FRI., OCTOBER 26, 2007
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The Roky Road of the 13th Floor Elevators
by Lenny Kaye
The primal screamings that open "You're Gonna Miss Me," the 13th Floor Elevators' claim to everlasting fame, are as if their lead singer had pried open the doorway to the human soul and found monsters and mutation awaiting just beyond the threshold. As Roky Erickson opens his throat for another heart-wrenching cry, Tommy Hall joins in with the maddening wobble of the electric jug; while Stacy Sutherland's low-slung guitar and John Ike Walton's knack for a well-placed drum fill and whoever's on bass tonight thumps along the track, which is then bathed in reverberation. And there is revealed Texas Psychedelia in all its manic glory, driven crazy by that vast expanse of neuron prairie in which the subconscious mind wanders between each earful, a bipolar of true stereo.
Based originally in Austin, the Elevators were the suspension bridge spanning the garage expletives of earlier '60 Texas rock, where bands like the Cynics or Barons decided which branch of the British Invasion they wanted to emulate (some of my favorites are the Mods' take on "Evil Hearted You" and the Boys' "You Deceived Me," or the dueling food-groups of the ultra-snappy "One Potato" by the Elite, and a raucous "Half-Peeled Banana" by the Chocolate Moose) — and the psychedelic revolution, which framed the drug experience within the aspirations of a religious quest, as opposed to the pure hedonism it usually devolved to. Often the dividing line was not as clear as might be expected (hey, find God and have fun!). As the movers and shakers of Texas' most progressive city began their move and shake (and bake) toward San Francisco, the Elevators had no choice but to follow, trailing drug busts and hallucinogenic outbursts in their wake.
They were riding a surprise Top 55 hit when they arrived in August of 1966 at Chet Helms' burgeoning Avalon Ballroom, paralleling the migration of another Texas refugee, Janis Joplin. They didn't stay long: they had no money despite the oddball success of their single, their record company was back in Texas and even then there was a hierarchy to the San Francisco groups that made them outsiders. Besides, the Elevators were too weird for the upcoming Summer Love-In and perhaps even for themselves.
They were a volatile mix, fueled by whatever drugs were available.
As recounted in medulla-blowing detail in a biography of the band by Paul Drummond, Eye Mind (Process/Feral House, 2007), their tale is enough to shock even the most hardened devotees of rock Babylon. Given a jumpstart by the local success of Roky's lo-fi single with the Spades released on Zero Records in late 1965, which he'd written when he was fifteen, the Elevators decided to re-record that song, "You're Gonna Miss Me," when Erickson joined forces with Sutherland and Hall (John Ike, by all accounts, was the straighter edge in the band). They were a volatile mix, fueled by whatever drugs were available, caught up in an Austin scene that had discovered LSD and saw it as a tool and pathway to enlightenment. As the band's lyricist, Hall was primarily concerned with proselytizing for higher consciousness and his jug playing, inspired by his love of Jim Kweskin's Jug Band, was used to hypnotic effect, underpinning the Elevators' signature sound, for better or worse. Stacy felt the incessant jug-handling was getting in the way of his guitar playing and Roky's singing; he may have been right, but the producer their small-time record label, International Artists, gave them — Lelan Rogers, brother of Kenny — didn't see it that way. In the spirit of filling the "studio space" and "More Cowbell!," the "electric" jug was given continual prominence, and its novelty might well be the reason why "You're Gonna Miss Me" skittered its way onto AM radio in a year that saw every town birth its own homegrown version of the Thirteenth Floor Elevators.
They recorded their debut album, The Psychedelic Sounds of..., in three days in Dallas, immediately after getting out of the van back from San Francisco, meeting Rogers for the first time. Most of the cuts were first takes, and the heavy use of clattery reverb and mystic catch-phrases and the jug the incessant jug no more please I'll talk not the jug! created a soupy, atmospheric, otherworldly texture the likes of which would spread tentacles of influence for many years to come (most notably in the Möbius strip of Spacemen Three, or Julian Cope, who provides the introduction to Eye Mind).
