ROKY ERICKSON & THE EXPLOSIVES (live) Hultsfred,Sweden 16/06/07

 Roger Kynard "Roky" Erickson (July 15, 1947 – May 31, 2019) was an American musician and singer-songwriter. He was a founding member and the leader of the 13th Floor Elevators and a pioneer of the psychedelic rock genre.^[1]

Biography[edit]

Erickson was born in Dallas, Texas, to Roger and Evelyn Erickson, and had four younger brothers. The nickname "Roky," a contraction of his first and middle names, was given to him by his parents.^[2] His father, an architect and civil engineer, was stern and disapproving of Erickson's countercultural attitudes, once forcibly cutting his son's hair rather than allow him to grow it out Beatles-style. His mother was an amateur artist and opera singer, and encouraged Erickson's musical talent by taking guitar lessons herself so she could teach him.^[3]

Erickson was interested in music from his youth, playing piano from age five and taking up guitar at 10. He attended school in Austin and dropped out of Travis High School in 1965, one month before graduating, rather than cut his hair to conform to the school dress code.^[4] Erickson wrote his first songs, "You're Gonna Miss Me" and "We Sell Soul", at age 15, and started a band with neighborhood friends which would evolve into his first notable group, the Spades.^[5] The Spades scored a regional hit with "We Sell Soul"; the song is included as an unlisted bonus track on Erickson's 1995 album All That May Do My Rhyme and was adapted as "Don't Fall Down" by the 13th Floor Elevators for their debut album. The Spades' original version of "You're Gonna Miss Me", later a hit for the 13th Floor Elevators, was featured on the compilation album The Best of Pebbles Volume 1.

Alien years[edit]

In 1974, after having been released from the state hospital, Erickson formed a new band which he called "Bleib alien", Bleib being an anagram of Bible and/or German for "remain," and "Alien" being a pun on the German word allein ("alone") – the phrase in German, therefore, being "remain alone." His new band exchanged the psychedelic sounds of The 13th Floor Elevators for a more hard rock sound that featured lyrics on old horror film and science fiction themes. "Two Headed Dog (Red Temple Prayer)" (produced by The Sir Douglas Quintet's Doug Sahm and inspired by Vladimir Demikhov's 1950s head transplant experiments) was released as a single.

The new band was renamed Roky Erickson and the Aliens. In 1979, after playing with the Reversible Cords on May Day at Raul's, Erickson recorded 15 new songs with producer Stu Cook, former bass player of Creedence Clearwater Revival. These efforts were released in two "overlapping" LPs – Roky Erickson and the Aliens (CBS UK, 1980) and The Evil One (415 Records, 1981). Cook played bass on two tracks, "Sputnik" and "Bloody Hammer". Roky performed with The Nervebreakers as his backup band at The Palladium in Dallas in July 1979. A recording was issued on the French label New Rose and was recently re-issued elsewhere.

The Austin-based band the Explosives served as Roky's most frequent back-up band during the early Raul's era, between 1978 and the early 1980s. Billed as Roky Erickson and the Explosives, they were regulars at Raul's, the Continental Club, and other Austin venues. It was this incarnation that contributed two live tracks to the first Live at Raul's LP, released in 1980, with other Raul's top bands: The Skunks, Terminal Mind, The Next, Standing Waves, and The Explosives (without Roky Erickson). The Roky Erickson tracks ("Red Temple Prayer" and "Don't Shake Me Lucifer") were not included on the initial release for contractual reasons, but were included on a later release.^[9] In 1982, Erickson asserted that a Martian had inhabited his body. He came to feel that, due to his being alien, human beings were attacking him psychically. A concerned friend enlisted a Notary Public to witness an official statement by Erickson that he was an alien; he hoped by declaring so publicly he would be in line with any "international laws" he might have been breaking. Erickson claimed the attacks then indeed stopped.

ROKY ERICKSON & THE EXPLOSIVES (live) Hultsfred,Sweden 16/06/07 1) 00:00 - Cold Night For Alligators 2) 09:54 - White Faces 3) 16:04 - The Interpreter 4) 18:54 - The Beast 5) 26:45 - Bermuda 6) 30:32 - Splash 1 7) 34:36 - Creature With The Atom Brain 8) 38:52 - Starry Eyes 9) 42:38 - Bloody Hammer 10) 47:50 - Before You Accuse Me 11) 51:37 - Two Headed Dog 12) 55:50 - Your Gonna Miss Me 13) 01:00:25 - Night Of The Vampire 14) 01:07:17 - I Walked With A Zombie These recordings were produced, with love, by the Roky CD Club and comply with the spirit of the Federal Fair Use Act, 17 US Code § 107. Two groups have been carrying the torch since 1998 and were the very first of their kind on the Internet. Join both: 13th Floor Elevators Group (now on Facebook): https://www.facebook.com/groups/13thf... Texas Psych Group (now on Facebook): https://www.facebook.com/groups/texas... Be sure to "like" the Roky CD Club on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RokyErickson...