Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Long, Strange Trip Indeed! Roky lives!

On of my favorite YouTube clips is this amazing Roky Erickson performance of "You're Gonna Miss Me" with the 13th Floor Elevators. As a kid growing up outside of Houston I saw the Elevators once in the basement of a hotel I was playing a "society dance" gig with my High School stage band.

Needless to say after seeing Roky and company on our break the Glenn Miller charts we were butchering seemed lamer than ever...........In 1976 on the night the Sex Pistols played their farewell show in SF at Winterland I was at Mabuhay Gardens to see Roky with his Blieb Aliens and it was a very strange and sad night for me. At the time he seemed fully in the grip of his demons and it felt somehow narcoleptic to be there.

Happily, Roky has recovered rather miraculously and is enjoying a comeback now to great acclaim. In this early clip you can hear his one of kind banshee howl of a voice and see why his charisma and fierce energy cemented the Elevators as punk pioneers and psychedelic legends.
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