Name: The Evil One
Brand: Roky Erickson

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

LITA 097purple

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Colour

purple

Colour details

Purple Haze

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Discogs ID

Discs

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: Yes

Format detail

Format Music US

Limited edition

Release date

2021-05-14

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier US

Light in the Attic

Tax rate US

Sales:8.875

UPC / Barcode

826853309714

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2 / Extended format: Yes / LP / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No / purple

LITA097

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Extended format: No

2013-09-03

826853009713

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1 / Extended format: No / LP / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No

Artist

Roky Erickson

Genre US

60s & 70s

Label US

Light In The Attic

Released from the institution in 1974, Roky Erickson found his legend had grown while he’d been away – not least because ‘You’re Gonna Miss Me’ was included on 1972’s Nuggets compilation. He formed a band, the Aliens, and set about honing a hard rock sound that placed the psychedelic garage blues of the Elevators firmly in the last decade. Though it was produced at a time when Roky was struggling to cope with drugs and life on the outside, he hit form on his first post Elevators album-proper, 1981’s The Evil One. Produced over a period of two years by Stu Cook, from Creedence Clearwater Revival, it’s a masterful collection of songs about zombies, demons, vampires and, yes, even the ‘Creature With The Atom Brain’. These tracks, inspired by schlock sci-fi and horror movies and colored by Roky’s distinctive, high-pitched vocal and squealing guitar, are among the maverick performer’s best.

At the time, Roky explained the album this way: “It’s gonna go back to the ferocious kind of rock ‘n’ roll of the Kinks, the Who and the Yardbirds. It’s the kind of music that makes you wish you were playing it or listening to it for the first time ‘way back when.’” But the record would not reach the mass audience of those bands, its success hampered by erratic release schedules and disastrously awkward press interviews. A year after its release, Erickson would become convinced that a Martian had inhabited his body. He would soon become obsessed with mail, and take to taping it, unopened, to his bedroom walls. Many of Erickson’s demons were yet to show their faces. But the B-movie demons he exorcised on this record gave us one of hard rock’s strangest, most inventive albums.

The Evil One

Music US