Album Reviews

Legendary, much sought after and barely in print when first released on the obscure International Artist label, both the original mono and stereo versions of Roky Erickson’s psychedelic scream and surf fest fetch big bucks.

The mono original, if you can find one, has gone for from $200 to $457 in recent Ebay auctions, but now, thanks to the folks at Sundazed, you can get this superb sounding reissue for a fraction of that and know you’re getting it from the original master tape, because that’s how Sundazed’s Bob Irwin insists it be done.

The slashing opener, “You’re Gonna Miss Me,” will be familiar to any Nuggets head but the rest of the record is equally supercharged (even the ballads shake the ground).

Listen to cut two, “Roller Coaster,” and you’ll be reminded of The Jefferson Airplane’s “3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds.” In fact, the whole record has Airplane overtones but of course this came out in 1966 and the Airplane’s Surrealistic Pillow came in 1967 (though it was recorded in 1966). Either it’s a huge coincidence, or The Psychedelic Sounds of spun frequently on Marty Balin’s and Jorma Kaukonen’s turntable.

With its searing, reverb-drenched slashing surf guitar played by Stacy Sutherland and Tommy Hall’s electrified (and occasionally annoying) jug-gurgling rhythm line bubbling under Erickson’s angry acid-fueled howling, the Elevator’s debut was a raucous, primitive, not particularly well-recorded affair that had zero commercial potential and in fact the single “You’re Gonna Miss Me,” never got above 50 something on the Top 100 back in 1966.

But because it’s “template building” stuff, the song and the album continue to rock the world as its discovered and rediscovered by new generations of rock fans. While it’s easy today to hear it as modified, manic surf music, at the time of its release in 1966 it sounded otherworldly and out of control and Erickson’s vocals haven’t lost a grain of their fiery intensity when compared to anything sung by anyone anywhere.

1966 was a “fulcrom” year, when pop music teetered over the edge from poppy confection to dangerous and subversive. Though this album didn’t reach all that many ears back then, it reached enough of them and it reverberated through the music of the San Francisco era and that of fellow Texan Janis Joplin. Her voice sounds remarkably similar in many ways to Erickson's.

Erickson’s story is sad. He’s mentally unstable, having taken a lot of acid in his younger years, but part of the tragedy is due to his having been arrested for possession of a joint and coping an insanity plea in the hopes of getting off easy. Instead he was committed and given electro-shock “therapy.” Here we are 40 something years later and people are still being arrested for weed—some 750,000 last year. It’s enough to make you crazy!

This record won’t win any awards for sound in the “audiophile” sense but the recording was perfect given the music, which would have suffered had it been given more lavish treatment. Sundazed’s reissue seems to have extracted every last nuance of detail from the mono mix. I write “seems to” because I’ve never heard an original.

Sundazed’s adrenaline pumping vinyl reissue of The Psychedelic Sounds of The 13th Floor Elevators belongs in every serious rock record collection. It's holy grail material.