1) True Love Cast Out All Evil, by Roky Erickson

Sometimes you are crazy and nobody knows it.  Roky Erickson did enough LSD as a member of The 13th Floor Elevators that the transition to full-blown schizophrenia was missed by most or passed over as “freak” behavoir.  It took Erickson’s documented onstage breakdown, slobber and jibberish and all, to convince his peers that he was more than high.  This theme of high-not-crazy continued when, after being sentanced to ten years of prison for the posession of a single joint, Roky pleaded insanity and landed himself in state-run mental institution.  It took the intervention of his brother in 2001 to successfully get Roky proper help and social, financial, and professional stability.  From the sixties to the present day, regardless of his status and stability, Roky made music with bands, made solo works, and was the subject of various musical tributes.

But, history and context non withstanding, what do you think “crazy” music sounds like?  The most prominent barometers are Syd Barrett and Wesley Willis, the former making disjointed music on The Madcap Laughs that had to be “sanely” produced by Roger Waters and weirded up by The Soft Machine, the latter making boringly simple music that is recorded with an exploitative feel that brings on an unease every time I hear one of his songs(it is not lost on me that white-trash Okies that I knew loved Wesley Willis almost as much as they loved Kid Rock, who is “The R Word” in the colloquial sense).  These albums fall in line with the stigma of people who suffer mental or emotional problems: an aural record of instability or medicated dulling. Continue reading “Two Albums By Crazies”

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My first trip to New Orleans defined traveling for me in the same way that the city of New Orleans would define destinations for me; traveling is for seeing things.  Arriving is for being things. Continue reading “The First Cut: Mardi Gras”

In 1999, at some point, I was surely making some sort of comment on alt.music.faithnomore or alt.music.mr-bungle about how people should stop ragging on Dillinger Escape Plan (because they were still good then) and stop feeling threatened by the more approachable sounds of California.  The songs on California may have been more pop oriented but were still great, and if you needed a dose of weird there was always a Moonraker concert or bootleg around somewhere. Continue reading “The First Cut: Mondo Cane”