SO TODAY was simply meant to be the second installment in this part-blog dedicated to MOJO’s meandering around Austin’s SXSW festival. And certainly the day started off with a midday wander down to the British Music BBQ at Brush Square to catch a snatch of Seth Lakeman and to see whether Amy Winehouse would turn up following her emotional trauma in London last week (you correspondent is happy to note that she did, performing three acoustic numbers, followed by a full set later in the evening). And then Raoul Hernandez – the music editor of the Austin Chronicle – mentioned that Roky Erickson was hosting a bash over at Threadgills bar and restaurant…

Hotfooting it over to the eatery in question on Riverside Drive, MOJO arrives in time to hear a bearded man on the outdoor stage inviting the crowd to “Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is more accurately called ECB - electroconvulsive brainwashing! It is a brutal assault, a crime against humanity!” He is Leonard Roy Frank – a leading anti-electroshock campaigner – and he holds forth on the effects of this dubious branch of medical science. Standing by his side is Michelle Shocked, preparing to perform. Rather than start her set, she tells the audience of the time during which she was subjected to psychiatric assault by forced incarceration and Haldol injections. Her story is horrific.

Then again, Roky Erickson’s story is equally disturbing. Erickson was arrested in 1969 for possession a single joint and then incarcerated at the Rusk State Hospital For The Criminally Insane. It was there that he found himself subjected to eletro-shock therapy and, allegedly, lost his mind. The intervening years have been traumatic and yet today, at his annual Psychedelic Ice Cream Social, Erickson has reason to celebrate: after a long battle he is finally his own legal guardian and, after close to two decades of medical oppression, a free man.

It is to celebrate this fact that Michelle Shocked, Robyn Hitchcock And Peter Buck, Mogwai’s Stuart Braithwaite and local heroes Spoon (among others) have elected to play this benefit for Roky which is simultaneously designed to raise awareness for the victims of electro-shock therapy.
.

At 7.15 – and following an acoustic performance by his brother Sumner – Roky himself takes to the stage alongside his friends in The Explosives. Erickson beams at the ecstatic reception he receives and launches into an hour-long set that is nothing short of triumphant, spurred on by guitarist Cam King and underlining just how ageless Erickson’s voice is. The set itself traverses the Elevators catalogue as well as Roky’s latter endeavours, but most poignant is Splash #1, the refrain of “And now I’m home to stay” echoing loudly beyond this mere performance.