KING CRIMSON

Okay.  14.  
I was still learning about the mysteries of rock then.  And all I knew of King Crimson was that they had some kind of legend about them.  So when I came across that weird-looking album with the screaming face in shades of magenta and blue, I put it on.

Whoa.

It comes crashing in with the most doom-laden, threatening attack I’ve ever heard.  

Let me digress on this for a mo’, and note that it has been at least 35 yrs since the moment I first heard “21st Century Schizoid Man”.  I’ve listened to it many times since (though very rarely in the last 33); I’ve heard many versions of it, both live versions by the original artistes and ( lame) cover versions by mettaloid meatheads.   I’ve also come to very infinite terms with artists/albums/tracks like “Sister Ray” and “Fun House” , The Birthday Party and Albert Ayler.  The original “Schizoid Man” still evokes a “holy shit!” response from me every time it kicks off.

It’s not hard to see why the metalloids would go for this one.  Crushing guitar riff, doom-laden lyrics so stripped of pretense or extraneous verbage - Blood rack barbed wire/Politicians' funeral pyre/Innocents raped with napalm fire – and the whole thing coming down in a welter of revved-up guitar/bass/drums/mellotron(!) noise that ends in one long, sustained sonic shriek.  

I’ve often wished I could go back in time and attend various gigs.  One I’d love to drop in on would be an early Crimson gig where they introduced this one, just to check the audience reaction. In 1969, only Ayler, the Velvets and the MC5 were doing anything like this.  

Yet KC were distinctly different.  Even in its most crazed moments, there’s a precision and control in their playing that’s startling.

Nothing else on the LP was like that.  The next track, “I Talk To The Wind” is a gentle, woodwind-driven bit of jazz pop with some amusing trippy-hippy lyrics (“I talk to the wind … my words are all carried away .. the wind does not hear … the wind cannot hear”), which gives way to a rather cinematic, doomy meditation on the end of the world (“the walls on which the prophets wrote are cracking at the seams”).  Side two kicks off with a limpid poem about a girl with a lot of faerie in her (“Sailing on the wind In a milk white gown/Dropping circle stones on a sun dial/Playing hide and seek with the ghosts of dawn/Waiting for a smile from a sun child”) which gives way to 10+ minutes of rather aimless noodling.  Then another cinematic, doomy ballad called “In the Court of the Crimson King”, full of medieval-pageantry imagery.  

To a 14-year-old kid with a head full of comic books, Conan, Lord of the Rings and D&D, this is heady stuff indeed.  This ended up being one of the first albums I bought in high school and for about a year I listened to it a lot for a couple of years.  

By the end of that couple of years I’d started tuning in to a late-Sunday radio show called “Stonetrek”, hosted by a minor local radio legend named Greg Stone.  Stone was a tireless promoter of prog-rock.  And, while my hat is off to him for championing non-commercial music – I have to confess my take-away from several months of Stonetrek was that (a) nothing else sounded like Court and (b) I really didn’t like prog.  

And I still don’t.
But I still liked Court.

Now, around the time I’m coming to this realization, I pick up a newspaper and see, listed as upcoming to The Old Waldorf, a sorta-famous SF showcase club, is King Crimson.

!!!!

Now this is a shock.  Because by then I knew that KC had continued for half-a-dozen albums or so after Court, then dissolved, and main man Robert Fripp had headed out to a solo career.  

Now they were playing (had played, actually) San Francisco?  Was it the original band (I knew by then KC had been through many lineup changes)?  How did this happen?

More shocks.  King Crimson would be appearing on the late-night show "Fridays", on Dec. 4 1981 (I looked it up).  Upcoming.

Dec. 4 1981 – late Friday night.  I watch in disbelief as they introduce King Crimson.  Hoping for a jaw-dropping onslaught of “Schizoid Man”.

No.  Uh-uh.  

First, some nerdy-looking dude in a polo shirt is rattling a percussion instrument I’ve never seen before and grinning.  Then the camera pans to this piratical-looking skinhead warbling on a Chapman stick (which I don’t know at the time is a Chapman stick – I don’t know what the hell it is!).  Cut then to the guitar-playing frontman.  He looks like Reddy Kilowatt.  He’s wearing a pink(!!!) suit.  He’s bleating in a voice exactly, I mean exactly, like David Byrne’s (which is not a compliment) and he shakes and shimmies around the stage while twisting weird-ass noises out of his guitar.  Meanwhile, off to the side, clad in a black suit and tie and looking like a banker, is Fripp, seated behind a bunch of machinery and rather delicately picking away.  The music is a kind of hyped-up, edgy funk.  The lyrics are nonsense.  This is supposed to be King Crimson?  Where’s the quasi-medieval-fantasy-doom stuff?  Where’s the mellotron?  Why does it sound more like Talking Heads?  What the fuck is this shit!!?!!??

I decided I hated it.  I decided Fripp was an asshole.  Other kids at school (bear in mind, at my high school listening to The Cars made you a radical and Duran Duran made you an outright freakjob) expressed even more disdain than I for this King Crimson crap.

Except that, despite hating it, some part of me kinda dug it.  

I mean, I was in heavy denial for a long time, but it stayed with me, haunted me.  Long after Court had been pushed way to the back of my record collection (where it stayed till purged out sometime in the early 90’s).  Long after I’d moved on from any interest in prog or Fripp.  Long after I’d heard more of Adrian Belew’s solo albums than I ever cared to, I remember that Fridays performance.

And Crimson retained a certain cache.  I recall talking to a friend in the 80’s – an older guy who shared my tastes all the way for Velvets/Stooges/MC5-type stuff.  We both agreed we hated prog with a passion.  But when I admitted kinda digging the first King Crimson album, even Jim had to say “well … King Crimson was always an exception….”

So what am I to say all these years later?

Well, I still hate prog.  Or not so much hate it, because in fact, like metal, prog has blasted out in so many directions that it can’t be easily mashed under one umbrella.  I do really, really loathe the souped-up bombastic neo-classical bullshit of Yes and Emerson Lake and Palmer, which is not only insufferable but seems inevitably to appeal mostly to hapless nerds who think listening to such glop-ola makes them more sophisticated and intelligent than us ignorami who prefer yer basic rawk and roll.  There’s a reason why people like this get beat up a lot as kids.

