Royal Trux : Classic or Dud ?

Other weird ones... Laughingstock looks like superstar sales compared to this, at +60K, while Bark Psychosis Hex sold 1/10th as well. Laughingstock even beat At Action Park by 10K... I'd bet that Shellac was in the lead there until at least the least 90s though. At least going by the record stores I was working at.

"Btw, were most small record stores truly participating in SoundScan by the mid-‘90s? Could there be a whole strata of mom & pop, college-town sales not being captured by these numbers? Just curious..."

100%. Soundscan was only ever an approximation. Since not everybody reported, certain stores would be weighted differently in the hopes that would get things closer to the actual number. Again though, the numbers certainly tell a tale in relation to other artists.

Kissyfur - around 100
CH - over 150
Lync - 3500 or so

The Frogs - It's Only Right and Natural to Starjob all did 5-10K.

So did sales of Palace and Pavement CDs effectively subsidize the cost of releasing stuff that only sold a few hundred copies?

yes! but the original idea as told to me by an early proto-Pavement band member was "they just want to sign bands they think are cool" (re: the two Dans) - so really they just lucked out with Pavement and later Palace.

Someone said on another ILM thread that the 2 Dans were prescient in fostering artists who continue to make music today (Callahan, Jen Trux, Neil Trux, Malkmus, Oldham, Berman(?), Mantis (jk)...)

fwiw re Soundscan figures, this from an article from 1995:

Shalett makes one important concession: certain very small indie releases, albums that sell in the 15,000 to 20,000 range, might not get fairly counted in the system. "Something very, very street--like a rap record sold out of barbershops--we're not going to count fully, and we never will be able to." This may be why an album like Operation Ivy, from the Berkeley indie label Lookout (the original home of Green Day), has sold, according to Lookout's Molly Neuman, 100,000 copies over the last four years, while SoundScan has it down for only 5,000. Tiny labels that sell a disproportionate number of vinyl records, that don't use bar codes, or that do business by mail order escape SoundScan's radar as well.

also Never Mind The Bollocks took 15 years to go platinum not 25

from a UK perspective i saw royal trux play a little while after cats and dogs came out and they half filled the upstairs room in a pub

At the same time fugazi or pavement could fill the local 850 capacity venue. thee headcoats, make up, jsbx or lois maffeo could fill the pub room i saw royal trux in. palace brothers on their first uk tour probably 2/3 filled a similar room

royal trux stunk when i saw them live. i don't mean they played bad i mean they literally smelled like they hadn't bathed for a month

xpost 15 years, 25 years ... it took a while!

I wonder how stuff like, say, Labradford sold on Kranky? I assume Deerhunter is their top-seller? What does/did a band like Low sell?

This news simultaneously makes no sense and makes total sense (inasmuch as I don't know anyone irl who likes or listens to Trux who didn't have the band foisted upon them by me).

(And I was under the mistaken impression that they were terrible for quite a long time.)

royal trux stunk when i saw them live. i don't mean they played bad i mean they literally smelled like they hadn't bathed for a month

LOL

I saw Trux fill good-sized clubs.

Of all the bands of that era, Trux are the one I currently like the least. I honestly think my wearing-out on them was this seemingly arbitrary canonization of Twin Infinitives, which is a bad, bad, bad album. Maybe the worst album. It’s the aural equivalent of Harmony Korine making Gummo, and while Gummo was being edited, Harmony turned on a camcorder and spent a week kicking it around the parking lot of the editing suite, and called the resultant footage “More Gummo”

Never understood the Twin Infinitives pedestal. Pretty much everything they released subsequently blows it clear out of the water.

Or at least from Cats and Dogs on. Not crazy about the second s/t, either, myself.

I saw Trux fill good-sized clubs.

In New York, Chicago, San Francisco or L.A.?

Yes, two of those cities.

