Roky Erickson Appreciation Thread:

[RandomKoolzip]

With all this talk of American idols, I thought I'd inject a little insanity, honesty, integrity and genuine soul into the discussion; Have y'all heard of Roky Erickson? Possibly the most glorious voice in the history of rock music.

You owe it to yourself to give Roky a try, if you haven't already. If you have, you know of what I speak.

Here's a bio and some sound clips:
http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/music/artist/listenwatch/0,,427987,00.html#artist_name



The coolest album cover ever^^^.



Now THAT's style! Snappy dresser, that Roky.

Roky Erickson, my hero.

[Ron Green]

1. "Try to Hide" by Roky and the 13th Floor Elevators...

I used to hear 'em practicing down the street from my apt. when I was a freshman in college.

[RandomKoolzip]

2. You're kidding!

That's incredible....This was in Austin, no? Did you ever pop yer head in and partake in the madness yerself?

[Ron Green]

4. I was trying to hang with some pretty weird people, but Roky and his band

were WAY beyond any kind of alternate reality that I could maintain.... this was in 1965 and '66, and I was just out of a small-town high school. Roky was from Dallas, I think, and he was pretty crazy BEFORE he got to Austin. They used to rehearse in the basement of a church on 23rd just west of Guadalupe, I believe.

[RandomKoolzip]

5. Wow...I'm trying to imagine how cool that would be to actually

SPURN the company of the 13th Floor Elevators back in the mid-60's...I think my head may explode.

[Ron Green]

9. It's not like I spurned their company, I just couldn't really hang.

I was trying to get laid, mostly. It was still kind of an innocent world, even in Austin, and Roky and the Elevators had already warped past the Summer of Love, which wouldn't even come until 1967.

[RandomKoolzip]

10. I can see that.

Apparently they were well into the acid by 1965.

So tell me some stories: like what, exactly, were they doing that was so far out?

[Ron Green]

12. Mostly they were just a great rocking band, and yes, they were obviously

doing some tripping at that time, and they had psychdelic clothes and long hair before almost anybody else, even in Austin. The spring of '66 I started seeing some "hippies," but as I recall, Roky and the band had led the counterculture movement long before that.

[DBoon]

3. I had a roomate from Austin, TX once

he had every band that had anything to do with Austin. Roky of course was included.

It was my first exposure to the Butthole Surfers as well.

[RandomKoolzip]

7. There's something about Texas that breeds great, weird vocalists.

Gibby, Roky, Gary Floyd...soulful guys, but out there.

[Blue_In_AK]

6. Oh, my God...

...you couldn't have made me happier with a topic. I used to see Roky and the 13th Floor Elevators in Houston back in 1966-68. They were the most awesome band ever. No one else even comes close.

Okay, now I'll go back and read the whole thread. :hippie:

on ed...I have the CDs for The Psychedelic Sounds and Easter Everywhere, plus I have a very prized tape that was mixed for me by Danny Galindo, the bass player, when I wrote to him back in the '80s sometime. I just missed the music so much and I couldn't find it anywhere, so he made a tape for me off of his original albums. It's definitely a treasure of mine. Every time I listen to that music I flash back, and I love it.

[RandomKoolzip]

8. Sure beats American Goddamned Idol, don't it?

[Blue_In_AK]

11. No comparison...

I was just looking at this web site http://www.scarletdukes.com/st/tm_ausquest.html
and reading some of those lyrics. Really unbelievable. As I was reading, I could hear them playing it in my head. Man, it just takes me back. The combination of Tommy Hall's lyrics, Roky's voice and that jug were absolutely other-worldly.

[RandomKoolzip]

13. I'm more of a Roky solo fan, myself....

A new double CD compliation of Erickson material just came out: "I Have Always Been Here Before." It's got the requisite Elevators "hits," plus many exampls of why Roky has such a devoted cult. The post-institution Roky is just....indescribably weird and soulful. His band rocks so hard and his voice just rips. Sure, the lyrics are bizarre, but those melodies and the obvious soul are unimpeachable.

It shoulda been a box set, though. Those two CDs are just not enough!

I think his best ever song is "Mine Mine Mind." I like it even more than "You're Gonna Miss Me."

[Blue_In_AK]

25. I didn't know about the new CD...

I'll have to check it out. I'm just so glad that Roky's genius is still being recognized. I'll have to admit that for the longest time I thought Roky and the Elevators had been just a local Texas phenomenon, and then one day several years ago, the Anchorage newspaper ran a big article about him, talking about his international cult following, and what he had been doing in recent years. I think it was about the same time as the tribute album came out, Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye. I was blown away. That's when I contacted Danny Gallindo through a link in the article and he made me the tape.

