Can some of you help this guy obtain some Roky CD Club titles? He can trade. The Texas Psych group seems to be uncommunicative to him. Can some of you make contact and trade with him? He's got a pretty big list. Help this guy out.
Me? I can't burn any more dudes! I'm burned out! I can't do it any more!
The Roky CD Club has a treatment to use on all Aliens live recordings: the Billy-o-Meter. Says the Leader of the CD Club, “Billy Alienate ruined so many Roky Erickson recordings with his infernal sound. What’s more, on the live recordings he would actually fight Roky for the lead. This is the major reason Roky ditched the Aliens.” The Billy-o-Meter is a combination of various sound processing programs anchored by the Sonic Solutions program. Billy’s sound can be isolated and then treated. The Roky CD Club Leader continues, “We can almost completely remove Billy if we want. There will only be traces of Billy left. But what we do is bring Billy down in the mix to a manageable level. Billy is brought under control and a muzzle placed upon him.” THANK GOD FOR THE ROKY CD CLUB’S BILLY-O-METER!
It has been given to this blog from the highest authority that Billy Alienate is out of the band. Recently, the band has been performing without Billy. When approached, somebody close to the band confirmed that Billy is out. Supposedly, one band member remarked: "Billy has always only been a peripheral member anyway. His contribution isn't essential to our sound. When he began giving us problems well... It was time for him to go."
It is the contention of this blog that Billy Alienate ruined many Roky Erickson songs. His input was worse than nails being scraped along a chalkboard. Additionally, Billy would "fight" Roky for dominance. Really? Billy was always just "the guy that mimicked Tommy". Billy was originally brought on board to simply replicate Tommy's "whooping" sound on the jug. Then Billy tried to have more input and Roky had to get another band.
Billy being ousted has been a long time coming and is well over due.
Mike Alvarez played the Whiskey A-Go-Go in PLA last week. Please see some of the footage below. Mike will be playing the Hole in the Wall inAustin Friday April 27 and The Limelight in San Antonio the following night on the 28th.
Drag City has reissued Soldier-Talk, the 1979 Red Crayola LP that appeared on Radar. The Red Crayola, by 1979, were reduced to two members, with Thompson's tremulous warble and spasms of thin, ear-piercing guitar held together by Jesse Chamberlain's clattering drums; some of Soldier-Talk is just the duo building up friction-heat. Still, all of the then-current lineup of Pere Ubu shows up on most of the album, too (along with Lora Logic, whose inimitable out-of-tune sax can be heard here and there). It's difficult to tell if David Thomas, squeaking out a parody of military chants in the background of "Soldier-Talk" and sarcastically parroting Thompson on "Discipline", is chafing at being somebody else's sideman or getting into it. Later that year, guitarist Tom Herman left Ubu and Thompson replaced him, which effectively makes Soldier-Talk the misshapen missing link between Ubu's New Picnic Time and The Art of Walking.
But this isn't a Pere Ubu record, it's a Red Crayola record, and in 1979, that meant as much pain as they could get away with inflicting. Thompson's a charismatic vocalist, but he's possibly the least naturally gifted singer to have attempted to perform vocal melodies for anywhere near this long (I mean, Mark E. Smith can at least sing sort of on pitch sometimes), or at any rate the most invested in displaying his voice's cracks and fumbles. His guitar is set for maximal nails-on-chalkboard trebliness-- "On the Brink" has a great little one-finger riff, but it's hard to listen to it without wincing-- and, in accordance with the album's martial theme, Chamberlain limits most of his drum parts to modified military tattoos and snare-snaps.
Then there's the matter of Thompson's lyrics, which are doggedly mock-academic: "The problem of discourse is problematic/ I insist in this respect on being most emphatic." It's a consistently interesting album-- there's something trying to get your attention at every moment, but in the manner of a beloved little sibling who won't stop poking you. (When a band calls a song "Uh, Knowledge Dance", it's clear that "dance" will be the least important of those three words.) Thompson was pretty obviously fascinated with the possibilities of abrasion and intellectual content in rock songs that punk and post-punk opened up, and the next time he convened the Red Crayola, for 1981's excellent Kangaroo? album and "Born in Flames" single, he'd figured out how pleasure in listening could be a part of the equation too. This one, though, is for people who find Gang of Four's Entertainment! excessively silky and bourgeois.
Roky will be touring this spring/summer and the dates are below. Roky will also be playing in Cicago at Lollapalooza, which is taking place Aug. 3-5 in Grant Park.
