Customer Reviews

The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators [Vinyl]

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3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I had heard of the Elevators here and there on the periphery. After reading all the rave reviews here, I decided to investigate. To my delight, I realized that I had stumbled across a true gem. I learned that Roky Erikson's rise and fall mirrored the tragedy of his British counterpart Syd Barrett. More importantly, I discovered some great psychedelic music largely ignored by rock fans then and now. The first tune "You're Gonna Miss Me" sounded a little too popish at first, but the subsequent "Roller Coaster" expressed the band's true intent- establishment of an LSD nation/society governed by the spirit of shared community and self (hence universal) discovery...and this was mid 1966! Other standouts like "Reverberation", "Thru The Rhythm", and "Monkey Island" are positively wicked psychedelic workouts. "Fire Engine" showcases Erikson's wild vocal style complete with background siren vocals. The true highlight, however, is "Kingdom Of Heaven", a song that oozes and melts drippy with slabs of guitar and melody.....simply heavenly (ha ha). The sound quality is a little coarse, but I think it helps add a sense that you have excavated a rough diamond. Some of the drug and social references sound naive today, but we should remember that in 1966 LSD was still legal, and the idea of a psychedelic revolution was absolutely in stride with the times. Anyway you look at it, this is a great album by a band whose creative peak was all too short.

Thanks to Leland Rodgers (Kenny's brother) the master tapes for this release were lost over 20 years ago. This TRULY SORRY remaster is an embarrassment and blot on the memory of a truly original Texas band. Leland, you see, owned International Records, the Elevators label, and Roky Erikson & the band never saw a penny in royalties, only their cash advance. They have YET to see a penny from these "Collectables" releases, either, as I understand it.

Buy the French import release on the Spalax label instead.
It's WELL worth the difference in price. The sound is AWESOME on
that one.

I look back fondly and I see with moist and biased eyes the subject of my idolatry. Was this really the greatest, most hip music on earth? Who knows. We sure thought it was. Probably Texas' only nationally renowned PSYCHEDELIC band, ever. My introduction to it was in my freshman year at UT in 1967 and my roommate went to sleep each night to the sounds of this and 5 other acid-rock albums popular in the Houston area. (much to my dismay) The wild screams of Rocky Erickson in You're Gonna Miss Me, the youthful voices on Splash1, (We all were so young, so beautiful, then) The cult heaviness of REVERBERATION and Thru the Rhythm. The unrestrained power and nerve of Fire Engine. The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators had the 'ahead of its time' lyrics and musical treatment of a much more mature group. A note: The CD recording is slightly flawed in too-quiet volume of the blockbuster hit Fire Engine which led off the side 2 of the album, but what the hey, who ever expected to see it on CD at all!! The strength and shock and innovation of the elevators moved the young inexperienced group into the spotlight of the late 60's and they responded admirably. What has happened to them now? Don't ask. But in 1967!!! WOAH! I can still see my roommate posing in his shorts mimeing Monkey Island, using his hairbrush as a microphone! "LIVIN on Monkey Island, Baby, pretendin to be a monkey too!" WOW!!!WOW!!! ...Well... I guess you kinda had to be there...

First, I'd like to second the advice of a previous reviewer - buy the Spalax French release - the original artwork is unspoiled by that horrible 'collectables' labeling, and the sound is as good as the IA LP release could get, which was notably poor, even for those days. Much as I love Amazon, I had to go elsewhere to find the good releases (Come on Amazon, it was easy finding them).

I bought the original LP in late '66, and though I enjoyed the music, I knew I didn't understand the message at that time. Within the year, with experience, the understanding came. This group (courageously and possibly niavely!) chose to express the intense and controversial new energies that arose from the psychedelic experience thru their music. Newer contemparary listeners cannot judge this music without an understanding of the experience that drove its creation (but I'm certain they still will anyway). And judging music is futile anyway. We certainly didn't back then. We just bought it and enjoyed it and used it for its obvious purpose. We never said 'Hendrix is better than Harrison', we knew they were different and both talented, and both great. It was what was being communicated thru the music that was important (and it still is).

