Roky Erickson: Halloween Recorded Live 1979-81

 
Roky Erickson: Halloween Recorded Live 1979-81

2008

Norton Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: Disc 1: 1.  Two Headed Dog  2.  Don't Shake Me Lucifer  3. Bermuda  4.  The Wind And More  5. Starry Eyes  6. I Walked With A Zombie  7.  Stand For The Fire Demon  8.  Bloody Hammer  

Disc 2: 1. Wait For You  2. Wake Up To Rock And Roll  3. You're Gonna Miss Me  4. Creature With The Atom Brain  5. I Think Up Demons  6. The Beast   7.  I've Just Seen A Face  8. The Interpreter  9. White Faces  10. KLBJ Radio Ad


I'm keeping this short. I'm balls-deep in a three-day weekend/birthday celebration but wanted to pop in to let you know I haven't abandoned this blog! 

And ohhh yes! This is the shit! A nice, big, glossy gatefold, 2-record set of prime, live Roky. Captured over several venues (hence the title...duh...), the sound quality fluctuates throughout, ranging from the spectacular to the distant and muffled. They're usually segregated into clusters though, so you'll get a run of five songs from a Texas show that sounds pristine, then you'll flip it over and there will be a run of rougher sounding material from a California show, so it'll take a minute, but your ears do readjust. Even the worst recordings are very listenable.

However, all the performances are all great. Despite the man's reputation for instability, he's a true professional onstage.These performances all pretty much sound just like their studio counterparts, except they sometimes stretch out a bit to rock out more (as evidenced on an 8-minute run through "Stand For the Fire Demon").

My favorite part of the album is possibly one life-changing tid-bit of information hidden deep in the liner notes. Like many other people I've always been amused and intrigued by Roky's seemingly deteriorating enunciation in "I Waked With a Zombie." It gets weirder and weirder as the song goes on, until eventually it sounds like "I waked with suh-sombie..." Weird, right? Well, not actually! Roky's drummer, Freddie Krc, clarifies the reason for this pronunciation is that Roky is working his way through the alphabet...It goes, "I walked with A zombie..." to "I walked with B zombie" to "C zombie" and so on until its just "I walked with zombie" which marks the point where Roky becomes a zombie...I think that info justified the album's price alone.

This is definitely a fun album for Roky enthusiasts. Some of the best live Roky stuff I've come across and any sound issues are secondary to the fantastic performances. It's a miracle any of this stuff was even recorded in the first place, let alone there's so much of it and it's mostly stellar quality.

 Here's the live-run through of "Two Headed Dog" by Roky Erickson. Enjoy: