13th Floor Elevators - A Visual History - Paul Drummond

 

This huge, 300-page, coffee-table-sized tome is truly a labor of love and a massive undertaking, highly researched, with hundreds of rare photos accompanying the story of this psychedelic band from their earliest days to their demise. With an unhealthy love of drugs, especially LSD, right from the start they fell into trouble on a regular basis, with the local authorities repeatedly busting them, which led to intense personal troubles and singer Roky Erickson's stint in the madhouse, which haunted him until the day he died. Although they were a huge draw locally, the busts kept them from traveling out of state, got them banned from some venues and radio stations (regardless of the fact that their single was selling well and wildly popular) and also kept the band in a regular state of paranoia - legitimately and understandably. 

The rest of the story basically remains the same. They were able to go to California a few times and were highly respected there, but were not able to get to the east coast or elsewhere and their drug use and busts affected their work and, especially in Roky's case, their sanity. They were basically locked into playing the same places in Texas for money, but the continual law enforcement harassment meant that sometimes one or more members of the band would be under arrest - and sometimes dragged off the stage and taken to jail! Their record company kept asking for new recorded material in the hopes of the hit that eluded "You're Gonna Miss Me", and while I believe that Easter Everywhere is an exceptional album, it was difficult to make and was not well received, even by their fans who say that it did not match their live potential. After that, the final album, Bull in the Woods, was basically a solo album from lead guitarist Stacy (who was having his own drug, mental and law enforcement problems) and while there were a number of attempts to recreate some version of the band, it eventually fell apart completely.

Reunions were attempted, but everyone continued to have their own issues and they could not work together for long and one by one, members passed away to the point where there is no one left to carry the torch. Drummond only parenthetically mentions Roky's (reasonably) successful solo career, but that's understandable as the book is about the Elevators as a band and he only touches on anyone other groups - mostly to mention the members that would end up in some variation of the Elevators. 

It's a sad story, for sure, but one filled with lots of incredible music and terrific visuals - the materials that have been collected for this book are pretty mind-altering in and of themselves! A great endeavor and a huge thanks to my wonderful wife for this ultra cool Xmas present!