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The 13th Floor Elevators was an American rock band

fromAustin, Texas, formed by guitarist and

vocalist Roky Erickson, electricjug playerTommy Hall,

and guitarist Stacy Sutherland, which existed from 1965

to 1969.[1]

During their career, the band released four LP

records and seven 45s for theInternational Artists record

label.[2]

They are often credited as one of the

first psychedelic bands in the history of rock n' roll.

According to the 2005 documentaryYou're Gonna Miss

Me, Roky Erickson is credited with coining the term

"psychedelic rock", although artists such as the Holy

Modal Rounders and the Deep had used the term

"psychedelic" to describe their music earlier. Their

contemporary influence has been acknowledged by

1960s musicians such as Billy Gibbons ofZZ Top, Peter

Albin ofBig Brother and the Holding Company, and

Chris Gerniottis ofZakary Thaks.

Their debut 45 "You're Gonna Miss Me", a national

Billboard No. 55 hit in 1966, was featured on the 1972

compilation Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First

Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968, which is considered vital in

the history ofgarage rock and the development ofpunk

rock. Seminal punk bandTelevision played their song

"Fire Engine" live in the mid-1970s. In the 1980s-1990s,

the 13th Floor Elevators influenced important bandssuch asPrimal Scream,The Shamen and Spacemen 3,

all of whom covered their songs, and 14 Iced Bears who

use an electric jug on their single "Beautiful Child". In

2009 the International Artists released a ten CD box set

entitled Sign of the 3-Eyed Men, which included the

mono and new, alternate stereo mixes of the original

albums together with two albums of previously

unreleased material and a number of rare live

recordings.

Rise to fame[edit]The 13th Floor Elevators emerged on the local Austin

music scene in December 1965, where they were

contemporary to bands such as The Wig and The

Babycakes, and later followed by Shiva's Headband and

The Conqueroo. The band was formed when Roky

Erickson left his groupThe Spades, and joined up with

Stacy Sutherland, Benny Thurman, and John Ike Walton

who had been playing Texas coastal towns as The

Lingsmen.[3]

Tommy Hall was instrumental in bringing

the band members together, and joined the group as

lyricist and electric jug player.

The band's name was developed from a suggestion by

drummer John Ike Walton to use the name "Elevators"

and Clementine Hall added "13th Floor".[4]

In addition to

an awareness that a number of tall buildings don't have

a 13th floor, it has been noted that the letter "M"

(for marijuana) is the thirteenth letter of the alphabet.[3]

In early J anuary 1966, the band was brought to Houston

by producer Gordon Bynum to record two songs to be

released as a 45 on his newly formed Contact label. The

songs were Erickson's "You're Gonna Miss Me", and

Hall-Sutherland's "Tried to Hide". The 45 was a major

success in Austin, and made an impression in other

Texas cities. Some months later, the International

Artistslabel picked it up and re-released it.

Throughout the Spring of 1966, the group toured

extensively in Texas, playing clubs in Austin, Dallas, and

Houston. They also played on live teen dance shows on

TV, such as Sumpin Else, in Dallas, and The Larry Kane

Show in Houston. During the Summer, the IA re-release

of "You're Gonna Miss Me" became popular outside

Texas, especially in Miami, Detroit, and the San

Francisco Bay Area. In October 1966, it peaked on the

national Billboard chart at the No. 55 position. Prompted

by the success of the 45 the Elevators toured the west

coast, made two nationally televised appearances

for Dick Clark, and played several dates at the SanFrancisco ballroomsThe Fillmore andThe Avalon.

The International Artists record label in Houston, also

home to contemporary Texas underground groups such

as Red Krayola and Bubble Puppy, signed the Elevators

to a record contract and released the albumThe

Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators in

November 1966, which became popular among the

burgeoning counterculture.[3]

Tommy Hall's sleeve-notes

for the album, which advocated chemical agents (such

as LSD) as a gateway to a higher, 'non-Aristotelian' state

of consciousness, has also contributed to the album's

legendary status.

