#neil hagerty

[thatrickmcginnis]

PUSSY GALORE, Toronto 1988 & 1989

If most people who lived through the '80s made a movie of their life, they'd probably soundtrack it with, I don't know, U2 or A-ha or Tears for Fears. My '80s biopic would be scored to Pussy Galore - probably my favorite band of the decade, and one whose three albums and four EPs bring me back to the first years of life on my own, post-college, making a precarious living as a writer and photographer. They were another major enthusiasm of Tim Powis at Nerve, and he made the rest of us fans (my then-girlfriend had a maddeningly not-so-secret crush on PG front man Jon Spencer), though they didn't actually show up in town until the magazine was effectively defunct. I was without a steady gig then, but I begged a portrait session with the band during their two-night stand in April of 1988 at the Silver Dollar Room on Spadina. My big memory of the weekend was that Philadelphia rapper Schoolly D was playing the room in the basement under the club, and that Jon and the rest of the band were more enthusiastic about catching his show than doing their own gig.

Jon Spencer formed Pussy Galore at college in Washington, D.C. with Julie Cafritz, added guitarist Neil Hagerty then moved to NYC, adding Cristina Martinez on guitar and ex-Sonic Youth drummer Bob Bert on drums and junkyard percussion. Cristina had left and Kurt Wolf had replaced Neil Hagerty by the time I did my first shoot with them, while they were touring to promote their first LP (and - to me - undisputed masterpiece, Right Now!). They were cultivating a bit of a bratty reputation, so most of my two rolls of 120 film from the session are the band goofing around, pulling faces, and making it as hard as possible for me to get the sullen, iconic group portrait I hoped to take. I did, in the end, get two decent frames right next to each other, but decided against shooting the gigs in favour of just enjoying their cacophonous (but deceptively tight) show.

My friend Chris Buck also shot the band that weekend and ended up with some really nice portraits; my shots were harder to work with - beyond my meagre darkroom skills at the time - and would remain unseen and unpublished for at least twenty years until I posted one on my old blog a few years ago. I would, however get a second chance to shoot the band live a year later, when they were on tour again after releasing their Dial 'M' for Motherfucker record.

When Pussy Galore returned to Toronto in August of 1989, they'd had another lineup change, with Julie Cafritz leaving the band and Neil Hagerty returning. They played the Apocalypse Club on College Street and I ended up putting the band up in my Parkdale loft - the first of several times I'd give Jon Spencer and his bands a place to stay on tour. For some reason I was in an on-camera flash mood, and shot the show using a big new Metz potato masher flash fitted with a big bounce reflector. I also asked the band if we could do a quick portrait session in the dressing room, just as they stepped offstage, and I set up a light stand and umbrella, finishing off the last half of four rolls of Ilford film with the group.

Pussy Galore would be reduced to a trio with Spencer, Hagerty and Bert when they released their final posthumous album, Historia de la Musica Rock, in 1990. Jon and Cristina Martinez would found Boss Hog around the time the band was falling apart, and he would form the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion with Judah Bauer and Russell Simins just after Pussy Galore broke up. Jon continues to record and tour, and I'd end up with him in front of my camera again, but that's a story for another day.

[musicmags]

[canisterjab]

[mitjalovse]

David Briggs would've protested how I treat him. True, I shouldn't mention other producers in these discussion, I should talk about Mr. Briggs. Back to him, then – I think his work with Neil Young was his ticket to the other musicians with Royal Trux being one such opportunity. The latter are like Love of the alternative rock scene of the 90's, because Herrema and Hagerty were heavily underappreciated during their time. The fact Briggs helmed them speaks about the possibility they were once on. Still, they did become quietly influential in the vein of, say, David Berman, another 90's mainstay without a MTV on his back, who actually appeared with them on the album Briggs produced. Hm, imagine Neil Young showing up there and asking all of them to do something together …

[russianreader]