Of the rest – well, I’ve heard a lot.  And it just leaves me cold.  While there’s some impressive, even admirable musicianship going on, there’s nothing there for me to plug into.  Sorry.  That don’t move me.

But, King Crimson, well…

Court.  I find the long Greg Lake ballads pretty dull.  But I wouldn’t go so far as to call them bad.  More just overlong and slow.  Maybe the best comment would be that they represent outstanding specimens of a kind of rock song I don’t get behind.  I like “I Talk To The Wind” as a bit of slightly eerie late 60’s jazz-pop.  I like “Moonchild” even though it’s pretty much all noodling (hey, it’s kinda cool noodling).  And “Schizoid Man” remain just as powerful as when I first heard it.

And the “Fridays” appearance?  I now rate it as one of the great moments of televised rock and roll.  Musically, the `81 edition of KC was clearly doing something as radical and innovative for 1981 as Court was for 1969.  I dislike Belew’s singing as much – perhaps even more – than I did then.  But he’s a true frontman.  Odd, charismatic and he moves.  This is how you front a rock and roll band, dude.

The other thing that leaps out at me watching these again.  Yeah, the Crimson guys were all immaculate players.  And yeah, to my punk-bred thinking that’s a flashing alarm.  But there’s a key difference.  Watch.  To be sure, these guys are strutting their stuff, showing off their chops.  And yet none of it is self indulgent.  Everything is in the service of the song.  More than that, look at `em.  These guys are having the time of their life.  Check out the grin on Fripp’s face as Belew wrests pachyderm trumpets out of his guit.

What am I driving at?  Here you have quartet of pristine, ultra-high-chops musicians playing music that’s assuredly complex, intellectual and nominally “difficult”.  But also music that’s very driving, locks into groove you can shake your ass to, and rocks.  And they’re having a blast doing it.  Yeah, that is rock and roll, dude.

I may not have much use for prog, but like my old friend Jim said, King Crimson was always an exception.

DGM Live Talk official site for KC and its members/offshoots
Elephant Talk ultra-comprehensive fan site
King Crimson Allmusic
King Crimson Wiki
King Crimson RYM
Greg Stone is still active, though I'm not sure he has a show on the air at this time.  There's a discussion group for Stonetrek, too.
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Prog-Rock Underground (But Were Afraid to Ask)  - rock crit Jim DeRogatis goes against the rock-crit grain by actually liking prog, and gives a reasonable introduction here
Progressive Rock Hall of Infamy - hilarious blog by a guy who, like me, isn’t a prog fan but does like KC.  Not recommended if you’re a sensitive prog-head.  On the other hand, if you’re a prog-head who can take a joke, you might have fun here…

Essential Listening

You’ve read my thoughts on Court above.  Same goes for Discipline, the best of the 80’s Crimson albums (hardcore fans will disagree.  I find the two followups far less interesting).  Beyond that, I honestly don’t care for most of Crimson’s albums, though partisans mostly swear by Lark’s Tongue in Aspic and Red.  The only ones that call me back for further listening are Islands, which is heavily free-jazz-influenced and therefore to my tastes, the live album Earthbound from the Islands tour, which is reviled by most Crimsonistas for sound and performance but I like – and it has the most ass-kicking version of “Schizoid Man” you’re ever likely to hear, veering dangerously close to MC5/Fun House-ish freejazz intensity.  I also like the fairly normal rock songs on Fripp’s solo album Exposure.

I am not up at all on Fripp or King Crimson’s post 80’s work, so can’t comment

Essential Viewing

There are several live DVD’s out there – none of which I can comment on except that I will say the Belew-led KC seems to have always been worth a look. 

Essential Reading

In the Court of King Crimson by Sid Smith – which I haven’t read, but which seems to have won the approval of fans. 

THE 13th FLOOR ELEVATORS

No band was cooler than the 13th Floor Elevators" Ray Wylie Hubbard, "Screw You, We're from Texas" 











In the pantheon of 60’s obscurities/underground/edge-dwelling artistes (by whicht I mean Velvets, Stooges, MC5 etc – you know the drill by now) the Elevators stand out as a weirdity even in the company of the weird.  The kind of kid even the weird kids thought was a freak.  If the Velvets were trying to delineate the demimonde, the 5 fired on revolution, and The Stooges out to map the O-Mind (which I would guess as a mélange of sexually-fueled, chemically-fueled, hormonally-fueled frenzy), the Elevators were seeking the Mystical Experience, ecstasy as found via magic(k), tantric yoga, psilocybin, marijuana, LSD and mind-bending rock and roll.  I cannot attest to their success, except on that last.  Their clattering psychedelic/garage-rock is as close to the Mystical Experience as you’ll get listening to a rock`n’roll record.

The standout of the Elevators is that, for an acid-influenced band, they rocked.  There was nothing particularly folkie (live sets reveal a good chunk of their stage repertoire was Buddy Holly, Stones and Beatles covers) or pretentious about most of their music.  The songs were built off garage-y, Yardbirdsy/Kinks-like guitar riffs, slashing chords and a front-man who screamed and shrieked at odd intervals.  Famous single “You’re Gonna Miss Me” is garage-rock heaven.  Add to it their third-eye lyrical content: 

Well once , somewhere, sometime ago/His eyes were clear to see/He put his thoughts into my mind/And gave my self to be/He stopped me from living so unsane/I could be just what I want to be/And things appear as they really are/I can see just what I want to see/Oh come on, and let it happen to you…

If your limbs begin dissolving/In the water that you tread/All surroundings are evolving/In the stream that clears your head/Find yourself a caravan/Like Noah must have led/And slip inside this house as you pass by…

…this might sound pretty awful, but backed by the band’s sound, which rattled and clattered along like The Bingity Bangity School Bus if all the kids were high, or rumbled like some slow-rolling earthquake (title of appropriate song on second album) again experienced through a hallucinogenic veil.  This was Texas r&b influenced rock`n’roll filtered through rough playing, lousy production and a curtain of Texas sun-dried lysergia.  All of their records conjure up a haze of shimmering heat and fluctuating reality.  

