13TH Floor Elevators
Featuring the yelping vocals and visionary - occasionally
demented - lyrics of Roky Erickson, The 13th Floor Elevators were
one of the original acid-rock bands. Formed in Texas in the
mid-60s, The Elevators started as a garage rock outfit, scoring
their one and only modest national hit with You're
Gonna Miss Me.
While Erickson's
loopy persona, along with Tommy Hall's odd jug percussion, was
the band's most distinguishing feature, several members of the
group's original line-up contributed strong material to their
albums. Although these inconsistent efforts sometimes wander off
into a cloudy haze, they also include sturdy folk-rock tunes and
driving psychedelic rockers.
Trips to San
Francisco established the group as up-and-coming underground
favourites, but Erickson's drug problems led to the singer's
commission to a state mental hospital in 1969.
He copped an
insanity plea to beat a marijuana possession rap, but it was an
ordeal from which he never fully recovered. Shock therapy and
heavy medication followed until he was finally released three and
a half years later.
 With Erickson in Austin's Rusk State Mental Hospital, guitarist Stacy Sutherland
took the reins for their third and final album, Bull Of
The Woods (1969), largely cobbled together from
outtakes and re-recordings of early
songs.
Erickson returned from hospital a
changed man. Moving from Austin to Los Angeles he put a new band
together called Bleib Alien (who would eventually record as Roky Erickson & The Aliens.
The 13th
Floor Elevators were really only at full power for a
couple of albums, although all of their releases for the legendary
International Artists label - produced by, of all people, Kenny
Rogers' brother Leland - are revered among psychedelic
collectors. Live recordings and outtakes of the Elevators continue
to surface.
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