The Spectre

Royal Trux, “The Spectre” (1993) My faith is in the spectre and there it shall remain The spectre is a surgeon and an atomic guide He haunts the lenses of my eyes And the chemicals in my brain Once there was a rich man who drank from the spectre's cup He always held his head so high but he never would look up The spectre was above his head hanging like a sword The lesson now it must be said the…

[tupacbermingham]

FREE NEIL

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

Neil Hagerty Mental Health & Legal Defense Fund

You may have seen that Neil Michael Hagerty (Royal Trux / Howling Hex / Pussy Galore etc) has been having a very rough time lately. His wife reports that he "was arrested after an unfortunate encounter with Denver Police on April 14th, following a welfare check. It is important to note that Neil has been struggling with mental health issues for a long time and this concerning incident highlights the urgent need for Neil to receive proper mental health treatment."

There was a GoFundMe to help out, but for various reasons, that has been shut down. Now, it's over on GiveSendGo — I think that if you haven't received a refund from GoFundMe, your donation has gone through. But please give what you can! (Edit: I've been informed that GiveSendGo is sort of an iffy platform politically speaking, but I'm making an exception this time around? Do what you think is right!)

Some other ways to help out: grab this amazing NMH live jam with Ryley Walker and Ryan Jewell; get yourself a copy of the awesome Hagerty-Toth Band LP via Three Lobed; or just buy some stuff via the Howling Hex Bandcamp page. Let me know if you know of other ways to get some cash to Neil and his family.

Neil has been out here in Colorado for over a decade and I've been fortunate enough to see him in action a bunch of times; in particular, some of the Howling Hex shows circa 2013-15 were phenomenal and indescribable in the best way possible. The guy is some kind of genius and he deserves our support right now ...

[fuzzkaizer]

Pussy Galore - Pussy Fuzz

s.a. the pussy fuzz prototype

"... Steve Albini had 4 of these harmonic percolators made for himself and Jon Spencer, Kurt Wolf and Neil Hagerty as Christmas gifts. ... The pedal pictured was given to Jon Senum (St. Paul Bike Blog) by Jon Spencer at their show at Old Avalon Theater, Minneapolis, US (July 24, 1989)"

“The case was from Radio Shack, the pots were CTS and the board was hand etched using Datek dry transfer resist materials. The case was marked with Kroy lettering machine labels. The knobs were just like Fender amp knobs in size and shape, but were marked 0-9 in smaller sized numbers. The circuit was based on the Harmonic Percolator but was modified to sound more like Steve Albini’s personal pedal, which really sounds like no other. Steve still has one of these versions in his collection.” “Steve Ablini’s personal HP has one germanium and one silicon transistor and all of the clones that were made (maybe a total of 8-10) were made using the same circuit as his, but each one was tweaked to sound as close to his original one as possible. As I noted before, his personal one sounds like no other normal Percolator that I’ve ever heard. A few years ago (after the video interview/review) a couple of P-Fuzz prototypes were created and delivered to Steve. These new versions were made in small rectangular “MXR” style boxes. One had no controls and was preset to full on as this is Steve’s normal setting.” – Mr Bill

Steve Albini talks about harmonic percolators and the Pussy Fuzz here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nahPA-RKEfQ

cred: pop-catastrophe.co.uk/pussy-galore-pedal-fuzz-pedal-us

[dustedmagazine]

Royal Trux — Twin Infinitives (Fire)

“Map of the City,” a song on Royal Trux’s terrific Thank You (1995), includes these lyrics: “I’m drawing up a plan for the city / Filled with ten thousand crooked stairs / Some lead up to heaven….” If we freely allegorize and think the “plan for the city” as an account of the Royal Trux’s strange career and the “crooked stairs” as their many, many songs, then some do “lead up to heaven”: “Back to School,” “Ray O Vac,” “Blue Is the Frequency.” We could go on. But as the lyric notes, only “some” lead up into the beautiful blue, while others descend into decidedly more disordered, berserk domains. For a map of those abject regions, you might consult Twin Infinitives, the band’s 1990 double LP, which has been reissued by Fire Records.

