You’re Gonna Miss Me
YOU’RE GONNA MISS ME
Keven McAlester
The Fascinating Story of Rock ‘n Roll Pioneer Roger Kynard “Roky” Erickson And His Struggles With Drug Addiction and Mental Illness.
Outside Austin, Texas, a 53-year-old man sits in an apartment with four radios, three televisions, two amps, a radio scanner, and a Casio electric piano playing all at the same time. Loudly. He has three teeth, his hair is matted into one huge dreadlock, and he has a notarized document on his wall declaring himself an alien, “so whoever’s putting shocks to my head will stop.”
This is the story of Roky Erickson: the manic singer and front man for the legendary band, The 13th Floor Elevators who are considered by many to be the creators of psychedelic music and muse to Janis Joplin. “You’re Gonna Miss Me,” is a disturbingly intimate portrait of an imploding family and the struggle between modernized medicine and religion. Known for his colossal heroine and LSD binges and an ongoing struggle with schizophrenia, Roky has become one of music’s legendary tragic figures.
First arrested for carrying one joint of marijuana, Roky enters an insanity plea which lands him in a minimum security mental hospital. After numerous attempts to escape, the state of Texas transfers him to Rusk State Hospital for the mentally ill, where he undergoes a series of implausible shock treatments, leaving this rock virtuoso a scarce whisper of his former self.
Now kept under lock and key by his mother Evelyn—-who refuses him any treatment beyond love, prayer, and a view of psychiatry gleaned from the shows that she has seen on television. Erickson becomes the centerpiece of a surreal family struggle and the blank screen onto which those around him project their re-imagined pasts and hopeful futures.
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