The 13th Floor Elevators

The entry of the Texan band The 13th Floor Elevators into the psychedelic universe during the summer-autumn of 1966 represents the natural evolution of a sonic approach that, in the first part of that same year, had been moving through the distorted depths of a genuinely high-quality, experimental garage rock.

After a single that was only modestly successful commercially, but beautifully crafted ("You're Gonna Miss Me"), in October 1966 the band released an album of great historical and musical importance, "The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators", making its entrance, with several of the tracks included on it, into underground psychedelia.

Between late 1966 and early '67, the band relocated to California for a series of shows that brought them into contact with the psychedelic rock of the West Coast, which was just then taking its first electrifying steps. Absorbing this fascinating influence, the group's sound - already heavily shaped by their extensive use of LSD - moved definitively into fully lysergic territory, without losing any of its rhythm or substance.

Two members of the original quintet, Ronnie Leatherman (electric bass) and John Walton (drums), left this thrilling musical adventure during '67. They were replaced respectively by Don Galindo and Danny Thomas. The rest of the line-up (Roky Erickson, rhythm guitar, lead vocals, harmonica; Stacy Sutherland, lead electric guitar; Tommy Hall, electric jug) welcomed the new members and went on to record the second chapter of their discography: "Easter Everywhere", recorded after the summer of 1967 and released on the American market in November (running roughly forty-three minutes).

The material included on this magnificent LP is mostly the result of Erickson's shining inspiration, as he wrote the music for six of the ten tracks. The remaining songs are split between two covers ("(It's All Over Now Baby Blue" by Bob Dylan and "Slide Machine" by Powell St. John, a folksinger friend of the band) and two songs credited to guitarist Sutherland ("Nobody To Love" and "I've Got Levitation"). What emerges is an underground psychedelic rock that transcribes the acid-drenched scores worked out by Jefferson Airplane and Moby Grape, heightening their melodic charge and further distorting their edges.

The artistic experience the band had recently gained allowed them to take a step forward from their debut album, shedding the last residual traces of rhythm and blues and garage rock to explore a lysergic rock that was distinctly original and far more fully realized.

Drawing on a songwriting approach that had matured and diversified in the year since the recording of "The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators", Roky Erickson reaches, on "Easter Everywhere", the peak of his musical inspiration and his considerable gifts as a songwriter. This is evident beyond any doubt in two tracks: "Slip Inside This House", which opens the LP, and "Postures (Leave Your Body Behind)", which brings it to a close.

The first unfolds over roughly eight minutes in a magmatic flow topped by gripping melodic textures (verse-bridge-chorus). The composition's high point comes in the middle eight, for instance from 2:05 to 3:03, itself split into two exceptional, distinct segments. While the first part of the middle eight (say, from 2:05 to 2:35) has a combative edge, driven forward by insistent pairs of rough-hewn chords, the second part (say, from 2:36 to 3:03) opens out into irresistibly seductive psychedelic enchantments.

While still holding onto psychedelia as an imaginative anchor, “Postures (Leave Your Body Behind)” marks a complete shift in atmosphere, this time lively and sun-drenched in its delightfully irregular, melodic gait (in the vein of the wonderful “China Cat Sunflower” by the Grateful Dead, written just a few months later). Here, Erickson boldly opts to insert two distinct middle eights (from 0:57 to 1:13 the first, and from 2:21 to 2:44 the second) to alternate with the classic verse-chorus sequence. The coexistence of four different sections following one another unbroken turns into a dreamlike dance, glowing with serene electricity and infectious inventiveness. The six-and-a-half minutes of this enchanting track flow with cheerful eccentricity: a colorful parade winding through the streets of a loose, uneven, captivating rhythm, dressed in garments stitched from alluring, irresistible notes.

The other six psychedelic rock numbers – “Slide Machine”, “She Lives (In A Time Of Her Own)”, “Nobody To Love”, “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”, “Earthquake” and “I’ve Got Levitation” – hold their own just fine in tinting the 13th Floor Elevators' headlong approach with unreal, kaleidoscopic emotions. Beguiling harmonies clash with abrasive distortion, notes swaying in their own reverb face off against sounds from other worlds, all held together by the common thread of solid, well-oriented song structures free of any labyrinthine excess. These pieces carry us on a journey that often accelerates through mysterious sonic dips, where the guitars' jagged alterations lurk beneath dynamic, spellbinding melodies.