It was Tommy Hall, a psych student and budding acid-head under the heavy influence of Gurdjieff, the General Semantics of Alfred Korzybski, the psychedelic philosophy of Timothy Leary, and Tantric meditation, who drew the band around him in `65 - Stacy Sutherland on guitar, iddim  John Ike Walton/drums and Ronnie Leatherman/bass, later replaced by Shaggy lookalike Danny Thomas (drums)(no shit – look at his pic!) and Dan Galindo (bass) (later replaced by a returning Leatherman). Hall was the band’s lead philosopher amd main lyric writer and played a jug – yeah you heardme, a jug - though Sutherland and Roky both contributed in music/lyrics department,  and Danny Thomas had big hand in arrangements.  Tommy’s wife Clementine also contributed occasional lyric/vocals/inspiration. When singer/guitarist/future legend Roky Erickson quit his old band The Spades and joined up, bringing with him his best song, “You’re Gonna Miss Me” the Elevators as we know them were complete.

Oh, the name – well supposedly it was drummer John Ike Walton who suggested “Elevators” and  Clementine who added “13th Floor” – in reference to the fact that many building do not have a designated 13th floor, but that’s not all:

(…it has been noted that the letter "M" (for marijuana) is the thirteenth letter of the alphabet … it also refers to the 13th and very last floor of the pyramid of enlightenment, where stands the "all seeing eye" or "third eye", featured prominently in the band imagery, and which, according to Roky Erickson, defines the psychedelic music itself ("it's where the pyramid meets the eye"). The number 13 traditionally refers to the beyond, to the unknown, and symbolizes the gateway to the mysterious source of Creation, sometimes referred to as the "eye of the vortex", or "Eye of God". In the human brain, the third eye relates to the pineal gland, which is activated by yogic practices, but also by the proper use of psychedelic substances, such as LSD, mescaline, and magic mushrooms[citation needed]. So, in the mystical sense, the band's name signifies that the members of the band actually serve as elevators for the audience consciousness, which is led progressively by the music and the lyrics to a state of enlightenment.”)

Are you getting that?  Welcome to the world of the Elevators, dude.

They signed to International Artists records in Houston, a Texas-fried version of ESP-DISK, apparently, who had decided to make a name for themselves by releasing the most offbeat of Texas acts available (labelmates included Red Krayola and Bubble Puppy – plus Lightnin’ Hopkins!).  Tommy Hall scrawled wild-ass sleeve notes advocating altered states of consciousness as the path to enlightenment.

“You’re Gonna Miss Me” made # 55, as the band toured Texas and the West Coast, did a bunch of TV, and played the Fillmore alongside Moby Grape, The Great Society and Quicksilver.  (I once stopped into Guitar Center and overheard some aged hippie guitar tech lecturing a customer about his experience opening for the Elevators – “they definitely couldn’t play worth shit he declared with the usual disdain aged hippies have for everything not Jerry/Jorma/Cippolina.  I really hate aged hippies)

By `67 the band was coming apart at the seams.  Stacy Sutherland had been caught in the Austin cop web and could no longer travel outside the state.  The rhythm section bailed.

The process of recording album #2 was difficult and costly.  The yield is considered by many to be their masterwork (Dylan rated the haunting cover of “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” as his favorite version [I still say Van Morrison takes that prize – but it’s still a very fine version]).  Commercially it died a death compared to the relatively popular debut.  They were still king of the mountain in Texas, but it wouldn’t last.  Revolving door membership, and Roky and Hall’s increasing distance from reality as most of us know it meant recording sessions went nowhere, and their once-powerful live shows began to dissipate.  By April `68 the band as it had been known had effectively disintegrated.  IA released a batch of demos and pisstakes with crowd noise dubbed on top as a live album.  Remaining current members gathered around guitarist Stacy Sutherland, who waxed some recordings with Ronnie Leatherman, Danny Thomas and occasionally, Roky.  This version played a few gigs but finally faded out, with Rolling Stone running an obituary at the end of `68.  Early the next year IA released the fruits of these sessions as Bull Of The Woods.  

By then Roky had been busted and was on his way to a psychiatric hospital.

Dan Galindo played with Jimmie Vaughan’s band, Storm. Danny Thomas went back to North Carolina, played in several bands, and started his own company and a family.  I believe he’s still kicking around.  Tommy Hall was living in San Francisco last I heard.  He became a Scientologist in the `70’s and was not Jandek, let it be known. He continues to seek enlightenment. Stacy Sutherland formed another band, got busted, had many troubles and eventually was killed in a domestic accident.  A sad end.  Roky of course went on to a celebrated solo career and became an icon of rock`n’roll weirdness.  

On May 10, 2015, Roky, Tommy Hall, Ronnie Leatherman and John Ike Walton performed at Austin Psych Fest (Levitation 2015). Stacy Sutherland's guitar duties were covered by Fred Mitchim and Eli Southard, with Roky’s son Jaeger adding some harp.  The show was rapturously received and can be seen on Youtube.

P.S. – according to Roky anyway, neither Janis Joplin nor Townes Van Zandt were ever seriously vying for membership.  Roky’s screaming was, apparently, a legit influence on Janis’ style.

13th Floor Elevators wiki
13th Floor Elevators Allmusic
13th Floor Elevators RYM
Lysergia (considerable info here)
Visup (blog which covers Elevators, tying them in with UFO's, CIA, etc.  I warned you...)

Essential Listening

The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators is the classic – Texas sun `n’ acid-fried garage goodness.  “You’re Gonna Miss Me” can be found here.  Also worth it for Hall’s mindwarp sleeve notes.
Easter Everywhere is generally thought to be their psychedelic classic.  I’m not as enamored of it but I am fond of it, and if you’re a fan it’s a must-have, esp. for “Levitation”, “Slip Inside This House” and “Earthquake.” Bull of the Woods is more problematic – one of those not bad but not really memorable albums – I always have to dig it out to refresh my memory as to what I did or didn’t like about it.  In many ways this is the work of a different band, basically a Stacy Sutherland project – yet it retains a certain Elevators-ish flavor through its rather laid-back acid-country ramble.  None of its bad, but the only track I get excited about is the feedback and organ -drenched hymn “Will the Circle Remain Unbroken” sung by Roky.  Coming at the end of an album drenched in a sense of sadness, exhaustion and loss, it sounds like a fitting final farewell to the band, the music, and the era.  All of the above can be had on The Albums Collection – which also includes the pitiful “live” album IA foisted on the public.  For $20 it’s a good deal.

