Sometimes it seems a real shame that PGH is so monochromatic when psychedelicia is so not.
Just imagine my surprise when I walked into the Record Lounge the other day…and what was sitting in the rack but…. a brand new pressing of ‘The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators’. I have heard it said that you couldn’t be a card carrying hippie unless you had a copy of Country Joe and the Fish’s album Electric Music for the Mind and Body. For me this goes double for the Elevators and it predates CJ&tF by a full year. Legend has it that this may be the first band to ever actually refer to themselves or their music as psychedelic. They combined lingering and futuristic garage-band sounds with rock rhythms that were well aligned with the new counterculture of the times. The band delivered an aggressive psychedelic worldview that stood out against many of the musicians of the times. It also stood out against the norm of where they were geographically; as they were seen by some as threatening the moral fabric of the great State of Texas
We all know and love Austin Texas as having been a happening place for music for a long time. I always knew it as the home of the famed Armadillo World Headquarters. So I also always found it strange that this is where the Elevators got their start way back in 1965. The core of the band were Roky Erikson, Tommy Hall and Stacy Sutherland. It was these cats that provided the sound and the vibe of the band. Unfortunately as it turned out, the very fountainhead of the creativity also led to the unravelling of the band. Hall at the time was an ardent acolyte of acid. And the expectation was that using acid was the standard operating procedure for all of the band when playing music. Erikson on the other hand had a fragile mental state, and after pleading insanity to drug charges involving a single joint, actually spent some years confined to a mental institution.
Janis Joplin was a close associate of the band in the early years and a friend of Clementine, the wife of Tommy Hall. Tommy brought two important musical things to the band. First and most notably was the unique and ghostly sound of the electric jug. And second but by no means inconsequential were his transcendent, image-rich lyrics. His poetry was metaphysical and employed quirky allusions to other non-mainstream disciplines and belief systems.
Roky, wrote much of the band’s amazing music, played guitar and provided crazy and powerful vocals with much soulful wailing that surely must have inspired Janis to some degree.
Stacy also sang and wrote music but it was his innovative and groundbreaking use of reverb and echo, and his acid-drenched lead guitar playing that really contributed to the special sound of The 13th Floor Elevators.
The band truly only lasted until 1968 when they played their last concert with the original lineup. Roky was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in 69, which signaled an end to the band. He was finally released in 1972, but not without apparently going through significant electroshock and Thorazine therapy, along the way.
Even though the band only existed physically for a few short years, their inspiration and legacy continues until today. Not only did they influence Janis and Big Brother and the Holding Company to a degree but others such as Billy Gibbons, Spacemen 3, Primal Scream, The Jesus and Mary Chain, R.E.M. and Queens of the Stone Age to name a few.
But, please don’t take my word for it. Grab a record and listen for yourself. You will never be the same.
After the band broke up Stacy battled with heroin, alcoholism, and incarceration. In spite of all of that he continued to play music through the 70’s. He was shot and killed by his wife in 1978
Roky faces many challenges but eventually has been able to overcome many of them to a degree and has made some minor yet successful forays back into the music scene, including some fairly recent recordings and some concerts.
Tommy lives in San Francisco today, where he leads a simple and humble life, working out the divine mysteries of the universe; a theory he calls ‘The Design’; still on the vision quest he started in the 60’s.
All I want to do is expand the universe.
– Tommy Hall
Discography
Singles
“You’re Gonna Miss Me” / “Tried to Hide” (January/May 1966)
“Reverberation (Doubt)” / “Fire Engine” (October 1966)
“I’ve Got Levitation” / “Before You Accuse Me” (February 1967)
“She Lives (In a Time of Her Own” / Baby Blue (Late 1967)
“Slip Inside This House” / “Splash 1” (February 1968)
“May the Circle Remain Unbroken” / “I’m Gonna Love You Too” (Fall 1968)
“Livin’ On” / Scarlet and Gold” (Early 1969)
Albums
The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators (August 1966)
Easter Everywhere (November 1967)
Live (August 1968)
Bull of the Woods (1969)
CD box sets
The Psychedelic World of the 13th Floor Elevators (2002)
The Complete Elevators IA Singles Collection
Sign of the Three Eyed Men (2009)
Vinyl box sets
Music of the Spheres (2011)