{"id":21323,"date":"2021-07-26T05:30:57","date_gmt":"2021-07-26T09:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=21323"},"modified":"2021-07-27T07:41:24","modified_gmt":"2021-07-27T11:41:24","slug":"remembering-roky-erickson-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2021\/07\/26\/remembering-roky-erickson-part-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering Roky Erickson, Part One"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Bay Area\u2019s rich psychedelic music tradition has its roots in familiar places: Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company and The Grateful Dead laid the groundwork and built upon that foundation. More than a half century later, artists like The Fresh and Onlys, Thee Oh Sees and Ty Segall carry on that tradition. But listen more closely and discover that there\u2019s another figure\u2014a comparatively overlooked one\u2014whose music has inspired their music as well as many other artists. His name was Roky Erickson. A new tribute album, May the Circle Remain Unbroken<\/i>, will be released on July 17, Record Store Day 2021. Featuring an impressive roster of artists who claim Erickson as an influence\u2014Jeff Tweedy, Lucinda Williams and Neko Case among them\u2014the album pays homage to the Texas singer, songwriter and guitarist who passed away in 2019.<\/p>\n

Roky was a Texan, but he earned status as an honorary San Franciscan. At key points along his musical journey\u2014near the beginning, at his creative peak, and near the end of his time on Earth\u2014he was here, each time drawing inspiration from the city\u2019s musical vibe while influencing and inspiring other music makers.<\/p>\n

1966: With their overt and outspoken celebration of LSD, his band The 13th<\/sup> Floor Elevators was relentlessly dogged by law enforcement; the Elevators\u2019 run of dates at the Avalon in August of that year has been described as a respite, \u201ctheir little bit of heaven.\u201d<\/p>\n

1979: After an extended creative dry spell, Roky rallied in the late \u201870s, writing a fistful of new songs about monsters, demons and aliens. He returned to San Francisco for live performances and\u2014working with Creedence Clearwater Revival\u2019s Stu Cook\u2014to record The Evil One<\/i>, an album that many consider the best work of his career.<\/p>\n

2019: As his health problems threatened to overtake him, Erickson came back to the Bay Area again for a special live performance of a classic Elevators album, 1967\u2019s Easter Everywhere<\/i>. That show inspired an audience member, Bill Bentley, to put together an all-star album in tribute to Erickson\u2019s life and music. Roky would leave his body behind less than a month after that concert.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Photo by Jean Constant<\/p><\/div>\n

Roky\u2019s influence has always extended to reach some interesting, and sometimes unexpected, places. In the years before launching ZZ Top, guitarist Billy F Gibbons led a Texas band, The Moving Sidewalks. That group\u2019s signature tune was \u201c99th<\/sup> Floor.\u201d It\u2019s both a garage rock classic and a clear homage to Roky and the Elevators. \u201cRoky stands as a pioneer who discovered and brought new sonic vistas,\u201d says Gibbons, asserting that there\u2019s a \u201ccontinued existential benefit from both his visibility and, in a sense, his invisibility.\u201d Gibbons covers Erickson\u2019s \u201c(I\u2019ve Got) Levitation\u201d on the new album.<\/p>\n

Neko Case\u2019s music encompasses multiple genres\u2014country, punk and power pop, to name three\u2014but at her creative core she\u2019s a powerful and articulate singer-songwriter. And Roky Erickson\u2019s music moves her. \u201cI remember being very teary and very floored the first time I ever heard \u2018Be and Bring Me Home,\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cI found it so touching. And I love the stream-of-consciousness lyrics; they don’t necessarily all make sense to you at the time, but you get the feeling from them anyway. There’s some sort of superpower.\u201d Case\u2019s reading of the song\u2014written by Erickson during one of his stays in Texas\u2019 Rusk Mental Hospital\u2014is a highlight of the new record.<\/p>\n

The musical connection between Roky Erickson\u2019s music and that of Austin psychedelic rock band The Black Angels was readily apparent even before the group toured with him in 2014. Bassist Alex Maas fondly recalls Erickson as \u201cthis sweet, gentle, bear that was kind of floating in the cosmos and the ether.\u201d For May the Circle Remain Unbroken<\/i>, The Black Angels cover \u201cDon\u2019t Fall Down.\u201d \u201cThat song just spoke to me, personally, in my life,\u201d says Maas. \u201cI feel so connected to the relationship aspect of it: \u2018Don’t fall off the path.\u2019 So when I started singing, I didn’t even try any other songs [for the album]. There’s a global message there that can be applied to everything, in terms of being accountable and dependable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roky Erickson first established his place in rock history in 1966 when his second band, Austin, Texas-based The 13th<\/sup> Floor Elevators, released its debut, Psychedelic Sounds<\/i>. Featuring the single \u201cYou\u2019re Gonna Miss Me,\u201d the LP is widely acknowledged as one of music\u2019s first-ever psychedelic rock albums. Released on the tiny International Artists label, the LP would reverberate throughout the music scene, exerting a cult-like influence rather than a mainstream one.<\/p>\n

The 13th<\/sup> Floor Elevators were ahead of their time. The band was making whacked-out, poetic music flavored with ingredients nobody had combined before. The songs were about (or at least heavily influenced by) LSD. Tommy Hall blew into an amplified jug. And out in front of the group, guitarist Roky Erickson howled his lead vocals on aggressive rockers like \u201cRoller Coaster\u201d and \u201cFire Engine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Click here to continue<\/a>\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Bay Area\u2019s rich psychedelic music tradition has its roots in familiar places: Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company and The Grateful Dead laid the groundwork and built […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21335,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,57,62],"tags":[4601,326,4600,1878,2443],"class_list":["post-21323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-psych","category-rawk","tag-billy-f-gibbons","tag-black-angels","tag-neko-case","tag-roky-erickson","tag-stu-cook","cat-41-id","cat-57-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21323"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21354,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21323\/revisions\/21354"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}