Some may wonder if the world ever needed the initial release of Twin Infinitives, much less a reissue (available as a “limited edition Double Silver LP,” natch). It’s a notoriously difficult record, and there are audiences that liken its racket to the relative “unlistenability” of other perversely audacious double LPs: Trout Mask Replica (1969) or Metal Machine Music (1975). Twin Infinitives lacks the poetic spirit and structure of Captain Beefheart’s songs, and it doesn’t have the conceptual rigor of Lou Reed’s infamous noise project. Mostly the record seems to document the bodily rhythms and psychological extremities of dope addiction, which Neil Hagerty and Jennifer Herrema were deep into during the album’s creation.

There’s some relevant historical context there, if we recall the early 1990s period of so-called “heroin chic” — we might summon the seductive image of Vincent Vega (John Travolta), high as hell and cruising LA freeways in his cherry red ’64 Malibu, from Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. The junkie vibe suffusing the Royal Trux’s early records intensified their scuzz-punk rep, but there’s nothing superficially sexy or effortlessly cool about the music on Twin Infinitives. Songs like “Yin Jim Versus the Vomit Creature” and “Lick My Boots” are too ragged and distorted; they sound unhealthy. If the heroin chic amounted to a sort of cynical slumming in vicariously hazardous aesthetic territory, Twin Infinitives feels too urgently dangerous. It’s the sound of minds purposefully reducing themselves to wreckage.

For all that grim junkie detritus, Twin Infinitives has its moments of musical power. Most compelling is “(Edge of the) Ape Oven,” a fifteen-minute tour on the road of excess. It never clarifies into anything vaguely song-like, but it has ideas about musicality that provoke. The bursts of cowbell, Hagerty’s guitar tone, the spectral organ that occupies a space out in the distance of the mix: the track feels assembled with a variety of idiosyncratic artistry.

Listening back to Twin Infinitives, one has the sense that the run of excellent records that followed, from Untitled to Sweet Sixteen, owes something to the cauldron of infernal weirdness Hagerty and Herrema baked in for a while. Check out the mutant blues of “Move,” the spooky vibe-out of “Driving in That Car (with the Eagle on the Hood),” the pacing of “Shadow of the Wasp.” They all bear the traces of the chaotic welter of Twin Infinitives, and for audiences still engaged by the best of the Royal Trux (in spite of all the messy drama), it’s sort of interesting to track the band’s work through the 1990s, as they stitched songs and their souls back into more coherent forms. Just watch your step on those crooked stairs if you’re headed down the other way.

Jonathan Shaw

[still-single]

HEATHEN DISCO ep. 333 now up for you

HOUR 1

Ahmad Jamal – For All We Know

Sonic Boom – Angel

Neil Michael Hagerty and the Howling Hex – Know That/Mr. and Mrs. Mickey Mouse (live)

Les Thugs – Horror Toys

Glittering Insects – Silent Dream

Steve Gunn & David Moore – Morning Mare

Natural Information Society – Is

Metro Area – Miura

A Frames – 3333 33 33 3

Cruel Diagonals – Reconciliation

Body Maintenance – The Spiral

HOUR 2

A.R. Kane – Haunting

Constant Smiles – Here and Gone

XV – The Art

The Passions – Small Stones

Fire Engines – Big Gold Dream

Peter Hammill – Nadir’s Big Chance

Simply Saucer – Illegal Bodies

Fire-Toolz – Paraclete Bhishajyati

Al B. Sure! – Nite and Day

Keith Leblanc – Move/Technology Works Dub

Infinite River – track 1

Wolf Eyes – With Spykes 2

HOUR 3

Funkadelic – Tales of Kidd Funkadelic

CIA Debutante – A Dove

Pleasure Pump – Fantasize Me

MJ Guider – Quiet Time 

Crawler – Stone Cold Sober

Brandee Younger – Moving Target

CS + Kreme – Voice of the Spider

MV & EE – Free Range

[brookstonalmanac]

