A Beginner's Guide To Roky Erickson
Roky Erickson is one of the greatest American singer/songwriters of all time, and due to an exhaustive and confusing discography, also one of the most tragically overlooked. Roky Erickson is best known for his song "You're Gonna Miss Me" and his work with the legendary psychedelic group 13th Floor Elevators in the mid-60s. As extensively written about and important as the 'Elevators were, it's Roky's oft-ignored solo material from the 70s and 80s where Roky's songwriting truly came into its own. Though Roky was undoubtedly an indelible part of the 13th Floor Elevators' sound (one could argue the Roky-free cuts on Bull of the Woods prove otherwise), the songwriting on the four original 'Elevators albums was collaborative in nature, and was driven lyrically more by Tommy Hall's quasi-mysticism than Erickson's idiosyncratic supernatural infused madness. However, anyone interested in the roots of Roky's solo work would do themselves a great service in picking up the second 13th Floor Elevators album, 1967's Easter Everywhere, presently in print on vinyl and CD on the Italian label Get Back.
The second phase of Erickson's songwriting "career" (one which has been so financially fruitful over the years that Erickson has spent the better half of the 80s and 90s on welfare and living in trailer parks) began after Roky was arrested for pot charges in '68. Roky dodged prison by pleading insanity due to his extensive L.S.D. usage, resulting in his spending a few years in a Texas sanitarium, which is where Erickson supposedly wrote a bulk of his catalog. With a life as hectic and sensational as Roky's, and with Roky's mind not being in the greatest psychological state after all the-er-MIND EXPANDING experiments in the 60s, the actual time and place where Roky's most popular solo-era songs were written may never truly be known, but what is clear to the most casual observer is that Erickson's songwriting approach and subject matter was drastically different once he served his time in the insane asylum.
Roky's songs from the 70s and 80s remain today on an island all their own. Erickson does with English syntax what Albert Ayler does with smooth jazz. Roky's best work is dizzying in its defiance, or more accurately reconstruction of English grammar. Take this verse from the song "Anthem (I Promise)": "May 9th, 1976/ Satan's came to earth view May 9th/ Gremlins have pictures/ of the anniversary of Christ/ The square root of zero/ something smaller than zero/ which keeps getting smaller/ keep you out of sight and soul." Not only is every grammatical "error" left exactly as printed, but if the entire lyrics from the song were reprinted, the passage wouldn't make any more sense. In Roky's universe verb conjugation is impotent, prepositions repeat seemingly needlessly, and if no word exists for what Roky is striving to convey, a new one is invented. After reading enough of Roky's lyrics, however, one soon feels comfortable with such deviations, as if there is a definite intangible internal logic known only to Roky which makes his songs "tick." Besides, how can it be expected for one to write in a straight forward manner about Roky's subjects?
Roky seems obsessed with portraying a world where the devil and all his minions play an integral role in daily life. Roky's Satan isn't one who delights in the evil doings of man, as in the songs of satanic metal groups like Venom or Slayer, nor is Satan the one who influences that evil, as in most of Black Sabbath's early work. Roky's Satan is more of a prankster, an entity which can be outsmarted, and even coerced onto one's own side. Furthermore, there seems to be no consequence for consorting with Satan, as if he is completely removed from any sort of theological entanglements. Satan isn't the only thing you have to worry about in Roky's world, however; there are "alligator persons," zombies (sometimes feuled by vengeance and atomic energy, and other times simply needing walks), vampires, two headed dogs, the Bermuda triangle, and with all this going on there's still room for the occasional love ballad.
Musically, Roky has always been blessed with an incredible backing band. Whether it's the Explosives, the Aliens, Bleib Alien, The Nervebreakers, The Ressurectionsists, or any of the cadre of groups to back Roky over the years, the sound is generally a pleasing marriage of hard rock and powerpop. Depending on the production and quality of the recording, one could even get away with calling the instrumentation middle-of-the-road; however, it should be noted that incredible axmen like the Scott Gorham-esque Duane Aslaksen of the Aliens or Cam King of the Explosives insure Roky's backing music is anything but in the background. But even if Roky was backed by the most incompetent studio musicians his songs would still be a force to be reckoned with due to his legendary vocals.
Roky's vocals are usually the first thing that will hook even the most pedestrian of listener. To paraphrase fellow Texan Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, "there has never been a white man who sang like Roky." With influences as diverse as Texas blues singers and Roky's own mother, who was a trained opera singer, there are no words which fully convey the power of Roky's singing. Roky is one of the few singers in rock who can be consistently soulful, aggressive, delirious, haunting, sentimental and sinister all at once, and sound completely natural in doing so. Roky's voice, like the liberty bell, or the Grand Canyon, belongs in the pantheon of inexplicably glorious American treasures.
