Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye

If you feel I’ve lost my spirit
Like some drunkard’s wasted wine
Don’t you even think about it
I’m feeling fine
~ Roky Erickson











Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye is a tribute album to Roky Erickson.
Roky Erickson hails from Austin Texas and was the frontman for the legendary 13th Floor Elevators.
In 1968 he was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and sent to a Houston psychiatric hospital, where he involuntarily received ECT.
The Elevators were vocal proponents of LSD and marijuana use, and were subject to strong attention from police. In 1969, Erickson was arrested for possession of one marijuana joint in Austin. Facing a ten year prison term, Erickson pled not guilty by reason of insanity, which proved to be a mistake. He was first sent to the Austin State Hospital. After several escape attempts, he was sent to the Rusk State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, where he was subjected to more electroconvulsive therapy and Thorazine treatments and held until 1972.

"If you have ghosts, then you have everything"

13 comments:

jams o donnell said...

Slip inside this house and meet the creature with the atom brain.. he's got a bloody hammer.

I love roky and the 13th Floor Elevators. I'm sorry I missed him last month when he played London.

Roky is lucky to have a caring brother in Sumner. He seems to ahve sorted out a lot of stuff for Roky, including royaltues that record companies never paid him.

Anonymous said...

though i am not familiar with Roky, i do like the pictorial essay here ......

interesting: Guernica - out of all the paintings i viewed in Madrid - it was this one that i took home as a souvenir .....

the USDA food pyramid would work well somewhere in here ..... maybe near capitalism but before the coke can ..... (no i am not being facetious)

hm... my father had involuntary ECT treatments as a teenager .... today he is in his 60's: still a genius, still a drug addict .....

his mother, my grandmother, was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic probably around the same time as Roky .... it was a very popular diagnosis, especially for women. My aunt rescued her from a mental ward and a lifetime of Thorazine ... If we (women) weren't hysterical we were paranoid .... yeah, i know - it's a great family tree.

oh - i found this great quote for you - i thought of you immediately, pisces (ironic now that i read your post ):

" Until the last twenty out of a million years of human history, our 'neurological disorders' were simply our personalities."

-by Poe Ballantien, Methamphetamine for Dummies in The Sun .....

Garth said...

Well said Poe (great name btw)
As for family trees - I always remember a line from one of my sisters' 70's musical pantomime records... Cinderella I think:
...my family tree's been struck by lightning

Garth said...

Jams, I wasn't aware of his brother's involvement, its good to hear such a positive outcome.

jams o donnell said...

Oh yes, His brother Sumner made Roky his own ward for some years and was thus instrumental in helping Roky turn things around

Anonymous said...

Soo many pyramids.

Ric said...

You Blog Rocks!!!

Saludos from down under the piramyd.

Ric.

Anonymous said...

yes, and i believe generations of grey squirrels are now being raised in that hole the lightening left ......

Garth said...

Thank you Ricky - welcome to The Far Queue

Anonymous said...

your none comments are beginning to read as clearly as your written ones, pisces .....

i miss your snow - the magic and sensuality of it floating across your page.

Anonymous said...

oh you added the food pyramid - well done, pisces - it is a good fit .....

last comment ? you used to have snow drifting across your page - i miss it ...... it was one of the few sensual and romantic elements of your work ..... do you get my drift now ? i'm sure you do, pisces. you are SO much smarter than I am ....

Anonymous said...

touche .......

yes ...... i believe i can see the snow now.

Anonymous said...

The original release of the Roky tribute album had a cover of the song 'Splash 1' by the Mighty Lemon Drops.Awesome rendition!

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