Eye Mind: The Saga of Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators, The Pioneers of Psychedelic Sound
by Paul Drummond
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Book Summary Information
Author: Paul DrummondForeword: Julian Cope
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-11
ISBN: 0976082268
Number of pages: 454
Publisher: PROCESS
Book Reviews of Eye Mind: The Saga of Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators, The Pioneers of Psychedelic Sound
Book Review: A Dissertation on a Rock Band
Summary: 3 Stars
This book is mainly interesting because its subject matter is interesting. The development of psychedelic rock in Texas, which was/is not exactly a hotbed of progressive thought, is interesting. The folks in the band, their girlfriends and friends are somewhat interesting, Roky probably the most of all since some of the others come off like stock hippie "characters" one would find in a typical movie or TV show about the era. For example, you have the tortured, sensitive guitar player who ends up addicted to drugs and later dead by his own wife's hand. The drummer who decides early on that he's not "into the pudding" so to speak, but wants to be in a successful band and besides some of these guys are his good friends, so he hangs in there and tries to look out for them. The conservative doctor's son who remakes himself into a manipulative drug dealer/ manager/ shaman/ pioneering musical contributor and in so doing increases his cred immensely, pulls some beautiful ladies, and eventually ends up as your standard old hippie janitor with a crazy past. Did I mention all of these people seem to have come from well-to-do families? If you're the least familiar with the LBJ era, you can just imagine how their rock n' roll rebellion went over down in Texas, although their parents do seem to come to the rescue on a regular basis with purchases of equipment, lawyers and other necessaries from time to time.
The standout exception is Roky Erickson, an emotionally and mentally fragile kid from a dysfunctional home who got picked up by the group of more experienced, older fellows hoping to capitalize on his obvious talent. Unsurprisingly, he ends up busted and in a harsh mental institution with treatments that probably contributed to his mental decline. Roky's perspective is more told through observers and family members than from his own mouth in this book, and since the book was written more info has become available about him due to his recent tours and the publicized conflicts between his brother and his mother over his well-being. This book is a good documentation of his years with the Elevators, but the reader looking for info on Roky should be warned that the book focuses almost as much on other members of the band as it does on Roky. In other words, this is not a Roky bio; the author appears to have made some attempt to treat all the band members equally, although this results in a less interesting book because, frankly, the other band guys just aren't that compelling overall. You have to read through many pages on the rather pedestrian childhoods of Stacy and John Ike, their high school years and their pot-smoking adventures around the Mexican border before Roky even enters the story.
Which brings us to another issue with the book: this isn't so much a rock book as it is a scholarly dissertation on the Elevators. The author seems to have come at it from the perspective of one of those music geeks who need to know every detail of when and where every song was played live, recorded and released, right down to which outlet the engineer plugged the cords into and what the band had to eat at the drive-thru afterwards. While obsessive fans of garage, psych or the Elevators may find this interesting, it's a little too much detail if you're looking for a good, readable story about the rise and fall of a band that came up with a very unique sound in an unusual place in an interesting time. The author goes so far as to include detailed endnotes after each chapter, which are a pain because you have to comb back through the chapters (which are not short) looking to see what the heck this relates to.
Also somewhat annoying is the repeated harping of the author on how electric jug player and acid/ pot dealer Tommy Hall was into scholarly philosophies and tried to incorporate them in "deep" lyrics. I don't doubt that Hall, who seems to have had a grandiose sense of himself at that time, thought that was what he was doing, but really, the catchy, rhyming lyrics of "Tried to Hide" (which evolved from an earlier song about hiding pot from the cops into a song about Roky making it with a groupie, or something, according to the author) are a far cry from "Korszybskian" or whatever. (Reminded me of the reviewer who described Beatles songs as containing "Aeolian cadences.") At times this book contains more hippie cliches than a vintage episode of "Dragnet", which would be fine if the author or someone quoted just recognized that fact and chuckled, but instead it's all presented quite seriously and rather dryly.
If you can slog through this book it's still a pretty good read, though most of the characters end up in a tragic or at least less than desirable state, but be warned, it's kind of like reading a university sociology journal.
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