As one can imagine, Roky wasn't the most stable or reliable person psychologically, so his recording sessions were sporadic, as was the release of his official recordings, and thus collecting Roky Ercickson's music can be a frustrating, but rewarding habit. Each bootlegged live show, rehearsal session, spoken word album, etc. gives the Roky enthusiast a better understanding of the man's brilliance, yet frustrates the collector more, as it becomes apparent what potential for a (not good but) GREAT album the man could have recorded, but never did, and thus there is no single recording which gives a clear overview as to what Roky Erickson is capable of as an artist. The only present best-of collection is by no means "all you need," and due to sequencing issues will probably pique the listener's interests more than leave them with a satisfactory understanding of Roky's world. Roky's first album, released in the U.K. as Roky Erickson and the Aliens and in the U.S. as The Evil One, both with different track selections/sequencing, is often times criticized for the almost-too-clean production courtesy of CCR's Stu Cook. Regardless, either pressing of these LPs, or the CD, which compiles all the tracks from both versions, serves as a good foundation to begin to understand the subtle idiosyncrasies of Roky's craft. From there, rougher versions of the songs on The Evil One contained on the four track 1978 Sponge Records EP, or the INCREDIBLE live recording, Casting the Runes, will make much more sense. A surprisingly cohesive, though unfortunately out of print live/bootleg collection called Gremlins Have Pictures originally issued in the mid-80s on Pink Dust/Enigma records contains some really essential material, and some great versions of Roky's best songs.
Roky is still alive today, but hasn't worked on a music project since 1996's All That May Do My Rhyme album. Due to his frail mental state and financial squalor, a triumphant comeback in which Roky gets the commercial respect and acknowledgment he deserves seems unlikely. The story of Roky Erickson's life is as scattered and piecemeal as it is legendary, and his recorded output, whether from his solo career or with the 13th Floor Elevators, asserts that legend, which grows in status with every listener who discovers the brilliance of his work. Mad genious, demon angel, and unknown legend--Roky Erickson is all these things and more to the listener who takes the time to do just that: LISTEN.

A Plot of Knives against All Hippy Squares!!!
If you were to ask me just, say, three-and-a-half months ago who the group was that best AURALLY EMBODIED (any English majors out there? Hear me in the back?) the death of the hippy aesthetic I would have said, without hesitation, Black Sabbath, hands down, y'know? But after careful, uh, MEDITATION and disciplined-er-RESEARCH I dun seen de li-yit and deem the true champions of flower power extermination none other than those mustached masters of machiavellian metal…BLUE OYSTER CULT!
Now I'm not trying to instigate some sort of sonic rivalry between the Sabs and B.O.C., 'cause let's face it, judging strictly on the recordings left behind, the Sabs were virtually peerless on the sinisterometer (VIRTUALLY…Lest we forget the parental putrefying powerchords of pill popping proto-punks like Blue Cheer, S.R.C., Sir Lord Baltimore, Flower Travellin' Band, Lucifer's Friend, Speed Glue & Shinki, and hell, if you ignore the lite folk that polluted about 70% of their records even King Crimson), but we're not strictly talking sonic profundity, here. I mean, Iron Butterfly had some undeniably heavy moments, and they were hippies in the worst of ways. Sonic abrasion isn't everything in finding (and rewarding) the culprit of the murder of a youth culture's ideology. In determinating the metaphorical mangler of an arcane effigy one has to look at what that supposed eliminator, like, STOOD for; y'know, their WORDS and stuff.
Granted Sabbath were pessimistic as hell, lyrically, but it's presumptuous to think that Sabbath's pessimism was their answer to the hippies' optimism; pessimism is just the opposite side of optimism's coin, see, and Blue Oyster Cult were an entirely different system of currency altogether. The best music of the 70s exclaimed, in unison, a defiantly apathetic declarative statement; "I DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT ANYBODY OR ANYTHING!" (The 80's of course served as the coda "AND I MEAN IT!"). Singing about corrupt social structures, as Sabbath did, sounded about as dated and passé during their heyday as it does now (open letter to Rage Against The Machine and all their imitators [Incubus, take note]: YOU SQUARES FUCKING SUCK!!!). Now, when you can, with conviction and a straight face, sing a song based around the line "she's as beautiful as a foot," well my friend, that's when you've reached the yogi-like status of not-giving-a-fuckdom that Blue Oyster Cult achieved at their peak.
What really clued me into what B.O.C. was all about was hearing the Stalk Forrest Group CD St.Cecilia: The Complete Elektra Recordings (fairly) recently issued on Rhino Handmade. Stalk Forrest Group was Blue Oyster Cult before the name change, and these cats recorded the equivalent of two albums for Elektra, neither of which was ever released in their time. Now, if you don't know by now that the first three B.O.C. albums are some of the most brilliantly crafted idiosyncratic gems ever released in the genre of high energy hard rock, do yourself a favor and pick up Blue Oyster Cult (1972), Tyranny and Mutation (1973), or Secret Treaties (1974) for under $5 at any used record store in the glorious U.S. of A. worth its salt and let your edumacation commence. Stalk Forrest Group, despite consisting of the same core songwriters/players as Blue Oyster Cult, were more of a lite-psych jam band, like an east coast interpretation of The Byrds, Quicksilver, Kak, etc. But the thing about S.F.G. is that, as the St.Cecilia CD clearly indicates, they were as good as, if not better than any of their aforementioned contemporaries. Why, then, wasn't the superbly recorded S.F.G. album ever released during its time? Though we'll never know the definite answer, reasoning indicates that Elektra simply had their plates full with groups like the Doors, Love, Clear Light, Incredible String Band, Bread, and dozens of other folk oriented psych bands, and the Stalk Forrest Group recordings simply fell through the cracks.
