We wrote all about the life of Roky Erickson when we first started this blog. His life is fascinating and tragic. The documentary about his life however, is a lot like watching paint dry.
Contrary to most reports, “You’re Gonna Miss Me” is not a rock documentary on a seminal figure — scrambled egg, psychedelic pioneer. 13th Floor Elevators rocker, Erickson. The “rock doc” is more a dry and flat account of a fucked up family dysfunction and the power struggle for control of a mentally ill son. Erickson just happens to be a importantl ’60s figure, but his music career and his legacy are mostly an anecdotal side-dish in the film.
This power struggle doesn’t have to be boring and on the contrary, it’s rich with potential drama, but first time director Kevin McAlester presents the facts in the most profoundly tedious of ways.
Back to Roky himself. It doesn’t help that while good intentions surround him, his entire family is crazy and psychologically scarred from an upbringing that is only barely explained (their are hints that their father was abusive; his mother seemed “eccentric” from minute one).
Roky’s mother is portrayed in the film as the controlling evil witch that would rather use prayer over medicine to heal her son who is essentially suffering from schizophrenia. Roky’s younger brother Sumner is shown in a saviors light — the one who is willing to risk all to save his naive brother from the clutches of his nefarious mom — but he too soon reveals himself to be an Class A new age nutjob. His house resembles a brutal Lego eyesore in the middle of the Philadelphia suburbs; he enlists the use of a crackpot psychologist to heal his mental wounds and best of all, in the film’s postscript he appears with yet another hippie fruitcake doc and claims Roky has been cured because he was never sick. “Schizophrenia is a garbage term…He’s not been mentally ill, that’s a lie,” he says with outrageous certainty. “So-called mental illness doesn’t exist,” he says with a smile and you can only sadly think, “this is the best person to care for a man who’s brain has been refried twice over?
The story is incredibly compelling, but the film itself is as dry as the Sahara. When Werner Herzog famously said most documentarians are accountants and if you want simple facts you should open a phone book, we’re pretty sure he was talking about “You’re Gonna Miss Me.”
A few seminal figures like ZZ Top ‘s Billy Gibbons are occasionally on hand to deliver reverent testimonials, but the music and its place in the rock pantheon is not the story here. With that in mind, the soundtrack is still worthwhile. Due this month, it’s a fine primer to Roky Erikson’s career, both with the seminal 13 Floor Elevators and his later group, the Aliens.
The DVD of this film is out today via Palm Pictures, btw.
Download: Roky Erikson – Mine, Mine, Mind
Download: Roky Erikson – “You Don’t Love Me Yet”
Download: Roky Erikson – “Goodbye Sweet Dreams”
Rodrigo Perez is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Playlist, which he launched in 2008. He has worked in entertainment journalism since 2000, including at MTV, and has written for SPIN, IndieWire, Pitchfork, Complex, Magnet, and various music, film, and entertainment publications over the past two decades.
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
- Rodrigo Perez
