| So many of Roky’s songs are like this: tiny imaginary
worlds in which frightening visions seem to gel for a moment, become
real, and then recede back into the world of dreams. Twenty-nine such
excursions are here on this tape, which somebody, maybe all of you,
should pester Emperor Jones to
release, though if you do that you gotta enclose a note saying
you swear to God you’ll buy the thing when it comes out, because
putting out Roky Erikson records is not exactly a license to print
money. Include something about making the sleeve all sparse and minimal
while you’re at it. There’s nothing quite so satisfying
as a book whose cover neglects to mention that there are real demons
inside waiting to eat the faces of anybody who looks at them. And
what, then, of The Real World: Chicago, which, as it turns
out, can by no wise be connected to the Roky Erikson tape which relieved
me momentarily today of my unfortunate and evidently incurable infatuation
with the lowest points of pop culture? One hopes that its producers,
in their dreamless sleep, hear sometimes the high-pitched voice of
the Singing Grandfather above the whirr of his Craftsman. |
