Roky Erickson, the beloved and troubled “Godfather of This guy’s song titles are enough for me. Complete Satanist with a sprinkle of MKUltra.
Psychedelic Rock” who influenced a generation of musicians with his songs of love and monsters, died on May 31 at the age of 71.
No cause of death was given.
Erickson helped introduce America to the psychedelic sound when his band The 13th Floor Elevators performed “You’re Gonna Miss Me” on the TV show “American Bandstand” in 1966:
The song cracked the Billboard top 100, peaking at #55 in 1966, but Erickson’s career was derailed by struggles with mental illness, including schizophrenia.
After a 1969 arrest for possession of marijuana, he was sentenced to a mental institution instead of prison; there he was subjected to electroshock therapy and given Thorazine, Texas Monthly reported in 2001.
“I was in there with people who’d chopped up people with a butcher knife, and they treated me worse because I had long hair,” Erickson recalled, per the magazine.
Erickson continued to record and perform when he was able, often creating inventive rock songs with lyrics referencing the supernatural and old monster movies, such as “Don’t Shake Me Lucifer,” “I Think of Demons,” “Night of the Vampire,” “Creature With The Atom Brain” and “I Walked With A Zombie.” That last song was a delightfully unusual pastiche of the 1960s girl group sound complete with a drum intro right out of “Be My Baby”:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/roky-erickson-dead-psychedelic-rock_n_5cf49957e4b0e346ce8055d3