True story: This past weekend Royal Trux played their first show in over a decade at Saint Vitus, a bar in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, that specializes in metal shows, reasonably priced beer-and-shot combos, and delicious Asian-inspired vegan snacks. Due to a number of issues I didn’t make it out to the show, but despite how much I love that band I wasn’t exactly shattered, since a) vocalist Jennifer Herrema wasn’t taking part, and she’s one of the group’s best elements, and b) because guitarist Neil Michael Hagerty was playing Twin Infinitives, an album that’s not in my top three by the band, in its entirety.
While Twin Infinitives has had a respected position in the indie canon ever since it was released, I’m far more partial to the group’s later efforts, when they decided to stop making formless junkie noise and start making groovy junkie rock ‘n’ roll. I’m especially partial to their 1995 album Thank You, their first recording for Virgin Records after signing the kind of ridiculously fat contract that exemplified the mid-90s run on bands with any modicum of indie credibility. On Thank You Herrema and Hagerty focused on their long-standing obsession with capital-letter Classic Rock—which had initially expressed itself in Hagerty’s first band, Pussy Galore—famously deconstructing the Stones’ landmark Exile on Main St. in a fit of punkish idol killing. Thank You evolved into a genuine attempt to revive the kind of unapologetically swaggering rock attitude that Pavement-era indie rockers sneered at.