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.Knowledgeable music fans and historians are familiar with Roky Erickson, but his music never caught on with the public at large. Anybody who ever bought a “Nuggets” or “Pebbles” collection of mid ‘60s psychedelic/garage pop, though, will recognize that the presence of Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators looms large. The inspiration for this genre stems mostly from English bands that were doing their best to emulate American blues artists. The British invasion started something resembling a virus in the United States, with virtually every small-town harboring a half-dozen garages that served as rehearsal space for teenagers discovering their own innate creativity. Before the Standells (“Dirty Water”), The Shadows of Knight (“Gloria”), The Syndicate of Sound (“Hey Little Girl”) or the Troggs (“Wild Thing”), there was the 13th Floor Elevators.
The Elevators were a strange and unique band to kick off this juvenile genre. Hailing from Austin, Texas, they played insanely loud chord progressions while Roky Erickson screamed like a possessed devil, accompanied all the while by a strange ‘bubbling’ sound that was totally unrecognizable to most listeners, who only later discovered that it was actually an amplified jug player (definitely not a sound that would have emanated from NYC or Los Angeles). This weirdness was both cathartic and contagious, and probably did almost as much to promote and influence the mid-‘60s alternative culture as the eventual emergence of the San Francisco scene.
“I Have Always Been Here Before” follows Erickson’s career through its sharp-peaked bell-arc curve, peaking early in the mid-sixties then sliding toward oblivion, with multiple lapses of brilliance rearing up, seemingly out of nowhere. Erickson developed a reputation as an acid-damaged visionary much like Syd Barrett, except that Erickson maintained his creative edge and continued to record, even when times were cruelly indifferent to his brand of inventiveness. For a long while, there was seemingly no use for Roky Erickson’s brand of genius, even though he had roots that were infinitely more true to punk’s alternative culture than any poseur New Wave band could even hope to attain, and a sporadic but consistently good body of work to his credit. If you listen hard enough, you might hear that Erickson seamlessly (and single-handedly) represents the transformation from ‘hippie’ culture to ‘alternative/punk’ culture, without a hint of contradiction.
There are no hits on this 2-CD set – Billboard’s pop charts have recorded literally none of it - but there are plenty of songs that could have been. “You’re Gonna Miss Me” is the song most often chosen as the most representative of it’s era/genre, but its popularity never extended beyond the cultish fans of early psychedelic music. This set is all the more remarkable because of that. In its interim, hundreds of popular trends by thousands of other recordings artists have come on strong and then vanished. Meanwhile, Roky Erickson’s music remains strangely vibrant and contemporary. “Two-Headed Dog” is a piece of menacing insanity that still sounds as strangely engrossing as its subject. “Bermuda” is an off-balance piece of rock-and-roll paranoia that beautifully captures the supernatural stories of the much feared “triangle’. “Bloody Hammer,” “Stand for the Fire Demon,” and “The Wind and More” are all both menacing and catchy, effortlessly walking a tightrope between intensity and entertainment…
…which pretty much sums up the entirety of this collection. Regardless of how far Erickson extends himself while chasing down his muse, he keeps his audience in tow, and most of it remains fascinating. Most anthology collections fall apart as they move chronologically toward the present, but in this instance, the second disk is at least as cool as the first. From beginning to end, ,I Have Always Been Here Before rocks. Even the booklet and liner notes are great, avoiding the hysterical praise and delusional manipulation of facts that often renders them irrelevant. Here, they provide a great deal of levelheaded and fair-minded info that helps to bring the artist into focus. Without stretching the truth, they effortlessly point out that this collection encapsulates thirty years of incredibly cool music. Erickson’s music continues to defy age, and it’s high time for his particular brand of genius to be publicly acknowledged.
CLICK HERE to buy this album on Amazon.
Grade: 
 
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