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From Austin, Texas, 13th Floor Elevators were quite possibly the first ever artists to describe their music as psychedelic. Their lyrics and sleeve notes openly and religiously endorsed the use of drugs, particularly LSD, in order to alter consciousness for the better.
They rattled to the middle of the Hot 100 in 1966 with You’re Gonna Miss Me, anchored by Roky Erickson’s unforgettable yelping vocals, Stacy Sutherland’s guitar and Tommy Hall’s jug runs. According to myth Tommy’s jug was tuned by the amount of marijuana stored in it.
The group pioneered some of the first garage psychedelia on their albums The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators 1966, and the follow up Easter Everywhere 1967.
However Texas at this time was an extremely conservative area that still hadn’t come to terms with 50’s rock n roll. The authorities and police set out to, and not surprisingly succeeded, in busting the entire band for pot.
Stacy Sutherland was jailed, and in order to get out of a prison term Roky pleaded insanity landing in Rusk State Hospital for the criminally insane for three years. This spelled the end of the band, although there was a posthumous 1969 LP Bull Of The Woods. |
