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Eye Mind: The Rise, Fall and Rise of Roky Erickson
Saturday, November 10th
BookPeople (603 N. Lamar)
Free, at 7pm
[info]
There are plenty of routes to fame in the world of music, and talent certainly plays no small part. But to be elevated beyond mere fame to legendary or near-mythic status takes something else altogether. Usually, tragedy—like an airplane crash (Buddy Holly), suicide by shotgun (Cobain), suicide by knife to the heart (Elliott Smith), or drug overdose (take your pick).
And yet, the madness of Roky Erickson remains the most intriguing to us. They say that had Roky quit his psych-garage outfit, the 13th Floor Elevators, right after their hit, "You're Gonna Miss Me," and never played again, he would've still been a legend. Of course, Roky didn't stop—he pursued his psychedelic rock 'n roll dreams down a path that crossed the APD countless times, and eventually descended into a purgatory of paranoid-schizophrenia and debilitating electro-shock therapy at a hospital for the criminally insane.
His life came to mirror that of Randle Patrick McMurphy, in Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Daring escapes, followed by ruthless shock treatments, eventually brought him to his knees. The mismanagement of his estate left him nearly penniless when he was finally released, and the mismanagement of his mental state eventually left him in the legal custody of his younger brother, Sumner.
subjected to electro-shock treatments.
Drummond's book, clocking in at over 450 pages, is thorough almost to a fault. Having interviewed nearly everyone even remotely associated with the band (out to third and fourth cousins—weren't you interviewed?), they left no stone unturned (and no turn unstoned?). Drummond almost buried the harrowing saga of this band in his mountains of minutia.
But having risen to that near-mythic status, Roky's story has, until now, been clouded in rumors, hearsay, and downright urban legend. Drummond clears away the conjecture, leaving a narrative far worthier than most found on VH-1's Behind The Music. Roky, as it turns out, wasn't the only member of the band whose trip went bad—Tommy Hall, the lyricist, spent time living in a cave, guitarist Stacy Sutherland was imprisoned, and their drummer, like Roky, was subjected to electro-shock treatments. Often, an admittedly interesting tangent interrupts the story's forward momentum, but for the majority of Elevators fans these moments will be more intriguing than intrusive.
In the end, Eye Mind serves to rightly bolster the general consensus about the 13th Floor Elevators and Roky Erickson. Their mythic reputations and cult status are well deserved. Austin should count itself lucky that Roky calls this town home. You can count yourself lucky, too, if you head out to BookPeople this Saturday. Paul Drummond will be presenting Eye Mind along with Roky Erickson, bassist Benny Thurman, drummer John Ike Walton and Walt Andrus, the producer of their biggest hit, "You're Gonna Miss Me."
