(2019) The 13th Floor Elevators - The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators [reissue]
Review:
Let’s refresh your memory about (or, in the unlikely event you’ve never heard of these guys before, introduce you to) the 13th Floor Elevators. Although Jefferson Airplane, Pink Floyd, and even the Beatles experiment with psychedelic rock in the mid-’60s, it’s the Elevators in Austin, Texas, in 1965, who perfect and name the genre. The band is founded by lead singer and guitarist Roky Erickson (“Roky” is a portmanteau of the first two letters of his first and middle names, Roger Kynard), electric jug player (electric juggist?) Tommy Hall, drummer John Ike Walton, lead guitarist Stacy Sutherland, and bassist Benny Thurman. For the depth of its legacy, the band itself is relatively short-lived, forming at the end of 1965 and collapsing in 1969 after numerous drug busts and personnel changes. Sequentially, drummer John Ike Walton is replaced by Danny Thomas, bassist Benny Thurman by Ronnie Leatherman, and Ronnie by Danny Galindo. Austin music legend Powell St. John offers deep collaboration with the band, especially on its first album, The Psychedelic Sounds Of…, as does Tommy Hall’s wife, Clementine, each contributing iconic songs to the band’s repertoire. Famously, during the band’s live appearance on Dick Clark’s nationally televised American Bandstand in 1966, Clark innocently asks “Who’s the head of this band?” and Roky responds “We’re all heads, Dick.” There is no more world-famous Austin band of the ’60s than the Elevators.
Although there have been dozens, if not hundreds, of magazine and newspaper articles written about the mysterious 13th Floor Elevators, only Paul Drummond’s 2007 biography of the band tells the authoritative story. Of course, there’s more to add to the story in the dozen years since the book’s release, but Drummond lays a solid foundation and we look forward to the possibility Paul will eventually revise and expand the book. Eye Mind: The Saga of Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators, the Pioneers of Psychedelic Sound is as good a narrative history of any musician or band as you’ll ever get. This is a true story that reads like a thriller, complete with heroes and villains, innocence and disgrace, twists and turns, and, ultimately, death. Drummond, who’s served as the official Elevators archivist and has had unprecedented access to every living former member of the band, thoroughly documents how the Elevators as a band came to be the cult phenomenon that it is and how its individual members came to be who they were and are. There are surprises at every turn, including Sonobeat co-founder Bill Josey Sr.’s appearance as a character witness at Roky’s 1966 drug bust trial. Paul dedicates the book to Elevators’ co-founder Stacy Sutherland, who died on August 24, 1978…
Tracklist:
01. You're Gonna Miss Me
02. Roller Coaster
03. Splash 1 (Now I'm Home)
04. Reverberation
05. Don't Fall Down
06. Fire Engine
07. Thru The Rhythm
08. You Don't Know
09. Kingdom Of Heaven
10. Monkey Island
11. Tried To Hide
Summary:
Country: USA
Genre: psychedelic rock
Media Report:
Source : CD
Format : FLAC
Format/Info : Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : ~ 707-888 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