During their California tour the band shared bills

with Quicksilver Messenger Service,The Great

Society with Grace Slick, and Moby Grape. Upon

returning to Texas in early 1967, they released a 45

"Levitation" and continued to play live in Austin, Houston

and other Texan cities. November 1967 saw the release

of the band's second album,

the psychedelic masterworkEaster Everywhere.

Highlighted by the opening track, the transcendental


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epic "Slip Inside This House", the album is rated by most

critics and fans as their finest work. It also featured a

cover ofBob Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue", a

version Dylan is rumored to have called his

favorite.[3]

However, shortly before work began on Easter

Everywhere, Walton and Leatherman left the band, duenot only to disputes over mismanagement of the band's

career by International Artists, but also due to a

fundamental disagreement between Walton and Hall

over the latter's overzealous advocacy of the use of LSD

in the pursuit of achieving a higher state of human

consciousness.[4]

As a result, they were not credited in

theEaster Everywhere sleevenotes, despite having

appeared on "(I've Got) Levitation" and "She Lives (In a

Time of Her Own)." Despite the lengthy studio work and

resources utilized, and the album's later legendary

status, Easter Everywhere was not the success the band

and International Artists had hoped for. Lacking a hit 45

and released too late in the year, it sold out its original

run but was never reprinted, suggesting somewhat

disappointing sales. Record label paperwork indicate

that the debut LP sold upwards 40.000 copies during its

original run, while Easter Everywhere may have sold

around 10.000 copies.

Falling apart[edit]

While the band were unable to repeat their national

success, they were still a powerful presence on the

Texas rock music scene. Chris Gerniottis, ex-lead singer

ofZakary Thaks has spoken repeatedly of how the

Elevators stood apart from all the other bands on the

regional scene, and they continued to influence these

bands during the late 1960s. Following the local

popularity of the track "Slip Inside This House", an

edited 45 was released in early '68 and saw plenty of

rotation on Houston radio. Meanwhile, the Elevators had

lost their bass player Dan Galindo, who went on to

another International Artists band, the Rubiayat. DukeDavis was briefly brought in to replace Galindo, before

the band's earlier bassist Ronnie Leatherman returned

during the Summer of 1968. As documented in a lengthy

interview/article in the Texas underground music

magazine Mother No. 3, the band worked all Spring '68

on their new album, which at one point was to be

called Beauty and the Beast. But an unstable member

line-up, and the increasingly erratic behavior of the

psychedelicized Tommy Hall and mentally fragile Roky

Erickson, led to little of value coming out of these

sessions. The live shows had lost their original energy,

and often the band would perform without their lead

singer Erickson, due to his recurring hospital treatments

at the time. The last concert featuring the 'real' Elevators

occurred in April 1968.

International Artists put out a Live LP c. August 1968,

which was old demo tapes and outtakes dating back to

1966 for the most part, with some phony applause

added. Around this time, the original 13th Floor

Elevators disbanded, as the original nucleus of Erickson-

Hall-Sutherland had been reduced to guitarist Stacy

Sutherland only. Sutherland brought some of his own

songs for a final set of studio sessions which led to the

dark, intense posthumous albumBull of the Woods.

Initially disliked by many Elevators fans, it has found a

substantial fan-base today, with some even rating it the

band's best LP. These final sessions consisted ofSutherland on guitar, Ronnie Leatherman on bass, and

Danny Thomas on drums. A few live gigs were played

around Texas during the second half of 1968, until an

'obituary' in Rolling Stone magazine in December 1968

declared the band gone. International Artists pulled

together the various studio recordings from 1968 and

with the assistance of drummer Danny Thomas added

some horn arrangements, which became the Bull of the

Woods album, released c. March 1969. The very last

13th Floor Elevators record released by International

Artists was a reissue of the "You're Gonna Miss Me" 45,

dating from c. mid-1969.

SingerJ anis J oplin was a close associate of Clementine

Hall and the band. She opened for the band at a benefit

concert in Austin, and considered joining the

group[5]

prior to heading to San Francisco and joiningBig

Brother and the Holding Company. Her style of singing

has been described as having been influenced by

Erickson's trademark screaming and yelping as

showcased in "You're Gonna Miss Me."