For live Elevators, you’re better off seeking out Texas Archive’s 80’s issues Fire In My Bones and Elevator Tracks  - the former includes a whole side from a local TV show, including a very strong “Fire Engine” and a hilarious interview with Tommy Hall re: the jug, as well as a blistering live take of “She Lives (In A Time Of Her Own)” recorded with members of fellow Texans Conqueroo sitting in, and the title track, an outtake that’s a straightforward (and good) blues.  The latter has the unreleased “I Don’t Ever Want To Come Down” and “Make That Girl Your Own” – both of which are gems and deserve hearing, and some less interesting live stuff.  These are both OP but not expensive.  Warning: all of the live sets that have surfaced feature the band mostly doing covers of Stones/Beatles/Kinks/Buddy Holly, and only a handful of their originals.

Essential Reading

Eye Mind: The Saga of Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators, The Pioneers of Psychedelic Sound by Paul is a book I can’t say enough good things about.  Covrering not only the history of the band and members up to the present day, but also the Texas rock and roll scene and the alternative lifestyle/counterculture of 60’s Texas in great depth, plus intelligent analyses of the music – it’s one of the best band bios I’ve ever read, hands down.

ROKY ERICKSON

Okay, let's get it straight.

We're talking here about a guy who plays badass rock and roll - rootsy, raw, harsh guitar - not quite what you'd call "punk" - or call it punk from the old school.  Imagine CCR crossed with Black Sabbath's "Paranoid".  We're talking about a guy steeped in Buddy Holly who can write and sing the best Holly pastiches to be had (and that's a major compliment from me).  We're talking about a guy who can sing sweet and gentle, again, ala Holly, and beautifully - or cut loose with a banshee howl that would chill the spine of any heavy metal shrieker. We're talking about a guy who made a rep singing about "all manner of occult and demonic beings - backed by some tremendously hard-hitting rock & roll" (Rolling Stone) - though this is only part of his output. We're talking about a guy who's made at least four albums worth of consistent, excellent, ass-kicking, hard rootsy-rock.

And we're talking about a guy who's pedigree includes writing one of the most seminal and famous garage rock anthems, "You're Gonna Miss Me", being a prime mover in one of the most legendary of all 60's underground bands, associations with Lightnin' Hopkins, Doug Sahm, Jack Johnson of the Flamin' Groovies, Stu Cook of CCR, Lou Ann Barton, and King Coffey of the Butthole Surfers.

And we're talking about a guy who beat back decades of serious health issues and is now back touring,

recording, and rocking like a madman, seemingly healthier than ever and with all his skills intact.

Roky's actual output isn't that extensive - an albums worth of singles and EP's in the late 70's, basically an album-and-a-half with the Aliens in the early 80's, a couple more EP's or EP's worth of tracks after that, and one more album in `86 - add a few scattered singles and recordings and that's about it (not counting his newest).  But it's all consistent - good to great. Even though some of the later releases tend to be hodge-podges of tracks recorded at different times, with different bands and in varying styles, the songs themselves are always solid.  (Note here, I am speaking of the main body of Roky releases, and not the dizzying array of rehearsal tapes and demos that have spawned over the years. )

So the bottom line is - Roky rocks!

And that is the reason to pay attention to him.  Not because of the Elevators, Rusk, his health problems or even his horror-movie obsession.  No, Roky's important cuz he's a great rocker.  All the rest is just so much hugger-mugger.

Roky Erickson
Roky Erickson Wiki
Roky Erickson Allmusic
Roky Erickson RYM

Essential Listening

The main recordings by Roky and the Aliens, originally on the LP's Roky Erickson and the Aliens and The Evil One are now collected on The Evil One.  This is a good album, but marred by stiff performances (esp. in the riddim section) and flat, 80's production.  I guess producer Stu Cook had a little too much gentle hippie in him to capture the full fury.  Live versions of all but a couple of these songs, with The Explosives, are collected on Casting the Runes and Halloween, and are highly recommended.

I wish someone would put out a single CD with Roky's late 70's singles and EP's - I know it would make a good one cuz I made one myself.  The first 7" "Red Temple Prayer (Two Headed Dog)" b/w "Starry Eyes", the furious rocker "Click Your Fingers Applauding the Play", "Mine Mine Mind" and a gorgeous solo ballad "I Have Always Been Here Before" from the 1977 Sponge EP Two Headed Dog can be found on I Have Always Been Here Before, a fine collection of solo and Elevators tracks.  It does not include the title track from the EP (a very fine version of the song, however), but does include both sides the follow-up single "Bermuda" b/w "The Interpreter".  Several live cuts with his then-current backing band, Bleib Alien, can be found on Gremlins Have Pictures, an odd but enjoyable collection of rarities.  Best of them is the otherwise very rare "Before in the Beginning", recorded live in the Bay Area in `78 or so.  It sounds more like an Elevators track than anything else in Roky's solo catalog.

I Have Always Been Here Before also contains much of the best of Roky's post-Aliens recordings, including most of his 1985 Clear Night for Love EP, the one-off single "The Beast" and the two best tracks from the disappointing 1986 Don't Slander Me, a mostly slick, stiff, and overproduced bummer.  Unfortunately, it misses the best track from Clear Night, a screaming rocker called "The Haunt" which I rate among Roky's very best.  It can be heard on All That May Do My Rhyme, an odd collection of 80's and 90's recordings which includes all of the Clear Night EP.  Also missed is "The Damn Thing" from Slander.

There's a score of live Roky out there.  The best I've heard are the aforemention Casting the Runes and Halloween, which have superior bootleg-level sounds and terrific performances - the band rocks like a mother and Rok is in full howl throughout.  There's some overlap between the two but enough worthwhile to get both. Beauty and the Beast, recorded in the early 80's with The Resurrectionists, is also pretty rockin' and pretty fine.  Gremlins has a terrific Explosives-backed performances of "Heroin" - yes, the Velvets song.  There's also a truly crazed live version of same backed by Evil Hook Wildlife, as the b-side of "The Beast" single.  There's a Roky + Evil Hook Wildlife collection too, Evil Hook Wildlife ET, but it's inferior to the other live sets I've mentioned.  All the other live Roky sets I've heard (and I've heard most of them) are basically inferior-bootleg level and none of them shines like the titles above.  The same goes for the multiple collections of demos, rehearsals and hotel room tapes that have emerged over the years, none of which are even close to essential.  Basically there's nothing there unless you're determined to own every Roky recording extant.