Birthdays 6.15

Beer Birthdays

John Lofting (d. 1742)

William Ogden (1805)

Sonia Gover, Miss Rheingold 1943 (1921)

Ron Lindenbusch (1961)

Alexandre Cardona (1991)

Five Favorite Birthdays

Sophie Amundsen; character in Sophie's World (1976)

Edvard Grieg; composer (1843)

Neil Patrick Harris; actor (1973)

Mike Holmgren; Green Bay Packers coach (1948)

Harry Nilsson; singer, songwriter (1941)

Famous Birthdays

Wilbert Awdry; writer (1911)

Jim Belushi; actor (1954)

Robert Russell Bennett; composer (1894)

"The Black Prince," Edward of Woodstock (1330)

Wade Boggs; Boston Red Sox 3B (1958)

Mary Carey; porn actor (1981)

Courtney Cox; actor (1964)

Ice Cube; rapper (1969)

Mario Cuomo; politician (1932)

Erroll Garner; jazz pianist (1921)

Terri Gibbs; pop singer (1954)

Julie Hagerty; actor (1955)

Xavier Hollander; Dutch writer, madam (1943)

Jack Horner; paleontologist (1946)

Helen Hunt; actor (1963)

Brian Jacques; writer (1939)

Waylon Jennings; country singer (1937)

Ken Jeong; actor, comedian (1969)

Lash LaRue; actor (1917)

Tim Lincecum; San Francisco Giants P (1984)

William McFee; writer (1881)

Nicola Pagett; actor (1945)

Leon Payne; country singer (1917)

Nicolas Poussin; French artist (1594)

Hugo Pratt; Italian comic book artist (1927)

Lee Purcell; actor (1947)

Leah Remini; actor (1970)

David Rose; composer (1910)

Herbert A. Simon; economist (1916)

Saul Steinberg; Romanian cartoonist (1914)

Morris Udall; politician (1922)

Jim Varney; comedian, actor (1949)

Steve Walsh; rock singer, "Kansas" (1951)

Bob Wian; Bob’s Big Boy founder (1914)

Billy Williams; Chicago Cubs LF (1938)

[rastronomicals]

Neil Hagerty

[fantasy-vibes-with-the-magi]

Royal Trux’s Neil Hagerty Arrested After Allegedly Attacking Police Officer in Denver

Hagerty is being held in custody for investigation of second degree assault on a peace officer and disarming a peace officer from RSS: News https://ift.tt/UHXq2cS

[neonscopecommunity]

Royal Trux’s Neil Hagerty Arrested After Allegedly Attacking Police Officer in Denver

Hagerty is being held in custody for investigation of second degree assault on a peace officer and disarming a peace officer from RSS: News https://ift.tt/s0UTIrA via IFTTT

[canisterjab]

[bandcampsnoop]

6/16/21.

I learned about this release through Monorail Music (Glasgow, Scotland).  They’ve made it their album of the month.  The Mind are a Cleveland, Ohio based band, and Lumpy Records operates out of St. Louis, Missouri.  

The Monorail write-up is way better than anything I could come up with.  So let me give you some excerpts:

The Mind's music to us earth creatures sounds like a psychedelically marinated mix of shoegaze, heart-weary jangle pop, industrial punk, No Wave.. kind of like every underground guitar-based music from 1969-1989 in one potent hit. The Mind isn't a senseless barrage of punk but a new way of doing punk.

The two main elements that twist around each other in The Mind are Vanessa Darby's melodic, reverb-stewed vocal which reminds us of classic indie-pop from Vivian Girls to Chin Chin via Pains Of Being [Pure] At Heart's apex...”Let's Experience Yr Head” opens the album with one of those big basslines and delay-ridden rhythm tracks faintly reminiscent of krautrock played by Deerhoof, it's a classic anthem that clicks in all the right ways, almost by accident.

Also mentioned by the Monorail review are Swell Maps and Neil Hagerty (Royal Trux).