• K.C. Fennessy

For those who only know Herrema from RTX and Black Bananas, she has a long history in music, not as long as that of Gerard Cosloy, but long enough.

While digging through my archives—a magazine rack in the hallway—I happened upon my sole issue of Conflict, the acidly funny fanzine from the Matador co-owner, who also oversees sports-oriented site Can't Stop the Bleeding.

• K.C. Fennessy

I would've followed Conflict more closely, except I was following a dozen other fanzines—Motorbooty, Rollerderby, Bananafish, etc.—back in the heyday of the form. So anyway, I'm pretty sure I picked up this issue because of the cover stars: Herrema and ex-Pussy Galore guitarist Neil Hagerty of Royal Trux. I was a big PG fan, so I was bound to take an interest in anything Hagerty did next.

Trux wasn't what I was expecting, but I like surprises, and Jennifer and Neil offered up downer-fueled experimentation that stood in opposition to Pussy Galore's upper-fueled provocation. As Cosloy states in the interview above, "Whether or not Royal Trux seem much at all like a rock band is a subject of minor controversy (depends, probably, on what you think rock is to begin with)."

In classic Cosloy style, he adds, "It's OK if you'd prefer to view Royal Trux as 2 untalented, junkie retards...that's what people say behind their backs anyway."

By contrast, Pussy Galore singer/guitarist Jon Spencer's segue to the sleaze-filled shenanigans of the Honeymoon Killers, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, and Heavy Trash wasn't quite so surprising (and I loved the 'Killers, too).

Given the choice, I'd take Hagerty over Spencer any day, though I suppose that's a blog post for another day, i.e. I still have all my PG singles, CDs, and cassettes, but my shelves are JSBX-free. Shout your name too many fucking times—"Blues Explosion!"—and I'm giving you the boot. It's the audio equivalent of Patrick Bateman staring at himself in the mirror while sexing up some lovely (seriously, American Psycho features the upper-fueled performance for which Christian Bale should have won the Oscar, though he's good value in The Fighter, too).

Forget Kim and Thurston, Courtney and Kurt, Cristina and Jon—Jennifer Herrema and Neil Hagerty were the hottest hot couple of the late-1980s/early-1990s.