The founding father of psychedelic music is profiled in director Keven McAlester's intimate look at the life and career of legendary 13th Floor Elevators frontman Roger Kynard "Roky" Erickson. His voice was powerful enough to start a musical revolution, but the noise in his head would ultimately prove too overwhelming to ignore. A rock & roll icon whose epic heroin and LSD binges preceded a devastating battle with schizophrenia, Erickson gradually withdrew from the music scene while growing
increasingly obsessed with religion. Now, as the 53-year-old Erickson sits in his apartment just outside of Austin, TX, listening to multiple television, radios, scanners, and electric keyboards, fans can finally find out just what ever happend to the man who became one of rock & roll's greatest mysteries. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
There's an undeniable fascination to watching the extensive footage of Erickson, whose yowling, manic vocals on display in the extensive archival performance footage contrasts dramatically with scenes of him in more recent times.
You're Gonna Miss Me follows Roky Erickson, the lead singer of the 13th Floor Elevators and maybe the most influential 1960s pop star that most folks haven't heard of.
A sensitive case-study of a promising artist who fell afoul of the system but still managed, with the help of family, to reassemble his shattered life.
Director Keven McAlester thinks he's making Crumb, but he doesn't give you enough of [Roky] Erickson in his glory. You're Gonna Miss Me has the taint of exploitation.
Today Roky is actually on tour again, with a number of 2007 musical festival appearances including Coachella -- a development at least worthy of an afterword.
The film chronicles [Roky's brother] Sumner's quest - and [Roky's mother] Evelyn's resistance, and Roky's oblivious disconnection - in scenes of remarkable and distressing intimacy. There are also several clips of rare footage from the Elevators days that
One senses that this profile has been made by a fan who assumes we'll supply the pathos ourselves. And drug casualties are surely upsetting. But how can we miss someone we never really get to know?
Another dysfunctional American family gets its documentary close-up in the sad but involving You're Gonna Miss Me, the story of legendary music pioneer Roger "Roky" Erickson.
Keven McAlester's superb documentary about Texas singer-songwriter Roky Erickson scratches the surface of an artist's life only to find a welter of insanity, secrets and family dysfunction.
A potentially meaningful endeavor, but one that just seems to get led astray, and bogged down in the sordid details of Rory's ensuing lifelong mental illness and dysfunctional family history.
McAlester documents Erickson's musical rise and unfortunate decline into a mental illness he still struggles with, unleashing archival performances and home videos in this documentary film.
Was it the drug usage that transformed him from a rock pioneer into an incoherent burnout, or was it the preexisting schizophrenia? Was it the treatments that he received in the hospitals, or was it simply the fact that he was locked up in these hospitals? These questions really can't be answered, and the documentary
does not attempt to do so. What it does do is present the man's life story from the beginning of his musical career up until the present leaving it up to the viewer to come to his or her own conclusions about this tragic turn of events.
March 31, 2008
El Hombre Invisible
Super Reviewer
A fascinating doc about Roky Erickson, the singer for '13th floor elevators'. Very similar to the doc 'Devil in Daniel Johnston' and just as good.
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