https://www.austin360.com/entertain...ckson-texas-psychedelic-music-legend-has-died The OG Texas Psych Legend has passed. In life he lived with demons, in death may he live with angels..
This is an awful, awful day. A big part of my memories of the late '60's died today. One of the best parts. I edited my initial post, which was an angry reaction to the news. I don't know how many times I saw Roky with the Elevators. The majority at Love Street near Allen's Landing, but also at clubs in Houston and Austin. The poster on the right is from 11/22/67 and I saw them that year. I did the light show at a dive across the street the following summer that closed at midnight, thank god, and saw the Elevators every time they played there. They were transcendent. With Roky, the word fits. I'm incredibly depressed.
I'm saddened by this. I will be honest, I know of him more than I am familiar with his music. What I've heard I appreciate, but I'm not at all well versed in the 13th Floor Elevators or much of Roky Erickson's music. But I've heard countless stories and appreciation from people whose opinion I trust.
I recommend a tribute to Roky from 1990, an LP done by some of those who were influenced by Roky's work with The 13th Floor Elevators, Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye (and mentioned in the article below from SoundBlab). Billy Gibbon's early band, The Moving Sidewalks, played numerous times at Love Street and elsewhere in the early days of rock and psychedelic rock in Houston, even opening for The Doors at the Coliseum, a concert I was lucky enough to attend. He knew Roky well. Here's some quotes from Billboard, one from Billy: “It’s almost unfathomable to contemplate a world without Roky Erickson,” wrote ZZ Top frontman Billy Gibbons in a statement to Billboard. “He created his own musical galaxy and early on was an true inspiration. Even now, Roky is a source of creative energy of the first order. It’s really a circumstance where he continues to provide the requisite ‘Reverberation.’ Something he predicted when he sang ‘You're Gonna Miss Me’…We certainly do know now that he’s at one with the universe.” “In 1966, Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators gave me the ultimate gift showing how eternity lives inside us,” wrote Bill Bentley, who produced Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye, in a Facebook post. “When I saw Roky in San Francisco last month, performing those early songs, I realized it was one of the most momentous gifts I've ever received. Thank you Roky. I will never forget it, nor you as you continue your journey into the next life. May the circle remain unbroken.” Part of the obit: Born Roger Kynard Erickson in Austin, Texas, on July 15, 1947, Erickson was the oldest of five brothers born to Roger, an architect, and Evelyn, an amateur singer who enrolled Erickson in piano lessons as a child. He grew up indulging his love of music, comic books and horror films, the latter of which he would eventually incorporate into the lyrics of songs including "I Walked With a Zombie” and "Don't Shake Me Lucifer.” Though Erickson’s career never fully recovered following his institutionalizations in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, his legacy was already assured thanks to his early work, and he was held up as an icon by countless influential artists who followed in his wake. Many of them appeared on the 1990 Erickson tribute album Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye, which featured contributions from acts including R.E.M., T-Bone Burnett, ZZ Top and The Jesus and Mary Chain and launched a renewed burst of interest in his work. That eventually led the reclusive singer to perform at the 1993 Austin Music Awards and to release the 1995 album All That May Do My Rhyme on Butthole Surfers drummer King Coffey’s independent label Trance Syndicate Records. Erickson is survived by his brothers Mikel and Sumner and his son Jegar. You won't find better sound than this. International Artists, their label, did a terrible job with The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators, the first LP. The article below is from SoundBlab, a good read (crazy name!) that describes what the band intended to do, and what ended up on vinyl. The lossless FLAC recording mentioned below is the best I've heard. The IA LP's never came close to reproducing what the group sounded like live. Danny Thomas, the drummer that replaced John Ike Walton (who played on The Psychedelic Sounds and 2 cuts of Easter Everywhere), played with them at Love Street and on the studio LP's, including