I was chatting online with a new friend the other day, who's also a music nerd like me, and got to talking about the early days of psychedelic music. She's got an opportunity to see Roky Erickson in a few days, and we talked about his legacy. That got me to thinking about an awesome tribute album that came out in 1990 called When the Pyramid Meets the Eye, which was artists covering Roky Erickson. Even in the 60s, Roky wasn't exactly a household name, and even less so in the 90s, so the compilation was very leftfield. It introduced me to his music though, which is a good thing.
Roky Erickson fronted a folk/psychedelic band called the 13th Floor Elevators, who started recording out of Dallas, TX in the mid 60s. Their biggest hit was a tune Roky wrote for a band called the Spades, called "You're Gonna Miss Me." The band had their following, but weren't terribly commercially successful. Instead, Roky's work was influential to those that came after him. Roky himself was plagued with health problems, from mental imbalances to general neglect, and constant drug use. He was also routinely exploited by record promoters, swindling Roky out of money owed him through a number of unauthorized releases.
More recently, Roky was embraced by modern musicians and began recording again, releasing an album with Will Sheff (aka Okkervil River) in 2010 called True Love Cast Out All Evil. He was also featured in a documentary about his career called You're Gonna Miss Me.
The range of artists on Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye is surprising. Given Roky's base of Dallas, it's not surprising that ZZ Top took on a song on the album, though ZZ Top isn't really a band you associate with psychedelic music. Regardless, they do a fantastic version of "Reverberation (Doubt)". Second, noted shoegazers Jesus and Mary Chain seemed like a natural match for Roky's work, and they take on the same song. Judge for yourself who does the best version.
http://youtu.be/KmiEC7G43OQ
http://youtu.be/buEGBtLsc1k
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