Be that as it may, these guys were great! A brave group of souls exploring difficult territory and doing a fantastic job of using what little technology was available, in a poorly equipped studio in Austin, TX in 1966.

Roller Coaster, Reverberation, Tried To Hide, Monkey Island - it doesn't really get more intense than these anywhere in the sixties. And beautiful melodies - Splash 1, Kingdom Of Heaven - are awesome! And to think they're all on one album!

The music still inspires, and the message is as fresh and as vitally important today as it was in 1966.

if you ever wanted to get this masterpiece by the 13th floor elevators but have been put off by the horrible remastering job done on it,now there is no excuse.Snapper(Charly)from England has done a masterful job of putting this great cd in a 2 cd deluxe edition--disc 1 is the original mono edition sounding better and clearer than ever,disc 2 is the stereo remastered edition in the running order the band wanted originally,plus as bonus material you get "fire engine","monkey island","roller coaster","thru the rhythm",and "tried to hide" from Bob Sullivan's original stereo "desk" mixes.so if you want to hear Roky's wonderful singing and Tommy's great jug in all it's glory--get this fantastic British reissue of this 1966 Texas classic!!!

As someone who fancies himself a psych collector, I must admit that in all of my records, tapes and CDs, the hardest and most mystifying stumbling block has got to be The 13th Floor Elevator's debut. I don't expect to get too many "helpful votes" from readers for saying this, but "Psychedelic Sounds" has got to be the most overrated psych LP of all time. Before I go on, I will list what I consider to be its good points: the fabulous cover, the inspiring group-written liner notes (which say more about the excitement of those earliest acid days than anything Leary ever attempted), the expansion of those liner notes in the lyrics to songs like "Roller Coaster" and "Kingdom Of Heaven", and the fact that all of this came out in the summer of '66, making "Psychedelic Sounds" a strong contender for the first pysch-oriented LP ever released ("Fifth Dimension", "Revolver", "Freak Out!" and "Roger The Engineer", all released in July and August, are the others).

However, when I first heard about this album being a psych classic I thought it would be...well...*psychedelic*, and in more than the lyrical sense. Instead, what I heard was a collection of poorly played garage-rock numbers which all sounded exactly alike (the only difference being that a few were extended beyond the 3-minute mark), coupled with extremely poor sound quality. The only musical "psych" innovation was the amplified jug, which sounded fantastic at first (not knowing what it was, I wondered what brilliant studio innovation the group had pioneered!) but wore out its welcome when used over the entirety of the record without any other musical point of interest cropping up. Now, don't get me wrong, here--my definition of psychedelia is very fluid. It doesn't just have to be sitars, phasing effects, burbly synths or twenty minute jazz-ragas (although all of that is nice). A lot of the early "Nuggets" garage rock of '66 had a pioneering quality, not only in musical and lyrical terms, but in "feel". But as admirable as the group's intent was, it just seems like the packaging of the album, combined with its reputation, led me to expect something a bit more musically mind-blowing than what I got. What is there is OK--especially the lyrics and the jug sound--but it gets awfully repetitive after the first three tracks. What is even more frustrating is that I have the rest of the group's output, plus bootlegs, and it is *all* superior to "Psychedelic Sounds"--for example, the sophomore effort "Easter Everywhere" sounds much more in tune with what I was expecting, with musical diversity and more intense "feel". There's even a bootleg of a show from Austin in '66 where the band engages in several incredible jazz-raga jams which are completely absent from the studio record. I suppose "Psychedelic Sounds" has the reputation it does because it came so very early in the psych movement (boots obviously don't count). While it is true that the overall cover design, liner notes and lyrics hold great historic value, one has to look elsewhere in the group's catalogue for the real musical meat.

My review is for the 2010 "Snapper UK" re-issue.

If you are a long time Elevators fan, you're probably aware that the original master tapes for their 1960's albums have been missing for decades. Well, that didn't stop numerous companies from releasing one inferior sounding CD after another trying to cash in on the legend. The original studio master tapes were discovered recently, and for the 1st time, their 1st and 2nd albums have been remastered from those sources. To make a long story short, the sound is fantastic! It literally jumps out of your speakers. Do yourself a favor and toss those older CD copies and rush out and buy this. It's a limited edition of 5000, and they're going fast.

