Roky Erickson was very much a changed man when he re-emerged on the music scene in the late '70s after a deeply troubling stay in a mental institution following an arrest for drugs in 1969. The graceful but energetic proto-psychedelia of Erickson's music with the 13th Floor Elevators was replaced by a hot-wired straight-ahead rock sound which suggested an updated version of the teenaged garage pounders Roky recorded with his early group the Spades, and the charming psychobabble of {$To...   [ read more ]

CD $15.18

OK, it's 1978, and you're in a rehearsal/recording studio in Berkeley, CA, playing with a semi-famous acid casualty who is working up demos for a new album. You've been learning a bunch of lean, hard-rockin' songs about two-headed dogs, zombies, and bloody hammers, and while the results are dynamic and powerful, it's become increasingly hard to shake the fact that your frontman is more than a little crazy. So when he calls out for the band to play "Teenager in Love," what do you do? Well, you stagger al...   [ read more ]

CD $17.08