Roky Erickson - 1981 - The Evil One
Label: Restless
Year of CD Release: 1987
Catalog Number: 72212
EAC Level 8, log, cue, scans etc.
For several years, Roky Erickson was known only as the lost genius man-child who fronted the legendary 13th Floor Elevators, and the story went that he had been trampled under the jackboots of the state machinery, his mind destroyed, another acid victim of the 60s, etc. etc. So when I heard "Two Headed Dog" on a vinyl single, some time around 1980, I was stunned that it existed at all, and also that the power of its sound just about jumped out of the speakers to clamp its gnarly fangs around one's throat.
Anyway, nowadays the Sonics and the Elevators are regarded almost as deities among fans of 60s garage bands. Well, far be it from me to dispute the godlike status of Gerry Roslie and his homeboys. I have to say, though, that I prefer solo Roky to the Elevators, as great as they were. First of all, here is Roky's own crunching, crushing 1970s sound that must have been informed by the punk-wave noises that were pissing people off around that time. Secondly, one thing that always annoyed me about the Elevators' music was that infernal whooosh-whooosh sound of Tommy Hall's electric jug, which would have been interesting if used sparingly on one or two songs, but it just went on and on and on throughout every song, and it really had a very limited range of expression. Luckily, by the late 70s Tommy Hall was living like a hermit in an apartment in San Francisco, at least according to legend .
Funny story: in one interview, Roky was asked about punk bands like the Sex Pistols and he said that he liked them fine. When asked about his favorite song by the Pistols, he mentioned "Fast Cars," a tune by the Buzzcocks.
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Here is the review, lifted lock, stock and barrel from allmusic:
by Rick Deming
Roky Erickson was very much a changed man when he re-emerged on the music scene in the late '70s after a deeply troubling stay in a mental institution following an arrest for drugs in 1969. The graceful but energetic proto-psychedelia of Erickson's music with the 13th Floor Elevators was replaced by a hot-wired straight-ahead rock sound which suggested an updated version of the teenaged garage pounders Roky recorded with his early group the Spades, and the charming psychobabble of Tommy Hall's lyrics with the Elevators gave way to twisted narratives documenting Roky's obsessive enthusiasm for cheezoid horror movies of the 1950s. It wasn't until 1980 that Erickson released his first solo album, and that disc has had a rather eventful history. Stu Cook (ex-Creedence Clearwater Revival) produced the sessions over a period of two years, and the album appeared in Europe as Roky Erickson & the Aliens (released by CBS in England, making it Roky's only major-label release to date), while in America it came out as The Evil One on the San Francisco indie 415 Records. The British and American releases featured different track lineups, and each version featured songs which didn't show up on the other; to complicate matters all the more, early versions of three of the songs were released on a small-label EP in France. His band, the Aliens, are in sharp, precise form; Erickson's vocals confirm he's a blues-rock belter of the first order (even when he's raving about creatures with atom brains, two-headed dogs, or the Evil One himself), and if the songs are a bit odd lyrically (which you would expect from the titles), the tunes are clever and punchy and rock on out. While the serene and evocative folk-rock of All That May Do My Rhyme represents Roky Erickson's strongest solo work, The Evil One shows just how strong a rocker he could be -- and how good a band he could put together. Great stuff, and certainly the best representation of Roky's "latter-day punk" period.
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Track List:
01. Two Headed Dog [Red Temple Prayer] [0:03:20.42]
02. I Think Of Demons [0:02:47.40]
03. Creature With The Atom Brain [0:04:13.40]
04. The Wind And More [0:04:01.05]
05. Don't Shake Me Lucifer [0:02:52.70]
06. Bloody Hammer [0:04:22.60]
07. Stand For The Fire Demon [0:05:26.50]
08. Click Your Fingers Applauding The Play [0:02:34.43]
09. If You Have Ghosts [0:03:11.62]
10. I Walked With A Zombie [0:02:49.05]
11. Night Of The Vampire [0:04:19.45]
12. It's A Cold Night For Alligators [0:03:04.28]
13. Mine Mine Mind [0:02:34.45]
14. Sputnik [0:04:39.02]
15. What Faces [0:02:35.35]
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We mean it, man.