Essential Reading

I can't comment on the collectible Roky Erickson Story by Jack Ortman, "365 pages of photocopied news articles, letters, lyrics, posters etc. pertaining to Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators." - but it's probably very cool if you have the cash.

Meantime, Paul Drummond's Eye Mind: The Saga of Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators will do, though it's primarily focused on the Elevators, Roky's post-Elevators career is well covered and the book is fascinating.

I would be remiss in not mentioning Openers II, a collection of Roky's lyrics.

Essential Viewing

I haven't seen any of these but they've been well-reviewed:

You're Gonna Miss Me: A Film About Roky Erickson chronicles Roky's story, his struggles with illness, and his comeback in the 00's.

Night of the Vampire - live in 2008 with The Black Angels

Demon Angel is a VHS-only oddity - Roky in the early 80's, performing with an electric guitar in what appears to be a cave(!) and being interviewed while riding around in a car, etc.  Odd but interesting. This one I have seen, obviously.

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FAIRPORT CONVENTION

FC are one of the stranger sixties rock hero stories.  They’ve had a nearly 50 –year ride, yet pretty much all the essential stuff occurred in one two-year period – 1969-1970 – which doesn’t even encompass their first couple years together.  And though all but two of the original principals are still alive and active, none of those original principals is still part of the band (or has been for more than a decade).  The important Fairport essentially ceased to exist after 1970, despite an attempt at revival.  Yet they’ve kept shooting out sparks all the way to 2015.

Fairport first landed on my radar, as they did most of us (then) young Amurricans via Richard Thompson.  It was a 1983 review of his Hand of Kindness LP that got my attention – I’d never heard of Thompson, nor the “late, lamented” (as the rev put it) Fairport Convention.  Those were the days when I paid a lot of attention to what rockcrits said – look, there was no other roadmap, and Thompson/Fairport weren’t the sort of thing to turn up on AOR in them times.  A perusal of The New Rolling Stone Record Guide (1983 edition) yielded the following by Greil Marcus no less:

“The most distinctive and satisfying folk-rock LPs since the Byrds’ first. Emerging in the late Sixties, the English Fairports were built around singer Sandy Denny and guitarist/vocalist Richard Thompson; they combined a timeless lyricism, an archivist’s purism, rock & roll punch, Cajun good times, superb original songs and a sense of humor that led to marvelously idiosyncratic readings of obscure Dylan tunes. Their emotional commitment to their material was extraordinary. Had the Band been British, this is what it might have sounded like.”

It’s Marcus.  You know he’d have to slot a Band ref in there, right?  At least he didn’t compare them to Randy Newman or Elvis.  At least.

Reeeeeegardless, this is an accurate snapshot of the second and third Fairport albums.   The earliest Fairport was, in fact, modeled (consciously/unconsciously) on Jefferson Airplane, right down to twin male/female lead singers (Iain Matthews/Judy Dyble), hot shit lead guitar (Richard Thompson) and a draw from contemporary, and I should stress, largely American, folk songsters (heavy on the Joni Mitchell – who was not a known quantity in Britain at the time, and Dylan, who was a known quantity everywhere – and throw in Richard Farina, Jackson C. Frank, Eric Andersen, Leonard Cohen et al).  Add in a dash of the blues and a dose of The Byrds via Thompson’s (w)ringing guitar and you’ve got Fairport Mk I.

But it was Mk II that counted.  When Judy Dyble got dumped for up-and-coming folk princess Sandy Denny, several things happened.  (1) they had a strong, distinctive lead singer (Matthews soon became superfluous in Denny’s wake) (2) they had a charismatic front-woman (3) they had a strong in-house songwriter (Denny again – she brought her own “Who Knows Where the Time Goes” just for starts) (4) they began to inject the trad British folk that Denny had been singing solo into their rep – a step that would come to define them for future (5) guitarist Thompson had someone to egg him on both as guit virtuoso and songwriter (Thompson’s originals and playing on album one – which featured the Dyble line-up – are interesting, but barely an inkling of what would come).

The result was attention both commercial and critical, on both sides of the pond (see Marcus comments, above).  

Two albums out in `69, critical attention, a couple hits.  Nice momentum.  It all came to a halt in May when they crashed the band’s van, killing drummer Martin Lamble.  The short-term effects were minor – they recruited new drummer Dave Mattacks and trad fiddler Dave Swarbrick, a highly respected musician who, though older than the other Fairporteers, was young and hip enough to dig rocking up folk material electrically, and carried on with an album made up mostly (3/8) of traditional Celtic Childe ballads-type material.  Critics were a little disappointed, feeling the album was well-made but that Fairport were better off with contemporary, and in-house, material.  They weren’t necessarily wrong.  The whole album is good, but 3 of the 4 strongest cuts are Thompson’s “Farewell Farewell”,  Thompson/Swarbrick’s “Crazy Man Michael” and Denny/Hutchings’ “Come All Ye”.  No matter.  The album was a hit and majorly influential and put Fairport on the commercial and cultural map like never before-o.

The long term effects then kicked in.  Matthews had bailed pre-crash to form Matthew’s Southern Comfort.  Now Hutchings split to form The Albion Band.  Then Denny quit to form Fotheringay.  Fairport, now down to Thompson, Swarbrick, new bass player Dave Pegg and Mattacks (Thompson and Simon Nicol being the only founding members left) recorded the well-received follow-up Full House and toured the US, with Thompson really stepping out on guit and vocals.  And then he was gone, too.  

And that, effectively, was the end of Fairport’s important phase.  

It wasn’t the end of Fairport, mind you.  Swarbrick, Pegg, and (usually) Mattacks (and ultimately, Simon Nicol, too) soldiered on with a revolving door of replacement members, including, ultimately, most of Fotheringay including Sandy Denny herself for a couple of years.  Though they managed some good live shows (cf. Fairport Live Convention) with Sandy, she was past her peak and would soon enough be gone again, back to her solo career and then demise.  By `79 even Swarbrick was burned out and the band called it a day.  For awhile.