There is no way of knowing whether a less haphazard recording company and management situation would have helped the Elevators, but at one point they were courted by Elektra. International Artists only got more outré as they expanded their catalogue, as the motto proferred by Mayo Thompson of the Red Crayola — "...definitions define limit." — would suggest. Along with the Bubble Puppy, and even Lightnin' Hopkins, the company seemed as tripped-out as their best-known charges, and also had little cash-flow to work with: the Elevators' live album was merely studio tracks with applause dubbed on. The group's second album, Easter Everywhere, is regarded as their classic. While it's true that the debut suffers in traditional recording quality — marinated in reverb, "Reverberation (Doubt)" is all the more iconic — the songs are unified, classics like "Fire Engine" or "Kingdom of Heaven" able to balance equally their top-heavy metaphysics with sympathetic guitar riffing and howling. Easter Everywhere finds Tommy's words becoming philosophically unwieldy in Roky's mouth, and Stacy seems distant, playing alongside the songs rather than within them. Nonetheless, the eight-minute "Slip Inside This House" is a monumental classic if you like — as I do — epics that seem like dream sequences (do seek out "Mr. Conductor" by Serpent Power), and "Dust" is Roky at his most vulnerable.
Roky's descent into limbo didn't start with his conviction for a single joint and subsequent sentence to a home for the criminally insane.
The two Elevator discs that have arrived on eMusic are not the International Artist masters, but rarities that flesh out in all too human form the tragic retributions lifestyle and their art took on the band and its individual members. The first ten tracks of The Interpreter Vol. 1 are comprised of alternate mixes of Elevator songs from the canon, in some cases clearer than the original versions (such as "Roller Coaster"); track 11 is the true find here, the original Spades version of "You're Gonna Miss Me," with a more plaintive harmonica delivery — a telling comparison to the edge the Elevators as an ensemble would give it two months later. The remainder of Vol. 1 and the whole of Vol. 2 are given over to Roky's solo offerings, an oddball assortment of home recordings (his version of Dylan's "Lay Down Your Weary Tune" is particularly affecting), live audience documentations and even a lengthy interview, all of which testifies to his remarkable ability to survive amidst extreme mental turmoil and misfortune.
Roky's descent into limbo didn't start with his conviction for a single joint and subsequent sentence to a home for the criminally insane — it was either that or the penitentiary — but his fragile state of consciousness was surely not helped by massive drug use; nor were Stacy's demons held at bay. Sutherland served jail time, drank heavily and was accidentally shot and killed by his wife in 1978. Hall lives as a recluse in San Francisco's Tenderloin, holding fast to his esoteric belief system and refusing to sully it with commercialism.
But Erickson? An unlikely survivor, Roky has managed to continue a solo career based on fright movies and Texas blues. Riding the Elevators' Going Up? and up as the group's cultural cachet reaches the top floor of cult heroics, he has found a ready and rabid audience. This past August I found myself in Chicago's Abbey Club, the night before both Roky and I would play Lollapalooza (in separate bands, of course). He was standing on stage surrounded by his Explosives, doing what he's done since he was a teenage Texan, which is caterwaul and blow his harp and pony-ride his guitar solo, all the while staring down his two-headed demons with their four baleful eyes, matching their madness, horror show for horror show.
Based originally in Austin, the Elevators were the suspension bridge spanning the garage expletives of earlier '60 Texas rock, where bands like the Cynics or Barons decided which branch of the British Invasion they wanted to emulate (some of my favorites are the Mods' take on "Evil Hearted You" and the Boys' "You Deceived Me," or the dueling food-groups of the ultra-snappy "One Potato" by the Elite, and a raucous "Half-Peeled Banana" by the Chocolate Moose) — and the psychedelic revolution, which framed the drug experience within the aspirations of a religious quest, as opposed to the pure hedonism it usually devolved to. Often the dividing line was not as clear as might be expected (hey, find God and have fun!). As the movers and shakers of Texas' most progressive city began their move and shake (and bake) toward San Francisco, the Elevators had no choice but to follow, trailing drug busts and hallucinogenic outbursts in their wake.
They were riding a surprise Top 55 hit when they arrived in August of 1966 at Chet Helms' burgeoning Avalon Ballroom, paralleling the migration of another Texas refugee, Janis Joplin. They didn't stay long: they had no money despite the oddball success of their single, their record company was back in Texas and even then there was a hierarchy to the San Francisco groups that made them outsiders. Besides, the Elevators were too weird for the upcoming Summer Love-In and perhaps even for themselves.
