pauldrummond

THE PIONEERS OF PSYCHEDELIC SOUND BY PAUL DRUMMOND

Eye Mind: The Saga Of Roky Erickson And The 13th Floor Elevators, The Pioneers Of Psychedelic Sound by Paul Drummond (Process Paperbacks)

ISBN: 978-0-9760822-6-2

The 13th Floor Elevators remain the template for all serious purveyors of esoteric psychedelia some 40-odd years after their implosion. Their erstwhile talisman and lead vocalist, Roky Erickson, has maintained his pole position as the cult aficionados cult hero throughout the ensuing decades, and its not beyond the realms of exaggeration to claim: no 13th Floor Elevators; no alternative rock! If you find that nugget hard to swallow, just ask R.E.M. if anyones made a mint off of the back of Roky, Stacey (RIP), Tommy, and them good old boys, its those dudes from Athens, Georgia!

Eye Mind, then, is Paul Drummond redressing the balance with the mother of all rock and roll tomes. At 423-pages, and with a foreword by the irascible Julian Cope, this indispensable volume expands the storyboard of recent Roky bio-pic, Youre Going To Miss Me (Palm), with detail upon detail. Depending on who you believe, this labour of love took Drummond anything between seven and eleven years to complete, stacking up the air-miles and a sizeable carbon footprint commuting betwixt Texas and the UK in the process.

The story of the 13th Floor Elevators puts the exploits of many later hell-raisers firmly in the shade. Formed back in 1965 when LSD was still legal in the USA, the Elevators spent their entire working life as the number one Public Enemy of the forces of Texan law enforcement. Some go so far as to claim that the groups entire existence was carried out under police observation. With their outlaw stance and their prodigious appetite for mind-altering substances, the Elevators, and in particular, Erickson, were never quite sure who was watching them. The paranoia induced by this kind of attention became the very fuel that fired the groups ever decreasing circles of existence.

Part-thriller, part-historical-investigation, part-holy-text (Cope), Eye Mind shines a torch back into the gloom of the mid-60s to illuminate a hitherto undocumented era of innovation and excess. Leaving no mossy headstone unturned, Drummond methodically pieces together these fables of the reconstruction with the type of precision normally afforded to authors of true crime.

To the straights they were regarded as freaks. To the hippies they were regarded as punks. Their short (by comparison) hair and dark clothing marked them out from the common or garden beatnik as something altogether more threatening. With their conceptual advisor and jug-blowing lyricist, Tommy Hall, imploring them to play the acid, the Elevators live schedule was often constructed around their lysergic ingestion patterns: the group would play up to 3-gigs a trip to maximise the longevity of said LSD experience, and take it to its logical conclusion every time! Habitual LSD usage, however, does have its Achilles heel, and a supporting cast of heroin, alcohol and other destabilising substances soon took their toll on the Elevators and their entourage, complicating an already convoluted scene beyond the pale.

Despite the initial success of the groups debut 45, Youre Gonna Miss Me, commercial nirvana proved impossible to find. The Elevators were on the back foot almost from the get-go, doomed to failure with regard to replicating the sales graph of that opening vinyl statement. Eventually it took the groups inclusion on Lenny Kayes seminal Nuggets collection almost a decade later to alert the burgeoning proto-punk community to the genius of the Elevators, allowing Patti Smith et all to claim direct lineage, much as Led Zeppelin had done back in 1969.

The connection between the psychedelic sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators and punk rock cannot be understated: just one listen to Sundazeds recent return to mono vinyl edition of the Elevators startling debut long player, The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators, proves beyond doubt that what surfaced around 1975/76 had its roots firmly planted a decade earlier than most punk rock historians would care to admit, but then again, conventional history tells us that Khufu built the Great Pyramid, that the Sphinx is post-diluvian, and that Stonehenge was constructed some time around 3500 BC.

If you dont already own every recorded moment the Elevators committed to tape for posterity, then Id advise you to invest forthwith: their debut long player, and its successor, Easter Everywhere, are both copper-bottomed genre classics with massive spiritual hearts beating at their spindle holes. A patchy Live LP, including dubbed-on audience applause taken from a boxing match added to early demos (a good example of some of the sharper practices employed by the Elevators record label, International Artists), and the Sutherland-controlled Bull Of The Woods complete the set. Having the music to hand (ear?) as you plough your way through the results of Drummonds extensive labours is tantamount to understanding the Elevators per se. Meanwhile, Drummond himself has been hard at work compiling the forthcoming 10-CD Elevators box-set, All And Everything (Charly), due later this year. Elevator, going up!

With Roky now rehabilitated and playing out once more, thanks to the concerted efforts of heroic brother, Sumner Erickson, weve come full (unbroken) circle. These days, Mr Erickson is the proud owner of a set of new teeth, courtesy of Henry Rollins, hard at work on a new studio LP, with a little help from Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top), and hardly ever sits at home alone listening to 43-different radio stations and 27-TV channels all at the same time!

