[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
CATHETER
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Troll Rogue “Beaten To Death By A Man In A Hat” live at the Biltmore Cabaret 23/12/10.
(Please excuse the sound quality. This was recorded with my mobile phone. But you get the the general idea.)
As legend has it, during the 1920s, in Los Angeles, California, in and around Central and Vernon avenues, we first saw the rise of the African-american boys clubs—mostly fighting clubs. By the 1960s, these clubs had grown in number, joined together, split apart and become more organised. They had also aged, becoming more violent and more criminal—now murdering and selling crack (and crack is the worst). Today, one of these gangs—the notorious Crips gang—numbers in the tens of thousands with sets all across the USA, and most believe their membership is international.
With sub- and/or street cultures, particularly those with a criminal element, there comes a need for code words and cryptic slang terminologies: For example, strap (gun), or girl (cocaine). These words become passwords among peers. A way of identifying oneself, and others, as safe to deal with, as a part of a certain class, or even of a specific neighbourhood. And, most importantly, that one is not a pig (cop). The word wet, is another example. One which I shall use in context for this review of Troll Rogue: To wet somebody, means to literally wet somebody’s shirt up with their own blood. In other words: to shoot them. If—God forbid—someone were to roll up on you and tell you that you had just won the wet t-shirt contest, chances are, you guessed it, they are about to shoot you. And then probably kill you.
And that is exactly what Troll Rogue did to us at the Biltmore Cabaret on 23/12/10:They killed us. They killed It. The mighty Troll Rogue, at the Biltmore Cabaret, completely wet up the stage with their supersonic, soul-shaking sound. They made it bleed. It was damned lucky that the guitarist-with-the-beard-who-was-also-the-singer was wearing his rubber boots: A fashion statement is always more stylish when it’s a functional statement.
Nerds are tres chic these days, you know?
I think the best way to describe their sound would be in the words of a friend of mine when I played him a song from their MySpace page, “Everytime I Shit I Cry”. At about four seconds in he said, “Sure, let’s just pick up our instruments, play whatever we want, record it, and call it a song.” Indeed, there is an element of freeform Jazz to Troll Rogue, but, like all good Jazz, there is structure, believe me. This one girl at the show said she thought they sounded like Hall & Oates, sans moustache. I asked her what exactly she meant by that—a little defensive cos they’re men I know personally. She answered with a fart and proceeded to vomit on my shoes. She said: “Don’t worry, I’m vegan,” and wiped her lips with her thumb and index finger. I said: “Fuck it,” and handed her my silk, bone-coloured handkerchief, cos if there’s one thing I hate to look at, it’s a pretty woman with vomit on her face.
At the risk of sounding racist: Troll Rogue’s drummer has got to be the skinniest and whitest kid with the fucken funkiest fury since Phil Collins, Invisible Touch. He was taking us from the tippity-tapping, hip-hopping groove of something like The Funky Drummer to the kick-ass yet heart-rending funk of Roy Ayers, Stoned Soul Picnic. By the time they were playing their fourth song (“Beaten To Death By A Man In A Hat”) I was rocking so hard, having a seizure on my feet, my head bobbling and teetering on my neck like I was half-wrecked on GHB and my legs looser than Pamela Anderson’s whenever she’s awake.
There is a definite element of kick-ass to Troll Rogue.
Ahna played next and they sounded even better then on their record, but I had to leave before Channels 3 + 4. Troll Rogue’s guitarist-who-was-playing-the-sparkly-blue-Fender-Strat said they were as amazing as they’d always been. A great description but it somehow left me wanting more. I should have stayed and checked them out. But I was pretty bagged.