Among the songs just mentioned, one that stands out is the sublime rendition of “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” (titled here simply “Baby Blue”), originally recorded by Bob Dylan for his illustrious 1965 masterpiece “Bringing It All Back Home”. Dylan's poetics are masterfully softened by the ethereal hallucinations of 1967, which slow its tempo, sinking it into a melancholy weave spun from two interlocking lead electric guitars. What's more, Erickson's vocal performance, which delivers the lyrics in abbreviated form and rearranges the order of the verses, transforms Dylan's disillusioned resignation into a heartfelt, anguished plea, hurled desperately against a deaf sky. In this cover, the 13th Floor Elevators capture the ecstatic rapture that poetry reaches when it meets instinct.

Roky Erickson also ventures very persuasively into other territory, rounding out this record with two tracks that step outside the psychedelic paradigm while still earning enthusiastic praise.

The first is “I Had To Tell You”: a folk-rock number echoing Bob Dylan's “She Belongs To Me”. Though it sounds slightly dated for having been recorded well into 1967, it remains a piece of poignant tenderness, on which Erickson overdubs a wistful harmonica and is joined on vocals by Tommy Hall's partner (Clementine Hall).

The second, “Dust”, is arguably the finest moment on this album, an excellent singer-songwriter ballad with a strikingly elaborate structure: verse, bridge, chorus and post-chorus, closing out with two verses in a row. The heartfelt, moving vocal delivery makes its gripping thematic turns flow smoothly: a wealth of vibrant ideas, spontaneous in essence and effective in form, like richly frescoed rooms. Also worth noting is Sutherland's rarefied lead guitar, which discreetly paints a backdrop of aching beauty.

Amid the record's spinning grooves, a strange and unusual sound emerges, used only by the 13th Floor Elevators and already heard on the band's debut LP (as well as in their live shows). It's the electric jug, introduced by Tommy Hall and specifically devised by him.

The original instrument, a terracotta or glass jug (hence the name), dates back to 1910s Memphis, and it gives its name to the fusion of country blues and New Orleans jazz known as jug band music. In this colorful blend of styles, the jug was played by blowing air and buzzing the lips against its mouth to reproduce the low, muffled vibration of a tuba, an instrument too costly for African-American musicians of the time to afford. To this improvised “bass”, Hall adds a microphone and a series of vocalizations, which are amplified and distorted through the jug, turning into a tight cadence of outgoing, irreverent electric spheres.

The sonic result of this bold and successful piece of musical craftsmanship forms the eccentric rhythmic-melodic ornament running through most of the album's tracks, coursing with buoyant verve through the hypnotic circular currents created by Hall, sketching fresh, surprising shades onto the canvas of American psychedelia.

Alongside the electric jug, another, more conventional instrument shapes this LP's rhythmic dimension. It's the hi-hat, that is, the combination of two cymbals stacked horizontally, positioned on the left side of the drum kit and, in this case, operated with the left foot via a pedal.

Danny Thomas uses the steady, subtle metallic hiss thus produced to define, with elusive consistency, the rhythmic framework of eight of the ten tracks. No technical flourishes are put on display, employing the same terse, solemn percussive style with which Maureen Tucker marks time on the wonderful LP “The Velvet Underground And Nico”.

The pairing of electric jug and hi-hat proves especially effective, as the two elements mark the songs' tempo while complementing one another: one in constant simmer, the other unshaken in its expressive repetitiveness. Two voices entirely different yet complementary: on one side, the dry, unwavering precision of a cosmic clock's hands; on the other, the bustling churn of an unending sonic cascade. The rhythmic dialogue that emerges from this is something remarkably interesting, psychedelic and innovative, further underscoring the band's uncommon creativity.

On the album, the two electric guitars, rhythm and lead, also collide fruitfully. A mutual exchange with a pleasantly divergent flavor, in which Erickson lays down a dense, distorted blanket drenched in reverb, over which Sutherland weaves jagged embroidery and dreamlike arpeggios, an echo of Indian music updated through rock. One of the emblematic compositions showcasing this vivid guitar contrast is “Earthquake”. In it, one guitar (Erickson's) sways enigmatically under the influence of the tremolo effect, while the sound of the other (Sutherland's) is sharply jagged and biting: two faces of psychedelia recognizing each other as part of the same sonic philosophy.