I first heard of this group in 1966 when I lived in a new neighborhood in NYC called the East Village. A lot of other new things were around; recreational drugs; some more serious ones only to be used around and with experienced people (like LSD) and the last flowering of "all good music has value" that America ever saw from its "youth culture". Almost everybody I knew had jazz, blues, rock and roll, rockabilly,R&B, folk or other exotic music around. But one of the standards that you found in EVERY good collection was one of the most immediately recognizeable record covers in history, and nicely enough the title was The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators. If you saw someone knowingly lift it from their (or your) collection, they automatically rose in status. From the first echoey note of You're Gonna Miss Me, you knew these guys were different, and the most amazing thing is that I can recall hearing this song, Fire Engine and Kingdom of Heaven on the radio on "underground music" shows in NYC in 1966-67. It would be the equivalent today of hearing Into Another or Engine Kid on CNN as background music. They even had liner notes that gave you a "guide" to the "meanings" of each song. For anyone looking for a "commercial" psychedelic record like The Doors or The Byrds first albums where studio musicians did a lot of the work, look elsewhere. Also, there are no corporate "song doctors" working with the group. This is undistilled All-American Garage Psychedelica at its very best. Of course, that's also the limiting factor. A previous reviewer was correct - the siren at the beginning of "Fire Engine" on my original 1966 vinyl copy was at a higher gain than anything else on the disc, and would blow you out of the room (or get your neighbors to call the cops), so it's a shame the "remasterers" screwed up the mix. Then again, maybe they didn't have much to work with, either. Remember, this was an experimental music laid down on probably a two-track recording done in one or two takes. In its context, this is a breakthrough album of unprecedented importance, and must be seen as such: not for every taste, but not meant to be. It's boomy in some places, there are other times when levels aren't quite right, but that was the state of the art 37 years ago. Too bad there isn't a better set of master tapes somewhere that could really be reworked - but isn't that the problem with Surrealistic Pillow too? The only real shame of this is that the excellent live album culled from a radio show never got on CD: it had much better sound. But this is the ultimate REAL THING, and in its own way opened the door for the next real change in music: Jimi Hendrix, who also didn't get played much on the radio when his first albums came out because the music was "too weird".And I didn't put that stuff about "voting buttons" on here - Amazon did. Listening to The Elevators?

Spalax is a French CD manufacturer, and the French devotion to things American comes through loud & clear on this, the BEST SOUNDING version of this CD available anywhere in the world. If you (sadly) bought the "Collectables" Label's versions of the Elevators CD's, and you thought they sounded like garbage--YOU WERE RIGHT. *These* are the CDs you wanted: Spalax's CDs sound as good as we're likely to EVER hear, seeing as how the Elevators Record Company, International Artists, somehow *lost* the Master Tapes to ALL the Elevator's LPs sometime back in the late 1970's.

This is the debut album by the little known but great psychedelic band, the 13th Floor Elevators. This was the first band ever to have "psychedelic" sound and believe it or not, they werent based in California but rather in Texas. This is a very unique album in that prior to its release you have to realize the rock sound was categorized by Elvis and the early bubble gum pop of the Beatles. The Elevators had an acid tinged garage sound that often transformed into blissful psychedelic jams. Roky Erickson was and is an uncredited guitar and vocal innovator, paving the way for all future rock musicians to stray away from the normal and delve into different styles of singing and playing. Tommy Hall's lyrical drove the band and his amplified jug definitley added an unique feel to the music, and it still stands out today as a trademark sound. Shortly after this great debut the band would release Easter Everywhere, their sophmore effort to much underground success. After this though the band met a crucial end with Erickson being commited to an insane asylum and the rest of the band splitting up. Erickson (and the rest of the band as far as I know) are still alive and well today, although Hall and Erickson arent all there mentally but their contribution to rock music will never be forgotten.