2. THE EVIL ONE RETURNS!

On June 18th this year, an event that I for one never expected to see took place, as one of the greatest, weirdest and wildest rock n’ rollers who ever lived took the stage at the Royal Festival Hall for his first ever public appearance on British soil.

He’s walked with a zombie, he’s worked in the Kremlin with a two-headed dog, he’s a demon and he loves rock n’ roll, he’s gonna miss you baby: yes, it’s Roky Erickson! He’s alive, he’s healthy, he’s happy and he’s gonna rock for us tonight! And given the circumstances of his life history (which I won’t bother summarising here – the recently released documentary You’re Gonna Miss Me, or a google search, will fill you in on the details), that alone is a triumph worthy of a standing ovation.

Which is exactly what he gets, following a brief introduction from Jarvis Cocker (“the word legend is bandied about a lot these days..”, “I’ll keep my gob shut..” etc. – thanks for that JC).

If you’re familiar with Roky Erickson, you’ll no doubt be apt to picture him as he appears in the scattered, mysterious images which have adorned record sleeves, fan websites and the homemade t-shirts of some of the more dedicated dudes in the audience at the RFH; crazed, menacing eyes staring through masses of greasy, unkempt hair, Rasputin-like beard, grey skin, hobo dress sense, busted teeth – the all-round avatar of drug-fucked, madness-celebrating cult rock n’ roll culture.

Well, nowadays Roky looks rather more like this;



..and I guess that probably sums up all you need to know about Roky’s recent return to the world: lookin’ good man!

Frankly, Roky could have played a few numbers on an acoustic, goofed around a bit and gone home, and we in the audience would have been happy that he was just, y’know, THERE, such is the goodwill that inevitably gathers around such a lost / troubled outsider hero. But no, we’re treated tonight to a full scale rockin’ electric set with his backing band The Explosives, blasting through flawless renditions of the ‘horror rock’ songs that provide some of the highlights of Roky’s criminally underappreciated solo career, plus a few old Elevators numbers for good measure.

Yes, “Bloody Hammer”, “Cold Night For Alligators”, “The Interpreter”, “Bermuda”, “Night of the Vampire”, “I Think of Demons” – they’re all here, and if Roky can’t quite hit the wild high notes on the chorus of “Two-Headed Dog” anymore, who cares, he still perfectly busts through all the different voices on the b-movie dialogue middle section of “Creature With The Atom Brain”. Yeah!

Lead guitarist Duane Aslaksen, who has provided the soaring riffs and heroic solos throughout Roky’s solo career, is clearly the dynamo of the band, keeping an eye on the other guys and checking in with Roky between each song, as well as rockin’ out continuously, but that’s not to say that the Rok isn’t holding his own perfectly well on stage. Admittedly he’s not very talkative; “THANK YOU!” he yelps after every song, before following a ritual of looking around to see what’s going on, approaching the mic as if to say something, hesitating a moment… then deciding to play it safe with another “THANK YOU!”, and retreating. But during the songs themselves, he is completely at home, the roar of the guitars switching him instantly from the goofy, tongue-tied, loveable dude he seems between songs into the kind of commanding presence the music demands – the inspired, demonic rock n’ roller that his fans know of old. His voice is in fine form, and his thrashing barre chord rhythm guitar playing is appropriately ass-kicking; he even lets out a few ad-libbed shrieks and takes a few solos on brooding blues jams such as “The Beast”. And if his performance is perhaps lacking a touch of the harrowing darkness and violent intensity of his ‘70s and ‘80s recordings, well in view of his improved health and quality of life these days, losing that stuff was probably a worthy sacrifice.

So there we go: a full set, *three* encores, another standing ovation, and Roky is outta here, still not daring to say much, but looking on top of the world at the adulation he’s received from the crowd. Duane has to gently push him away from the edge of the stage and lead him out of sight after he stays on to shake hands with the fans in the front rows, looking like he’d be happy to stay there until everyone in the venue had received their turn for a holy handshake.

