Royal Trux - Accelerator C/D?

Didn't see a thread about this. It's one of my all time favorite rock albums, but doesn't seem to get a ton of love around here. What are your thoughts?

prefer JJ Got Live RaTx - Accelerator is more aggro though, gotta give it that

i'm one of those really boring people who think this is their 2nd best thing after the radio video EP

pretty much all trux rules but this is one of their best, yeah

why does radio video have a side of grooved silence though (is the real question)
extra bonus points for MONEY FOR NOTHING on the b-side of liar, too

their best imo

Juicy Juicy Juice

a bit weaker than cats & dogs and thank you imho, but yes a great record.

cats and dogs is easily the best R.t. album. even the singles collection does it to me.

Sweet Sixteen >> Cats + Dogs >> s/t >> Untitled >> Thank You >> Twin ... ah fuck i dunno ... Accelerator is way down the list for me. But all of their albums totally rule so it's a very relative thing.

this record seems kinda difficult to sustain a thread about because:
- stevie is so far and away undebatably the best thing on it
- it just turns into best trux lp discussion and the best thing about them is that everyone's different. none of y'all even mentioned veterans of disorder yet. i realised i hadn't heard YO SE in like a year recently so played it loudly

But all of their albums totally rule so it's a very relative thing.

^
yeah

red light makes me think i'm going the wrong way, hombre

"money for nothing" b-side is amazing percussion

the whole of side two works really well for me: liar->new bones->follow the winner->stevie; such a fine flow from song to song. can't really choose a single stand out.

yeah side two is classic, don't really have much time for side one tho

my problem is I really like Veterans of Disorder

"my problem is I really like Veterans of Disorder"

& my problem is i really like pound for pound. 'small thief' - holy shit! 'deep country sorcerer' holy holy shit!

oh fuck pound for pound, that was the first one I owned and yeah, small thief omg.

best album ever now reissued

prefer JJ Got Live RaTx - Accelerator is more aggro though, gotta give it that

― worm? lol (J0hn D.), Thursday, July 9, 2009 9:23 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

LOL i love RTX (jennifer herrema version) more than like 99% of people but even i think this is insane

Sweet. Voted Accelerator #1 on my Pitchfork People's List ballot, so I am in agreement witchoo.

i kinda forgot that i really like royal trux.

post-major label albums are so good. criminally underrated.

does drag city do download codes w/ vinyl?

i don't think so. it's a constant scandal.

i like most of their stuff but accelerator-veterans of disorder-pound for pound is a pretty sick run

yep

still pissed I've never been able to get ahold of Sweet Sixteen

don't forget the 3-song ep. probably my most-played royal trux disc.

It's amazing that Virgin rejected Accelerator after probably wasting a load of money on the mostly terrible Sweet 16 which was a bloody minded exercise in pissing them off. What kind of music biz professional could listen to Accelerator and say "drop em'"?. For me Cats & Dogs/ Thank You/Accelerator/Veterans Of Disorder are all some of best albums of the last decade. I had the pleasure of seeing them live when they toured Accelerator and they fucking shredded the place.

yeah sweet sixteen isn't very good

Sweet Sixteen and Pound For Pound are the only albums from Cats & Dogs on that I don't out-and-out love, but there's still some great songs on them.

What kind of music biz professional could listen to Accelerator and say "drop em'"?

A smart one, tbh. As much as I love it, it ain't for everyone and it was never going to be any kind of mainstream success. It's amazing that they were ever on a major to begin with.

yep that they got signed at all is hilarious

A smart one, tbh. As much as I love it, it ain't for everyone and it was never going to be any kind of mainstream success. It's amazing that they were ever on a major to begin with.

You are right. But it shows how stupid they are if they thought Sweet Sixteen was going to be some kind of crossover success.

Well, tbf, Virgin signed Royal Trux and predicted huge success solely on the basis of Sweet Sixteen's cover art.

They were just chasing that lacerated guts shitting blood into the toilet dollar!

I like Sweet Sixteen a lot. As much as I do Accelerator anyway.
1992 self-titled, Cats and Dogs, and Thank You was their killer run, though.

Cats And Dogs/Thank You-era and Accelerator/Veterans Of Disorder-era were like two different bands, both awesome.

Did Virgin hear Accelerator though? I was always under the impression that Sweet Sixteen and the sales of that album, were the straw that broke the camel's back, and Accelerator was recorded, sorta custom made, for their return to Drag City. I could be mistaken, though.