their best, Easter Everywhere. He dated the older sister of a girlfriend of mine and I got to hang out with both of them. Talk about a trip! from SoundBlab: Never has an album release been so vexed. The 13th Floor Elevators returned from San Francisco in 1966 after their expectations of commercial success were dashed by the prevailing 'summer of love' folk inclinations. Their record company, International Artists were desperate to cash in on the success of single ‘You’re Gonna Miss Me’. Essentially blackmailed back into the studio with threats that second-rate early recordings would be released in its stead, the band recorded the debut album, The Psychedelic World of the 13th Floor Elevators in one session in Dallas, Texas. Not only did the band have a ‘preferred’ mono mix for the album, but they in fact sequenced the songs as the archetypal psychedelic experience. Famously consumed by an abundance of high-grade LSD that was legal until the late 60s, the band considered themselves the progenitors of psychedelic rock. The debut album was intended to be book-ended by tracks “You Don’t Know’, representing the beginnings of self awareness, and the zenith of experience, 'The Kingdom of Heaven'. The penultimate step of the journey was to reach a higher plane (‘You’re Gonna Miss Me’ and 'Splash 1'). The record company had other ideas and kicked the album off with the hit ‘You’re Gonna Miss Me’ for marketing purposes. The running order dictated by International Artists is the one you’ll find on the album in all its varied releases. Only on the wonderful box set Sign of the 3 Eyed Men released in 2009 by Charly Records will you find the album in newly mixed stereo, and in the playing order conceived by the band. There are ways of listening to The 13th Floor Elevators, and ways not to listen to them. The re-polished mono mix on the box set is beautifully clear and crisp (you can hear the bass and drums properly), as against, for instance, the really muddy stereo offering on the 2011 Albums Collection, that I believe to be the standard CD offering. Personally I would never direct the uninitiated to the standard stereo cut. As the box set is almost impossible to purchase, I would heartily recommend the fantastic compilation 7th Heaven:Music of the Spheres The Complete Singles Collection which sensibly produces the mono mixes used on the box, and is available cheaply. The band’s well organised and vociferous fan club is in possession of even better source material apparently. I found a Web compilation called The Essential 13th Floor Elevators, which was sourced from some old Roky fan club releases and other audiophile sources, and (yeah I know it sounds like a wank but it’s not) these lossless FLAC files represent the best sounding band recordings I own. On the YouTube video below, some heroic punter has reproduced such a recording. (that's the source of the great video you posted, @GIGO, which I won't reproduce again!) Anyway, back to the album. Undoubtedly culturally anchored by other music which loosely defined the psychedelic era (Byrds, Kinks, The Stones and Texas’s own superabundant psych underground) the Elevators took the genre into wilder territories with a feral zeal born of creative brilliance, almost railroaded by excessive drug use. At the time of the debut though, the band pioneered a new ‘punk’ sound, abrasive and yet catchy and immediately accessible. The precursor to the lo-fi aesthetic of two decades later. Tommy Hall’s electric jug is a unique invention and a trademark of the sound, and Sutherland’s acid blues is as sweet as it is untamed and free. Listening to Sutherland, you immediately recognise the influence on the likes of Tim Presley of White Fence, and Anton Newcombe. Songs such as ‘You’re Gonna Miss Me’, ‘Reverberation’, ‘Slip Inside this House’ and ‘Fire Engine’ have of course influenced many other artists since, from the likes of Primal Scream and Echo and the Bunnymen, to The Black Angels and The Brian Jonestown Massacre. Erickson’s primal screaming may even be the inspiration for Bobby Gillespie’s band name, but I’m speculating. I haven’t read that anywhere. There’s a wonderful tribute compilation called Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye showcasing artists such as Julian Cope, R.E.M, Jesus and Mary Chain, Thin White Rope and Primal Scream, covering Elevators songs. For anyone with even a passing interest in the evolution of psychedelic rock, it all starts here in 1966. soundblab.com/reviews/albums/classic-albums/20295-the-13th-floor-elevators-the-psychedelic-sounds-of-the-13th-floor-elevators