Albums by this artist

Plays That Good Old Rock And Roll (2002)

Neil Michael Hagerty

Plays That Good Old Rock And Roll

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» PIERO SCARUFFI | STAFF WRITER

Neil Michael Hagerty Plays That Good Old Rock And Roll Drag City, 2002 RiYL: Royal Trux, The Stooges, Rolling Stones

Royal Trux principal Neil Hagerty's post-modernist revision of the '60s continues on Plays That Good Old Rock And Roll. Royal Trux had a primitive, minimal (and often cacophonic) approach to the tradition that they were revisiting. But in his middle age, Hagerty is crafting a musically more accomplished operation that highlights group playing and arrangements over the melodic skeleton. He is also stretching his wings well beyond the blues.

However, the album opens with a most explicit tribute to the blues revival of the 1960s: "Gratitude," a languid, syncopated lament with guitar licks worthy of the old Chicago masters, vocals in the husky/raspy "born by the sun of the Delta" register, skewed vocal harmonies, and a spacey, distorted Jerry Garcia-esque solo. In "Shaved Cunt," a depraved Stooges-esque aria decays into a noisy, stormy Red Crayola-ish jam over a propulsive boogie bacchanal. Elsewhere, the lengthy, chugging "Louisa LaRay" features the spastic jamming and deranged guitar solos that have made Royal Trux a landmark of modern rock music.

Those rowdy rave-ups alternate with softer, moodier pieces. "Oklahoma Township" delves into psychedelic folk rock with Van Dyke Parks-ian arrangements. Hagerty concocts a wonderful recreation of spiritual and ragtime music in the catchy and sprightly "It Could Happen Again" (with divine backup vocals by Edith Frost). The folk/jazz shuffle of "Some People Are Crazy" mixes Syd Barrett and Crosby, Stills & Nash, while toying with piano, sax, and violin. And more psychedelia surfaces in the confusion of voices of "Sayonara," almost an appendix to Frank Zappa's "America Drinks And Goes Home."

Alternately recalling a trippier Grateful Dead, a catchier 13th Floor Elevators, a looser Rolling Stones, a less sneering Stooges, and a less acid-damaged Holy Modal Rounders, this album marks Hagerty's territory better than anything else he has done before. While inferior to Hagerty's first solo album (if nothing else because it is so short), Plays provides more evidence of this visionary genius' monumental stature.

PIERO SCARUFFI | Piero Scaruffi runs the exhaustive music database Scaruffi.com. A native of Italy, he has also been praised for his work on the General Theory of Relativity, formal theories of the mind, and artificial intelligence. And no, we aren't making that up.