Pages tagged “roky erickson”

Wound up going with Kate and Kevin to see Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band at the AT&T stage on the way to Roky Erickson last night. It was a huge surprise for me-- with this new musical turn, he's shed not just the Bright Eyes name but the Bright Eyes mannerisms and affectations. Last night he seemed looser and happier than I'd ever seen him, and I believe he did a better Dylan than Dylan himself did last year on the very same stage. But more on that from Kate later. (Actual conversation we just had: "Do you want to do Conor Oberst? Oh, uh, I mean--" "Yes, and yes I'll blog about the show.")

Moved on to Austin Ventures for Roky Erickson after Oberst & Co. covered Paul Simon's "Kodachrome," and was stunned at the tininess of the crowd. Apparently the Austin-American Statesman called Erickson a "retirement-age rocker," which maybe was an easy way of skirting the decades of mental health issues, drug addiction, institutionalization, but hardly sums up the weight of his life and strange breadth of his career. The small crowd went wild as his band came on, and wilder as the man himself was escorted onto the stage, wandering to the side and standing with his arms crossed before being nudged to the front by a handler. For a moment it seemed like he wasn't sure what he was there to do, or wasn't interested in doing it, but with a guitar in his hands he was transformed from a seemingly hapless, ill man to a consummate rocker. Along with his apt backing band, he howled through opener "Cold Night for Alligators," "Don't Shake Me Lucifer," "Mine Mine Mind," and "Bloody Hammer." Had to leave a bit early to meet the rest of our crew, but it was a total dream and a privledge to the the man to play such a stellar set to his bafflingly miniscule but devoted hometown crowd.

Okkervil River and Tegan & Sara just swang by for some TOMS-- now it's time to see Gillian Welch!

Let me add this to Kate’s Fleet Foxes write-up: Though they seemed more than a little overwhelmed by the immensity of the AMD stage (“We’re not used to communicating on this scale,” lead singer Robin Pecknold apologized) when the awkward banter finally dissolved into music, it was fantastic. “Ragged Wood” always gives me goosebumps—and even today, in the heat of the day, they rolled right up my sweaty legs. 

Deep in the head of Texas

An incredible tale lurks in the 400+ pages of tiny type here, which is both a corrective to the monolithic San Francisco Sound hype and the most detailed—if incomplete—rendering of Austin’s bohemian pre-hippie days.

The Elevators—with their classic lineup of Roky Erickson, Tommy Hall, Stacy Sutherland, Benny Thurman and John Ike Walton—blazed an acid-soaked trail through Texas and (briefly) the San Francisco ballrooms, pursued by cops and groupies, blowing minds (especially their own) as they went.

Signed to America’s least competent record company, with Hall preaching a garbled gospel of lysergic salvation, and Roky and Stacy apparently incapable of saying no to any drug whatsoever, they shouldn’t have had what success they did, but Drummond gets the story as only an obsessive could. He could’ve used an editor, and misses the forest for describing each leaf on each tree, but he threads nicely through Roky’s post-band incarcerations, psychological problems and eventual salvation.

Few lives are as fascinating, as troubled or as influential as that of musical pioneer Roky Erickson, whose 13th Floor Elevators originally coined the term "psychedelic rock."

With Erickson finally out of the hospital and back in the music business, it's due time the Texas native received his just deserve in the form of an equally volatile documentary. Thankfully, Keven McAlester's directorial debut, You're Gonna Miss Me, is exactly that.

The film, recently nominated for a 2007 Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary, details the rise and fall of Erickson, every drugged-out step of the way.

Though You're Gonna Miss Me will only show in a handful of indie theaters beginning June 8, the DVD will hit stores on July 10. Better yet, you can catch Erickson live and in-person at Coachella, Ponderosa Stomp or a couple of Scandinavian festivals this summer with his current band, The Explosives.

Tour dates include:

April
13 - Brooklyn, N.Y. @ Southpaw
15 - New York, N.Y. @ Bowery Ballroom
28 - Indio, Calif. @ Coachella Festival

May
2 - New Orleans, La. @ Ponderosa Stomp

June
18 - Sweden @ Hultsfred Festival

July
6 - Denmark @ Roskilde Festival
8 - Finland @ Ruisrock

August
8-11 - Norway @ Oya Festival

Related links:
Roky Erickson’s homepage
Roky Erickson on MySpace
Official Website for You’re Gonna Miss Me