The Sixties Are Back?

Roky at the Roxy. He looks like such a nice gentle guy, but his lyrics are filled with visions of demons and evil.

The last few months, I’ve been bombarded with bands from the 60’s that I had never seen.  And, I thought I never would see most of them.  Some hadn’t had a hit for 40 years, some had never had a hit, and some had broken up long ago and haven’t recorded anything new.

Surprisingly, most of the bands I’ve seen so far this year, although older, fatter and with less hair (looks in mirror), still are making great music, still sound great and were well worth going to see.

The one I most wanted to see was Roky Erickson, ex leader of the 13th Floor Elevators.  When I first discovered him, in the late 70’s, the Elevators were already gone, and the main thing that was known about him was that he wasn’t doing music and was more or less a recluse and pretty much crazy.  Still, in the 80’s and 90’s he recorded some great records.  The Evil One stands up pretty well against the Elevators.  I had seen that he played every now and then, but never anywhere near me that I knew of (except when I heard about the shows after the fact).  Finally, living in LA, I found out in advance and bought a ticket to see him.

His voice is the same.  There’s no mistaking it.  And, happily, most of what he played was either from the Elevators or the Evil One eras.  And the band sounded great.  Roky kind of just stood there, almost like a buddha, but with a lot more hair.  But the quality of the voice and the power behind it was still there.  The show was great and I left a happy camper.

I’ll save some of the other bands for another post… hopefully it won’t take me years to get back to this blog.