Drug overuse and related legal problems left the band in

a state of constant turmoil, which took its toll, both

physically and mentally, on the members. In 1969,

facing a felony marijuana possession charge, Roky

Erickson chose to be admitted to a psychiatric

hospital rather than serve a prison term, thus signaling

the end of the band's career.[3]

Bull of the Woods, released in 1969, was the 13th Floor

Elevators' last released album on which they worked as

a group and was largely the work of Stacy Sutherland.

Erickson, due to health and legal problems, and Tommy


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Hall were only involved with a few tracks, including

"Livin' On," "Never Another," "Dear Doctor Doom," and

"May the Circle Remain Unbroken".

Music[edit]

During the initial months of their existence as a band,

the electric guitars used both by Roky Erickson and

Stacy Sutherland were Gibson ES-335s. Sutherland's

pioneering use ofreverb and echo, and bluesy, acid-

drenched guitar predates such bands asThe Allman

Brothers Band and ZZ Top. According to Billy

Gibbons ofZZ Top in an article that originally appeared

in Vintage Guitar magazine, the guitars were run through

"Black-Face" Twin Reverbs with both guitarists using

external Fender "tank" reverb units and Gibson

"Maestro" Fuzz-tones as distortion devices.

[citation needed]

A special aspect of The Elevators' sound came from

Tommy Hall's innovative electric jug. The jug, a crock-

jug with a microphone held up to it while it was being

blown, sounded somewhat like a cross between

a minimoogand cuica drum. In contrast to traditional

musical jug technique, Hall did not blow into the jug to

produce a tuba-like sound. Instead, he vocalized musical

runs into the mouth of the jug, using the jug to create

echo and distortion of his voice. When playing live, he

held the microphone up to the mouth of the jug, but

when recording the Easter Everywhere album, the

recording engineer placed a microphone inside the jug

to enhance the sound.

The band was unique, even in the 1960s, in that they (at

Tommy Hall's urging) played most of their live shows

and recorded their albums while under the influence

ofLSD, and built their lifestyle and music around the

psychedelic experience. Intellectual and esoteric

influences helped shape their work, which shows traces

ofGurdjieff, the General Semantics of Alfred Korzybski,

the psychedelic philosophy ofTimothy Leary, and

Tantric meditation.

Members[edit]

The original 13th Floor Elevators line-up was built

around singer/guitarist Roky Erickson, electricjug player

Tommy Hall, and guitarist Stacy Sutherland. The rhythm

section went through several changes, with drummer

J ohn Ike Walton and bass player Ronnie Leatherman

being replaced in July 1967. Walton and Leatherman left

the band; in their stead were new recruits DannyThomas (drums, piano) and Dan Galindo (bass) which

completed the "classic Elevators" line-up. Hall remained

the band's primary lyricist and philosopher, with

Sutherland and Erickson both contributing lyrics as well

as writing music, and, later, working with the highly

trained Danny Thomas to arrange the group's more

challenging music. In addition to Erickson's powerfulvocals, Hall's "electric jug" became the band's signature

sound. Later, Ronnie Leatherman returned for the third

and final studio album, Bull of the Woods along with

Thomas, and Sutherland.

Post-Elevators careers[edit]

After pleading insanity in response to drugs charges---he

was arrested for possession of a single marijuana joint---

Roky Erickson was committed to a mental hospital in

1969. J ason Ankeny of allmusic.com has written that thetreatments Erickson received during his three-and-a-

half-year confinement may have contributed to his

subsequent mental troubles. At that point the Elevators

had already dissolved, although local promoters, along

with their record label, International Artists, made some

attempts to keep the band's name alive. Erickson

attempted a sporadic solo career, burdened by

management who exploited his instability and involved

him in contracts that left him no control or profit from his

music. After staying mostly out of sight in the 1980s,

Erickson gradually returned to music in the 1990s,especially when the tribute album Where The Pyramid

Meets The Eye---featuring players fromZZ Top,The

J esus and Mary Chainand R.E.M., all of whom claimed

Erickson's or the Elevators' influence---was released. He

recordedAll That May Do My Rhyme for the Trance

Syndicate label, owned by the Butthole Surfers's King

Coffey, who claimed Erickson told him it was the first

time he'd ever been given a royalty check for his music.

