[Reprinted in full as it seems to have disappeared.]
“Theirs is a rock that doesn’t merely cross-breed or bend genre: it obliterates it.”
Gregory S. Moss on 73 years of Royal Trux
by gregory moss
INTRODUCTION
1998 marks the seventy-third year of tireless operation for the rock and roll entity known as ROYAL TRUX. A virtual Zelig of Rock Music, Royal Trux has successfully insinuated themselves through previously unsuspected time rifts, moving up and down through voices and bodies, pulling a field holler moan into RATT style arrangements, channeling Janis Joplin and Marc Bolan into Bow Wow Wow contexts, stabbing needles of white noise transmission from Sun Ra’s ghost into the aesthetic dimension occupied by Prince. Anyone who has followed their career with any persistence (and I don’t know anyone who likes ALL of their albums – a tribute to their ability to completely change their mode and means of expression) knows that Royal Trux EMBODIES rock and roll: spirit made flesh. They are an anomaly and their nonesuchness increases with each passing year. They are rock pantheists – denominations of indie, aor, underground, top forty pop, alternative, classic – all these terms revert to the meaningless dust they are in the hands of Trux. So vast is their accomplishment is that it can only be appreciated from an aerial view: to fully get Royal Trux (and you can’t) you’d have to listen to their entire discography SIMULTANEOUSLY. Theirs is a rock that doesn’t merely cross-breed or bend genre: it obliterates it.
In a speech which should send shivers down the spine of anyone who believes in democracy, Commander of Spanish land forces Lt Gen José Mena Aguado yesterday warned of severe consequences should Catalonia achieve further autonomy. Claiming the constitutional duty to ‘guarantee the sovereignty and independence of Spain and defend its integrity and constitutional arrangements’, the general warned that if Catalonia’s proposed new statute of autonomy were approved, it would be necessary for the military to step in.