Vinylcast

I watched this amazing documentary on Roky Erickson called, “You’ll Miss Me When I”m Gone”.  I heard the 13th Floor Elevators on the Rollins Radio Show, and I thought, “Wow, these guys are amazing, I’m going to have to get some of their records!”  I thought they were a new band.  I had no idea they were before Joplin (who almost joined the Elevators), Floyd, and everyone else.  They even coined the term psychedelic rock!

So I watched this documentary, and it was clear that he was schizophrenic and his mother was keeping him off the medications and living out a dual psychosis with her sick son.  He would geek out on sending spam mail back to them with odd things like – “Jiffy Lube, thank you for your coupon, please lubricate my car, it is in dire need of lubrication and is approaching critical failure.  Thank you.”

Roky was charged with some marijuana and faced 5 years, but the judge allowed the insanity plea and sent him to a minimum security hospital.  His girlfriend at the time kept breaking him out of the hospital, and eventually they put him in a maximum security hospital where he underwent shock treatments.  After release, he started singing about satan.  HELL YES.  You cannot rock more than that, I’m sorry, you just can’t.  That makes Tony Iomi living the life of a star snorting coke off the mixing board look like a panzy – he didn’t go get shocked into loving satan like Roky!  NOPE.

Now Roky is doing good since his brother went to court and sued for custody, returned him to the meds that he needs, and he’s already guesting on albums and even making a new album with Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top.  I just can’t believe that Roky didn’t become a superstar.  He really should have.  Maybe he will soon.

Everyone should watch this amazing documentary.

Here are some great Youtube clips of Roky:

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Last night, as I was about to fall asleep, I remembered vividly, clearly like a photograph, a place I lived with my father. For a short period of time, maybe a year or so, my father lived very close to the beach in south Florida. We lived in a bungalow, which sounds better than an efficiency, and since it was on the beach, I think it qualifies as the former. Had it been anywhere else, I suppose it should have been called an efficiency.

We informally called it Dog Beach. At Dog Beach were several other bungalow dwellers, among them were Emmit, Major Tom, Dash Riprock, and my father went by Purple. These were names of men, all living a bachelor life, a group of friends with little to no responsibility. I was old enough to go surfing by myself, wander aimlessly, and explore. I needed little care, and that was perfect for both of us.

I loved that place. Behind our bungalow was a maze of dirt roads lined by wild palm, littered with coconuts, and led to my very own private Dog Beach. It was coined Dog Beach for both kinds of bitches. Dog Beach existed in a county pocket, so the local city police had no jurisdiction, only the county sheriff, and his deputies never came through to patrol. That made it a perfect place for dog lovers, and bachelors looking for dog lovers. Well, that and the ability to completely disregard normal partying etiquette.

The bachelors of Dog Beach would build fires on the beach, which was not permitted within the city, by digging a hole a few feet down, starting the fire, then slowly throughout the night the heat would loose the side walls of sand, and by morning the fire would have buried itself. After surfing into sunset, I would walk up the beach and enjoy large pots of clams, cooked over and over, throughout the night. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten that many clams since. They would drink and smoke and talk and tell jokes I was barely able to understand.

Most of the houses and bungalows at Dog Beach had those slat windowed front doors, you know, like the one Scareface cut through with a chainsaw. All the windows in all the houses were always open, except during the most violent storms. Sometimes we’d all get a little wet in a heavy downpour. I remember the smell of living there more than anything else. That smell of rain, salt, humidity, heat, sand, coconut palms, and wild sage.

There was a hippie couple that lived at the corner where the long dirt road met the beach. Their door was always open, and I could hear classic rock and smell incense from inside as I walked by surfboard in hand. One day I stopped by and said hi, in the middle of Hotel California. Actually, it was in the middle of the double guitar solo during Hotel California. They were pleasant, we talked about classic rock and waves and the local radio station, and the latest Dog Beach news – of which there was never a shortage.

….more later…

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With the new year, I hereby issue a vinylcast manifesto. I’ve been doing this blog and podcast over the last six months, and I thought I was going to write to a nitch, you know vinyl lovers are a fairly small community. But the community never really found it, or found it worthwhile, anyway. That’s ok, its actually freeing. In order to write to that nitch, I was bound to that topic area.

Now, shocking my readership of 20, I’m going to change the blog. I mean hey, it’s my blog, right? I considered abandoning it, but I do enjoy making podcasts, and I do enjoy writing. Therefore, I’ll continue to write and make podcasts, but they’ll no longer be tied to vinyl. I’m just going to write. I’m going to release the podcast from it’s vinyl restraints. I still love vinyl, so I think I’ll continue to play records in the podcast, but it will no longer be so constrained.

So, happy New Year, I hope its a good year for you. Make a manifesto to resolve something, save something that you do, revive it, renew it, make it worth keeping. Or don’t, maybe you need to excise something from your life which is holding you back. Either way, jump into this new year with a manifesto of your own.

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