As recounted in medulla-blowing detail in a biography of the band by Paul Drummond, Eye Mind (Process/Feral House, 2007), their tale is enough to shock even the most hardened devotees of rock Babylon. Given a jumpstart by the local success of Roky's lo-fi single with the Spades released on Zero Records in late 1965, which he'd written when he was fifteen, the Elevators decided to re-record that song, "You're Gonna Miss Me," when Erickson joined forces with Sutherland and Hall (John Ike, by all accounts, was the straighter edge in the band). They were a volatile mix, fueled by whatever drugs were available, caught up in an Austin scene that had discovered LSD and saw it as a tool and pathway to enlightenment. As the band's lyricist, Hall was primarily concerned with proselytizing for higher consciousness and his jug playing, inspired by his love of Jim Kweskin's Jug Band, was used to hypnotic effect, underpinning the Elevators' signature sound, for better or worse. Stacy felt the incessant jug-handling was getting in the way of his guitar playing and Roky's singing; he may have been right, but the producer their small-time record label, International Artists, gave them — Lelan Rogers, brother of Kenny — didn't see it that way. In the spirit of filling the "studio space" and "More Cowbell!," the "electric" jug was given continual prominence, and its novelty might well be the reason why "You're Gonna Miss Me" skittered its way onto AM radio in a year that saw every town birth its own homegrown version of the Thirteenth Floor Elevators.
They recorded their debut album, The Psychedelic Sounds of..., in three days in Dallas, immediately after getting out of the van back from San Francisco, meeting Rogers for the first time. Most of the cuts were first takes, and the heavy use of clattery reverb and mystic catch-phrases and the jug the incessant jug no more please I'll talk not the jug! created a soupy, atmospheric, otherworldly texture the likes of which would spread tentacles of influence for many years to come (most notably in the Möbius strip of Spacemen Three, or Julian Cope, who provides the introduction to Eye Mind).
There is no way of knowing whether a less haphazard recording company and management situation would have helped the Elevators, but at one point they were courted by Elektra. International Artists only got more outré as they expanded their catalogue, as the motto proferred by Mayo Thompson of the Red Crayola — "...definitions define limit." — would suggest. Along with the Bubble Puppy, and even Lightnin' Hopkins, the company seemed as tripped-out as their best-known charges, and also had little cash-flow to work with: the Elevators' live album was merely studio tracks with applause dubbed on. The group's second album, Easter Everywhere, is regarded as their classic. While it's true that the debut suffers in traditional recording quality — marinated in reverb, "Reverberation (Doubt)" is all the more iconic — the songs are unified, classics like "Fire Engine" or "Kingdom of Heaven" able to balance equally their top-heavy metaphysics with sympathetic guitar riffing and howling. Easter Everywhere finds Tommy's words becoming philosophically unwieldy in Roky's mouth, and Stacy seems distant, playing alongside the songs rather than within them. Nonetheless, the eight-minute "Slip Inside This House" is a monumental classic if you like — as I do — epics that seem like dream sequences (do seek out "Mr. Conductor" by Serpent Power), and "Dust" is Roky at his most vulnerable.
The two Elevator discs that have arrived on eMusic are not the International Artist masters, but rarities that flesh out in all too human form the tragic retributions lifestyle and their art took on the band and its individual members. The first ten tracks of The Interpreter Vol. 1 are comprised of alternate mixes of Elevator songs from the canon, in some cases clearer than the original versions (such as "Roller Coaster"); track 11 is the true find here, the original Spades version of "You're Gonna Miss Me," with a more plaintive harmonica delivery — a telling comparison to the edge the Elevators as an ensemble would give it two months later. The remainder of Vol. 1 and the whole of Vol. 2 are given over to Roky's solo offerings, an oddball assortment of home recordings (his version of Dylan's "Lay Down Your Weary Tune" is particularly affecting), live audience documentations and even a lengthy interview, all of which testifies to his remarkable ability to survive amidst extreme mental turmoil and misfortune.
Roky's descent into limbo didn't start with his conviction for a single joint and subsequent sentence to a home for the criminally insane — it was either that or the penitentiary — but his fragile state of consciousness was surely not helped by massive drug use; nor were Stacy's demons held at bay. Sutherland served jail time, drank heavily and was accidentally shot and killed by his wife in 1978. Hall lives as a recluse in San Francisco's Tenderloin, holding fast to his esoteric belief system and refusing to sully it with commercialism.
But Erickson? An unlikely survivor, Roky has managed to continue a solo career based on fright movies and Texas blues. Riding the Elevators' Going Up? and up as the group's cultural cachet reaches the top floor of cult heroics, he has found a ready and rabid audience. This past August I found myself in Chicago's Abbey Club, the night before both Roky and I would play Lollapalooza (in separate bands, of course). He was standing on stage surrounded by his Explosives, doing what he's done since he was a teenage Texan, which is caterwaul and blow his harp and pony-ride his guitar solo, all the while staring down his two-headed demons with their four baleful eyes, matching their madness, horror show for horror show.
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