OFF: Roky Erickson in today's Guardian

[Jonathan Jarrett]

On Fri, Jun 08, 2007 at 11:25:17AM +0100, Iain Ferguson typed out:
> I cant wait to see him, any others going....

	I did go, and it was pretty fun. He didn't come over like a 
sixty-year-old with a past more troubled than almost any rock musician 
ever, though, he came over like a happy healthy forty-five year-old with 
a slight lyrical obsession about the Devil and zombies. The band was 
very relaxed. It seemed to be the same people and sound as on the 
_Casting the Runes_ bootleg which Andy Gilham made me get years and 
years ago, and a lot of the same material, but not quite as edgy. They 
knew they could handle it, why sweat the extra to get it to 11, seemed 
to be the operating basis. Roky took some guitar leads, very metrical 
and played facing the drummer with feet firmly planted, but mainly it 
was down to the other guitarist who seemed to have fun cutting loose. A 
very good band, I just felt they could have pushed it a bit more if 
they'd wanted. Undeniably worth every penny though, and I hadn't 
realised he'd never been to the UK before, so I'm glad I was there to 
see it. I dunno, what a history: psychedelic pioneer, acid casualty, 
burnout, then diagnoses altered by the intervention of ST37, befriended 
by Mike Coleman :-) fitted with dentures by Henry Rollins and flown to 
the UK by Jarvis Cocker on a government subsidy... Funny old world 
innit, yours,
	      Jon

-- 
"When fortune wanes, of what assistance are quantities of elephants?"
	    (Juvaini, Afghan Muslim chronicler, c. 1206)
 Jon Jarrett, Fitzwilliam Museum, jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk