Does musical genius = nuttier than a free pecan nut log with every gas fill-up at Stuckeys?
Well, maybe you’re a wee bit too young to remember Stuckeys, so I’ll just give you a brief description of the place: Stuckeys was a really crappy souvenir shop that posed as a roadside eating joint. Oh, yeah: they also had a gas station outside for folks to get one of their pecan nut logs when you filled up your tank. They also disappeared after the ’70s (along with the mood ring)–so don’t feel bad that you missed all that because I can tell you as a fact: The ’70s sucked! Anyhoo, back to the musical-genius thing …
Enter Phil Spector. The infamous studio genius cranked out some killer songs between cranking back the trigger on the gun he held on various musicians, like the Ramones, and perhaps his lovely singing wife, Ronnie Spector. Phil was all crazy and power-tripping in the studio but never actually shot anyone–that is, until recently, when he got drunk, took a B-movie actress/waitress back to his fancy home, put a gun to her head, and killed the poor unsuspecting woman. Whether it was by accident in one of his manic episodes or not, he’s finally getting locked up. Found guilty of murder, the guy’s serving time for his crime. A very sad story, indeed.
How does that saying go: Insanity is one step away from genius? And Phil sure had some insane wigs on during his courtroom time. Brian Wilson seemed crazy as a loon when after far too many acid trips, he took his fat ass to bed to live in, eating popsicles while he composed the brilliant “Pet Sounds” for the Beach Boys. And that is the best album that band ever did. Genius. I’m glad Brian Wilson never killed anyone … just a few hundred brain cells.
Then there are everybody’s favorite nutlogs, I mean “Musical Genius” pair: Syd Barrett and Roky Erickson.
Syd fronted and composed for The Pink Floyd way before leaving the group to go solo and the other members became four geezers, a lasershow and a pig balloon – ha! That band was just a boring (though far more popular) rock group by the name of “Pink Floyd.” But The Pink Floyd created a brilliant psychedelic classic album, “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.” That record is a gemstone amongst the asscrap of the ’70s. In it, Barrett had clever, spacey lyrics about gnomes and a strange fellow named Arnold Layne.
Of course, young, trippy Syd was known to crush up handfuls of Mandrax and Brylcream to melt into his hair and stand completely silent in front of his audience as the drugs seeped into his skin. That’s some crazy shit, huh?! Well, that and dropping acid like it was candy, too.
When all the Floyd fans were dying to hear the band’s pop hit “See Emily Play,” Syd did not appease them. Intead, the loopy singer stood there like a statue pissing them off. That’s a hell of a punk act to pull off.
Syd left The Pink Floyd to do his own thing, which was seriously hit-or-miss territory. But, no matter how scattered Barrett’s ideas came off on his solo recordings, they’re sure more interesting than anything off that “Dark Side of the Moon,” which is more than influenced by Barrett’s genius. (“The lunatic is on the grass-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s” … what a load!). Sadly, Syd stopped making recordings–about everything from an “Effervescing Elephant” to a “Vegetable Man”–after a few sessions, shaved his head, and lived in seclusion with his mother until recently passing away.
Last up: a young kid named Roky Erickson from Texas, who didn’t dress up all fancy and mod like them English boys making weird music. Roky looked like a gas-pump jockey and so did his band, The 13th Floor Elevators.
With an intensely garage-y rock vocal and crazy harmonica playing, his debut album, “The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators,” was one animalistic slab of wax. Like Syd, Roky dropped more than his fair share of hallucinogens and was said to have mental illness. Erickson was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, forcibly spent a bit of time in a loony bin and got involuntary shock treatments. Roky’s still kickin’ out there, but his performances are not all together, musically or mentally. After he left the Elevators and went solo, his songs of romantic abandonment (a theme he’d earlier visited in such tunes as “You’re Gonna Miss Me”) took a comic-book turn (“I Walked with a Zombie”). This new, horror-fantasy tone, on the surface “safe” pop-rock, actually reflected Roky’s state of mind at the time: in 1982, he asked a Notary Public to sign off on an affadavit officially declaring that a Martian had taken up residence in his body.
All these cats influenced many artists, so they must be doing something right! Let’s hear it for those wild & crazy guys, the musical geniuses. Would you like a free alien implanted into your head with that tank fill-up, sir?
John Stabb was the frontman for the legendary harDCore punk outfit Government Issue. When not blogging for BLURT, he currently serves as frontman for Sleeper Agent. Check them out at http://www.myspace.com/sleeperagentdc