A’ight, got a fridge full of beer, extra smokes and we have music out the wazoo piled in front of the stereo. Randy’s here now, and it’s time to get our nerd on. After we go through the Los Rabbis he brought plus the latest Lightning Bolt, it’s time to edumicate him on the glories of the Karl Hendricks Trio.

Maybe it’s because they don’t get out of Pittsburgh much anymore, but it seems more people have seen Sasquatch than heard this band, and that just ain’t proper. I think Randy’ll dig ‘em, so…

Karl Hendricks formed the first Trio after a lo-fi crash ‘n bash solo debut, the I Hate This Party EP, which followed the breakup of Sludgehammer. Four great songs I still listen to more than any of the early 90s 4-track stuff that actually got heard. (In college radio-type circles, but still.) It looks like Randy’s hooked by the time “Beergasm” blurts from the speakers. “I didn’t know he was ever this punky”. He smiles, but Karl Hendricks 101 has just begun.

I play a few key tunes from Buick Electra and Misery and Women, the first two full-length group efforts, making sure to visit the smokin’ cover of the Stones’ “She Was Hot”. I’m compelled to hit most of the Some Girls Like Cigarettes 10”. “Some nights I miss you / Some nights I miss you more / Some nights I miss the bed / And have to sleep on the floor.”

I saw this band many, many times in Pittsburgh while in college. The Iron City had a fantastic underground rock scene at the time (probably still does, but I’m woefully out of the loop), and you could guarantee that if a touring band came through town in those days, one of the following would be on the bill: KH III, Don Caballero, Hurl, Swob, Blunderbuss, shit, am I forgetting anyone? Good times, but enough with the nostalgia trip…the thing is, as many times as I stood five feet from the Karl Hendricks Trio happily getting my eardrums pummeled, I never really knew what the band was into. Hendricks’ Naked Raygun shirt was reassuring, of course, but…?

So me and my boy Randy take it upon ourselves to discuss as the empties start to pile up and the ashtray fills. They’ve covered Tim Buckley, Donavan and Neil Young, but they don’t sound like any of those cats…although when Karl’s blazing through a 5 minute guitar solo, ol’ Neil comes to mind more than anyone else. Just like Mr. Young, the musician-types may scoff at the lack of “technicality”, but the passion behind the string-mangling is no joke. If you don’t hear it, you’re just a jerk. (No, not you Randy, calm down. I would have already pulled the ripcord on this session if you weren’t obviously enjoying it.) “Dinosaur Jr?” Randy posits. An obvious touchstone for the hard drive of the upbeat numbers, but these three play with more control. Another friend once wondered if they might be Helmet fans. Possible, but the chunky, fuzzy power chords aren’t as precise. We realize we’re even dorking ourselves out and take a piss break.

Armed with a few more Golden Monkeys we get back down to business. A Gesture of Kindness storms out of the gate with “Foolish Words of a Woman in Love”, “Four Babes in a Pontiac” fly by (did that one just flip me off? I ask the Monkey in my hand, but it speaks no evil), and we arrive at the nine-minute monster of “Your Damned Impertinence”. For A While, It Was Funny goes by pretty quick. I do dig this album, but I can’t explain why I’ve listened to it the least of all of them, except for the tunes “Naked and High on Drugs” and “A Boy Who Plays with Dolls”. I make a mental note to listen to it more and cross my fingers that I don’t just have a subconscious desire to be naked and high on drugs while playing with dolls. This one, from 1996, was the first one released by Merge Records, who have done the world a huge favor by reissuing most of the earlier stuff originally on smaller Pittsburgh labels Peas Kör, Big Ten Rex and Mind Cure. (Spirit of Orr stepped up to the plate and made Gesture available again, first issued by Fiasco. Bless you, Spirit!)

Randy’s looking anxious about too much geekspeak…time to get down to the meat and potatoes, the crux of the biscuit if you will. (Suddenly kinda hungry…should we order a pizza? Maybe I’ll just offer Randy some Ramen noodles. The pizza guy seems terrified of this place.) 1998 saw the arrival of Declare Your Weapons, the king daddy of Karl Hendricks Trio albums, the one where it all absolutely clicked start to finish for me, where one of my favorite bands became one of the Most Important Bands Ever for me. Randy raises an eyebrow, and I’m just shitfaced enough by now to get up on my soapbox, although hopefully still with it enough to make some kind of Max sense.

See…more than any other band, I really feel like I’ve grown up with this one, from the lustful adolescence of my early 20s to the premium wage slaveness of my 30s. Over time, Hendricks’ lyrical focus has shifted some from being drunk and sad about girls (good god, the undergrad Max could relate!) to a more mature observation of society, especially the forgotten blue collar underbelly. Hendricks the Observer has evolved; boozy depression has become angry disappointment (good god, modern day Max can relate!). “Do You Like to Watch Me Sob?” (“Is that what gets you off?”) has grown into “When Will the Goddamn Poor Wise Up?” (“When will the goddamn poor wise up / and just kill everyone in a suit / When will goddamn me wise up / and stop putting my faith in you / I’m getting too old to care about / what they call right and wrong”). Hendricks the songwriter has learned to spice his tunes with a creativity and confidence that goes far beyond the usual boy/girl crap, especially on those that are still about the age old boy/girl crap. “Your Lesbian Friends” breaks my fucking heart every time I hear it. It’s a ballad where the narrator bitterly describes trying to entertain his mate’s friends and find a way to relate to them while she’s out finding a new love. “Your lesbian friends come over; they curse when you’re not here / But they calm down when I offer them some beer / We try to talk, but they don’t even like football / Without you around, we’re getting nowhere at all.” And then he gets really bitter, misdirecting his anger at his houseguests while addressing his partner: “I sit in the chair and I wait for the song to end / Gotta break up another fight between your lesbian friends / Those friends of yours, they sure know how to wreck the house / Haven’t they got better things to do with their fists and mouths?” “Know More about Jazz”, “Like John Travolta”…this whole album is a shining example of what pop music is capable of, and a humiliating kick in the crotch to the shit that clogs the radio waves. I wanna put Declare Your Weapons in a steel cage match with any of Linkin Park’s crybaby teenybopper dogshit and watch it cry for mama. You listening, you little candyass Park pussies?