The band had been doing regular annual gigs at Cropredy, a village in Oxfordshire where Dave Pegg lived(s?).  They kept them up, every year, eventually moving to grounds outside the village (and occasionally elsewhere).  The Cropredy Festival has become a major showcase for Celtic folk/rock, and has even expanded to include outsiders (such as … Alice Cooper!)  By the latter half of the 80’s Nicol/Pegg/Mattacks had revived Fairport as a going concern.  

Alas, for poor Fairport, though – they never moved beyond, or even caught up with, Full House.  Instead, they’ve largely followed that road ever since – mix some electrified traditional numbers with some folk-ish originals.  If you have a great love of Celtic folk-rock, then the remainder of the Fairport catalog may be fine wine … none of the albums I’ve heard are bad.  

But the fact is, they never could adequately replace Denny and Thompson as writers or performers.  Hey, Swarb may be to Celtic folk-rock fiddler what Thompson is to the guitar, and he seems to be an all-around swell guy.  But he never became a songwriter in Thompson/Denny’s class, nor did any of the other members, fine musicians though they may all be.

Fairport Convention
Fairport Convention wiki
Fairport Convention Allmusic
Fairport Convention RYM

Essential Listening

The essential Fairports are What We Did On Our Holidays, Unhalfbricking, Liege and Lief and Full House.  Period.

Of the rest - the pre-Holidays debut album is an interesting curiosity but not much more - thinly and flatly produced, interesting but not truly memorable songs, only the tiniest hints of Thompson's guitar style, as yet undeveloped at that time.  It's the sort of well-intentioned album you wish was better than it was.  The Cropredy Box features the two best songs, "Time Will Show the Wiser" and "Jack O' Diamonds", performed live with Thompson on guitar/vox, and the jump in quality is quantum - these are worth hearing.

There are no audience recordings of the original Denny-era Fairport live, but there are a number of BBC appearances, collected on Live at the BBC. I actually like the BBC versions of "Tam Lin" (more Thompson!), "Percy's Song" and "Who Knows Where the Time Goes" better than the LP versions.  (Heyday is a condensed version of BBC.  And alas, misses those performances).  There is also Fairport Live Convention, a 1974 Sydney gig, featuring a later incarnation of Fairport with Denny back on board.  It's got a good "Matty Groves", a nice version of Swarbrick's "Rosie", a definitive "John the Gun" from Denny's solo albums, and a stomping cover of Dylan's "Down in the Flood".  The best live Fairport is captured on House Full, a live set from the L.A. Troubadour with the Full House lineup.  Thompson and Swarbrick turn "Matty Groves", "Sloth", and most of the rest of Full House including two outtakes ("Poor Will and the Jolly Hangman" and "Sir Patrick Spens") into full-fledged duels, pushing each other to play faster, harder, wilder, spinning their solos into shrieking demonic wails while the band pounds behind them like The Ramones.  Awesome stuff.

Post Thompson-Denny, there have been some 60 albums under the Fairport name - studio albums, live albums, etc.  I've listened to enough to know that I don't care to listen to them all, though none I've heard are actually bad, and some are obviously better than others.  Rosie has the title track, a nice Swarbrick country love song.  Rising For The Moon, with Denny back at the helm briefly, has some nice tracks, but is closer to a Denny solo album.  Moat on the Ledge, an `81 reunion gig has Thompson on board, and rocks pretty hard.  Gottle O' Geer is a rather lifeless and forgettable slab.  These and other might be worth exploring to hardcore Fairport-phile.

Essential Viewing

Fairport Convention: Maidstone 1970 contains some brief, but very rare, footage of the Thompson/Swarbrick-led Fairport, and is therefore worth a look.  Also includes footage of Matthews' Southern Comfort.

It All Comes 'Round Again is a documentary about the band that came out in `87.  It's apparently never made it to DVD.

Essential Reading 

I haven't read , Meet on the Ledge: Fairport Convention – The Classic Years by Patrick Humphries, but his book on Richard Thompson is good.  There's also The Woodworm Era, the Story of Today's Fairport Convention by Fred Redwood and Martin Woodward - which I also have not read.

RICHARD (and LINDA) THOMPSON

“Imagine encountering, here in the Eighties, someone who had never heard of Jimi Hendrix, who had never been moved by the great singers and session groups of golden-age Motown, or who, by whatever unimaginable means, had managed to remain incognizant of the collected musical masterworks of Lennon and McCartney.  Every guitar player should own this album, if only to hear Richard's skirling Stratocaster intro to "Calvary Cross," and his compact, utterly unpredictable solos on such songs as "When I Get to the Border." Singers will be wonder-struck by Linda's stunning readings of "Withered and Died" and the sublime "Down Where the Drunkards Roll," not to mention the rollicking title track, a pure-pop pinnacle for the pair. And enemies of sentiment can savor Richard's hard-nosed lyrical stance, most striking on "The End of the Rainbow," a chilling lullaby in which he advises the dozing infant: "There's nothing at the end of the rainbow/There's nothing to grow up for anymore."  

So wrote Kurt Loder in an evocative 1984 Rolling Stone review of indie label Carthage’s re-ish of Richard and Linda Thompson’s 70’s back catalog.  If that isn’t the sort of thing that makes ya’ll want to scurry off to the nearest CD store, cash in hand, then friend, you’re probably reading the wrong blog.

RT isn’t all that ob-scure today.  He’s a critics darling and celebrated cult artist, and not only is his back catalog readily available, so is a host of live recordings, outtakes, videos, boxed-sets et al.  Once “scandalously unavailable” (thanks Sr. Christgau), Thompson is highly visible and eminently approachable, if you’ve the inclination.

You should, because Loder is right.  Any guitar-head who loves, say, Marquee Moon is going to collapse into a state of orgasmic ecstasy upon entering Thompson-land. Think a mega-dose of Bert Jansch/Davey Graham-esque DAGDAD Celtic/mid-eastern drone, pumped up with equal parts Scotty Moore/James Burton pure rock`n’roll drive.   If songwriting’s your bag, Thompson’s writing is always literate, witty, sometimes very funny, and other times deals in blasted truths so harsh and unflinching that even Lou Reed would likely wince.

