This morning around 01:31, my partner told me he had bad news. Then he the four saddest words I’ve heard all year. Roky Erickson was dead. Racer thought he should be the one who told me about it, before i stumbled on the information somewhere on the Internet or the radio.
Roger Kynard Roky Erickson. 7/25/1947-5/31/2019. He was 71.
A star in my horoscope just went out. Roky Erickson’s dead. And I don’t know if I’m going to cry or not. For I have loved and been in awe of that man’s music ever since the day in 1985 when i put a copy of The Evil One on our turntable (yes, it was 1985 and we played *records) and heard the opening of the opener, “Red Temple Prayer”.
Just that strangled scream of a guitar rip like a demon rooster crowing daybreak in Hell, and then he was singing, was screaming,
“Two headed daawwg! Two-headed daawwg! I been workin in the Kremlin with a TWO-HEADED DAWG!”.
The world would never be the same again after the first time I played that record. It all changed, like it did the first time I heard Patti Smith. Like it did the first time I heard Monster Magnet. The world was never the same again.
By the end of the record i had another God. I needed to hear more --all!–of that man’s music. And I had to know all about that man.
The other recordings came soon after. Don’t Slander Me and Gremlins Have Pictures and Roky And The Explosives Live at Raul’s. The 13th Floor Elevators. He’s a genius, a mad poet genius, one of the rarest birds in rock or any music.
It was 2009 when I finally saw Roky Erickson play live. It was at the Fillmore on Geary Street, in San Francisco. May 20,2009. One of the greatest nights of my rock n roll life. The backup band was Okkerville River and they did justice and tribute to his music. It was awesome.
The next time was my Halloween miracle at the Chapel, in San Francisco again --, and I howled and danced crazily and screamed “WE LOVE YOU ROKY!” as the top of my stoned and overjoyed and astonished voice. It was fucking awesome.
This past October–it was just eight months ago!-- I saw Roky for the last time. He was the closing act at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival of 2018. It was a strange and sad and heartbreaking and altogether beautiful performance and I wondered if Roky wold be with us much longer.
He’s dead. His brother found him at home on Friday. Cause of death is unknown at this writing. .But Racer said he’d read it looked like Roky went out peacefully.
And I don’t know yet if I’m going to cry or not.
