The 13th Floor Elevators were perhaps the inventors of psychedelic
rock. Certainly they were among the very first to play it. They were
also one of the first bands to suffer the prejudice of the moralists
and the law. They were, alas, also among the first to pay the
consequences of drug abuse.
The band formed in Austin, Texas, around jug musician Tommy Hall and
vocalist Roky Erickson, who had already released an earlier version
of his You're Gonna Miss Me in 1965, with the Spades.
Tommy Hall, who had a background in science and philosophy and had been one
of the first kids in town to experiment with drugs, was the brain behind
the project. He wrote the cerebral lyrics to their songs, and he invented
the sound of the electric jug that became the trademark of their arrangements.
Stacy Sutherland was the quintessential fuzztone and reverb guitarist.
Their first album, The Psychedelic Sound Of The 13th Floor Elevators
(International Artists, 1966), released in the spring of 1966, is one
of the most fascinating of the acid age, the archetype of psychedelia.
The album presents a collection of acid ballads that feed on sound
effects (Reverberation), on ethereal folk-rock (Splash), on rhythmic
boogie (You're Gonna Miss Me), and on down-and-dirty improvisation (above
all Roller Coaster, but also Fire Engine). Theirs is a rhythm and blues a
la Rolling Stones, viewed through the deforming lens of LSD.
The group's anthem, You're Gonna Miss Me, which made history in the genre,
is a ferocious and dissolute soul song with hints of Tex-Mex and depraved
vocalizations, full of instinctive fury, and propelled by the demented
rhythm of Hall's deafening electric jug.
Despite the instability of the lineup, the group recorded Easter
Everywhere (Radar, 1967), which includes Postures, She Lives In A Time
Of Her Own and Skip Inside This House.
The album was Tommy Hall's attempt at assimilating Eastern philosophies
(Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism) as well as Quantum Physics into psychedelic
music.
Then Hall left the band while Erickson was arrested for
drug possession, and locked in a psychiatric hospital for schizophrenia.
He is practically absent from Bull Of The Woods (Decal, 1968), an album
that contains some of their most bizarre experiments. After their break-up
the band attained cult status. Best (Eva, 1994) is a good anthology.
When Erickson came out of the psychiatric hospital (1972), he published
a book of poetry. Despite his mental instability, he hit the scene again
during the rush of psychedelic revival and punk-rock, with dark humor and
a taste for the supernatural that carried him away from his origins,
towards a macabre rhythm and blues, with lyrics filled with alarming
monsters (Bermuda, 1977, Two Headed Dog, 1975).
And The Aliens (CBS, 1980) and The Evil One (415, 1981 - Sympathy, 2002)
are the two albums which define Erickson's solo career. The second contains
bewildering rave-ups such as Creatures With The Atom Brain and Stand For
The Fire Demon, voodoo-blues a la Credence Clearwater Revival, such as
Night of the Vampire, and his spiritual testaments: I Think of Demons and
I Walked with a Zombie.
An album of previously unreleased material, Don't Slander Me (Pink Dust,
1986), is a work of lesser quality, except for Bermuda and the wild Don't
Slander Me.
Erickson ended up in a mental institution again, but the record industry
continued to release every thing that he had absentmindedly recorded. I
Think Of Demons (Edset, 1987) is a compilation of leftover cuts from those
sessions. Gremlins Have Pictures (Pink Dust, 1986), Mad Dog (Swordfish,
1992) and Love To See You Bleed (Swordfish, 1992) include several rarities.
Click Your Fingers (New Roses, 1990) is a compilation of EPs: Mine Mine
Mind (Sponge, 1977) and Clear Night For Love (New Roses, 1985), and the
Holiday Inn Tapes, which are very crude acoustic recordings. Never Say
Goodbye (Emperor Jones, 1998) is a collection of home recordings made
between 1971 and 1985. Three live albums were also released.
Broke and incapable of caring for himself, Erickson released one last,
very spartan album, All That May Do My Rhyme (Trance Syndicate, 1995),
recycling old material (the EP Clear Night For Love, the 1966 single
We Sell Out by the Spades, and remixes of old classics) along with
new compositions.
Roky Erickson was by now incapable of recording, but a deluge of albums
kept up with the cult.
Reverend Of Karmic Youth (Skyclad, 1991) documents a 1979 and a 1985
dates.
Beauty And The Beast (Sympathy, 1993) documents a 1982 concert.
Demon Angel (Texas Hotel, 1995) is the soundtrack to a Erickson
documentary.
Never Say Goodbye (Emperor Jones, 1999) collects unreleased acoustic
tracks that date from his 1971 hospitalization and 1974.
I Have Always Been Here Before (Shout Factory, 2004) is a two-CD
retrospective that covers both 13th Floor Elevators and solo albums.
Okkervil River backed
Roky Erickson
on his True Love Cast Out All Evil (2010).
Roky Erickson died in 2019 at the age of 71.