Roky Erickson Tour:
04-13 Brooklyn, NY - Southpaw 04-15 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom 04-28 Indio, CA - Empire Polo Field (Coachella) 05-02 New Orleans, LA - Ponderosa Stomp 06-16 Hultsfred, Sweden - Hultsfred Festival 07-06 Roskilde, Denmark - Roskilde Festival 07-08 Turku, Finland - Ruisrock Festival 09-01-03 Seattle, WA - Bumbershoot Festival
Complete Lollapalooza 2007 Lineup:
Pearl Jam Daft Punk Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals Muse Iggy and the Stooges Modest Mouse Interpol My Morning Jacket Satellite Party Yeah Yeah Yeahs Snow Patrol The Roots Patti Smith Kings of Leon The Black Keys Regina Spektor Spoon Lupe Fiasco TV On The Radio Pete Yorn G. Love & Special Sauce Paolo Nutini Amy Winehouse LCD Soundsystem Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Silverchair Femi Kuti and the Positive Force Yo La Tengo Slightly Stoopid The Hold Steady Jack's Mannequin Stephen Marley STS9 M.I.A. Blonde Redhead Sparklehorse Sean Lennon !!! Blue October Son Volt Motion City Soundtrack The Polyphonic Spree Ted Leo and the Pharmacists Peter Bjorn and John Silversun Pickups CSS The Rapture The Wailers Roky Erickson & the Explosives Tapes 'N Tapes Heartless Bastards The View The Cribs The Fratellis Ghostland Observatory Tokyo Police Club Rhymefest Soulive Cold War Kids Annuals Fields Electric Six Elvis Perkins In Dearland Sam Roberts Band The Black Angels Charlie Musselwhite Aqueduct Juliette & the Licks Dios Viva Voce David Vandervelde Los Campesinos! Chin Up Chin Up Ryan Shaw Colour Revolt The Satin Peaches Illinois Arckid Mickey Avalon The 1900's Bang Bang Bang Bound Stems High Class Elite Carey Ott Matt Roan
The Famous Texas Psych Google Group has started a blog dedicated to Texas psychedelic music. Texas Psych aficionados can now go there to read news and see videos. Kiloh R. Smith, of the Google group says that the new blog will become an important clearing house for information; “We are going to encourage bands’ Representatives to apply to be Guests. Then they can post news. Additionally, we have about eight Administrators currently. These folks are garage psych mavens and (basically) run the blog.” Please visit the blog by going here: http://texaspsych.blogspot.com
“The blog carries lots of links to resources too,” says Mr. Smith, “we have identified some really cool resources that the fans will love. I expect that other links will be added soon. This really is a blog by-the-fans-for-the-fan.” Mr. Smith continues; “You know, there is SO MUCH rumor, innuendo and outright lies published about this music. I want this blog to be a source of unvarnished truth. I want it to be a voice for the fans and not some rumor-mill.”
Right now, the Texas Psych blog has some serious traction on the search engines. For the term “Texas Psych” it is #3 on Google. The site is getting several hundred unique hits daily. It was started by the folks who run the Texas Psych Google group located at: http://groups.google.com/group/Texas-P. Kiloh Smith is the group’s visionary leader. The selfless people who run the Roky CD Club also inhabit this group. The Roky CD Club is renowned for producing and distributing the highest quality Texas Psychedelic music CD’s in the world. They do this 100% free to the fans as a labor of love. Their methods are under intense study from other groups.
The Roky CD Club Leader says; “The Roky CD Club has put out so much Roky & ‘Elevators that it is THE source of it all. It is THE bubbling spring. God knows, this is a huge relief from having to listen to crappy, poorly mastered, crap for decades. Then the “’Roky Trust’” gets in charge and puts out NOTHING for years and years except for that abomination known as: “’Don’t Knock the Rok’”. This alone proves to me that they have nothing, Zippo lighter. All I can say is THANK GOD FOR THE ROKY CD CLUB! These righteous fans are putting their rare recordings and rips, direct off IA vinyl, into the hands of the fans. Lurkin, Billy Alienate, all of them have nothing. They are the jackals following the herd of fans. It took the fans to blow the top off of this thing and get the music into the fan’s hands. From what I hear, Roky is all for it too. If it wasn’t for the fans, we’d still be listening to Charly and Collectibles “’specials’”. This blog is a natural extension of this process.”
Kiloh Smith says; “Being the world leaders in this, who everybody else looks to for leadership, it was only natural to do this blog. What has surprised us is the quick ranking on Google as well as intense interest from fans and the artists. And we’re going to keep being the leaders. Right now, there is a project underway to incorporate this blog with the Texas Psychedelic Ranch located at: http://www.texaspsychranch.com. This is the #1 ranked such site on Google. After that, the blog’s entries will be automatically submitted to RSS feeds worldwide. We’re gonna OWN this space. You fans? You’re gonna be REALLY happy! Then there’s the project to convert Roky Erickson’s entire solo recording sessions to DVD audio. I heard about this. This will be dozens of CD’s worth of never-before-released material on a single DVD. But you didn’t hear that from me…”
The Texas Psych Blog, http://texaspsych.blogspot.com, is an extension of the world famous Texas Psych Google Group, http://groups.google.com/group/Texas-P. Both represent the leaders in this genre for fans.
inferior.planets@gmail.com
