5 February, 2000:  Royal Trux.  The Garage, Washington, D.C.

No nonense straight up kick ass rock came to D.C. on Saturday night.  Royal Trux blew into town at the end of a short U.S. tour and served up machine gun dual drummers, thumping rock-ola bass, swatches (swatches?) of psychic guitar noise and high pitched in-yer-face girlie vocals.  By name Neil Hagerty (guitar/vocals) and Jennifer Herrema (vocals) are Royal Trux.  Monster bassist Dan Brown and animal percussionists Chris Pyle and Ken Nasta provided solid foundations for this noise edifice. 

"Veterans of Disorder" is the aptly named title of this acts latest long player.  Apt because Neil and Jennifer have been on the road ten years or so and from the looks of them have lived the rock-and-or-roll life.  Plenty of mileage on both of them, but aside from that there's plenty of freshness in the ol' dog.  RTX's oeuvre covers milestones in rock.  There's a feel of indie-rock (Kurt Cobain was a fan), the Stones, Led Zep (see drum solos/duos), psychedelia - style checks from the history of rock.  Ah, there's the rub.  Not necessarily disorder.  Behind that sonic attack on your timpana is sheer brilliant musicanship, great songs and an ability to pull out al the stops all the time. 

In the Garage's odd split-level confines that superb rythym section shook the steel beams, cleaned the hip-hop-haphazard brickwork and made my fillings rattle.  At center stage, Herrema posed as blond stick insect looking worse for wear from Jack Daniels or Smirnoff.  But, she dominates the stage with such coolness - ya know real sunglasses cool - sneering, angularly posing her angular frame.  So cool in fact that she asked that the lighting man turn off the red lights.  I guess in case she melted.  So it was blue and green the rest of the way.  But the music - an hour and a half retrospective of RTX masterpieces - was far from cool - cool as in unresponsive, unemotional.  Rather we were roasted at 375 degrees fahrenheit all the gosh darn midnight.  (Rumour has it, RTX melted all the snow on the way up from their penultimate gig on Carolina!) 

Meanwhile, the girl in front of me danced the night away - arms a-flailing.  College punks rocked their heads - trousers a-drooping.  Next to me a Ron Wood look-a-like was searching for Jennifer's vodka bottle - mouth a-drooling.  (Forgot about the falling beer bottles from the balcony above.  Will take an umbrella next time!) 

Finishing up with "Blue Is the Frequency" from the latest - ten minutes or so of squealing guitar, earth shattering supersonic bass and a fight to the finish drum duo -  RTX ended their conquerfest of ol' D.C.  There must be few world's left to kick up the ass. 

Thumbs up to JC for staying awake.  Boo to LG, GP, IS, AR and PR for blowing us out.  Rasperries to Plush - Tim Buckley is dead. 

Links to Royal Trux and Drag City record label web sites.
 

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