way to put it.

i guess you might expect something edgier

he doesn't seem very chill about the economics of touring w/ trux, tbf

He’s a pretty intelligent dude. He’s written v good essays on a variety of general interest subjects (many of which collected in a book, “Public Works”).

ooh, i hadn't known about that, thank you

Looks like the situation finally got a write-up/investigation:

https://www.stereogum.com/2033256/royal-trux-twitter-drama/wheres-the-beef/

Now someone's spoken to Neil:

http://dustedmagazine.tumblr.com/post/183074880168/royal-trux-white-stuff-fat-possum

After tracking the record in June 2018, Hagerty split due to an unspecified disagreement. Herrema and a bundle of friends worked the tracks into their album versions — hence the Bitches Brew approach — and submitted the record to Fat Possum, along with assurance that Hagerty had approved.

He had not. And when contacted for comment said he still hasn’t heard any of the music from the record. He did, however, say that Fat Possum has handled the situation “the best they could,” and noted he was “overjoyed” not to be working with the band’s previous label.

[...]

“The operative vision for me on this was Sunset Boulevard and I tried not to end up in the pool” Hagerty said when asked about the record. “If she had just told me it was going to be a solo thing I would have been fine with it but the way they are trying to drag me back into it now is degenerate stuff.”

That's interesting. I really don't think I've ever heard anything particularly awful about Drag City. Wonder what that's all about.

Yeah, me too...

This is "out there'. Gave it one listen and all i can say - as a longtime Trux fan --Summer Album! Instantly catchy.

yeah i don't hate this on first listen. as expected, it's way more in jennifer's aesthetic than neil's, lots of processing and overlapping vocals and lyrics about rock and roll. one weird thing i noticed is that there are almost no moments with neil singing without jennifer doubling his vocals. it makes me wonder if he was singing along with her guide vocals. unexpectedly "suburban junky lady" might be the best song on here.

i hated the kool keith song when i heard it as an advance single. i liked it more this time but it doesn't belong on a "royal trux" album. should've saved it for judgement night 2.

Publicity photos of the duo (see above) were clearly photoshopped together;

lol