[RandomKoolzip]

26. It's worth the thirty bucks or so....

But if you want a definitive overview, hold out for the eventual boxed set, because the new double CD omits some importannt work and overemphasizes his inferior 90's acoustic material.

[Blue_In_AK]

27. I'll take your advice...

Maybe you could post here when/if said boxed set comes out. I'd snap it up in a heartbeat.

[SouthoftheBorderPaul]

20. Wait...

Wasn't Ruben Studdard in a band with Roky Erickson?

<img src="">

[RandomKoolzip]

22. A marley avatar?!

Dude, what are you doing awake right now?

And it was fellow Texan Kelly Clarkson doing the back-up vocals on "Don't Shake Me Lucifer" and "Two-Headed Dog," not Ruben Studdard.

[SouthoftheBorderPaul]

23. Don't give ME shit about my avatar, McNair...

That's right...Ruben was just a cage dancer on Roky's tours. Thanks for correcting me.

[RandomKoolzip]

24. Whatever, Mrs. Kearse.

And, although on the Roky Erickson and the Aliens tour of Europe in 1976, Monseiur Studdard danced in solely a loincloth, covered in canola oil, handling live snakes, Roky wouldn't let him do it in a cage. Even Roky has limits, by gum!

[madrchsod]

14. yes---

another roky fan! smoking black nepalese hash or a vietnamese oj with a yago/gin
chaser while listening to "fire engine"--really can life get any better than that in the 60`s?..............

[carpetbagger]

15. He truly, truly caught the essence of being high on drugs.

Most "drug music" is background music. If you're not stoned, it ceases to be drug music. Roky's music reminds you of what it's like to be stoned, even if you're not at the time.

[RandomKoolzip]

17. Not just stoned, but psychotic.

"I Think Up Demons?" If that's being stoned, gimme that thorazine!

[carpetbagger]

19. Drugs can be good or bad.

He caught the essense of the thing. Not every toke puts you in Moody Blues Orbit above the solar system.

BTW, the worst times I've had with drugs have actually been the legal types I've taken for legit medical reasons, phenergan and some of the older antihistamines.

[RandomKoolzip]

21. Oh, I know....

You're talking to a former garbage-head here. Haven't done anything stronger than Nyquil in six years, but in my heydey I was a three-fisted walking PDR.

He really did capture the essence of the Drug Experience with the Elevators; Roky's solo material, however, is the raw mouth of psychosis itself. It's a good thing that his voice and ability to write timeless melodies (and galvanize his bands) transcended such a state of mind, since I doubt too many of us would REALLY like to be dwelling in a land of demons with black-tipped horns swinging bloody hammers while the creature with the atom brain gangs up with lucifer to shake you on a cold night for alligators.....and if you have ghosts, you have everything.

I'd rather have Roky deliver dispatches from that realm than have to live in it....With the Elevators, the trip into the Undiscovered Country was a lot more benign.

[madrchsod]

16. how about "red crayola"?

i had their album but of course it was "borrowed"..if i remember the album was basically people playing instruments under the influence of several mind altering substances....

[RandomKoolzip]

18. Actually, Mayo Thompson, the Red Krayola's leader.....

Was NOT a drug-user. He was a Communist intellectual who was basically using a rock band as an art project. They made some interesting music, but Thompson's not the natural, organic genius that Erickson is.

[madrchsod]

30. thanks

i was wondering that that was all about. if i remember the notes may have referenced this...off to e bay to see if there anyone selling one.

[silvermachine]

31. Great band...

...the original lineup at least. "Hurricane Fighter Plane" is one of the best songs about LSD ever...

Come fly with me
Anytime or anywhere
When you fly with me in my aeroplane
You won't care

It'll take us over mountains
And down in valleys so deep
When the ride is over
You can go to sleep
You can go to sleep
Go to sleep

[redqueen]

28. Love him.

Didn't like the last CD I got much, but he's still gold.

www.rokyerickson.net

Hope he's doin ok.


Buy this:



here

I think it goes toward his fund...

Shoot... he performed in March. Anyone in Austin see that?

[flamingyouth]

29. I have a great video of him from (I think) the late '70s

It's part interview/part live footage of him in Austin and it's so fucking amazing...

The interviewer has a hard time keeping him on track, especially when he rambles off on his tangent about how people leaving his shows often report that they're being pursued by lights in the sky. :D

Anyway, I'm a huge fan and have been for a long time. I bought The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators when I was in high school, put it on layaway for two months. A classic.

