Neil Michael Hagerty
Yes! It's true. One of the world's most wildly improbable solo albums has arrived. At the same time, one of the most secretly (yet fervently) hoped for solo albums is also in the house. The best part is, they're both the same record. Yes, after 15 years of intense collaboration with Royal Trux, Pussy Galore, and as a producer for a varied assortment of artists, Neil Hagerty, widely regarded as one of the great wizards of guitar and song, has finally stepped out from behind the curtain.
If you've never wondered about the taste of peanut butter without jelly, it's time to start today. Neil Michael Hagerty separates the hoodoo from the voodoo, too. Slipping into the clothes of the singer-songwriter proves to be one fluid action for our Mr. Hagerty. And Neil Michael Hagerty is here to prove it. But enough from us - let's have the man himself tell you what this album means to him:
'Hey, I'm not a big fan of that prick Stalin, but he had the right idea about history. It's just a matter of erasing a few people from photographs and changing dates. So, I'm not impressed by the marketplace cocksuckers trying to tell me what is what. They don't know shit, they don't know rock and roll. That's The Spaniels, Chuck Berry, The Everly Brothers and about five other guys and that's it. There's plenty of style and abstraction to be rewritten and reintroduced on the unsuspecting to keep other people in business for decades to come, no problem with getting co-opted. But what about the humans? They have been undervalued. So, at any rate, this isn't a chip-based module to stick 'in the slot,' if you know what I mean. That's fine. If you want to say something about this record don't write nothing, let's notate this bullshit strictly with invoices and bills!!! Say it was built on particular sounds I like: shoe sounds on a basketball court, boxes getting kicked around by bored kids, mama snoring like a pig; the low-end is all electronic, you can say that, but all recorded music is electronic by definition, so why bother? You can say that all the songs are 'straight up', no more propaganda-parodies for me; what did that ever get me but too much money and obsessive fans? Every song is about someone I have met in my travels over the years and I've met a lot of people so I have plenty of material in store (watch your step, pal.) Each song is either from the point of view of that person or from another person's point of view of that person; it's not my point of view, that is where the guitar comes in. I want to just make good on a bit of music that's been forgotten. Just something nice to go out and hear at a club. Your parents will hate it, but your grandparents might like it if they're dead and floating around. They do that after death, I'm told.' Neil Michael Hagerty
Yeah, with Neil Michael Hagerty what you get is rock carvings on darkened cave walls, songs cut roughly from organic material; compulsive, unusual numbers, peppered with rage and hilarity. Soaring above it all is that signature-wailing voice of Neil's, often as not pitched up into sweet falsetto range, singing over driving, wiggling drum beats and wedges of bass and guitar. The sounds and songs are flavored with light pop and soul torches, as well as the inevitable motion towards rock whenever the guitar solos flare up.
This is not your father's Jimi Hendrix album. Nor is it yours. No, this record is the exclusive property of one Neil Michael Hagerty. But you can put it next to your Hendrix albums if you want. After all, it's the same letter of the alphabet. But seriously, Neil Michael Hagerty is an album of seriously inspired proportions, simultaneously a work of seasoned maturity and parboiled adolescence. You can't buy this kind of excitement oh, wait a minute, now you can! On Domino, in the year 2001 - Neil Michael Hagerty.
