Rollin' With The ROKY ERICKSON Covers!

 

Illustration by Coop

Got to thinking recently about the great songs that Roky Erickson released in the 70's and 80's as a solo artist (and with his bands Bleib Alien, The Explosives, and The Nervebreakers).  What a songwriter he was!  And what a voice! 

I really should have included Roky on my Do Ya Think I'm New Wave comps, because he was one of the first musicians from the 1960's to embrace punk rock.  When Roky was asked in an interview to name his favorite Sex Pistols song, his answer was "Hot Cars" -- so the Angry Samoans wrote a punk song called "Hot Cars" in honor of Roky's imaginary Sex Pistols song!

Gregg Turner from Angry Samoans has an "A&R" credit on Roky's 1977 "Bermuda" single, and there's an Angry Samoans cover of Roky's "White Faces" which is only available on the cassette version of the 1990 Roky/Elevators tribute Where The Pyramid Meets The Eye.  I couldn't find it online to share with you, but Gregg later recorded another version of "White Faces" with his band The Blood Drained Cows.  (Gregg Turner also covered "Starry Eyes" on one of his solo records.)  

It's interesting to see who else has covered Roky more than once -- Jad Fair, Mike Watt, Mark Lanegan, Pauline Murray (Penetration), Nick Oliveri (QOTSA, Mondo Generator), Nicke Andersson (Hellacopters, Entombed), Antiseen and The Electric Six are definitely Roky fans.

The most recent Roky tribute album, 2021's May The Circle Remain Unbroken, was put together by the same guy who assembled Where The Pyramid Meets The Eye, which is kinda cool!  

It's hard to top Bongwater's cover of "You Don't Love Me Yet", so I included the Peel Session version.  The cover of "Cold Night For Alligators" appeared on the Scandinavian Roky tribute album, and there's a track from the shoegaze tribute album -- but the rest of these two dozen Roky nuggets have not appeared on other tributes, making this collection kinda sorta unique, more or less.

CONFIDENTIAL (not really) to Anonymous:  the Smokey Hormel links you requested have been reposted.