I don’t get the “Gummo” comparison at all...

idk I've felt like Gummo and early Royal Trux share an aesthetic thesis is all

I saw Pavement with Royal Trux in a (sold-out) 600-ish(?) capacity club at the height of both bands' live popularity (Wowee-Zowee/Brighten The Corners + Thank You/Sweet Sixteen):

https://i.imgur.com/Xzfqw22.jpg

You could move around pretty freely during the show, I took some great pics of Jen/Neil that I can't find anymore. It was about 90F+ in the club and Jen was wearing a puffy Raiders snow parka with matching Raiders snow beanie with a big pom-pom on top.

Not sure how to account for my fondness for Twin Infinitives. It’s certainly unique. I like it sonically.

yeah I'm a fan as well, there are some good tunes in there (i.e. side 4, and 'Chances Are The Comets') and as you note the sound is unique

I also think Twin Infinitives is a cool/unique album... and I'm particularly fond of the posthumous Trux release Hand of Glory, which draws from the same recordings.

heyyyy i was at the hollywood palace pavement / trux show. fun times. wasn't really familiar with royal trux and they were scary!

Pink x Trux

After several listens, "White Stuff" has gone from 'surprisingly decent comeback album' to 'top 5 material'

xp Pretty "funny" how the promo shot is just Jessica & AP.

Also, I admit that White Stuff is somewhat better than I initially took it to be... It's still a self-derivative retread with thin songwriting, but other "reunited" bands have done worse, I guess.

Hmm ok

http://larecord.com/interviews/2019/11/15/royal-trux-jennifer-herrema-interview-jed-maheu

Wow, a lot of interesting stuff in there... thanx for posting.

(Btw, Jay — Arthur Nights in 2006 was the coolest festival ever, I really enjoyed it!)

great interview!

The guy mentioned not by name in the first long paragraph sounds awfully like a stylist I used to work with who dabbles in some label stuff...

404 not found

https://web.archive.org/web/20191116054134/http://larecord.com/interviews/2019/11/15/royal-trux-jennifer-herrema-interview-jed-maheu

we’re not allowed to have a manager or anything at Drag City—you’re not allowed to have anybody work for you at Drag City.

?!

Never got into Royal True, but that's a great interview.

Why was it taken down?

the site itself is down

Ah. Rock n roll

I feel like I have already read three different versions of that interview.

I really want to know more about their specific issues with Drag City. That's the second time they've thrown a pretty wild (and weird) accusation at them, which not only doesn't seem to jibe with the label's rep but also seems weird considering how many artists cultivate (seemingly) really solid long term relationships with them.

we’re not allowed to have a manager or anything at Drag City—you’re not allowed to have anybody work for you at Drag City.

?!

LOL yeah so weird. When I read that I wondered if that was something like she had expected Drag City to pay for their manager or something.

I’ve done a real 180 on White Stuff... now I rate it above Pound for Pound (already my least favorite Trux LP), as well as — why not? — the 2nd half of VoD.

Love the bit where they're threatening Robert E Lee. Weird to see them kind of engaging with the world.

I was very skeptical of the album based on the videos/singles but the whole thing works very nicely. I even came around to the Kool Keith song which I couldn't stand initially.

I still skip that one after a minute or so 😬

Quantum Entanglement, the best-of comp that Fat Possum issued on vinyl for RSD, now seems to be generally available on other platforms.

Interesting tracklist? Points off for starting off a comp with a song that’s also track 1 on the LP it’s taken from (that’s kind of a party foul, IMO):

01. I’m Ready
02. Waterpark
03. Ray O Vac
04. The Spectre
05. Platinum Tips
06. Stevie (For Steven S.)
07. Sunshine and Grease
08. Stop
09. Liar
10. The Flag
11. Junkie Nurse
12. Call Out The Lions
13. White Stuff
14. Shockwave Rider

no Back To School, no credibility

It’s actually a pretty crummy tracklist IMO

It's ok but a bit lol

the whole idea of a RTX "greatest hits" is lol