He’s God, that’s all.
You probably know the story; that is, if you’re the sort of person to whom these kinds of things mean much. Roky Erickson was a prominent member of Texas acid-rock rulers the 13th Floor Elevators (“Yer Gonna Miss Me”, Fire Engine", “Monkey Island”, etc etc etc; if that was the whole story he’d already have an honorable position in Rock’n’Roll Valhalla.
But then something awful happened. In 1968 the Elevators got busted --in Texas, no less-- for possession.It was small stuff, like you’d expect from a touring band of psychedelic expeditionaries and teenage musicians, some pot, maybe a few hits of acid and some uppers. More than enough to do hard time over, in the Texas of 1968. Roky had what no doubt seemed like a great idea at the time – he’d plead insanity! It worked all too well, just like the same idea worked for Randall P. McMurphy in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Young Mr. Erickson was hurled into the state’s most notorious snake pit, Rusk State Hospital For the Criminally Insane. And there he spent the next eight years. Chemical straitjackets. Rubber rooms and possibly electroshock – all the while scribbling his vision in poems and lyrics that would take incandescent shape.
1976, and a man is set free from unjust confinement. He starts singing his songs with a series of groups --Blieb Alien, the Explosives, the Aliens. And it’s very very weird. And it’s very very primal. Hard-edged, hallucinated songs about demons and space aliens and two-headed dogs. He suffers, he stumbles, he’s as crazy as a rat up a drainpipe – and he makes hellish beautiful rock’n’roll. Eventually people take notice.Here’s that most rare of birds, the true Mad Genius Poet.
He thinks of demons. For us. Nobody else could have come up with his material; it’d never work if not for the perfect combination of that voice and those words and that sound. The crazy chances he takes with his lyrics, so that one false note could reduce epic to silliness.
Can you tell from this that I really fricking love Roky Erickson? The moment I heard the intro to “Red Temple Prayer” from the ***Evil One ***album, the world was never gonna be the same again. And that one time, when I called him on the phone, he was real polite to the stranger suddenly ranting into his ear all the way from Oakland, too.
So who else loves Roky? And can we get a nice discussion of him – the man, the music, the myth-- going here?
I know he is one of the fascinating, late 60’s, what happens when the rock dream goes bad kind of stories, but I don’t know enough about his music to comment from that standpoint. Enough folks dig him to lead me to believe that this isn’t like that pianist in Shine, who’s story of mental illness is compelling, but who isn’t a particularly good player…
But given my love of many other of Rock music’s strays, I will probably hunker down and give his stuff a hard listen sometime down the road…
If you have a “Best of” disc or set of songs available for download that you would recommend, I would appreciate hearing about it…
One of the things that I love about Roky is that while his lyrics are bizzar, they are not cartoonish. Most people going on about zombies and aliens are either trying for shock value, or just being goofy. But with Roky, you really get the sense he has seen that Two headed dog, and here is his take on the experience.
As for suggestions for further listening, “The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators” is a must. I also really like the stuff he did with Stu Cook “Roky Erickson and the Aliens” and “The Evil One.” There is some overlap between the two and they have been repackaged a number of times
To get a sense of his songwriting, also check out “Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye” a tribute album featuring ZZ Top, R.E.M. and others taking his tunes out for a test drive.
WreckingCrew has already recommended The Evil One; that along with Don’t Slander Me and Gremlins Have Pictures are excellent places to start. There’s also Casting The Runes, selections from a couple of hot live Explosives sets in Austin.
I mean, the Elevators are great, but it’s in his post-madhouse ouvre that Roky achieves true Godhead.
I found Roky Erickson through “Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye”. I’ve been a follower of John Wesley Harding and Poi Dog Pondering for a while and that intersection let me get to know more of Roky’s stuff. Great album there.
Also, my DVR is set to record all of the Austin City Limits episodes and there’s a recent one with Roky as well (haven’t gotten around to watching it yet though).
Did you see You’re Gonna Miss Me?
I’d never really head of him until my guy got the movie from netflix (I’m not too into psychedelia)- I thought the movie was pretty interesting, but I got a bit annoyed at how it seemed (to me) to condemn his mother’s failures as a parent, while giving Roky a free pass WRT his neglect of his children, implying that his mental illness was explanation enough. It seemed that his mom had/has mental issues of her own, but that didn’t seem to mitigate the film’s condemnation of her actions. Roky was the subject of the film, of course, and the filmmakers weren’t obligated to explore his mother’s side of the story, but the double standard struck a nerve.
Also, how is he doing these days? Still off the meds? The hearing at the end of the film was presented as a happy ending, but I couldn’t help feeling that at that point he hadn’t been off the meds long enough to tell what his longterm stability would look like without them. Wikipedia is a little vague, but I hope he’s OK. A wonderful musician, and hopefully a mental-health success story (at long last).