When the Walkmen stopped by Daytrotter recently, they decided to make it Neil Hagerty tribute day, covering “Yellow Kid” from Royal Trux’s 1998 album Accelerator along with Neil Michael Hagerty‘s “Chicken, You Can Roost On The Moon” and “Greasy Saint” and “I’m Your Son,” both from 2003′s Neil Michael Hagerty & the Howling Hex. I’m a longtime Hagerty fan, solo material and all, but have always especially dug (and still dig) the dirty blues and psychedelic barroom squalls of Royal Trux, his project with Jennifer Herrema. My personal favorite is 1990′s Twin Infinitives because it found me at the right time and appealed to the free-noise part of my brain, but you’d do well to take the Walkmen’s advice and search out the later, more reigned-in Cats And Dogs. Before you listen to Ham & Co. give it a go, it’s interesting to read their thoughts behind Hagerty and the covers:
All of us admired Neil Hagerty’s band Royal Trux in the 90′s, and have been digging his solo records for years now. We used to do “Chicken, You Can Roost on the Moon” at some of our earliest shows. We used to do a much longer freak out part but I think we ran out of tape here. The Royal Trux were pretty bad ass, so we thought it was sort of funny to hear our dorkier grooves on songs like “Yellow Kid” and “Greasy Saint.” We were really thrilled with the way all four of these came out. I’d recommend the albums Cats And Dogs and Introducing The Howling Hex to newcomers.
Dig in. A reminder: You can still invest in You & Me for a mere $5.
You Might Also Like
 The 10 Best Walkmen Songs |  Occupy Sandy Benefit Ft. Real Estate, Vampire Weekend,… |  The Walkmen – “Dance With Your Partner” & “Vermeer ’65″ |  Watch The Walkmen On Conan |
 |
 |
Leave a Reply
Sign in Sign in with FacebookYou must be logged in to post, reply to, or rate a comment.
i tried, i really tried, but the new walkmen cd = boring
seriously?
Does anyone else’s copy of “Twin Infinitives” contain multiple songs per track (so that you can’t go right to a particular song), or is it just mine?
Hmm, I have it on vinyl. Not sure about the CD. Things bleed, etc., though, so maybe that’s why it’s set up like that….?
It lists on the disk itself 15 separate tracks (and their running time), but when you play it there’s only 4. Maybe it’s a mastering error? Do you have a connection at Drag City that you could check with? (Like you did the other day with your homie at Matador regarding Jaguar Love.)
I’ll investigate, but only because you gave me a +81 the other day. (Nah … I’d investigate anyway.) Will let you know what I find out.
The folks at Drag City tell me they think it’s because RX “wanted the CD to be heard as the LP (4 sides of vinyl = 4 tracks on the CD total).” Cool?
Oh wow, thanks, man! Geez, I’m surprised Albini’s never done that with his albums. He fucking hates compact discs!