Customer Reviews

Easter Everywhere

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

How could the The 13th Floor Elevators surpass their first explosive album? Well, listen. From the egg into the flower: The haunting whoop of Tommy Hall's jug, and Danny Galindo's intertwining bass guitar... EASTER EVERYWHERE! The Beatles, upon returning from the USA, were asked which American group made the greatest impression on them. George said "The Elevators"; the other Beatles nodded respectfully. The Elevators' transcendence from RAW ROCK to a profoundly spiritual masterpiece of psychedelia harkens to the Beatles' emergence in Sgt Pepper's. The deep lyrics of Slip Inside this House. The strong guitar in She Lives, the beauty of Dust, and for those who weren't ready to drop the acid rock torch of the previous blockbuster Elevators' album... I've Got Levitation. One of those presses where EVERY song is GREAT! Incidentally, International Artists (label) had extensive problems with 'bubbles' in their vinyl pressings, so this CD offering is a gift from above! Do listen to Postures! (Leave Your Body Behind). Play on, Stacy Southerland! All in all, a most timeless release. Your collection is incomplete without this CD! Excellent recording!

More focused and even more trippy than their first album, "Easter Everywhere" features the 13th Floor Elevators at their best. The songs are eerie, rambling, and potent, so powerful that they overcome the lo-fi production that plagued the Elevators throughout their career. Roky Erickson's vocals are sometimes eerily reminiscent of Robert Plant. This is a heavily psychedelic album and shows a San Francisco influence; at this point in their career the Elevators had played in SF and shared stages with the Jefferson Airplane, among other 60s psych groups.

The difference is that the Elevators mean every word and note. They were really trying to "break on through to the other side," unlike some psych groups who were just in it for the money. As a result "Easter Everywhere" is spookier and edgier than most psychedelia. At times it approaches Syd Barrett territory. Highly recommended.

Recording Quality Geek Note: The import version on Charly has better sound than the Collectables reissue, but not by much. This is because the master tapes for all the Elevators' albums remain undiscovered - or their location is undisclosed at this time, nobody's sure which. It's way past time for somebody to go on a search for the master tapes and do a remastered version, because this CD (as well as the other Elevators' albums) deserves it.

This is terrible recording of one of the greatest Psychedelic LPs ever made. The Spalax import release from France costs a few dollars more, but it is much better sounding. Leland Rodgers, the owner of International Artists label and the original recordings, somehow lost them in the late 1970's, and so the so-called "Collectables" label uses these awful 5th or 6th generation no-EQ'd tapes for their masters on ALL of their Elevators releases. They sound like Hell. Avoid them. Spend a couple extra bucks and buy the Spalax releases instead, if you're at all a discerning consumer, or, if you can, find the (believe it or not) superior 8-track tape mixes available in the trading circles, those have been reEQ'd and are 2 generations away from the master reels.

Whether it means making it to the non-existent heights of a 13th floor, or paying homage to marijuana ("M", for marijuana, being the 13th letter of the alphabet), the 13th Floor Elevators were a band ahead of its time.

Their debut lp, "The Psychedelic Sounds of.." is more of a garage effort than pyschedelic musings, but their 2nd lp, "Easter Everywhere," is psychedelic through and through, and delivers the goods from start to finish.

This lp is a most amazing listen, complete with hypnotic drumming, oscillators, some feedback, Tommy Hall's jug bursts sounding like how psychedelic liquid slides would sound like in a dance club, and Roky Erickson's voice and messages- he REALLY believed in what he was singing about, and that conviction strengthens the lp to the "n"th degree...

One of the finest of all the psychedelic lps- compare it to the Dead's debut lp, the Airplane's "Surrealistic Pillow," and Moby Grape's debut lp, all of whic came out at about the same time, and see how far ahead in the game the Elevators really were..in some ways, even the Pink Floyd's "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" pales in comparison..the lp is THAT GOOD!

The Elevators would never remotely approach this level again, so this lp is that much more important to listen to! It's a gem of the highest order!

