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Roky Erickson and the Explosives |
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Written by Richard B. Simon
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Thursday, 08 March 2007 |
Great American Music
Hall
San
Francisco
March 1, 2007
Perhaps it is the inevitable consequence of living in a surreal time, but
psychedelic music is bubbling up from the sub-earth, and this year’s NoisePop
festival, San Francisco’s annual indie rock showcase – long the refuge of punk,
power pop, and psychobilly acts – made room for some psychedelic revival.
Among NoisePop’s centerpiece gigs was the return of the lesser-known
psychedelic warrior Roky Erickson (it’s pronounced “Rocky”) to San Francisco after 25
years. Erickson fronted the Texas-based 13th Floor Elevators in the early 1960s.
The pioneers of Texas-style psychedelia, their 1966 album Psychedelic Sounds Of the 13th Floor
Elevators was the first LP to adopt the term. The Elevators’ visit that year to San Francisco’s Fillmore and Avalon is often credited with
infusing the local psychedelic music scene, the domain of folk pickers like
Jorma Kaukonen and Jerry Garcia, to adopt some Texas teeth. You can hear the
raw blues energy of the 13th Floor Elevators’ “You’re Gonna Miss Me” echoed in
Big Brother’s 1968 Cheap Thrills – and throughout fellow
Texan Janis Joplin’s career, for that
matter.
After being busted for marijuana possession in 1969, Erickson pled insanity to
avoid jail time, and wound up in Texas’ Rusk State Hospital. Like McMurphy, the hero of Ken
Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s
Nest, he was subjected to experimental drugs and electroshock therapy
that left him a shadow of his former self. When he was finally released in 1973,
he started writing tunes about monsters and demons, and declared himself an
alien. He has played sporadically since, mostly close to home in Austin; a 2005 gig marked
the end of a ten-year absence from the stage.
That’s why this was probably the hottest ticket at
NoisePop, and sold out well in advance of the gig. NoisePop had also shown the
Roky biopic “You’re Gonna Miss Me” the previous night. A jubliant crowd packed
the Great American to its red walls and gilded plaster rafters for Erickson’s
return to the psychedelic epicenter, backed by the re-formed Explosives, who had
served as his band in the 80s.
The vibe was a bit like going to see the punk band X
– you knew these guys played together only very rarely; that the crowd
absolutely adored this man and his tunes, and they were extremely jazzed to see
them played live. Also, that you were in for a treat.
Erickson was
clearly a bit fragile; after he walked onstage (the crowd roared), fellow
guitarist Cam King helped him strap on his big white Gibson hollowbody. But,
grinning in a black-and-white Hawaiian-style shirt, the brown-mulleted Erickson
tore right into “Cold Night for Gators.” The tunes were quick bursts of rock, with Erickson
screamin’ the blues and trading twang with guitarist Cam King (on telecaster),
while the rhythm section (drummer Freddie Krc and bassist Chris Johnson) rocked
steady. The band wore black suits
over t-shirts. Much of the set hailed back to Erickson’s post-institution
material, chiefly The Evil One (1980), heavy on the demons
and reptiles.
The smokin’
blues “Don’t Shake Me Lucifer” recalled the 50s rock bluesmen Little Richard and
Screamin Jay Hawkins. “The
Interpreter” was proggier, with the guitarists and Johnson locking in to riff
heavy. And “The Beast” was an ominous
gospel, while the doo-wop “Starry Eyes” served as a reminder that these guys had
learned their chops in the 50s.
The band crunched behind King’s squealing tele on “I
Think Up Demons,” and the spare,
stripped down rock sound was something like Neil Young's on
Greendale and Living With War. Erickson’s nasal moan was
Neil-esque, too – or, likely, vice-versa – as was his phrasing, like on
“Creature With The Atom
Brain.”
The set-closing
“You’re Gonna Miss Me” started out stomping, and Erickson just started
screaming. It rocked and rocked, and you knew immediately where Joplin picked up her
thing. Erickson’s bandmates lifted his arm in triumph, and the crowd quickly got
them back onstage, and back to the 50s horror movies, kicking into a three-chord
shangri-la on “I Walked With a Zombie Last Night,” with King and Krc singing
doo-wops behind the ever-repeated title line.
I walked with a zombie (He
walked!)
I walked with a zombie (He
walked!)
I walked with a zombie, last
night.
At the end of it all, Erickson leaned out into the
crowd, smiling wide, reaching to shake hands. When it appeared one fan wanted a
little too much, the Explosives pulled him back in, and helped him
offstage.
Despite his legend, Erickson’s set was
not heavily psychedelic – more straight up, bare-bones rock. But it was easy to
see how this kind of heavy crunch and Texas twang infected the San Francisco scene with
some edge, some teeth with which to later respond to the ongoing war in Vietnam
that was grinding that day’s youth to bones. Erickson is certainly a missing
piece of the puzzle, connecting Joplin, Young, Hawkins and Alice Cooper, and
even ZZ Top.
San Francisco’s rising
underground psych outfit Wooden Shjips opened the show with a set of
trance-inducing mind-fuzz jams. “Start to Dreaming” was a two-chord thump, with
Nash Whalen’s red Ace Tone organ –
perched atop an old ironing board, next to a rack of effects pedals – exhaling
the melody. Fork-bearded guitarist Ripley Johnson and bassist Dusty Jermier
locked in on a 1968-flavored riff on “We Ask You to Ride,” the drums a looser
shuffle, the organ building from under the repetitive riff, before the guitar
crashed in with searing reverb. The
organ picked up the riff, then Johnson sang. Jermier and drummer Omar Ahsanuddin
played bass and drums trance while Whalen’s organ swelled and swirled and
Johnson’s guitar seared, the bass a beating heart before a final return to the
verse. On “Death’s Not Your Friend,” heavily echoed chords chopped over
sleighbells, fire sirens from the keys, ebbing and flowing as the bass and drums
thundered, then Johnson’s guitar sliced through with a hard dry tone reminiscent
of Satanic Majesties Stones.
“Loose Lips” was easily the heaviest tune all night, with Johnson’s guitar
ripping through the hard drone like sawblades.
Howlin Rain was up
next, with a more southern-fried, classic rock sound. Singer/guitarist Ethan
Miller (also of Comets on Fire), looking a bit like Duane Allman (but more like
My Name is Earl) with muttonchops and a big moustache, started right off
growling at full-bore. The
five-piece band, (also including drummer John Moloney and Drunk Horse bassist Eli Eckert,
had a fun, big band rock vibe, reminiscent at times of Delaney and Bonnie and
Friends, while some of the grooves recalled the deep pockets of David Crosby’s
If I Could Only Remember My Name
... A bit of chug, some nice dual guitar riffage, and balls-out,
Mountain-esque vocals.
Oranger played the final opening set.
Ten-year Noise Pop veterans, their
set stuck to high-energy, punk-grounded power-pop, with tight harmonies, some
keyboard freakouts and a bit of theremin. Though more traditional for a NoisePop band, their
sound was still a departure from the psych-rock lineup. The yang in the night’s yin, perhaps.
All in
all, Noise Pop’s embrace of new and classic subterranean psychedelic music bodes
well for the resurgence of rock in this young century.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 09 March 2007 )
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