By 2001, Erickson's brother Sumner had been awarded

custody of the troubled musician and helped him receive

better psychological treatment, restore his physical

health, and connect with a legal team that helped him

untangle his complicated past contracts and begin

receiving more royalties for his music. I Have Always

Been Here Before, a 43-track compilation of his post-

Elevators music, was released in 2005, and Erickson

receives full royalties for the set.

Stacy Sutherland formed his own band, Ice, which

performed only in Houston and never released any

material. In 1969, after a battle with heroin addiction, he

was imprisoned in Texas on drug charges, the


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culmination of several years of drug related trouble with

the law. After his release Sutherland began to drink

heavily. He continued to sporadically play music

throughout the 1970s, occasionally with former members

of the Elevators. Sutherland was accidentally shot and

killed by his wife Bunny on August 24, 1978 during adomestic dispute, and is buried in Center Point, Kerr

County, Texas.[6]

Danny Galindo played bass withJ immie Vaughan's

(Stevie Ray's older brother) band Stormin Austin, Texas

during the 1970s. He died in 2001 from complications of

hepatitis C.

Danny Thomas left the 13th Floor Elevators in 1968 and

was hired to perform with blues guitaristSam "Lightnin'"

Hopkins. After leaving Texas and returning to North

Carolina he played from 1970-1997 with: Lou Curry

Band, Dogmeat, Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith, and

Bessie Mae's Dream. During this time, he owned his

own delivery company called Gophers, Inc. Prior to that

he worked in accounting at Carolinas Medical

Center (formerly Charlotte Memorial Hospital). He lives

inCharlotte, North Carolina with his wife, J uanette, and

they have two daughters, Christina J uanette Thomas,

and Tiffany J oan Thomas J ohnson, and sonJ ason V

Brock.

Benny Thurman joined a string of other bands, mostnotably Mother Earth, with Powell St. J ohn, and played

with Plum Nelly in the 1970s.

Tommy Hall currently lives in downtown San

Francisco.[7]

In the 1980s he was rumored to be the true

identity of Texas outsider musicianJ andek, but this has

since been disproven. He became a devout follower

ofScientologyin the 1970s.

Various Elevators tribute/related bands exist, such as

"The J ohn Ike Walton Revival" featuring namesake J ohn

Ike Walton (formerly known as The Tommy Hall

Schedule), and Acid Tomb, featuring members ofThe

Alice Rose. Erickson's youngest brother Sumner

Erickson covers many Elevators songs with his

bandThe Texcentrics.

Roky Erickson

Erickson was interested in music from his youth: he

played piano from age 5 and took up guitarat 10. He

attended school in Austin and dropped out ofTravis HighSchool in 1965, one month before graduating, rather than

cut his hair to conform to the school dress code.[2] His first

notable group was The Spades, who scored a regional hit

with Erickson's "We Sell Soul"; the song is included as an

unlisted bonus track on Erickson's 1995All That May Do

My Rhyme CD and had also been adapted as "Don't Fall

Down" by the 13th Floor Elevators for their first album. The

Spades' original version of "You're Gonna Miss Me", later a

hit for 13th Floor Elevators, was featured on the compilation

albumThe Best ofPebbles Volume 1.

13th Floor Elevators years[edit]

Main article: 13th Floor Elevators

Erickson co-founded the 13th Floor Elevators in late1965.[citation needed] He and bandmateTommy Hall were the

main songwriters. Early in her career, singerJ anis

J oplin considered joining the Elevators, but Family

Dog's Chet Helms persuaded her to go to San Francisco,

California instead, where she found major fame.

