Psychedelic rock legend Roky Erickson and his band pay a visit to Louisville this Friday, June 25 at Headliners Music Hall. This show is part of Wild and Woolly Video's Thirteenth Anniversary Party, also featuring local bands Phantom Family Halo and Montag & Bad Blood.
Erickson and his Elevators were the first psychedelic rock band – one of those little-known, but extremely influential groups acknowledged by followers such as Janis Joplin, Patti Smith, Henry Rollins, and Jefferson Airplane, as well as more recent artists such as REM and T-Bone Burnett.
Since his heyday in the 60s with The Spades and later the 13th Floor Elevators, Erickson has had a famously turbulent life, spending years struggling with drug abuse, mental illness, and poverty. He has suffered the long-term effects of terrifying “treatments” he received while committed to institutions. His stay in the Rusk State Hospital for the Criminally Insane came after he was arrested in Texas in 1969 for possession of a single joint.
Thorazine, electroshock, and other experimental treatments left him shattered, but he has picked up a few of the pieces over the years, and most recently released the critically acclaimed True Love Cast Out All Evil, backed by Austin's Okkervil River (Black Sheep Boy, The Stage Names) and produced by OR's frontman, Will Sheff. (Note that Okkervil River will not be backing up Roky in Louisville.)
The show at Headliners is 18 and over. Tickets are $15 on sale now at Wild & Woolly Video, www.ticketweb.com, or at the door the night of the show.