I guess I would have liked to have heard some of Roky’s beautiful acoustic ballads alongside the rock songs, but such complaints seem churlish after such an unexpectedly confident and magnificent return to form. I feel like thanking everyone who has helped to bring this about.

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So that was the concert. If you’re unfamiliar with the guy, then I guess the above probably didn’t mean much to you, for which apologies, but if you’ll bear with me a bit longer, I’ve been thinking recently about just WHY I love Roky so much, and why the power and appeal of his work is so hard to communicate. So if it’s ok with you, I’m going to finish by throwing in a few rough thoughts about that.

In Thurston Moore’s inevitable appearance in the aforementioned documentary (jesus, is it POSSIBLE to make a music documentary without this dude butting in? – I mean, if you made one and didn’t invite him on, do you think he’d actually phone up and threaten you..?) , he talks briefly about the uncontrived nature of Roky’s songs, the way they just seem to “just burst out of him”, and that’s… spot on actually. Thanks Thurston. The ‘horror rock’ tag that’s often attached to Roky’s solo work really fails to do it justice, even if it is objectively accurate. It brings to mind people like Alice Cooper, or Screaming Lord Sutch, or Marilyn Manson or whover, who adopt the whole ‘horror’ thing as a somewhat tongue-in-cheek gesture, in the name of shock value, or of freak-power or good ol’ fashioned entertainment. But Roky isn’t like that at all; there are no corny gimmicks in his records or live shows – he wears his everyday clothes on stage and grins all the way through! His horror-songs are entirely earnest and genuine endeavours, reflecting a deep love of horror imagery and his own conception of occult weirdness, and the comfort and reassurance that they evidently bring him.

Comparing one artist troubled by mental illness to another is a bit of a cheap ploy, but nonetheless, the thought occurs to me that Roky should rightly be viewed not as some shock rocker or hippie burnout, but more as a kind of Daniel Johnston figure who, instead of eternally fearing and fleeing from the demons of his mind, managed to see the good side of them, made friends with them, cranked up the amps and invited them to party!

And as a result, he is SUCH a joyous and powerful performer, a really inspired individual in a way that’s hard to really qualify or explain. Take a song like ‘I Walked With A Zombie’ – so moronically simple, so mind-numbingly repetitive, and yet… what a great song! I mean, imagine if *I* sat down and recorded a song that consisted of an intro and chord progression lifted from a ‘50s girl group hit, over which I yelled the name of a Val Lawton movie again and again with no other lyrics, interspersed with guitar solos. Many things that recording might be, but the kind of thing you’d want to listen to everyday?, the kind of thing that would always make you smile? – probably not. What makes Roky different? – well that’s a big question, but at heart I guess it’s just the sheer SPIRIT of what he does.

(That said, maybe keep an eye out for my recording of "The Curse Of The Cat People" in future!)

But I think basically, on an instinctual level, I love rock n’ roll, I love horror movies and I love entirely honest, positive self-expression, and Roky’s music is a perfect combination of all three… and that’s all I can really say. When Roky is singing, I feel good, I feel like I know my place in the world, I feel comfortable. And presumptuous though it may be to say so, I think he probably feels the same when he’s singing. The fact that the vast majority of people are likely to feel the exact opposite when he lets rip is something we’re just gonna have to live with. Their loss.
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A lot of Roky’s best material is still available, thanks to reissues from Rykodisc and Sympathy For the Record Industry, and as such, rather than posting mp3s from them, I will urge you to buy great albums like Gremlins Have Pictures and The Evil One.

But to whet your appetite, here are a few session tracks with added interview extracts taken from Roky’s appearance on San Francisco KSJO’s ‘Modern Humans’ radio show in August 1979. Enjoy!

Mp3s:

Night of the Vampire

White Faces

Bloody Hammer