{"id":22829,"date":"2022-04-26T05:30:01","date_gmt":"2022-04-26T09:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=22829"},"modified":"2025-05-13T07:32:26","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T11:32:26","slug":"album-review-the-troggs-the-trogg-tapes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2022\/04\/26\/album-review-the-troggs-the-trogg-tapes\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: The Troggs — The Trogg Tapes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"First, a few words about what this isn\u2019t<\/i>. It\u2019s not<\/i> the infamous \u201cTroggs Tapes\u201d studio outtake, an audio gem that initially circulated among aficionados and collectors of the strange and hilarious. That tape is a 1970 document of members of The Troggs arguing in the recording studio, and is responsible for adding the immortal phrases \u201cdubba dubba dubba CHA\u201d and \u201cput some fairy dust on it\u201d to the popular lexicon. Predating This is Spinal Tap<\/i> by several years, it\u2019s an unintentionally side-splitting bit of audio verit\u00e9. You must<\/i> hear it.<\/p>\n

But this isn\u2019t that.<\/p>\n

The Troggs are best known for \u201cWild Thing,\u201d and lesser well-known for \u201cLove is All Around.\u201d Those two sixties gems were hits, and feature the lead vocals of Reg Presley (despite the surname, no known Memphis connections has he). \u201cThe Troggs Tapes\u201d also feature Presley, in a shouting match with drummer Ronnie Bond and the rest of the band. The band broke up shortly after that \u201870 episode, but \u2013 in part thanks to this uproarious bootleg recording \u2013 they re-formed a few years later. And perhaps attempting to build upon the reputation begat by that tape, they titled their 1976 album The Trogg Tapes<\/i> (note the lack of a pluralizing \u201cs\u201d).<\/p>\n

Reunion albums have a notorious habit of bring lackluster affairs, and as catchy as The Troggs\u2019 earlier singles had been, they weren\u2019t many people\u2019s idea of a supremely creative outfit. So it comes as something of a surprise to discover the The Trogg Tapes<\/i> is a fine album.<\/p>\n

The vibe here isn\u2019t all that far from Mott the Hoople; to modern ears, The Troggs\u2019 mid \u201870s sound sound feels like a kind of missing link between \u201860s garage rock and pub rock. Not quite punk — these guys were a bit too old for that \u2013 it also features some more accomplished playing than would have been typical of most punk bands of the era.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a spare, economical character to this collection of 11 songs, most of which are originals. Guitarist Richard Moore turns in some of the finest numbers, including opener \u201cGet You Tonight,\u2019 but Presley\u2019s tunes are good as well. Producer Larry Page takes a no-frills, documentary approach to the sessions; there\u2019s really nothing beyond the sound of the band. Previous little reverb or effects of any kind figure into the sound. It feels like a demo, albeit a very good one.<\/p>\n

If there\u2019s a misstep, an outlier here, it\u2019s the cover of \u201cWalkin\u2019 the Dog,\u201d originally made famous by The World\u2019s Oldest Teenager\u2122, Stax Records icon Rufus Thomas. The spread between the instuments and Presley\u2019s vocals makes the latter sound like an overdub, and it seems likely that the total time and effort to create the recording took barely longer than its four-minute run time.<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t let that one dissuade you; The Trogg Tapes<\/em> is good old unfiltered, unpolished rock\u2019n\u2019roll.<\/p>\n

And it makes a nice companion to the other<\/i> Troggs tape.<\/p>\n

Note: The new Liberation Hall reissue doesn’t feature any bonus tracks, no liner notes, no additional material of any kind. But it\u2019s worth noting that the album has been out of print in the U.S. since shortly after its original 1976 release, so the reissue is welcome even without any accompanying extra goodies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First, a few words about what this isn\u2019t. It\u2019s not the infamous \u201cTroggs Tapes\u201d studio outtake, an audio gem that initially circulated among aficionados and collectors of the strange and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22830,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,64,65],"tags":[4809],"class_list":["post-22829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rawk","category-reissue","category-review","tag-the-troggs","cat-62-id","cat-64-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22829"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29400,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22829\/revisions\/29400"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}