Roky Erickson – You’re Gonna Miss Me: DVD and Soundtrack (Palm)

(Slightly cleaned up version of a review originally published on www.losingtoday.com)

 

You’re Gonna Miss Me is a documentary about the troubled life of singer Roky Erickson. Erickson is best known for bringing psychedelic rock to the masses in the mid-1960′s with his group The 13th Floor Elevators, but his life took a strange left turn after he was arrested for drug possession in 1969 and pleaded insanity to avoid a ten year jail sentence. The plea was accepted, and Roky was sent to Rusk State Hospital for the Criminally Insane for a three-year stay, where he was subjected to intense electroshock therapy that left him far worse off than he was before entering the facility. The bulk of the movie covers his ups and downs in the years following his release, which include bouts with schizophrenia, drug addiction, his strange relationship with his mother (who seems somewhat disturbed herself), and his sporadic musical output which was surprisingly strong despite all his other problems. The story is interesting enough that you don’t need to have any prior knowledge of Roky’s music in order to enjoy it, but for those who are familiar with his work, the film gives new insight into the man behind it all. If you saw You’re Gonna Miss Me in the theater, the DVD is still recommended thanks for the wealth of bonus materials, including a segment which covers the five years after the completion of the movie, during which time Roky was placed into the custody of his brother who helped him get mentally and physically healthier than he had been for decades, enabling him to go back out on the road and perform for a new generation of adoring fans. It gives the harrowing story a happy ending that it wouldn’t have otherwise had.The film’s soundtrack is a somewhat puzzling affair, with twelve tracks culled from the past 40 years, including two exclusive songs. The material is great, but with enough leftover space on the disc to include another five-to-ten tracks, you have to wonder why the compilation’s producers stopped at twelve. What’s worse, You’re Gonna Miss Me only has two songs from Erickson’s time with The 13th Floor Elevators, arguably his artistic peak. A better musical purchase for Roky fans would be 2005′s I Have Always Been Here Before: A Roky Erickson Anthology which includes a more robust forty-three songs.