*ahem* Randy’s eyes are wide enough to tell me I should step down a little. Still on the box, just a lower tier.

After a few tunes with the Karl Hendricks Rock Band, an expanded lineup with Matt Jencick from Hurl joining on second guitar (surprisingly, not really as loud as the KH III), a reconstituted Trio put forth The Jerks Win Again in 2003, the last we’ve heard from them so far. (Fuck…do you like to watch me sob?) Right off it announces itself as maintaining the quality level with “Chuck Dukowski Was Confused”, using former members of Black Flag to examine the current state of things. (Fuck’n A, Karl!) “Chuck Dukowski was confused / He wants to live, he wishes he was dead / Though he wrote the best song on Damaged / Henry Rollins gets all the backstage head.”) Randy, like all right-thinking folks, is a big Black Flag fan, and he’s visibly excited. Think he’s a Karl Hendricks Trio fan for life now, too. I love that guy. I need a beer. The hits just keep on comin’, and we hear something kinda remarkable. (No, definitely, as I’m about to remark on it.) There are countless songs about addiction. (Shit, might have to throw on Master of Puppets after this, as the lesson almost endeth.) Sometimes about alcohol, usually about drugs…never have I heard someone write a song about a debilitating dependence on food. Morgan Spurlock should have used “The Overweight Lovers” somewhere in Supersize Me. Dang…catchy as hell with the low-key wah-wah (or not, I’m not really sure what that sound is, outside of guitar) as it chugs along and sad as hell in its depiction of a co-dependent couple lost in a haze of junk food and little else. “The one wants to talk all night / The other is just trying to avoid a fight / And in this manner Friday night was frittered away / But a box of key lime tarts could make it all okay.” You might think it’s a mean jab from a man of average physique until you hear “So many miserable ways / To drag yourself through this goddamn world / Force yourself on feeling good / And in the end you might find it turning into your friend.”

At the center of this fine LP we come to “I Think I Forgot Something…My Pants”. (Still with me, Randy? I’ll take the thumb up as a yes…wait…don’t…you’re gonna clean that up, right? Good…you do that while I get us beer and open a fresh pack of Mavericks…geez…did I smoke a whole pack already? I’m a retard…) Pure pop music perfection in a rock ‘n roll context. Karl the narrator lets us know folks with any fashion sense won’t sit next to him (“No matter how crowded the bus or how great the movie”) before revealing “I left the only woman I ever loved / At a Dunkin’ Donuts in Cleveland.” He’s got some pictures of them together, but Jesus Christ, you never want to see them. Key the chorus, while the band kicks it out with conviction: “And I think I forgot something [pause] my pants / My dignity, my armor and my lance / I think I left all my original thoughts back at some bar / I thought I had some friends around here somewhere / Now I wonder where they are.” A few verses later, after declaring the love in his heart for various marginalized folks (the saints and the robbers, hot Asian babes) the story changes and the only women he ever loved were left at a strip bar in Cleveland. *sigh* People line up at the troughs for miles around because they can’t get enough of Rod Stewart croaking out the fucking “standards” they’ve heard a billion and five times before, and The Jerks Win Again languishes in the cluttered shitholes of a few assholes like myself. When will the goddamn poor wise up? (Randy hi-fives me. I love that guy.)

I throw on “The Summer of Warm Beer”, all 13 ½ minutes of it, and let Randy absorb the majesty of Karl Hendricks beating the shit out of his guitar like “Cortez the Killer”.

Then I reflect a little in my stupor. Selfishly, I wish the Karl Hendricks Trio were more prolific, but these people have lives and families and jobs. They’re not a “career” band. Maybe that’s why it’s so good, a few guys getting together when they have time to do what they love without worrying about expectations. Fuck, I don’t know, I don’t have that kind of talent.

I do know an appearance in Philly by this group is a rare event, and I’m still kicking myself for missing the last time, Doc Watson’s, summer ’03. Didn’t have a car at the time, figured I’d take the train and catch a cab back if I had to. At least until my dumb ass got drunk as hell the night before and fell off a wall to eat shit on the sidewalk, cracking my skull and back and somehow twisting the shit out of my ankle. The ankle was the worst of it, could barely walk the next day.

What, Rand, I never told you about that? Well…….

“Oh fuck, I embarrass myself
When I try and tell you what that band means to me
I can’t live up to the kind of pressure I feel
In the face of rock history”

- the Karl Hendricks Trio, “Know More About Jazz”

Maxwell will have a profile page, just as soon as his editor gets his shit together.

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