The Black Angels + Roky Erickson at Fitzgerald’s
Written by Coog Radio on February 28, 2014
Austin’s very own psych ambassadors The Black Angels will be stopping by Fitzgerald’s this Friday with the support of none other than friend and neighbor Roky Erickson, the godfather of Texas psychedelic rock.
The Black Angels are wrapping up their “Winter Psych Storm” tour in support of their 2013 release “Indigo Meadow”. Most of the tour dates also featured Erickson and his backing band, The Hounds of Baskerville. In an interview with The Quietus last year, Black Angels singer Alex Maas talked about what it was like touring with Erickson when they were his backing band in the mid-2000s.
“I’d kind of compare it to riding an unbroken horse. While being chased by a vampire bat. In the dark. And there’s no saddle, and you’re just holding on to the mane, and trying to stay completely connected to that beast, and help guide it and just live through that whole experience and get out safe!”
Erickson’s rise to legendary status began during the 60s psychedelic movement in Austin where he was leading the seminal rock band The 13th Floor Elevators. After being diagnosed with schizophrenia in the late 60s, he was subject to traumatic electroshock treatments that hurt more than helped, and after decades of physical and spiritual healing, returned to the stage with renewed vigor in 2005. The same year, his life story was captured in the documentary “You’re Gonna Miss Me”.
Hopefully Erickson and the Hounds will break out some of The Elevator’s classics, but the audience is highly likely to get an ample helping of tracks off of the Black Angels’ latest fuzz-drenched, reverb-soaked installment. Even more so than its predecessor, 2010’s “Phosphene Dream”, “Indigo Meadow” is a solid effort that embodies the heavier, more menacing Sabbath-meets-The Seeds ethos of psychedelic rock.
If you can’t make it out on the 28th for this double dose of lysergic bliss, don’t worry, you can always catch The Black Angels at the Austin Psych Fest in May. One out of two ain’t bad.
By Diedra Harvey
