Roky Erickson

Cobbled together from live tapes, studio outtakes, and casually recorded demos, Gremlins Have Pictures was the lesser of the two albums Roky Erickson recorded for the Restless-distributed Pink Dust label, though it still captured the psychedelic pioneer in potent and hard rocking form. Several different backing bands appear on these tracks -- ranging from the tight and empathetic the Aliens to Texas proto-punk also-rans the Explosives -- but Erickson was in strong voice when this stuff was put on tape (no dates are included, but most of this probably dates from the early '80s), and even the lesser musicians at least try to match him for energy (and often succeed). Gremlins Have Pictures also preserves some of the less well-known titles in the Roky Erickson songbook; while "I Have Always Been Here Before" is once again recycled here, the oddball ballads "Anthem (I Promise)" and "Song to Abe Lincoln" and potent rockers "The Interpreter" and "Cold Night for Alligators" rank with Erickson's more memorable tunes, and the into-the-wind cover of the Velvet Underground's "Heroin" certainly ups the frenzy factor of the original. Gremlins Have Pictures is a patch job, but at least it's a patch job done with care and concern for the material, and musically it has a lot more going for it than the wealth of semi-authorized Erickson sets floating around. [Rykodisc's 2005 reissue adds four songs to the original 12-track American edition -- "Bermuda," "Burn the Flames," "I'm a Demon," and "The Beast."] ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide