Roky Erickson, Godfather of Texas psychedelia and the lead singer of the Thirteenth Floor Elevators, is honored with a restrospective of three reissues of the best music of his solo career. Light in the Attic records has reissued The Evil One, Don’t Slander Me, and Gremlins Have Pictures as splendidly-packaged CDs and vinyl LPs, both formats including extensive liner notes by yours truly. The liners for all three combined make for a small book about Roky’s post-Elevators career. I’d actually participated in the first extensive interview with Roky following his incarceration in the Rusk Hospital for the Criminally Insane (a bad deal that has to do more with Texas’s twisted form of justice than with Erickson’s mental state), and wrote about Roky completing the recording for the Evil One (released on 415 Records in the US and on Epic UK around the rest of the world) when I was a reporter for the Austin Statesman. I learned a lot doing research on these recordings. TEO and Don’t Slander Me were mostly recorded in San Francisco and produced by Stu Cook, the bassist for Creedence Clearwater Revival, along with Billy Miller, the autoharp player who was part of the band Blieb Alien that backed Roky in his first post-Rusk appearances and recordings in Austin in 1975. Duane Aslaksen’s guitar and production skills are critical pieces of The Evil One and Dont Slander Me, as part of the Aliens, Roky’s studio band. Gremlins Have Pictures includes the primitive Ritz Theatre live performance that led to Erickson’s first single, “Starry Eyes” and “Two-Headed Dog” produced by Doug Sahm and issued as a 45 on Mars Records, as well as recordings Roky did with the Explosives, the Austin power trio that toured with him in the early 80s. The Ritz gig (the show is introduced by Austin artist Jim Franklin) led to Erickson’s return to the stage and studio. The stories are told by Stu Cook, Roky’s manager Craig Luckin, along with Billy Miller, Duane Aslaksen, Freddy Steady Krc, Epic A&R chief Howard Thompson, and many others, shining light on a brilliant, sometimes twisted career at its peak, with madness always lurking in the shadows. The deets are here: www.lightintheattic.net
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