THE EVIL ONE by ROKY ERICKSON

Celebrating a creative purple patch by a singular performer, Light In The Attic is to reissue the three albums issued by Roky Erickson in the 1980s. Together, they�re a chance to pick up a missing jigsaw piece in the history of American rock �n� roll in deluxe packages !As the core member of the 13th Floor Elevators and an undisputed pioneer of psychedelic rock, the �60s were thrilling times for Erickson. His band riding high in their native Texas and beyond, the howling single �You�re Gonna Miss Me� was his calling card, but Erickson�s �60s ended in the stuff of nightmares. Under sharp scrutiny by the authorities due to the band�s well-expounded fondness for psychedelic drugs, Erickson was found with a single joint on his person. Pleading not guilty by reason of insanity to avoid prison, he was sent to the Rusk State Hospital for the criminally insane, where he was �treated� with electroconvulsive therapy and Thorazine treatment. Erickson pulled through his three and a half years at Rusk, and even put together a band while incarcerated. The Missing Links contained Roky plus two murderers and a rapist. Released from the institution in 1974, Roky found his legend had grown while he�d been away � not least because �You�re Gonna Miss Me� was included on 1972�s Nuggets compilation. He formed a band, the Aliens, and set about honing a hard rock sound that placed the psychedelic garage blues of the Elevators firmly in the last decade. Though it was produced at a time when Roky was struggling to cope with drugs and life on the outside, he hit form on his first post Elevators album-proper, 1981�s The Evil One. Produced over a period of two years by Stu Cook, from Creedence Clearwater Revival, it�s a masterful collection of songs about zombies, demons, vampires and, yes, even the �Creature With The Atom Brain�. These tracks, inspired by schlock sci-fi and horror movies and colored by Roky�s distinctive, high-pitched vocal and squealing guitar, are among the maverick performer�s best. At the time, Roky explained the album this way: �It�s gonna go back to the ferocious kind of rock �n� roll of the Kinks, the Who and the Yardbirds. It�s the kind of music that makes you wish you were playing it or listening to it for the first time �way back when.�� But the record would not reach the mass audience of those bands, its success hampered by erratic release schedules and disastrously awkward press interviews. A year after its release, Erickson would become convinced that a Martian had inhabited his body. He would soon become obsessed with mail, and take to taping it, unopened, to his bedroom walls. Many of Erickson�s demons were yet to show their faces. But the B-movie demons he exorcised on this record gave us one of hard rock�s strangest, most inventive albums.