It's good, in a way, that Elektra chose to shelve the Stalk Forrest Group album(s?), because methinks it was that industry snubbing which caused S.F.G. to, with a lycanthropic-like frenzy, morph into the bitter heavy metalloid quadraphonic ringed circus that is Blue Oyster Cult. See, it took me a long time of belonging to the Cult of Blue Oyster to figure out the true identity of this oft caped and leather clad group of mysterians: under all the ambiguity, Blue Oyster Cult was just a bunch of bitter flower children! I mean, why would a group strive so rabidly to achieve the sonic and aesthetic antithesis of peace love and understanding and piss all over hippy idealism by opening their first album with "Transmaniacon M.C.," a song which mystifies, and damn near romanticizes the symbolic bane of 60's idealism, Altamont, if the group in question weren't a bunch of ex-hippies themselves, celebrating their folly rather than crying in spilt milk like that sentimental sap John Lennon (boldly excepting the Plastic Ono Band LP, the man's one-off bout with reality)?
Sure Sabbath were true punks, and B.O.C. never wrote a riff half as clenched fist educing as "Children of the Grave," but Sabbath was just lashing out 'cause it was in their nature. Those stooge fugs could never believe in the hippy dream, even if they did consume more drugs in their prime than the entire woodstock nation put together, but B.O.C. on the other hand really did believe in that hippy crap at one point, which is why their revenge, in the form of the 12" pieces of vinyl they brought unto this world sounded as sweet back then as they do today.

Subject: If you haven't seen Atomic Punks, the Van Halen tribute
group...

> ...You haven't lived!
>
> Seriously, though, those guys were awesome. All these
> girls were, like, groping at the guy playing DLR,
> grabbing his weiner and ass and stuff. It was
> rediculous...ly awesome! Girls got on stage and did
> cheezy stripper dances and everything, and it was at
> this AWEFUL bar in this part of San Diego where,
> uh...well, if you've seen any episodes of Real World
> San Diego, it's exactly like that in the area the show
> was at.
>
> The band was fucking great, though. Suprisingly
> competant? As totally rediculous as going to see a
> tribute band is, it was undeniably an awesome time.
> Total Vegas style entertainment for a $10 cover
> charge.
>
> I need your help on something dair-eek: I've been
> obsesively collecting International Artists shit, and
> having a bitch of a time tracking down information on
> original pressings, and labels and matrix numbers and
> stuff. I know you said you had a mono copy of psych.
> sounds. What're the matrix etchings on that bad mama
> jamma? Also, what do the labels look like? From what
> I understand, the original mono pressings are yellow
> with green, uh, triangles on each side, kinda like the
> Green Lantern insignia. There were supposedly second
> pressings, also in mono, with dark green paper and
> silver ink. I'm assuming the same is true of stereo
> pressings.
>
> As for other I.A. releases, it seems like the labels
> are different on each one. I have the Lightnin'
> Hopkins LP with just yellow labels (no "green lantern"
> thing) and the Red Crayola with green and silver ink,
> and I forget what my "bull of the woods" looks
> like...Oh, and at this time I should mention, that if
> you compare an O.G. pressing of "BOTW" with anything
> else (CD, repress, etc.) you will be blown away. I
> originally just had a Charley version on CD, and was
> never too into the album, but hearing an original
> pressing changes everything. Fucking GREAT, not good,
> but GREAT album.
>
> The new Blink 182 album is a good album, but I don't
> think I like it. Total stroke material for production
> nerds like myself, though. They'll never top "Enema."
>
> Also, I've been listening to Deicide's "Legion" many
> times a week. I haven't owned or listened to anything
> vaguely deathmetal (unless you count Hellhammer/Celtic
> Frost, or Black Sabbath) for years, but for some
> reason I really like this album. Deathmetal
> definately belongs on cassette. You don't get that
> side A/side B segmenting on a CD, and vinyl just
> doesn't capture the dynamic sound, y'know? Now I have
> all these Cannibal Corpse and Morbid Angel albums on
> my ebay watchlist. So like, uh, what're some of your
> favorite dm albums?
>
> Let's do a collaboration cassette under the name Think
> Marty Think. (How's that for a Back to the Future
> reference?)
>
> Crime Desire will be releasing the song "We Hate All
> Life" on a single with a very "Wars Of Armageddon"
> (Funkadelic) styled B-side. Yeah, no one liked that
> cdr still.
>
> Hey, authentic Coca Cola tastes better to me than it
> probably should.
>
> Please include the attatched picture on my segment of
> the webpage. It earns a 7.1 on hotornot.com. The
> cover of Keiji Haino's "Affection" as a girl earns a
> 5.2. The afforementioned Keiji Haino picture earns a
> 5.6 as a guy. God is awesome.
>
> Hey, what ever happened to Dom K.?