RT’s story begins with legendary British folk-rockers Fairport Convention – a story in itself, but which I’ll condense mightily here.  Fairport essentially kicked off as an Anglo Jefferson Airplane, right down to configuration (dual lead singers, male and female) and material (mostly folkie stuff, covers of notable songsmiths including Dylan, a few similarly-minded originals) and a weird sensa humor.  And, like the Airplane, the band found definition when they ousted original female singer Judy Dyble for Sandy Denny, equivalent to Grace Slick in rep, vocal prowess , charisma and songwriting ability.  Thompson sat in Jorma’s seat.  But as early as their second outing, 19769’s What We Did On Our Holidays, he was also showing himself as a songwriter of real intelligence and originality.  “Take the sun from my heart/Let me learn to despise” crooned the chorus at the opening of “Tale in Hard Time”.  But it was Thompson’s “Meet On the Ledge”, an aching, heartbreaking meditation on love, friendship, loss, mortality and the afterlife that dropped the bomb.  There’d simply never been anything quite like it.  “Ledge” remains Fairport’s signature song, long after Thompson’s departure from the band a little over two years after waxing it.

By the time of that departure, Thompson had lived up to his promise as a writer and was honing his guitar attack to a razors edge – you can hear him duke it out with violinist Dave Swarbrick on House Full: Live at the Troubdour and various bootlegs.  In `72 he cut the bizarre, ultra-eclectic Henry the Human Fly, a collection of originals that spanned various forms of Celtic folk, art song, and pure if peculiarly British rock`n’roll.  Henry picked up the occasional favorable review and influenced those few weirdos (David Thomas of Pere Ubu was/is a major fan) who managed to get their hands on it while going down as the worst-selling album in the label’s history.  Thompson kept it together by doing sessions and marrying Linda Peters.  As Richard and Linda Thompson, they started build a formidable rep on the folk circuit - "Thompson could stun from 50 paces with a frenzy of unfeasibly nimble fretwork, while Linda - was capable of sending a sliver of ice into your heart."

Being a big deal on the British folk circuit made them big-ish fish in a small-ish pond.  But their three album for Island  I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight, Honkey Pokey (both `74) and Pour Down Like Silver (`75) got them attention beyond the green and pleasant shores.  " Most folk-rock succeeds only in accentuating the irretrievability of the past, but the Thompsons' hard-nosed Sufi fatalism delivers them from nostalgia. When they sing about getting "to the border," they're talking about dying, not smuggling weed from Mexico, and they make the crossing sound like an earthly triumph ("drowned in a barrel of wine" indeed). Because they believe in eternity, the Thompsons don't sentimentalize about time gone--they simply encompass it in an endless present – wrote Christgau of Bright Lights.  Hokey Pokey was an enjoyable transition, but it was the last that was their first  masterpiece, a dazzling collection of devotional songs that could pass for love songs even if you looked close.  The combination of shimmering guitar work, fearless songs of longing and desire (for eternity, love, transcendence, all of the above and more) and their one-two punch vocal team-up made for the best rock`n’roll to come out of the UK until Johnny Rotten grabbed a mike (which happened, I might add, at the very same time this gem was recorded and released).

None of this translated into big record sales or fame, though.  And the Thompsons, having converted to Sufism, chose to leave the material world behind for a time, dropping out to live in a Sufi commune, where Richard would only make music for and with the faithful.
Fortunately for us fans, it didn’t last.  After a few years without such real-world illusions as electricity and running water, Linda decided it was time to return to the secular world, dragging her perhaps reluctant hubby with her.  Their re-entry was tentative at first – First Light and Sunnyvista are the two weakest offings in the Thompson oeuvre.  This is not, however, to say they’re actually bad – both contain some fine moments and Sunnyvista’s best tracks rock.  The real bomb was yet to drop, though.

Having now flopped for three labels, the Thompsons weren’t exactly seen as a hot prospect.  Even hit producer Gerry Rafferty couldn’t find a taker for their latest recording – an album Richard intensely disliked.  When that chance died, the Thompson’s signed with producer Joe Boyd’s tiny new Hannibal label and quickly recorded a new album, mostly made up of songs from the unreleased Rafferty album.

Shoot Out the Lights changed everything.  First, it sold -  better than anything they’d ever done, probably a result of the second factor, which is that it was widely and ecstatically reviewed even in such places as Rolling Stone and The Village Voice.  It made pretty much everyone’s best-of-the-year list for 1982.  And it deserved to.  Lights was a collection of powerfully compelling songs, driven by the usual suspects (hot guitar, superb, mature songwriting and potent singing), but here turned up to eleven.  The teaming of Linda’s chilling vocals and Richard’s shards-of-broken-glass guitar on “Walking On A Wire”, the deceptively calm meditation of “Just the Motion”, the driving rock of “Don’t Renege On Our Love” and the joyous doom-laden “Wall Of Death” and the guitar flip-out of the title track … this was Richard and Linda firing on all cylinders.  They’d always been a treasure – now they were undeniable.  

And they were also over.  The success of the album all but forced them into their first US tour, a now-legendary affair in which the Thompsons icily faced away from each other while harmonizing on the songs of broken love and betrayal that filled Lights – that is when they weren’t actively sniping at each other.  The onstage dissolution of their marriage might have been spectacle – odd for RT, a devoutly religious, introverted, achingly shy, teetotaling, non-leather-wearing vegetarian – hardly the stuff of bad-ass rockin’ and rollin’ – but the music, captured on bootlegs, was often extraordinary as the Thompsons, abetted by old mates Pete Zorn and ex-Fairporteers Simon Nicol and Dave Mattacks, stormed through songs from Lights, highlights from their rich back catalog, the occasional Fairport chestnut, and stompin’ rock`n’roll encores courtesy of the Everly Bros., Jerry Lee Lewis and Conway Twitty (“Danny Boy”!).

The whole thing left Richard, now a cause celebre, as a hot property even if he was hardly Top 40.  Next year’s Hand Of Kindness, sans Linda, was a rollicking collection of Cajun-style r`n’r stomps filtered through the usual Celtic sensibility.  It too made numerous year-end best-ofs, and landed him a new signature tune, the romping “Tear-Stained Letter”.  That and another US tour finally put him on the map and now, 11 years after bailing on Fairport, Thompson was officially a cult artist of no little renown, covered and praised in all the music rags.  By `85 he was signed to a major again.

