You're Gonna Miss Me: A Film About Roky Erickson (2007)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Touches You

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

i must have seen a different film!!

Right off you will start to make judgments on what Roky Erickson suffers from. The one thing this documentary does well is divide the possibilities into the story telling. You will be guessing yourself to the very end.I think it's pretty safe to say that Roky Erickson was probably the first rock star casualty of the 60's. He even beats Syd Barrett and Brian Jones of the Stones by a few years. This documentary does a fairly good job of depicting his life from start until the most recent point. Your job is to tell yourself...or make yourself believe what is his issue. For me it's a combination of all four possibilities I mention but one stands out from all others...just because of the time this story all starts.IMO...Roky Erickson had a seriously bad acid trip that did him in. Why do I believe this? Mainly because it was very common in it's day and the behavior he exhibits is classic. I'll mention 1 group that had 3 go awry with one bad acid trip...The original line-up of the Fleetwood Mac. Their 3 front members all have the same problems to this day. All of it started with some bad acid. Another case? Syd Barrett. His is a little more difficult to pin down but it's common knowledge of his acid use and his behavior?.Well...he seemed a lot like Roky Erickson does to me.Roky Erickson lived a pretty difficult/odd life. You gradually get to realize that his mother is the star of the family and she lets you know it in her own little odd way. The father was a drunk and he doesn't get much attention in this film but you know...he's an issue. After he trips bad on acid he gets stuck in a cruel mental institution for a few years that was not equipped to deal with is problem. They mention that the only reason he got put in there is because he kept escaping the institution he was in so the sheriff got fed up and put him in a maximum security facility. They complain and decide to tell you he didn't need to be in there for his crime...which was just possession of pot I believe. What was the sheriff suppose to do? Keep sticking him in the same facility so he could keep escaping? He did what most would have done...stuck him in a place he wouldn't get away from. Problem was, it was a horror story of a mental hospital.I got the impression towards the end that youngest of his brothers was only trying to help for his own benefit. This guy was a "new age" typa guy who had to see therapists to get himself back to a sense of peace and he wanted to help Roky in the same way. It was plain the Roky was fine the way he was and was content with his dull life but his brother kept his persistence up. His enemy he thinks is his mother who he says keeps Roky from taking his meds or won't allow him to. She's obviously and odd one but she's sane enough. This is a classic case of 1 side of the family against the other. In the end we see Roky progress after a year and the "new age" therapist asks Roky what he wants to do when he goes home. His answer, judging from the frown in his face, doesn't please his little brother. "I wanna go talk to my mother". I just got the impression that he was in it to help him but with intent of some kind of gain because of who his brother is.Good doc on an interesting subject. It's also good to see Roky still around. There needs to be more of these films to tell cautionary tales about these particular subjects. They're better than the evening news.

In late 1965/early 1966,a band from Austin,Texas,named The 13th Floor Elevators exploded out of the garage & made a name for themselves in that era of rock & roll. The Elevators were said to coin the phrase, "Psychedelic Rock". One of the band members was Roger Keynard Erikson,coined "Roky" by his friends & fans. Roky,in the spirit of the times,experimented with various drugs (Marijuana,LSD,Heroin,etc.). After an arrest (that was obviously set up by the Texas feds)for possessing less than an ounce of Marijuana,his lawyer sought out an insanity plea & spent four years in a state psychiatric hospital,where he was diagnosed schizophrenic,emerged four years later & returned to music,but with a much darker edge,until he retired from music in 1987 and became a recluse. This well documented film manages to shed light on a troubled soul that was yanked from the limelight way too soon. Candid interviews with several of those who either knew him closely (his brothers & mother),as well as celebrities,such as fellow Texans, Billy Gibbons (Z.Z.Top),Gibby Haynes (The Butthole Surfers),Byron Coley (former editor of Forced Exposure),and a bevy of others. And then of course,the music (rare early film clips of The 13th Floor Elevators on American Bandstand,playing the film's title song,'You're Gonna Miss Me,as well as other performance footage,including the last time he was seen in public at a concert where he stood there,doing nothing,and if that wasn't enough,some rarely seen home movie footage of Roky,and the rest of his family). A sad,but insightful film. Not rated by the MPAA,this film serves up a few rude words,as well as spoken testimony of the horrors of Roky's four nightmare years in a mental institution,and descriptions of some of the more sordid aspects of the 1960's hippie counter culture (drugs,sexual experimentation,etc.)

Where to begin ... Take a broken family with mental problems (self-medication), add a minor rock star, and Austin (weird) Texas Ta da! "Roky" Erickson is one of those 1960's legends who did not have the good fortune to die young, and leave a good looking corpse. Luckily walking corpses abound here from his mother (think outsider artist w. a screw loose), a brother who seems to have escaped the madness, only to regress frame by frame, and then with Roky himself who is a poster child for drugs in moderation. I gave this DVD 9 out of 10 because the EXTRA footage is the key. This is intense sad stuff, but as you see the footage from the 2 years AFTER this film was completed, a lot more questions, and answers emerge. This is NOT easy stuff, but in the end, I was profoundly moved by this work, and have yet to recover.

Was really wowed by this film. There are moments of utter brilliance, both comedic and dramatic. I laughed throughout the entire film, but the whole thing was suffused with a tragic tenderness that squeezed my heart. Rocky as a young musician is irresistible--charming, handsome, talented, charismatic. Rocky as an aging, mentally ill, reclusive former rocker is equally irresistible. The film takes us on an incredible journey from one to the other and stands out because in Rocky's world, there doesn't seem to be one bedrock of sanity. The filmmaker creates a world completely oblivious and impervious to the one we live in; one we see but can't really believe exists. The music is phenomenal. Truly one of America's untold rock legends.