You Sweet Sixteen haters are nuts, btw. "Stevie" notwithstanding, it's better than Accelerator (but not Thank You, the best album by anyone ever).

pound for pound 4 lyfe

Pound for Pound is way too underrated.

juicy juicy juice

it's in your blood it's in your brain

If anyone has written a detailed a good online account of the history of Royal Trux, especially the Virgin years fallout and beyond, please post me to it.

The cover artwork for Sweet Sixteen used to give me serious album-browsing trauma not endured since that of Nursery Cryme circa 1993

sorry drunk

Would totally read a book on Royal Trux/RTX/Hegarty. Someone should pitch a 33 1/3.

Although I guess there is comic book of some sort?

it's lovably inscrutable. don't look to it for answers

I wasn't even going to look for it hah.

Would totally read a book on Royal Trux/RTX/Hegarty. Someone should pitch a 33 1/3.

This. I can't think of a band I love that I know less about.

Am I the only one here who thinks Howling Hex >>>>> RTX / Black Bananas?

banana question!

yeah, i'm totally with you

accelerator is amazing. my favorite of theirs by a mile. the last guitar solo in "stevie" should play over the closing credits of the human race

i feel like there are probably more people who like hagerty's post-royal trux stuff than herrema's but i am not one of them. we could have a poll though.

post-Royal Trux poll: Hagerty vs. Herrema

I think I do prefer the Hex over all of the other post-Trux projects, but I still really enjoy most everything those two have done since they split.

the last guitar solo in "stevie" should play over the closing credits of the human race

― reggie (qualmsley), Friday, October 12, 2012 10:23 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Been on Facebook too much. Went to click the 'like' button for this.

I love a few songs off SS The Pickup one of them from memory, but it really disappointed me at the time. At the time I saw Royal Trux as godlike and maybe just had too much of a preconception of how their albums should sound. Turn Of The Century would have to be my fave Trux song.

Another thing worth mentioning is the brilliant production work Neil + Jennifer did on The Make Up's In Mass Mind album. I fucking love the sound of that album. They really brought out the best of The Make Up.

Would totally read a book on Royal Trux/RTX/Hegarty. Someone should pitch a 33 1/3.

This. I can't think of a band I love that I know less about.

― Old Lunch, Thursday, October 11, 2012 7:10 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

fuck yeah. thank you might be the best one to do for this series.

I had no idea they produced In Mass Mind!!

I saw The Make Up and Royal Trux co-headline in c.1999 at a small venue in Bristol. Great show.

their production alter ego was "adam & eve", right?

yeah that was them.

Hagerty also has a writing credit on Caught In The Rapture.

can't imagine Hagerty being at all forthcoming in a biographical/retrospective context (Herrema = eh maybe)

dude is a prankster/dissembler of the highest order. one of the things I love about him

Why would that be bad though? Mythologizing is one of the best things about music bios/retrospectives!

oh I don't think it would be bad at all, it would probably be pretty funny. but I don't think it would be very illuminating in terms of people wanting to know more about the band, in a factual sense.

http://www.ticketfly.com/purchase/event/175036?wrKey=A8EC2CDEC9B030891CD68A43FF6F1B32

!

st vitus is a small metal bar pretty far up in greenpoint more likely to have local noise bands playing.
they do sometimes have fairly big metal shows tho sho who knows. seeeeeeeeeeems weird.
not going to buy a ticket quite yet

the OTHER ticketfly page now includes a facebook plug-in generated comments section including JH saying 'there is no noyal trux show'

from the drag city site:

Neil Hagerty plays Royal Trux's "Twin Infinitives" with 3 additional musicians; Jennifer Herrema not performing.

they're crediting the show to the howling hex.

NMH is the Mike Love of scuzz.

http://pitchfork.com/features/interviews/8974-royal-trux/

As far as Accelerator, when listening to the radio in the 80s, everything seemed to have a semi-pop ease. Nothing was very difficult; the music on the radio didn't take me to depths, it just had a pop sensibility. So we would run any given pop song-- whether it be the Archies, Britney Spears, Duran Duran-- through a spectrum analyzer and actually see the peaks and valleys, and what dictated that pop sensibility as far as EQ and dynamics. Then we'd run our stuff through the same spectrum analyzer and clamp down on compressing to make them visual reproductions of particular pop songs.

good interview -- they are so straightforward about their totally bizarre concepts, kind of inspiring.

I dunno, sorta thought that was one of the least illuminating interviews with either of them I've seen.

really? maybe i haven't read enough of them. what's the definitive trux interview?

I've still got my copy of Badaboom Gramophone with the Jim O'Rourke inteview Neil and Jennifer.
It's always been my favorite. Well, it's the only one I've read, I guess.
They each admit that "Goat's Head Soup" is the best Stones album.

Interview OF N and J, that is

There's a great pdf doc floating around that collects a lot of interviews. I generally keep up with these guys, and I read most of what's written about them, so maybe the whole 'we screwed over Virgin' thing is just tedious reading for me at this point. Interview seems...introductory.

From memory, though, the Index interview is really great, and Ben Parrish did a great interview with the 'Hag recently...I'll try to find it...

Full disclosure: I'd probably take Rad Times Xpress IV and Hildreth Tapes over Thank You/Sweet Sixteen/Accelerator (maaaaaybe I'd take Accelerator over Hildreth Tapes)

my band is playing with the howling hex (and the new bums) next month! it is our first show and i am a little scared.

that's awesome!

Hagerty seems like kind of a dick be prepared for him to totally ignore you

ha, yeah. it'll be hard though, we're playing a place about the size of a shoebox.

and i've seen him like eight times now in the past two years, he should recognize me by now.

Great news, tylerw!

tyler that's awesome!
& idk nmh always seemed like a cool weird guy to me
also please let's not establish Ignoring The Support Band as the new metric of asshole status, please give struggling musicians this one fleeting tiny food chain privilege

is tghat a fucking question

ha is what a question?
anyway, yeah, this would totally be the show of the year for me even if i weren't on the bill. the drummer and i basically started the band in order to open for the hex.

banana question

still waiting for drugs a money to give tyler the great news

Awesome news, congrats! This is still my fav RTX record (Singles, Live, Unreleased aside), such a perfect combination of ridiculous fun/excess and obsessive attention to getting vv weird details/sounds ideas exactly right (for me, anyway, cool of them to make me a record but y'know)

I would love to see some live footage from around this time or any time really. Unlike most groups the amount of footage out there for RT is meagre. Maybe I am just looking in all the wrong places. To add to the choir - this is an amazing record - exists on another planet.

you seen this one? http://vimeo.com/17070752

Wow. No. Thanks! Will settle down to this over a piece of toast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnUWbmWPm70

^^^ one of the best/craziest clips on the internet

Congratz Tyler! Speaking of The Radio Video EP, this just in from Drag City:

http://d31hzlhk6di2h5.cloudfront.net/20140313/39/bf/4c/96/950f60c50583ab364cae6070_476x271.jpg

REFRESH TECHNOLOGY: "THE RADIO VIDEO EP"
It was a brave old world back in the year 2000; on the Drag City side of the street, the produciton team of Adam and Eve deleriously blended the guilty pleasures of late 90s smooth r n' b with the pushy funk of Royal Trux. An album and an EP removed from the synapse-splitting Accelerator, "The Radio Video EP" knocked our vision of Royal Trux out of focus in five quick tracks, while simultaneously morphing into a new incarnation that we might finally hope to understand in some future days (2014? Naaah...). Dance-poppin' Trux! But a close listen to "The Radio Video EP" will find you following a trail backwards through Royal Trux history, walking along the blared lines, stinky beats, and pure drooling nonsense of rude and shocking compulsions built upon hard rock and roll.

Just months away from their sudden flameout, Royal Trux were still flying high, enjoying their little plot next to the mainstream and the bridge tolls that it provided. To this end, “The Inside Game” was licensed to the major motion picture High Fidelity, for two young skateboarder types to mime at in punkish, sub-Beasties style. Elsewhere, the jam-and-recitation “Victory Chimp, Episode 3” (much more of which was to come a decade down the line) was recorded at an unplugged session in a downtown Chicago Borders Books & Music one autumn afternoon in 1999.

Dig it, this new EP wasn’t a catch-all release revisiting former poses —no, never! In keeping with Royal Trux tradition, “The Radio Video EP” was anew and hitherto untouched quantity — this time, well-machined, club-ready psych-pop, presented for the pleasure of all the people of Earth, with no discriminations. We know that Earth is ready for it again. Are you? "The Radio Video EP" is back on the air, May 20th!
___

Radio/Video's great, Drag City copy is not

Three Song ep untouchable also.