Since I had a dream last night that I was DJing before the Royal Trux reunion show, now's as good a time as any to mention that I wrote the liner notes for the reissue of Thank You, originally released in 1995. Seeing as how much I have enjoyed re-living the pleasures of Drag City's own recent repressing of Cats and Dogs, it was an honor to be able to chat with Jennifer Herrema about that time.
The Trux greatly influenced my post-high school listening habits, for better or ill, and it's a pity to see how Pitchfork recently pulled their loathsome revisionist history to write them out of the 1990s. But my fandom was tested when they pulled through Austin in the early 90s. Rather than get a set of the dreamy/ druggy songs of Cats & Dogs, we were instead subjected to one of the biggest Fuck You performances ever encountered. Haggerty decided he was John Cale's European Son, scratching up a violin over a drum machine mixed twice as loud, all while Herrema slinked to and fro, singing incoherently and looking like she was liable to murder anyone who gazed upon her.
And then, less than six months on, there was a promo cassette of Thank You making the rounds, the Trux turned into a boogie rock band. It was confusing, to say the least, but it was fun to talk to Jennifer and relive that time with a woman who scared the living shit out of me that night.
