ROYAL TRUX - SWEET SIXTEEN

And another?

I'll be honest, I'm killing time while my wife paces the room, gets down on all fours or sits on a pile of cushions five feet high. She's slowly going in to labour. The plus side is that the house is spotless, apparently they call it 'nesting': Whilst I haven't woken up at 4.00am to find her scrubbing the kitchen ceiling (supposedly this is not unusual) everything is neat, tidy and in its place ready.

Ooooh! There goes another one. They are still a good 15 minutes apart at the moment as we are still coming out of 'False Labour'. No I'm not referring to those cunts led by the Hamburglar's body double that we only just ousted from power (arumpatish!) Apparently It's some kind of bodily fake-out. Labour but not labour. Anyway, I'm rambling. To be honest I am doing anything I can to take my mind off what's coming. Not in a bad way, I'm not in denial, it's more of a self preservation kind of way. I honestly think that if I sat sober in a cold room and dwelled on what happens next for more than a few minutes I'd shit my pants. Excited? Fuck yes. Prepared? What as in do we have a stroller? Yes. Prepared mentally? Fuck no!

Anyway, another great album that didn't get a look in on vinyl 'Sweet Sixteen' by Royal Trux. The fact that this bad boy never made it onto everybody's format of choice is nothing short of a mystery. In fact as and when I get to heaven and meet The Baby Jesus it's first on my list of questions.

'Come my child, you have led a kind and gentle life, now I welcome you to heaven, do you have any questions?'

'Well, there is just the one....'

(Two actually if you count Lembit Opik's unfathomable and continued success with the ladies)

That to this day 'Sweet Sixteen' is the only Royal Trux LP not available on....LP. It's fucking retarded. I mean didn't they think to reissue it around the time of the Weird's War album or the first RTX (Jennifer post Trux) record?

It's absence remains a crying shame.

Sonically 'Sweet Sixteen' is Royal Trux's most ambitions record. There is so much going on at any one time that multiple listens will identify layers that you didn't thing were there the first time.

'Is that a marimba?'

It's still dirty and somehow lo-fi but it's an all together different ball game from 'Twin Infinitives' era Trux. It's the same blueprint, it's made with the same fucked beyond fucked post-Stones 'up all week in the same clothes' stylings but this time out two heroes are joined by what sounds like a cast of thousands... well okay, four or five maybe. This is the '70s rock' record, stadium filling pomposities coated in coke and triple live concept albums.

Oh, we're going for a walk to try and induce real Labour....

Holy shit it's cold out there - Weather man says minus 17 and snow on it's way.

Anyway, where was I? The story goes that the Trux made this record deliberately over-baring and in-accessible in an attempt to get out of their record contract, a kind of 'Metal Machine Music' fuck you. But if that really is the case, they failed massively because the likes of 'Morphic Resident' and 'Golden Rules' are the band at their best.

How are you supposed to prepare mentally for father-hood? Well there's a million books out there, a few decent films like 'Away we Go' and okay, I can only think of 'Away we Go'. I'm sure there are seminars, counciling sessions and the like but really what's that actually going to do other than take up 'transitional time'? The last 'me time' until I'm pensioned off to some retirement home to piss my pants and argue over the remote.

Ha! I'm going to read this back in a few months and feel bad. In the meantime I'm going to listen to the Royal motherfucking Trux.