Ok, so if I can tear myself away from fooling with iTunes for a few minutes, I promise to get myself in gear and to make up for my recent weblogging slackness by posting some words, thoughts or revelations about some record or other EVERY DAY from now on (or until I get bored or run out of things to say or, y'know, whatever..). So without further ado, let's go...

A PERFECT MONSTER HAS NO END

Roky Erickson – Gremlins have Pictures (reissued last year of Rykodisc)

It’s become such accepted practice for mentally damaged musicians to start recording menacing, simplistic songs populated by demons, witches, vampires, the devil etc. that in a way we’d almost be disappointed if they didn’t.

Rather than taking the usual approach of cowering in fear before these two-dimensional and (sane/unimaginative listeners are apt to assume) allegorical predators however, Roky stands alone as the only troubled recording artist to declare them his allies, pitch his camp beside them and joyously howl through the night sky with them in search of victims. And furthermore, he’s the only one do so via the medium of storming metal-influenced garage-punk with his backing bands The Explosives and The Aliens (who kick it like Radio Birdman doing Cheap Trick), and alone with stirring folk anthems that could make the grade as post-Dylan protest songs if the lyrics weren’t so bizarro;

“With you, God shows me his wife
Lucifer and the Mother of Witches
In marriage they unite

I promise, I promise
My green and blue eyes to you
I promise, I promise
My green and blue Eyes to you

May 9th 1976, Satan came to earth on a May night
Gremlins have pictures, of the anniversary of Christ
The square root of zero is something smaller than zero
That keeps getting smaller..”

I don’t know about you, but I can relate.

Other songs speak of alligator-men, the Bermuda triangle (which Roky seems to interpret as the entirety of Bermuda), appeals to the ghost of Abraham Lincoln, the occult origins of mankind and some far-out metaphysics, and the travails of mysterious characters such as “The Interpreter” and “John Q. Lawman”. And obviously he never misses an opportunity to remind us that he worships Satan either.

Quite why Roky’s solo career is so often written off as a footnote to his work with the 13th Floor Elevators I’ve got no idea, as albums such as this one make it abundantly clear that he absolutely SLAYS.

Roky is a demon and he loves rock n’ roll.

So go on, help buy him a place to live.