Gremlins Have Pictures - Roky Erickson

Those wonderful people at Rykodisc deserve to be thanked for putting out these Roky Erickson CD's because they are great and thanks to TrustRoky a trust fund set up to protect his well being he will actually get the money for these releases, something that due to unscrupulous record company practices is a real rarity these days .

This CD contains recordings of Roky on his own, other people and with his backing bands The Aliens and ...
...record have to include "A Cold Night For Alligators" apparently inspired by the horror movie "Alligator People" this is a great piece of garage rock and would wet the palette of any 13th Floor Elevators fan. "Night Of The Vampire" during which Rocky's vocal sounds positively possessed here as he strains his way through the song, which is an epic piece of rock. During which the lead guitar meanders through dark territory ... more

Those wonderful people at Rykodisc deserve to be thanked for putting out these Roky Erickson CD's because they are great and thanks to TrustRoky a trust fund set up to protect his well being he will actually get the money for these releases, something that due to unscrupulous record company practices is a real rarity these days .

This CD contains recordings of Roky on his own, other people and with his backing bands The Aliens and The Explosives respectively.

The highlights of this record have to include "A Cold Night For Alligators" apparently inspired by the horror movie "Alligator People" this is a great piece of garage rock and would wet the palette of any 13th Floor Elevators fan. "Night Of The Vampire" during which Rocky's vocal sounds positively possessed here as he strains his way through the song, which is an epic piece of rock. During which the lead guitar meanders through dark territory in a very hypnotic fashion. "Song To Abe Lincoln" a folky number partly about the exhumation of Abe Lincoln's body in 1958, a fairly Bob Dylan type affair but oh so much more confusing that that and far better too even though I am a big Dylan fan. "Anthem" A beautiful and tender acoustic folk number depicting Satan coming to earth, quite of lot of it is sung in code which Rocky refuses to reveal. It also contains the lyric "The square root of 0 is something smaller than 0" which is a pretty amazing lyric especially for those of us used to working with imaginary numbers. The main highlight has to be the haunting "I Am" with it's amazing slide guitar part, the song appears to be in part a love song to Satan so would probably upset a few Christians there, but you should not take anything Roky says too literally.

Musically it is difficult to catogorise this album due to the wide range of musical styles covered here. There is almost a bit of everything, a bit of folk, a bit of R & B and a bit of rock, the only consistent factor being Roky's songwriting. Here you can see why he is so highly respected by the likes of everyone from R.E.M through to the Butthole Surfers and as a fan of his music I would say that this is an essential purchase and an awesome place for anyone to start looking.

Track list

1. Night Of The Vampire
2. Interpreter
3. Song To Abe Lincoln
4. John Lawman
5. Anthem
6. Warning
7. Sweet Honey Pie
8. Cold Night For Alligators
9. I Am
10. Heroin
11. I Have Always Been Here Before
12. Before In The Beginning
13. Bermuda (bonus track)
14. Burn The Flames (bonus track)
15. I'm A Demon (bonus track)
16. Beast (bonus track)
 

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