I used to wonder why Roky, as in Roky Erickson, of 13th Floor Elevators fame, was spelt without a "c". Why isn't it "Rocky", I kept asking myself. "Rocky" as in a guy devoted to rock'n'roll. A short while ago I got my answer. The guy's name is actually Roger Kynard Erickson, hence the spelling. Roger, like Roger Keith Barrett (known as "Syd" during his productive years).
The link to Barrett is not gratuitous. And it's not just the exaggerated number of acid trips each artist has taken, either. It's the strength and sincerity of the music. The emphasis on spontaneity and feeling over structure… "Never Say Goodbye" a collection of unreleased, mostly acoustic demos by Roky is a distant cousin of the famous "Madcap laughs" by Barrett. And I don't just mean the demo feel and quality, the hesitations and false starts present on the two records. No, I'm talking about the power and the intensity of the deliveries.
Brian Wilson is another great figure that springs to mind when talking of Roky. Again it's not just a question of excess LSD. Nor the fact that both Brian and Roky are today very shy and reclusive. I read about a Roky performance where he had his arms folded and was staring at the floor during the one song he sang. I thought I was reading about Brian Wilson.
It's not even that both these artists have been fighting their personal demons, battling with insanity since the height of their popularity, over thirty years ago.
No, what brings them together is that both these artists have thrown themselves completely into their music to the extent of losing themselves.
Roky has been abused and short-changed throughout his career. Apparently, he got his first royalties in 1995! Apparently, most of the sales of albums containing his material don't get him a cent! Just the "Never Say Goodbye" demos and his latest release, 1995's "All who may do my Rhyme".
It's difficult to determine the damage sustained by Roky's forced internment in a Texas psychiatric institution. Framed for possession of pot he was looking at a lengthy jail sentence and was encouraged to plead insanity, which he did, claiming he came from Mars! He was in a maximum security psychiatric institution for three years, only being released in late '71. It seems that it was real "One flew over the cuckoo's nest" kind of stuff. Electric-shock treatment and vast amounts of a drug called thorazine.
At that point in time, Roky's band, The 13th floor elevators, had released two great albums before being "nipped in the bud" in this fashion. Who knows what great stuff the elevators would have put out if the band had been allowed to follow its natural course. It's difficult to imagine, today, the whole atmosphere of that late-sixties time period. Apparently, the establishment actually considered bands like the elevators' drug-oriented music as threatening to society. So much so that they would stop these bands, by all means necessary! Declaring a sane person mad, locking them away and having full powers to try and "neutralise" that person by attempting to destroy his mind.
This didn't happen to the rest of the psychedelic bands. It just happened to the best of the psychedelic bands. Was it because all the other's were based in the San Francisco area whereas Roky was busted in Texas…
We'll never know the damage done, or the great albums that could have been…

In a way, you could say that ultimately, Roky had the last laugh. He went into Rusk hospital pretending to be a Martian and he came out actually seeming to believe it. He went on to make a comeback, and with a band named "Roky and the Aliens" he put out some powerful, demented music mostly centred around a new obsession for monster-movies, cheap horror flicks, aliens, U.F.Os…
Maybe he was trying to make a point. Officially, the hospital were treating him because he thought he was an alien, he went on to prove that, with an "alien" persona, he could record good music that people wanted to hear and diffuse it widely…
(the first l.p. ; review coming shortly...)
But back to "The Thirteenth floor elevators", the best of the psychedelics, nipped in the bud by the Texas law enforcement.
They were the first to proclaim themselves psychedelic, as in mind-expanding and they displayed this on the cover of their first album. First, there was the cover art. An eye within and eye surrounded by bands of gaudy red and yellow, featuring the band's name in deformed, psychedelic scrawl, the whole thing surrounded by blobs of colour… Then there was the album title: "The Psychedelic sounds of the 13th floor elevators". And finally, there were the cover notes that talked of whole new possibilities and horizons, making a stance for a whole new way of being, with at least a passing mention to "chemical substances"…
"The 13th floor Elevators": the thirteenth letter of the alphabet, 'M', and that stood for……..yes, you guessed it "marijuana"! Also, traditionally, the 13th floor, deemed to be unlucky, was left out of American high-rises. (OK, so technically, the thirteenth floor was just called the fourteenth floor instead, but you get my drift). So, in this respect, the 13th floor is a kind of hidden, invisible dimension. Some sort of "higher plane" that this band promised to take you to…

