Shindig! Issue #181 – Roky Erickson

Roky Erickson’s solo debut The Evil One saw the former 13th Floor Elevators frontman undergo a startling reinvention, with a heavier sound and macabre lyrics that Roky accurately dubbed “horror-rock”. But songs like ‘Two Headed Dog’ and ‘Night Of The Vampire’ were welcomed with open arms by the emerging punk, metal and alternative communities, which saw Erickson as an elder statesman of fierce and freaky counterculture.

As The Evil One gets a deluxe, remastered reissue, BEN GRAHAM goes back to the lab to uncover ROKY ERICKSON & THE ALIENS’ bizarre genesis

Depressed and sedated, Roky was initially uninterested in continuing with music, but his friend George Kinney of The Golden Dawn (the Elevators’ closest kindred spirits in Austin) brought him in guitars and eventually Roky began writing songs again. He formed a band, The Missing Links, who were allowed out on heavily supervised day release to play rodeos, galas and even a high school prom. He also started writing poems, which the faithful Kinney smuggled out a page at a time, eventually publishing them as the book Openers ahead of Roky’s release in November ’72.

After an ill-fated attempt to reform the Elevators with original drummer John Ike Walton, Roky was introduced to a younger musician named Billy Miller, formerly of Austin band Cold Sun. Roky had over 400 songs he’d written in Rusk, and Miller was initially recruited just to work on getting these into shape. But Roky had other plans.

 “He kept telling me that he wanted to start a band and call it Bleib Alien,” Miller recalled in 2013. “We were forced to put a band together, because I was in Memphis for a couple of months and at that point somebody talked Roky into committing to a gig. And it was a very big gig: it was the opening of The Ritz, and it was the opening of The Texas Film Festival. And the featured artist was Tobe Hooper, with his new film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. They couldn’t have found a better local band than Bleib Alien to play at that!”

Miller assembled a group from the last line-up of Cold Sun, with Hugh Patton on drums, Mike Richey on bass and Miller on electric autoharp, a unique instrument that provided an unearthly extra texture comparable to Tommy Hall’s jug in the Elevators or the eerie sounds of Joe Meek’s Clavioline. After that first show on 18th October ’74, Bleib Alien returned to The Ritz on 25th-26th April ’75, where Doug Sahm of The Sir Douglas Quintet first saw them. That July, Roky joined the reformed Sir Douglas Quintet for a run of shows at The Palamino Club in North Hollywood, where his four songs were often the highlight of the band’s set.

Back in Austin, Sahm booked Bleib Alien into the demo room of Austin’s Odyssey Sound studio (soon renamed Pecan Street) in August ’75 to cut a single. ‘Red Temple Prayer (Two Headed Dog)’, with Sahm producing and joining in on wild, phased lead guitar, is considered by many to be the definitive version, and it’s certainly the most raw. The flip ‘Starry Eyes’ showed Roky’s gentler, more melodic side; the Buddy Holly-like ballad (a love song to Roky’s wife Dana) became a local airplay hit. Another great song from the same four-hour session, ‘Goodbye Sweet Dreams’, can be found on YouTube.

While out in LA, Roky struck up friendships with Sahm’s guitarist, John X Reed (who Roky recognised as “a fellow Martian”) and sound mixer / guitar tech Duane Aslaksen. Moving to the Bay Area, he formed a new line-up of Bleib Alien with Aslaksen, bassist Steven Morgan Burgess and drummer Jeff Sutton. But Roky missed the sound of the autoharp, so Miller flew out to rejoin the band – on condition they change their name to the more radio-friendly “The Aliens”. With Burgess replaced on bass by Bobby Gorman, The Aliens recorded the classic single ‘Bermuda’ / ‘The Interpreter’ in ’76 with John X Reed producing, and in ’77 put together an EP for the French Sponge label, with Chris Johnson (AKA Johnny Christian) stepping in on bass and Sutton producing. The haunting ‘Mine Mine Mind’ was backed by ‘Click Your Fingers Applauding The Play’, ‘I Have Always Been Here Before’ and a second version of ‘Two Headed Dog’.

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