Sweet Sixteen
After four (mostly unexceptional) releases on Chicago's hipper-than-thou indie Drag City, Haggerty and Herrema moved on up to Virgin in 1995, becoming label mates with what's left of their heroes, the Rolling Stones. Some might have considered the David Briggs-produced Thank You a sell-out, but it was as weird, sloppy, and attitudinal as ever. Only this time, there were bona fide pop songs that stuck in your craw, indicating for the first time that the Truckers might be more than just another Lower East Side art-rock rip-off. Sweet Sixteen is even better. To the extent that I care or can be bothered to decipher 'em, the lyrics tackle the same old concerns: sex, drugs, and rock & roll in-jokes. It's the musical settings that matter. Haggerty and lovingly reconstruct every '70s sound they ever smoked a bong or nodded off to: Sly Stone-style funk ("The Pick-Up"), Allman Brothers twin guitars meet prog-rock synths ("Don't Try to Hard"), stoner country-blues-jugband shuffling ("Roswell Seeds & Stems"), and even ultra-ironic Abbey Road-era Beatlemana ("Can't Have It Both Ways"). Of course, Redd Kross and Jellyfish/Imperial Drag (to name but two) have been building winning pop from this junkyard wreckage for quite some time now. But while the members of Royal Trux are coming to the party late, they're arriving with their arms full of treats.Jim Derogatis