In 1966 (Erickson was 19 years old) the band released their

debut albumThe 13th Floor Elevators. The album had the

band's only charting single, Erickson's "You're Gonna Miss

Me." A stinging breakup song, the single remains probably

Erickson's best-known work: it was a major hit on local

charts in the U.S. southwest, and appeared at lower

position on national singles charts as well. Critic Mark

Deming writes that "If Roky Erickson had vanished from the

face of the earth afterThe 13th Floor Elevators

(band) released their epochal debut single, "You're Gonna

Miss Me", in early 1966, in all likelihood he'd still be

regarded as a legend among garage rock fanatics for his

primal vocal wailing and feral harmonica work."[3]

In 1967, the band followed up withEaster Everywhere,

perhaps the band's most focused effort, featuring the epic

track "Slip Inside This House", and a noted cover ofBob

Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue".

The albumLive was put out in 1968 byInternational Artists.

It featured audience applause dubbed over studio


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recordings of cover versions, alternate takes and older

material, and it had little to no input from the band.

Bull of the Woods, released in 1969, was the 13th Floor

Elevators' last released album on which they worked as a

group and was largely the work of Stacy Sutherland.

Erickson, due to health and legal problems, and Tommy

Hall were only involved with a few tracks, including "Livin'

On" and "May the Circle Remain Unbroken".

Mental illness and legal problems[edit]

In 1968, while performing atHemisFair, Erickson began

speakinggibberish. He was soon diagnosed with

paranoid schizophreniaand sent to a Houstonpsychiatric

hospital, where he involuntarily receivedelectroconvulsive

therapy.[2]

The Elevators were vocal proponents

ofLSD, mescaline, DMT[citation needed] and marijuana use,[citation

needed] and were subject to extra attention from law

enforcement agencies. In 1969, Erickson was arrested for

possession of a single marijuana joint in Austin. Facing a

potential ten-year incarceration, Erickson pleaded not guilty

by reason of insanity to avoid prison. He was first sent to

theAustin State Hospital. After several escapes, he was

sent to the Rusk State Hospital for the Criminally Insane,

where he was subjected to more forced electroconvulsive

therapyandThorazine treatments, ultimately remaining in

custody until 1972. Six tracks from the 1999 Erickson

collection Never Say Goodbye were recorded during his

time there.

Bleib Alien years[edit]

In 1974, after having been released from state hospital,

Erickson formed a new band which he called "Bleib

alien", Bleib being an anagram ofBible and/or German for

"stay," and "Alien" being a pun on the German

word allein ("alone") - the phrase in German therefore being

"remain alone." His new band exchanged the psychedelic

sounds ofThe 13th Floor Elevators for a more hard

rocksound that featured lyrics on oldhorror filmand science

fiction themes. "Two Headed Dog (Red Temple Prayer)"

(produced byThe Sir Douglas Quintet's Doug Sahmand

inspired by Vladimir Demikhov's 1950s head

transplantexperiments) was released as a single.

The new band was renamed Roky Erickson and the Aliens.

In 1979, after playing with the Reversible Cords on May

Day at Raul's, Erickson recorded 15 new songs

with producerStu Cook, formerbass player ofCreedence

Clearwater Revival. These efforts were released in two

"overlapping" LPs "I Think Of Demons" (CBS UK, 1980)

and "The Evil One" (415 Records, 1981). Cook played bass

on two tracks, "Sputnik" and "Bloody Hammer." Roky

performed withThe Nervebreakers as his backup band at

The Palladium inDallas in J uly of 1979. A recording was

issued on the French label New Rose and was recently re-

issued elsewhere.

In 1982, Erickson asserted that aMartian had inhabited his

body. He came to feel that, due to his being alien, human

beings were attacking him psychically. A concerned friend

enlisted a Notary Public to witness an official statement by

Erickson that he was an alien; he hoped by declaring so

publicly he would be in line with any "international laws" he

might have been breaking. Erickson claimed the attacks

then indeed stopped.

Creative decline and renewed

interest[edit]

Beginning in the 1980s, Erickson began a years-long

obsession with the mail, often spending hours poring over

random junk mail, writing to solicitors and celebrities (dead

or living). He was arrested in 1989 on charges of mail theft.

