Regardless of whether or not the 13th Floor Elevators were the first psychedelic band they were the first band to release an album that was intended to replicate and/or enhance an experience with psychedelic drugs and was great. Everything was outrageous, though not the most outrageous album released by a rock band in 1966; The Mothers of Invention released Freak Out! a few months before, and “outrageous” would be constantly redefined every month for decades to come.
For 1966, The 13th Floor Elevators had their guitars drenched in reverb (Roky Erickson and Stacy Sutherland); there was a section of the band dedicated to the electric jug (Tommy Hall); and they sang like even more tormented than the screamers of the 50s (Erickson). They were dedicated to cut into your subconscious and crawl around inside shaking, bending, and teaching it to echo itself to experience life in some other way; anything to put the proper and reserved population into a psychedelic state, not out of love, out of experience.
“Fire Engine” and “Reverberation” had enough reverb in two guitars to sound like they were playing for the universe and the guitars were bouncing off of all known and unknown matter. Erickson comes in slowly with a restlessness that explodes as he takes you “through the empty space in his fire engine.” This would usually be enough to make a band a legend, but they would score a hit with “You’re Gonna Miss Me” that features every eccentricity at the beginning and all at the top of the mix with Erickson’s chilling scream, Hall’s goofy electric jug, fiery drums, and decadent garage guitars. “Roller Coaster” is the deepest cut of the entire album that seems to go on forever while lasting a miniscule 5 minutes. “Tried to Hide” is the other standout of the album that stands near the edge of forever.
Their next album Easter Everywhere would push the aesthetic a bit further, but they were far eclipsed by many other psychedelic bands in 1967, especially The Parable of Arable Land by the Red Krayola that played simple garage rock like the 13th floor elevators at the core but for the apocalypse, shattering what it meant to make a rock album, a psychedelic experience, post-modern industrial carnage, and how to get as much sound as possible onto a recording while still being able to discern most of the sounds; Erickson, and possible others from the 13th Floor Elevators, played on the album, which made them seem like a cute pop band by comparison.
The Band would fall apart a couple years later. Erickson would be arrested for drug possession and treated for schizophrenia and criminal insanity, a plea by him to avoid jail time, which resulted in electroconvulsive treatments. Erickson would become a cult hero through the 70s because of his hiatus and the story behind it, regardless of what story was spread. He made some underwhelming revival albums in the 80s that had some bright moments but was mostly produced and beloved because of his legendary status as one of the progenitors of the psychedelic era and widespread use of drugs. By the time the hippies were gaining ground they were stuck in their past and could not catch up. The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators stands more as a relic from the beginning of “the golden age” of rock music when electronics and ideas were moving faster than those developing and implementing them, but “Roller Coaster” and “Fire Engine” are much more than that, and “You’re Gonna Miss Me” has become one of the most recognizable songs from the psychedelic era, transcending the term and ascending to beloved pop/rock song.
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