[silvermachine]

32. Love him/them...

..."Slip Inside This House" is one of thee most psychedelic songs ever.

Bedoin tribes ascending
from the egg into the flower,
alpha information sending
state within the heaven shower
from disciples the unending
subtleties of river power.
They slip inside this house as they pass by.

If your limbs begin dissolving
in the water that you tread,
all surroundings are evolving
in the stream that clears your head,
find yourself a caravan
like Noah must have led,
and slip inside this house as you pass by.

Slip inside this house as you pass by.
True conception, knowing why,
brings even more than meets the eye.
Slip inside this house as you pass by.

In this dark we call creation
we can be and feel and know
from an effort, comfort station,
that's surviving on the go.
There's infinite survival in
the high baptismal glow.
Slip inside this house as you pass by.

There is no season when you are grown.
You are always risen from the seeds you've sown.
There is no reason to rise alone.
Other stories given have sages of their own.

Live where your heart can be given,
and your life starts to unfold
in the forms you envision
in this dream that's ages old.
On the river layer is the only sayer.
You receive all you can hold,
like you've been told.

Every day's another dawning.
Give the morning winds a chance.
Always catch your thunder yawning.
Lift your mind into the dance.
Sweep the shadows from your awning.
Shrink the fourfold circumstance
that lies outside this house.
Don't pass it by.

Higher worlds that you uncover
light the path you want to roam.
You compare there and discover
You won't need a shell of foam.
Twice born gypsies care and keep
the nowhere of their former home.
They slip inside this house as they pass by.

Slip inside this house as you pass by.
You think you can't, you wish you could.
I know you can, I wish you would
slip inside this house as you pass by.

Four and twenty birds of Maya
baked into an atom you
polarized into existence,
magnet heart from red to blue:
to such extent, the realm of dark
within the picture it seems true,
but slip inside this house and then decide.

All your lightning waits inside you.
Travel it along your spine.
Seven stars receive your visit.
Seven seals remain divine:
seven churches filled with spirit,
treasure from the angels' mine.
Slip inside this house as you pass by.

Slip inside this house as you pass by
The space you make has your own laws.
No longer human gods are cause.
The center of this house will never die.

There is no season when you are grown.
You are always risen from the seeds you've sown.
There is no reason to rise alone.
Other stories given have sages of their own.

Draw from the well of unchanging.
Its union nourishes on
in the right re-arranging
till the last confusion is gone.
Water-brothers trust in the ultimust
of the always singing song they pass along.

One-eyed men aren't really reigning.
They just march in place until
two-eyed men with mystery training
finally feel the power fill.
Three-eyed men are not complaining.
They can yo-yo where they will.
They slip inside this house as they pass by.
Don't pass it by.
--Roky Erickson & Tommy Hall.

[Blue_In_AK]

33. I love that one. Also "Dust"

which is one of the most haunting and beautiful reflections on love and life ever written, IMHO.


Dust from your skin
Must trust, when it scatters
Only love matters
It's been overjoyed

Scents and perfumes
Wince, since your higher fragrance
Is memory
Incense and never destroyed

Every stop we've taken
Is now a wondrous shrine
Where nature is in order
Your senses sensing mine
As I love you
All the creatures play
As I love you
Now it's safe to say
There's no hang up in our way

The trees in our gaze
will show us the love that we bring them
This shouldn't amaze
They openly love all they are
And love's all they are

Gifts, to begin
Bliss, cliffs of expression
They suit our impression
and every whim.

Taste past our thirst
Faced, waste
Beyond uses,
with so many juices
Were filled to the brim

Our pleasure's not forsaken
we cultivate our bend
More chances re-awaken when beginning meets the end
As I love you,
Now it's safe to say
There's no hang up in our way
As I love you

The faith that we build
Will strengthen our close growing closer
Till waiting is filled
We simply remember we are,
wherever we are.

Clay that we print
May stay
As we mold it
But we'll never hold it
To promises long

Till we're complete
Will still is intention
We still need attention to help us along.

[RandomKoolzip]

34. Kick....for lurkers

[GOPisEvil]

35. It's good to see Roky out and about these days, too.

He and the Elevators were WAY ahead of their time.

[RandomKoolzip]

36. Yup....all the recent reports say he's doing great.

I just hope he doesn't pull a Skip Spence on us and die homeless.

[GOPisEvil]

37. There were pictures of him during South by Southwest.

He's still living with his mom, and his brother is touring, playing some of his music. So, everything looks a lot better than it did a few years ago.