one of the best albums i've ever heard. what's amazing is how absolutely dead earnest these guys were in their cracked out vision. every track feels like both a '67 artifact and an impossibly perfect conception of low-fi psychedelic rock. the vocals are the voice of a prophet, even if you know that roky ericson went completely insane. and the guitars work so instinctively well together that this album somehow manages to encompass all of my favorites moods from folk rock, acid rock, kraut-rock, space-rock, and even recent post-rock. upon first hearing it, i felt like i'd opened the pandora's box of just about everything good that's been happening in music since the late '60s. it really sounds like something that should exist but doesn't (and if you're at all a spacemen 3 or spiritualized fan, then in roky you can discover jason pierce's godfather). track 5 (it's all over baby blue....) seems to me like the epic summation of its time. it's a bob dylan cover, and the lyrics are revolutionary in dylan's typical socio-political way. what the elevators give it is the most delicate guitar shadings, and a mood that is, i think, intended to be totally anti-establishment/sixties glory--but the time that has elapsed between then and now have given the song an unwitting edge of muted tragedy that will quite break your heart at the sime time it's being soothed. the same could be said for the rest of the album, except that the less introspective tracks will just make you feel straight-up invincible--probably exactly how roky and company felt on a lot of acid in (it sounds like) somebody's garage in austin before the age of aquarius somehow never happened and psychedelic drugs turned out to be not too good for your mental health....

After reading several reviews, most which have been excellent, I decided to add my two cents worth. I was turned on to the elevators in the early eighties when I moved to austin and fell in with some old hippies, some who knew Roky. I was very fortunate that I was able to meet him once. I first heard an original vinyl recording of this album, (have since gotten the cd, which has a faithful sound) This album blew my mind then and still does. The main reason I'm writing this review is to make some points that I believe may have been overlooked, mainly by the detractors, especially the ones who slam "psychedelic sounds..." lets not forget in our discussions of pschedelic ROCK, that this is a ROCK N ROLL band, playing psychedelic music. There are alot of blues, and buddy holly/old school rock n roll undercurrents in this music. Texas was a blues mecca at that time and the elevators where a garage BLUES band. Blues licks are all over the place yet are approached in a very different way. as far as the recording quality/production, listen to other blues bands of the sixties and see how great the production was there. Also the elevators ROCKED hard. True the California bands where just as psychedelic, if not more at times, but did they rock like only a true garage band can? Alot of times they would put you to sleep. Well the elevators will wake you up. I think that's the thing that the elevators have that maybe some of the others didn't, is that they where able to combine mind blowing lyrics, the totally insane jug, and raw rocking garage blues energy.

This record is a most phantastic spectacle.Roky and Tommy Hall really were on to something.Easter Everywhere is about being born again everywhere all the time.I think Jim and Tammy Faye and the rest of the LIARS should take a listen and hear what it means to have a direct link to the divine

Having grown up in Houston, Texas I was fortunate enough to have seen and known The Elevators. When I knew them they were living off of Old Galveston Rd in the Old Milby mansion. I can still remember Stacy peering out he window from up stairs everytime we went over to score acid. Danny Thomas, the drummer who came along before and during Bull of the Woods married my next door neighbor Linda Cypert. What good days they were watching them perform at the Love Street Light Circus. What a thrill it was to see Rocky again when he reunited with what was left of the band in the mid 80's at the Cellar in Houston. Easter Everywhere a must for any phycedelic era fiend or listener of ZZ Top, who do you think were their heros? The Elevators of course.

Yes, as many have said here, this is one of the seminal works of psychedelic era rock. Yes, this band played with an intensity that only true believers could achieve. And yes, they compare very favorably to many of their contemporaries. And, finally, Roky did indeed go a bit mad. Just buy the music.

Now, to clarify a few things, that "oscillator" sound was in fact a jug played by Tommy. The Elevators were sometimes referred to as a psychedelic electric jug band "back in the day." Roky's first visit to a psychiatric facility was caused by his hounding by law enforcement for drug use. Faced with a choice of prison or not guilty by reason of insanity, he ended up in the state hospital. I can't say for sure, but one wonders if electro-shock and psych meds prescribed inside contributed to his later troubles as much as all the acid. I was lucky enough to see Roky soon after he got out back in about '76. A free, outdoor concert on "hill of the moon," outside of Austin (where I lived most of the 70's); weirdly, another surprise guest that evening was Willie Nelson and the two of them jammed together!! The thing people frequently don't "get" about Roky is that the music and exploration of his visions through that medium were all that really mattered to him. A somewhat tortured genius, but never as self-absorbed or sadistic as Jim Morrison. Roky was (another) Texas original.

Further from the garage than their first record (Psychedelic Sounds of ...), this is more muscially strange (Earthquake), less frenetic (Pictures), less driving, less scary even, than the other record. It's gorgeous, mind-widening music, great rock and roll, and is as worth your time as any mid-60's Stones (and therefore, MORE worth your time than any 70's Stones, and by extension the rest). This record had no hit potential, but was more interesting and exciting than any except the best Dylan, Beatles, Love, etc., as on the edge as the Velvet Underground, and as satisfying as rock music can ever be. It was an adventure.