"You're gonna Miss Me" is a pure nugget of garage rock. It's also a good starting point to talk about Erickson because it showcases his vocal prowess: the demented power and violence that would resurface later on.
Roky had actually recorded the song as a single, with Roky and the Spades, in 1965, before he was asked to join the elevators.
What's incredible about the elevators, is that they were many things at the same time. They had "psychedelic" elements, that would become common to other bands in their wake, namely that laid-back "acid-drenched" guitar work, courtesy of Stacy Sutherland. This provided a kind of "mellow" backdrop. They were also a fierce bunch of rock'n'rollers, and by this I mean the inclusion of some good old "original" rock and roll riffs in their songs.
But there was  another distinctive element to the elevators' music, especially so on the first album, and this was principally the doing of Roky Erickson. That punky, garagey strain pushed to extremes by Roky's demented wailing. From around 64 to 66, there were a whole load of grungy, punky bands across America turning out their raw brands of spunky rock'n'roll. This was the original "garage" stuff. By 1967 it was gone. By 68, it was long gone and superseded by the more laid-back and mellow guitar tones of hippiedom.
The elevators, on their first album, are both representative of this "garage rock" thing as well as going a lot further.
I read somewhere that "You're gonna miss me" is second only to "Louie, Louie", for garage grunginess. This is untrue. As my American friends might say "You're gonna miss me" kicks the ass of any version of "Louie, Louie" I've ever heard. A closer comparison would be Van Morrison's "Gloria". But "You're gonna miss me" is lot madder than "Gloria" although there is a resemblance in the dark, repetitive melody.
"You're gonna miss me" is a kind of revenge. The singer is basically telling the girl he is with that he's going to leave her point blank. That she doesn't appreciate him, and doesn't really seem to care, but she's sure going to be sorry when she's suddenly left on her own.
Granted, the summary doesn't sound like any great revolution but the way the song's performed is phenomenal. For the most part, popular songs, uptil then, had, even when they were good, been nice, courteous affairs: early Beatles hits spring to mind ("She loves You", "I wanna hold your hand"…). The 13th floor elevators had a hit with this vengeful piece. Roky's manic, powerful voice, laid on the lyrics like a curse. Nothing nice about this. This was payback time. The snarling, reproachful vocals, the demented, screamed chorus that gives way to what can only be described as the yells of one possessed. Not even Gerry Roslie from The Sonics could yell like that. A pure gem. The ultimate garage classic. A rock'n'roll classic. Period.
That first album is a brilliant blend of different styles. A budding  acid-drenched guitar style. A degree of out-and-out blasting rock'n'roll. The garage-rock element, augmented by Roky's possessed vocals.
For "Easter Everywhere", the second l.p., that came out in 1967, the band had a lot more studio time. It's a much mellower affair. The acid-drenched guitar is a lot more prominent. Most of the songs are slower, spaced-out numbers. There are, however, a couple of more up-tempo  rockers, namely "She lives (in a time of her own)" and "Levitation".
Those are the two great albums. After that, The elevators basically lost their direction. It's main man being at the funny farm (Roky) and it's philosopher (Tommy Hall, apparently the "drugs man", the guy who played the "amplified jug" responsible for that crazy ascending and descending popping sound present on so many elevator tracks) being in jail on a drugs conviction.
Apparently, there were a few Roky song's left over for the third album "Bull of the woods" but I've never heard this record. And the fourth International Artists Elevators release is a "live" album.
I've read that it's actually and album with the live audience dubbed on !                         (the second album; click to read the review)
 
 

Read the review of "Easter Everywhere"
 

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