In other cases (“Slide Machine”, “(It’s All Over Now) Baby Blue” and “Dust”) the dialogue between the two musicians' instruments takes on a different shape instead: Sutherland's favored undulating, insinuating raga-rock lines are delicately countered by Erickson's rhythm acoustic guitar.

Among the solos, crafted by Sutherland in the style of Californian acid rock, worth mentioning is “Nobody To Love”, where a sinuous guitar pattern runs through the entire song masquerading as a sitar, calling to mind both the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield. Another solo worth mentioning is the one featured in “Slip Inside This House” (from 4:27 to 4:54). Here, a theme of hazy outline and majestically evocative pace rises with lyrical determination, like the irrevocable unfolding of fate.

A special mention certainly goes to the vocals of Erickson, a central factor in the arrangements of this LP, from which suggestively discordant tonalities emerge: a visceral emotionality that shines with vulnerability as much as with menace. His voice, high-pitched and with a timbre that is both cutting and creamy, somewhere between Mick Jagger and Tim Buckley, sparks a fire in the undergrowth of the American counterculture, burning with an intensity that is sacred and sacrilegious at once. This holds true for nine of the ten tracks, with "Nobody To Love" sung with lysergic abandon by Sutherland.

Worth noting: on "She Lives (In A Time Of Her Own)" and "I've Got Levitation", bass and drums are played by former members John Walton and Danny Leatherman, as both tracks were recorded before their departure in favor of Danny Thompson and Don Galindo.

The music we've described stands out in silhouette against an underlying concept devised by Hall, which also extends to the very title and cover art of "Easter Everywhere". It can be summed up as a personal, abstract elaboration of spirituality, a journey across latitudes, between East and West, encompassing Hinduism, Christianity and paganism, while avoiding translating this transcendent impulse into anachronistic religious rules and dogmas.

A thought that is at once lofty and profound, reflected with a surreal glow in the lyrics of seven of the ten tracks (six of which were written by Hall). The words on the record twist into disjointed images and phrases, of an unmistakably psychedelic bent. By implicitly elevating the use of LSD to a means of reaching an unexplored level of one's own consciousness, off-limits to those who reject this radiant chemical illumination, Hall sets out to align himself with the most extreme fringe of the American counterculture. "I've Got Levitation" and "Postures (Leave Your Body Behind)" exemplify this, both centered, from their very titles, on abandoning the real dimension of existence to penetrate the mysteries of the metaphysical-spiritual one. The exception is a handful of love songs ("Nobody To Love", "Earthquake" and "I Had To Tell You"), whose lyrics are nonetheless engaging.

In conclusion, what we have here is an album representative of the best of psychedelia, superior to far more celebrated classics, a work unmistakably steeped in the atmosphere of 1967 that, at the same time, offers songwriting moments of dazzling beauty. A hugely underrated LP, one that ranks at the very top of the 13th Floor Elevators' discography, as well as among the finest works in the history of underground rock. All of this makes "Easter Everywhere" a gripping slice of rock inlaid with dreamlike illusions; a dionysian, intoxicating display of arcane electric mysticism.

Sadly, in the months that followed, Roky Erickson would begin to lose his clarity of mind due to psychedelic drug abuse and the relentlessness of unjust laws. In the lyrics of "I Had To Tell You", he downplays, in a bitterly mistaken prophecy, his mounting personal troubles: "If you're afraid I'll lose my spirit, like a drunk's wasted wine, don't even think about it, I feel fine". On the contrary, his would be a painful decline that culminated in 1969 with the band's breakup and the musician's temporary exit from the scene, here immortalized at the peak of his artistic expressiveness.

The disappointing sales this splendid record achieved upon its release, and the fact that its reputation still sadly falls short of its true quality, demand an urgent reassessment from music lovers.

P.S. We should warn readers that several different mixes of this album exist, corresponding to the various editions released after its official publication. It is therefore essential to bear these differences in mind and carefully seek out the version in which the sound is as clear as possible and the instruments are best balanced against one another.

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25/03/2026