Dust from your skin

Must trust, when it scatters

Only love matters

It's been overjoyed

Scents and perfumes

Whence, since your higher fragrance

Is memory

Incense and never destroy

Every stop we've taken

Is now a wonderous shrine

Where nature is in order

Your sense is sensing mine

As I love you

All the creatures play

As I love you

Now it's safe to say

There's no hang up in our way

The trees in our gaze

will show us the love that we breath in

This shouldn't amaze

They openly love all they are

And love's all they are

Gifts, to begin

Bliss, cliffs of expression

They suit our impression

and every whim.

Taste has got thirst

Faced, waste

Beyond uses,

with so many juices

Were filled to the brim

Our pleasure's not forsaken

we cultivate our bend

More chances re-awaken when beginning meets the end

As I love you,

Now it's safe to say

There's no hang up in our way

As I love you

The faith that we build

Will strengthen our close growing closer

Till waiting is filled

We simply remember we are,

where ever we are.

Clay that we print

May stay as we mold it

but will never hold it

The promise is long

Till we're complete

Will, still is intention

We still need attention to help us along - Dust

http://www.myspace.com/rokyerickson

http://www.rokyerickson.net/

http://www.myspace.com/rokyericksonandtheexplosives

http://www.myspace.com/psychedelic_paul

Jean Encoule 2008: wastebin@trakMARX.com

Bedoin tribes ascending

From the egg into the flower,

Alpha information sending

State within the heaven shower

From disciples the unending

Subtleties of river power

They slip inside this house as they pass by

If your limbs begin dissolving

In the water that you tread

All surroundings are evolving

In the stream that clears your head

Find yourself a caravan

Like Noah must have led

And slip inside this house as you pass by.

Slip inside this house as you pass by.

True conception, knowing why

Brings even more than meets the eye

Slip inside this house as you pass by.

In this dark we call creation

We can be and feel and know

From an effort, comfort station

That's surviving on the go

There's infinite survival in

The high baptismal glow.

Slip inside this house as you pass by.

There is no season when you are grown

You are always risen from the seeds you've sown

There is no reason to rise alone

Other stories given have sages of their own.

Live where your heart can be given

And your life starts to unfold

In the forms you envision

In this dream that's ages old

On the river layer is the only sayer

You receive all you can hold

Like you've been told.

Every day's another dawning

Give the morning winds a chance

Always catch your thunder yawning

Lift your mind into the dance

Sweep the shadows from your awning

Shrink the fourfold circumstance

That lies outside this house don't pass it by.

Higher worlds that you uncover

Light the path you want to roam

You compare there and discover

You won't need a shell of foam

Twice born gypsies care and keep

The nowhere of their former home

They slip inside this house as they pass by.

Slip inside this house as you pass by.

You think you can't, you wish you could

I know you can, I wish you would

Slip inside this house as you pass by.

Four and twenty birds of Maya

Baked into an atom you

Polarized into existence

Magnet heart from red to blue

To such extent the realm of dark

Within the picture it seems true

But slip inside this house and then decide.

All your lightning waits inside you

Travel it along your spine

Seven stars receive your visit

Seven seals remain divine

Seven churches filled with spirit,

Treasure from the angels' mine

Slip inside this house as you pass by.

The space you make has your own laws

No longer human gods are cause

The centre of this house will never die.

There is no season when you are grown

You are always risen from the seeds you've sown

There is no reason to rise alone

Other stories given have sages of their own.

Draw from the well of unchanging

Its union nourishes on

In the right re-arranging

Till the last confusion is gone

Water-brothers trust in the ultimust

Of the always singing song they pass along.

One-eyed men aren't really reigning

They just march in place until

Two-eyed men with mystery training

Finally feel the power fill

Three-eyed men are not complaining.

They can yo-yo where they will

They slip inside this house as they pass by.

Don't pass it by. -Slip Inside This House

Recent Blog Entries

JUNE - JULY UPDATES

APRIL - MAY UPDATES

MARCH UPDATES

JAN - FEB UPDATES

TESTIMONIALS

"Ok my dear, I am ready for you, alert the media. It looks great darling. You have done your job well. I hope you get many visitors to the site and the pretty voluptuous ones fi..."

Sebastian Horsley (RIP)
"A fantastic Polaroid excursion, another world that still lives on out there in the too grey modern world. It?s a great website, perhaps the best of its genre, crammed full of sn..."

John Robb (Writer & singer with Goldblade)
"Hi Yes I did spot you with your tiger skin jacket. Loved the photos. There is one photo attached that I may be able to get the Sunday Times to use if you fancy and have your n..."

Alan Mair (The Only Ones)