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Showing posts with the label psychedelic music

My "Love Story"

It all started in about 1986 or 1987 when I leafed through a friend's copy of a Rolling Stone history of rock 'n' roll (I can't remember the exact title or edition). There was a group photo of five or six scowling young guys in front of either a crumbling stone chimney or large boulders, half of the guys were white and two (or three--if it was the Da Capo era) were Black. The accompanying caption identified these guys as a band called "Love."  Around this same time, I flipped through a book called The Doors: The Illustrated History, which includes a promotional Q&A with the four Doors, they type of fluff that was common in that era and that bands likely hated having to do. One of the questions was something like, "What are your goals?" Jim Morrison's answer was essentially, "To be as big as Love." I had to find out more about this band called Love. A year or two later, I found myself at Jocundry's Books (R.I.P.) and on the shel...

You're Gonna Miss Me--Roky Erickson

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Friday night, when I woke up at about 1 AM and couldn't get back to sleep, I did what I usually do when I suffer from insomnia and turned on the tube. As fate would have it, the Sundance Channel was just about to air "You're Gonna Miss Me," a documentary on legendary '60s acid casualty Roky Erickson. In case anyone out there doesn't know, Roky Erickson was singer for the '60s psychedelic rock band The 13th Floor Elevators and also did some great stuff in the seventies, despite being institutionalized for three years from about 1969 to 1972. (My chronology might be off, but I don't feel like checking my facts right now). The only Roky Erickson I currently have in my music collection is the 13th Floor Elevators' first album, "Psychedelic Sounds of..." It's the CD issue released by Varese Sarabande and, not only is the title misspelled, but the sound quality is abysmal. From what I've read, the original master tapes ha...