Royal Trux - Live: Platinum Tips + Ice Cream LP

"Platinum Tips + Ice Cream (scenes from the water park) is new from ROYAL TRUX. The songs were written over a span of time as wide as eagle’s wings—but the re- cordings are new, live, unrehearsed and were presented in real time to a few thousand people in California and NYC. Performance art? Yes! But only because, unlike so many other aural “content providers,” NEIL HAGERTY and JENNNIFER HERREMA are true artists writing their own futures into the present. This was, and will always be, ROY- AL TRUX. This new/“live”/old song/new performance album is yet another chapter in one of the best books out there. Release #647, corresponding to the Cali penal code stating that Prostitution is against the law. Just a re- minder so that they didn’t forget. It’s been a minute since ROYAL TRUX went about making a record in 1–2 days, but they got that system on lock, and once again we see them setting parameters and adhering to them for maxx impact. Platinum Tips + Ice Cream was made in two days...one in Cali and one in NYC. The hold up came when listening back to the “live” qualities, which had been com- promised by the “AI” of modern, presump- tuous (read: “spellcheck”) sound gear. Going back to undo the “smart changes” was tedious, yet imperative—bringing the actual experience and qualities of the per- formance, the rawness that could be felt and heard LIVE, to a finished form. These recordings conjure the early feral spirit of the band devouring the sophisticated sound of the later years and coughing up a motherfucking hairball of sound. ROYAL TRUX has always played with the idea of “expectation” like it was a new toy at Christmas, and year in and year out wiped it out like the face of an old teddy bear. For them, a touchdown was best achieved in reverse, via counter-intelligent means. It is fucking INSANE to hear how much that is still the case. This isn’t a butterfly mounted in amber; this is the sound of life...people getting through their set by any means nec- essary. Thoughts are flying in a mil- lion different directions, but staying with the plan is the number one rule. As the rhythm punches, the scabrous tone of JENNIFER’s vox is matched only by NEIL’s harsh, stinging guitar volleys—and the mad filters passing through the Bass Station. A personal playlist of hits rolls out—and not all rock- ers, but some slower jams and moments of deep heavy. But no “Back to School”?!? Well, that’s why there are more TRUX shows coming up. And like they say, every night is gonna be a great night. Wrapped up in a TRUXian collage scrapping together the crazy quilt of time in their ROYAL-iverse, which in the light of this reunion is now folding back over itself, Platinum Tips + Ice Cream collects twelve ROYAL TRUX non-sequiturs in tribute not only to the past but the unend- ing nature of the future." -Drag City