Music #3: Roky Erickson, forgotten musical genious extraordinare!

Wikipedia Roky Erickson

Roky Erickson, this higly underappreciated and for many unknown musical genious. He started his carrer fronting the psychadelic band 13th floor elevators in the late 60´s. he was arrested for illegal posession of maruijuana so he played the insane card to avoid going to jail (this gives me vibes of mcmurphy from one flew over the coocoo's nest) and he became institutionalised in ´69. Under 3 years he was treated with ECT
and psychotropic drugs, and this scarred him for life.


2 years after his release he started the band Bleib Alien with texts towards the horror or sci-fi theme, and musically more towards hardrock, later the band changed name to Roky Erickson & the aliens. after a while he claimed he was inhabited by a marsian, and under the 80´s there wasn´t so much music released by him.

In the middle of the 90´s the music flowed again. when his brother became his legal guardian in 2001, the brother assured that the right treatments to handle Rokys mental illnes were implemented, and after that his carrier took off again.
In 2008 i saw him with the old swedish band the nomads at the Peace & love festival in borlänge, and i had the pleasure to se him again at the same festival in 2010 with okkervil River.

and we´ll take a new favourite of his multitude of songs, here´s

Roky Erickson - starry eyes

Here´s is a trailer from the documentary about him, you're gonna miss me released in 2005. and there´s also another clip from the documentary