Cool Roky Erickson Find
Because I’m really looking forward to seeing Roky Erickson in San Francisco, later this month, I’ve been trying to dig up a few missing links in my extensive collection of his recordings with his various bands.
I’ve had a version of a show Roky did with his band (at the time) known as “The Explosives” in Berkeley in 1981. With a lot of bootleg recordings you run into incomplete and/or “out of order” set lists. Does that matter? Hell yes, it matters!
So, while looking for details, or references to the 1981 show, I stumbled upon an entirely different recording. My fellow Roky fans ( a clique, or cult, really) would know how great that is.
The show in question was from “The Rather Ripped Records Thank Ya! Party” at the Longbranch Saloon in Berkeley on November 10th, 1975. They do two complete sets on the record. Awesome.
Rather Ripped Records was one of the absolute coolest record stores on Earth. It was over on Euclid, just north of the campus (only a few blocks from where I am now, small World, eh?). Patti Smith did poetry readings there. One of my fave Bay Area pop/rockers, Greg Kihn, used to work there as a clerk. (Lots of people used to work there, of course). Rather Ripped was founded (I think?) by two guys who had started Leopold’s Records in Berkeley and had left it.
Anyway, Rather Ripped threw a party at The Longbranch, and Roky Erickson & The Explosives were the music. By the way, Roky did in-store at Rather Ripped, and according to outside sources, he told anyone who “looked him in eye” that he was “watchin’ you die.”
The recording is downloading off the Pirate Bay, rather slowly (only two seeders now), but I’ll update this post when I’ve given it a thorough listen.
[Update: Okay, it was great. But I'm prejudiced. There are several tracks that were outstanding. It didn't sound like there was a large crowd at the Longbranch, but that might have been an 'artifact' of the soundboard-based recording. This wasn't done by some guy with a cassette player, that's for sure, nice quality throughout.]