given what we know about roky erickson’s history before, during and after hospitalisation it’s hard to separate his music from the mental illness that pushed him to the brink, kicked him off, beat him with shitty sticks on the way down then dragged him around by the hair for twenty years. it’s a sad fucking story anyway. one i won’t repeat, that’s well documented in you’re gonna miss me. but one (much the same as daniel johnston) with some semblance of a happy ending, since illness is being contained, songs are being written and performed and the world is a much happier place because of it.
so an about time reissue on shiny vinyl of this two-years-in-the-making 80’s double cracked classic. recorded by creedence fella stu cook (and given a hefty dose of ccr-unch (see what i did there?) by him) the evil one is probably erickson’s most straight-forwardly rocking record. it owes a passing nod to the psyched-garage flavours of 13th floor elevators, but much more so to the amped up blooze boogie of zz top or alice cooper’s zappa-ish proto-something trash schtick or crime’s san-fran punkerry.
lyrically it’s a psychiatric journal documenting his slow breakdown but filtered through a slew of fifties b-move pulperry. so it’s full of references to demons, vampires, zombies, lucifer, brain-stealing aliens. things that take over, things that control, things that feed on you. like a paranoid schizophrenic version of the misfits. and obviously the context should (and does) elevate it from schlock to something altogether more personal (as odd as that sounds) and creepy.
i am the doctor / i am the psychiatrist / to make sure they don’t think that they’d hammer their minds out
putting that aside, musically it bloody well rocks. two headed dog lets him show off his john fogerty hollering chops over some equally creedencey stomp and choogle. night of the vampire has a stumbling grind (probably why the entombed cover works so well). don’t shake me lucifer gets into a whole big epinephrine shot of rhythm and blues, chuck berry-style. not forgetting the fifties teen ballad i walked with a zombie. the best doo-wop song about the undead the crests never wrote.
and this is before i get into the electric autoharp and the disturbing treated vocals on creatures with the atom brain (beautiful vhs video below):
remember buchanan? but you’re not buchanan. i don’t look like him, but i am him. don’t you recognize the voice jim? i promised to see you die. and i will…
yup. as far as i’m concerned it’s up there with easter everywhere. reduced it’s just an ass-kicking rock and roll record. but one given a big-ass jolt of an electric charge by the genuine torment underpinning it’s ec comics psychopathology.