Erickson picked up mail from neighbors who had moved

and taped it to the walls of his room. He insisted that he

never opened any of the mail, and the charges were

ultimately dropped.

Several live albums of his older material have been

released since then, and in 1990Sire Records/Warner

Bros. Records released a tribute album, Where The

Pyramid Meets The Eye: A Tribute to Roky Erickson,


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produced by WB executive Bill Bentley. It featured versions

of Erickson's songs performed byThe J esus and Mary

Chain, R.E.M., ZZ Top,J ulian Cope, Butthole

Surfers,Bongwater,J ohn Wesley Harding, Doug

Sahmand Primal Scream, among others. According to the

liner notes, the title of the album came from a remark

Erickson made to a friend who asked him to define

psychedelic music, to which Erickson reportedly replied "It's

where the pyramid meets the eye, man," an apparent

reference to the Eye of Providence and the Great Seal of

the United States.

In 1995, Erickson releasedAll That May Do My

Rhyme onButthole Surfers drummer King Coffey's

labelTrance Syndicate Records. Produced byTexas

Tornado bassistSpeedy Sparks, Austin recording

legend Stuart SullivanandTexas Music

Office director Casey Monahan, the release coincided with

the publication ofOpeners II, a complete collection of

Erickson's lyrics. Published byHenry

Rollins's 2.13.61 Publications, it was compiled and edited

by Casey Monahan with assistance from Rollins and

Erickson's youngest brotherSumner Erickson, a

classical tuba player.

Sumner was granted legal custody of Roky in 2001, and

established a legal trust to aid his brother. As a result, Roky

received some of the most effective medical and legal aid

of his life, the latter useful in helping sort out the

complicated tangle of contracts, which had reducedroyalty

payments to all but nothing for his recorded works. He also

started taking medication to control his schizophrenia.

A documentary film on the life of Roky Erickson titled You're

Gonna Miss Me was made by director Keven

McAlester and screened at the 2005SXSWfilm festival. In

September of the same year, Erickson performed his first

full-length concert in 20 years at the annualAustin City

Limits Music Festivalwith The Explosives with special guest

and longtime associate, Billy Gibbons ofZZ Top.

In the December 30, 2005 issue of theAustin Chronicle, an

alternative weekly newspaper in Austin, Texas, Margaret

Moser chronicled Erickson's recovery, saying Erickson had

weaned himself off his medication, played at 11 gigs in

Austin that year, obtained a driver's license, bought a car

(aVolvo) and voted.

In 2007, Erickson played his first ever gigs in New York

City at SOUTHPAW in Brooklyn, NY, as well

as California's Coachella Festival and made a debut

performance in England to a capacity audience at theRoyal

Festival Hall, London. Roky continued to play inEurope,

performing for the first time in Finland atRuisrock festival.

According to the article inHelsingin Sanomat 8 June 2007,

the performance was widely considered the highlight of the

festival day.[4]

On 8 September 2008, Scottish post-

rock band Mogwai released the Batcat EP. Erickson is

featured on one of the tracks, "Devil Rides".[5] Erickson

performed alongside Austin-based indie rock band Okkervil

River at the Austin Music Awards in 2008 and then again at

the 2009 South by Southwestmusic festival.[6]

Roky Erickson returned to the stage in 2008 to perform

songs from the 13th Floor Elevators catalog that had not

been performed in decades with fellow AustinitesThe Black

Angels as his backing band. After months of practices and

time recording in an Austin studio, they performed a show

in Dallas followed by a West Coast tour. The Black Angels

played a regular set then backed Roky as his rhythm

section playing 13th Floor Elevators songs and classicsfrom Roky's solo albums.

On April 20, 2010, Erickson released True Love Cast Out

All Evil, his first album of new material in 14 years. Okkervil

River serves as Erickson's backing band on the album.[7]

In March 2012 Roky Toured New Zealand and Australia for

the first time headlining Golden Plains Sixxx Festival in

Meredeth as well as playing soldout side shows in Sydney

and Melbourne.


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