Garage Mania with Robby and the Nurse

13th Floor Elevators

Going UUUUUUUUUUP
And Down Fast

     The 13th Floor Elevators are one of the top garage bands we play on Garage-Mania, the Internet radio show I host with my zany side-kick, Nurse Cheril. Streaming in from Cerritos College here in Southern California, Garage-Mania can be heard on wpmd.org and on demand from my Web site robbyrussellshow.com.
     The 13th Floor Elevators formed in Austin, Texas in late 1965. The band was co-founded by guitarist Roky Erickson and jug musician Tommy Hall from a merger of two Texas garage bands, the Lingsmen and the Spades. The original lineup also featured Stacy Sutherland on guitar, Benny Thurman on bass, and John Ike Walton on drums. Tommy Hall was the band’ s guru, a University of Texas psychology major and blower of an electrified jug: a crock-jug, with a microphone held up to it when it was being blown. The jug became the band’s signature and trademark.
     Although they found only limited success before dissolving amid legal baffles and extreme drug use, the band is regarded as one of the first psychedelic bands and a major influence on many bands that came later. Erickson bebame one of rock ‘n’ roll’s most famous enigmatic cult figures and burnouts. He is perhaps as well known for his erratic personal behavior as for his musical talents.
     In I 966, the band released its first album, The Psychedelic Sounds of the J3Th Floor Elevators. It is believed that this was the first time the word psychedelic appeared on an album cover. When listening to this album, it is sometimes hard to believe that an amplified jug could create the weird sound that predicted the synthesizers of modern day techno.
     The group’s first single and their most famous song, “You’re Gonna Miss Me,” reached number two on local charts and eventually climbed to number 56 nationally. If you havent heard the song, the best way I can describe it is to quote from the liner notes from the Rhino Nuggets Box Set Vol 1: “You want intensity? ‘You’re Gonna Miss Me’ delivers an adrenalized rush that’s almost frightening—guitars chomping out sinister, reverberized riffs, while Erickson shakes and screams and an electric jug babbles a strange delirious subtext. This is the seminal Texas punk record.” The follow-up single, “Reverberation (Doubt)” only made it to129 in November, 1966. ‘ Their first album also featured psychedelic classics like “Fire Engine,” ‘Roller Coaster” and a gentle folk rocker “Splash 1.”
     Throughout the spring of 1966, the Elevators toured Texas, playing clubs in Austin, Houston and Dallas, followed ‘by a tour to the West Coast. They made two nationally televised appearances, and also played at the famous San Francisco ballrooms, the Fillmore and the Avalon. They played on the same bills as Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Great Society and the Byrds. Janis Joplin was a close friend of the band and sang with them at some shows, and almost joined the band before deciding to join the San Francisco band Big Brother and the Holding Company. In I 967 they released their second album Easter Everywhere, which was a hard-to-find collector’s item until finally re-released as a CD from Collectables Records. The album features the band’s distinctive sound. Our favorite songs are “Slip Inside this House,” “Slide Machine” and “Levitation.” There also is a straightforward cover of Bob Dylan’s “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.”
     By 1968, the Elevators were pretty much dysfunctional with the continuous drug busts and Erickson’s prison terms. Their third album, Bull ofthe Woods, is mostly said to be outtakes from former sessions, Most of the songs were written by lead guitarist Stacy Sutherland. who is known for his pioneering use of reverb and echo. Erickson composed only two songs, but his vocals are present on only four songs on the album. So basically, this is a Sutherland/ Tommy Hall show all the way. The best songsare “Livin’ On” and “May the Circle Remain Unbroken,” which are both Erickson’s songs.
     After the release of Bull ofthe Woods Hall left the band and that was the end of the Elevators.
      The Elevators were vocal proponents of marijuana and LSD and their reputation as drug users and bad seeds led to many problems with the law.
     ‘They’d take a tab of acid a day,” said Leland Rogers. owner of International Artists, the Elevators’ label. ‘They were stoned all the time.” It should be noted that Leland, who produced the Elevator's albums. was the brother of legendary country star Kenny Rogers.
      The group members were on probation after a drug bust in early 1966, and from that point on were constantly being searched and harassed by the Texas Rangers. In 1969, Erickson was busted once again for possessiop of joint of pot in Austin .Facing a 10-year prison sentence, he pled insanity. He was sent to Rusk State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. He was given electroshock therapy and Thorazine treatment until he was released in 1972, but it took a heavy toll on him, and he has never fully recovered.
      Upon his release, he plunged back into music, but with a sad twist. He had gone into a dark, weirder world in which he claims he lives his life in three states of being: a Christian, a friend of the devil and an alien. By 1987, he stopped performing altogether, living in a subsidized apartment where he would turn on radios, televisions and amplifiers to drown out the voices he heard in his head. His mother, Evelyn, did not believe in drugs of any kind, so his schizophrenia went untreated.
      In 2001, his younger brother Sumner was granted legal custody; he set up a legal trust to help his finances and receive the medical attention he so badly needed. He made a full recovery and performed his first full-length concert in 20 years in September, 2005.
     I would like to mention some trivia I found when researching the band:

We hope you will check out our radio show, Garage-Mania. We play punk, garage and psych rock from the sixties and seventies. Many of our songs are from my personal record collections or are sent to us by our faithful listeners. There are many songs we play that you won’t hear anywhere else. We would love to send you a free copy of a recent show to any reader of Record Convention News. Just e-mail us at my Website at www.robbyrussellshow.com

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This article written by Robby Russell first appeared in printed form in the record magazine RECORD CONVENTION NEWS it is copyrighted by RECORD CONVENTION NEWS and GARAGE-MANIA . I authorize all future and past articles can be used by VAGUE Magazine with my permission.