Kurt Loder would write of RT’s next release, Across A Crowded Room, “by any standard other than his own it's a very fine record, replete with rollicking rhythms, master-class guitar excursions and piercing lyrical apercus. However, longtime Thompson listeners may find that, compared to much of his past work — particularly the six superb studio albums he recorded with his ex-wife, singer Linda Thompson — Across a Crowded Room is faintly disappointing. Such are the burdens of inveterate brilliance.  Those unfamiliar with Thompson's work are invited to dismiss all of the above as purist nit-picking. Across a Crowded Room remains a compendium of expertly constructed songs, played and sung with real heart and recorded with an exciting, live-in-the-studio crackle. Rare is the artist from whom such excellence can come to seem a letdown.”  

Which, in a nutshell, sums up RT ever since.  He tours regularly and reliably puts out an album every 2-4 years, for the majors until 1999 and a series of indies since.  He’s put out 13 studio albums since 1983 and all of them are good to very good, each of them contains at least 2-3 very memorable songs and usually at least one real treasure or near-treasure.  Some are stronger than others.  He’s also released a plethora of live recordings, one three-disk set, tow boxed sets (one a career retrospective, the other entirely made up of outtakes), and several DVD’s.  He regularly turns up on tribute albums and specials (and has been the subject of several himself).  He’s generally regarded as a musician’s musician.  He’s never bad, though at worst he can be a little dull and predictable, falling back on musical and lyrical tropes he now handles effortlessly.   He rarely hits it out of the park, but he can still hit a homer.  Thompson’s assembled a catalog of good-to-great albums, and that’s no small thing.  

Richard Thompson
Allmusic
Wiki

Essential Listening

The cream of the RT crop, album-wise, are Shoot Out the Lights, I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight, Pour Down Like Silver and Hand of Kindness.  Lights is the most potent, Bright Lights the most "Celtic", Hand the most rockin' and Silver, though less immediately accessible than its brethren, is the most rewarding over time.  The weird but charming Henry the Human Fly comes on the heels of those.

The rest of the Linda-era albums are spottier.  Hokey Pokey, which arrived `tween Bright Lights and Silver, is half an album as good as its brothers and half throwaways.  The good stuff includes "The Egypt Room", "I'll Regret It All In The Morning" and the title track, a paean to ice cream or oral sex - take your pick.  First Light is the least interesting Thompson album to these ears - sub-standard songs, rather lifelessly performed and too-slickly produced.  Sunnyvista is tougher and rocks pretty hard, but again, is half a good album and half filler.  "Borrowed Time" is one of RT's best rockers and the rollicking cajun hoedown "Saturday Rolling Around" are the standouts.

Post-Linda and post-Hand of Kindness, the highlights are Across A Crowded Room which, despite inspiring Kurt Loder's hesitant praise, is consistent and has held up well.  The eerie "Ghosts in the Wind", "When the Spell is Broken" and the very strange "Love In A Faithless Country" are essential RT listening.  Daring Adventures, the follow-up, is nearly as good; the celt-o-billy "Valerie" is another great rocker, and closer "Al Bowlly's in Heaven" is one of Thompson's finest hours.

After that complacency sets in.  All of Thompson's from `89's Amnesia on are worth hearing, all contain some fine tracks, all spotlight his talents and virtues expertly and none really blows me away.  Mock Tudor (1999) tops my list and 2005's Front Parlour Ballads is bottom.  Everything else falls somewhere in between.  If you like Thompson, you'll find things to like on all of them (I do, and I do).  

There are many live Thompson albums now, though once they were a rare beast.  I haven't heard them all but any live Thompson is probably worth hearing (and he's definitely worth seeing perform).  I'm partial to the solo, acoustic Small Town Romance, recorded on Thompson's first solo US tour.  Apparently I'm not the only one.  Though Thompson famously dislikes the album and had it deleted from the catalog, he allowed it to be restored due to popular demand.  A fistful of Linda-era live tracks which originally appeared on the Guitar, Vocal compilation, specifically a  romping cover of Jerry Lee Lewis' "It'll Be Me", a stunning take on Dan Penn's "Dark End Of The Street" and a hypnotic, overpowering "Night Comes In" can now be found as bonus tracks on the Pour Down Like Silver and Hokey Pokey CD's.  

There's also a plethora of compilations.  Most noteworthy is the three-disc Watching the Dark, which mixes a handful of album tracks with some real winners - "Crash the Party", an original rocker used to close out shows in the late 80's, the stunning ballad, "From Galway to Graceland", a driving alt take of "For Shame Of Doing Wrong", and a powerful live take of "When the Spell is Broken", among others, making this a close-to-essential set.  The later, 5-CD RT is all unreleased stuff - live stuff, alt takes and never-before heard.  Its a lot of fun but probably only for the committed Thompson-ite (of couse, I have it...).  Walking On Wire is an attempt at box set career retrospective.  Good stuff, but if you're interested in Thompson, go for the original albums first.  If you become an aficionado, you won't need this set anyway.  On the other hand, the very rare Doom and Gloom From the Tomb Vol. 1, a cassette-only set sent out as a gift to subscribers to Thompson's fan club in the 80's, has some essential finds, including a storming live "Cavalry Cross", a cover of "I'll Keep It With Mine", and demo versions of stuff from First Light that slay the released versions.  Good luck finding but its worth the search.

Thompson's Fairport days are covered on their first five albums, the best of which is 1969's Liege and Lief.  The compilation Chronicles, which replaces the fine two-LP set,  contains most of what's best on the rest, including most of Thompson's best Fairport moments, and the obscure "Poor Will and the Jolly Hangman", which Thompson left off his final Fairport album, Full House (it has now been re-added as a bonus track on the CD).  His most exciting moments with Fairport are captured on the live House Full album, which contains intense performances of much of the best of the later Fairport stuff, and some savage dueling between Thompson's guit and Dave Swarbrick's fiddle.

Essential Reading

Richard Thompson: The Biography by Patrick Humphries covers Thompson life and music up to 1996 quite well.  

Essential Viewing 

There are now several live DVD's.  You can check them out here.  I haven't seen any of them, but live Thompson is almost always worthwhile.  One I have seen, and it's quite worthwhile is Across A Crowded Room - Live in Concert 1985.  I saw that tour and it's a fond memory.  Thompson hasn't fit to issue it on DVD yet, though.