Katerinas Magic World

While much of the 13th Floor Elevators’ popularity today rests upon their studio albums and 45s, this wasn’t always the case. Especially not in Texas, where the Elevators first became famous as an outstanding live act, with a combination of ferocious drive and dark mystique that was unlike anything seen before. When the Psychedelic Sounds LP was released in late ‘66, some fans in their hometown Austin felt it was missing a bit of the captivating energy they associated with the band. Even Tommy Hall, the band’s lyricist and intellectual nexus, stated in a 1989 interview that “our real show was live”.
The ’66 set sounds fantastic – in a raw, semi blown out/distorted way, but this isn’t a random audience tape…there is a little tape phase, but basically all instuments are loud & proud & Roky’s vox are even more manic & helium infused than on the first album. The set is mostly the first album plus some covers: Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, the Beatles, the Kinks – they get into an extended workout with Tommy Hall jug treatment of “You Really Got Me,” & this song might be the highlight of the set, which overall resides on the garage side of the garage/psych spectrum, mostly due to the covers.
Tracks
01. Everybody needs somebody to love
02. Before you accuse me
03. You don't know
04. I'm gonna love you too
05. You really got me
06. Splash I
07. Fire engine
08. Roll over Beethoven
09. The word
10. Monkey island
11. Roller coaster
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Roky Erickson was very much a changed man when he re-emerged on the music scene in the late '70s after a deeply troubling stay in a mental institution following an arrest for drugs in 1969. The graceful but energetic proto-psychedelia of Erickson's music with the 13th Floor Elevators was replaced by a hot-wired straight-ahead rock sound which suggested an updated version of the teenaged garage pounders Roky recorded with his early group the Spades, and the charming psychobabble of Tommy Hall's lyrics with the Elevators gave way to twisted narratives documenting Roky's obsessive enthusiasm for cheezoid horror movies of the 1950s. It wasn't until 1980 that Erickson released his first solo album, and that disc has had a rather eventful history. Stu Cook (ex-Creedence Clearwater Revival) produced the sessions over a period of two years, and the album appeared in Europe as Roky Erickson & the Aliens (released by CBS in England, making it Roky's only major-label release to date), while in America it came out as The Evil One on the San Francisco indie 415 Records. The British and American releases featured different track lineups, and each version featured songs which didn't show up on the other; to complicate matters all the more, early versions of three of the songs were released on a small-label EP in France. His band, the Aliens, are in sharp, precise form; Erickson's vocals confirm he's a blues-rock belter of the first order (even when he's raving about creatures with atom brains, two-headed dogs, or the Evil One himself), and if the songs are a bit odd lyrically (which you would expect from the titles), the tunes are clever and punchy and rock on out. While the serene and evocative folk-rock of All That May Do My Rhyme represents Roky Erickson's strongest solo work, The Evil One shows just how strong a rocker he could be — and how good a band he could put together. Great stuff, and certainly the best representation of Roky's "latter-day punk" period.
Tracks
01. Two Headed Dog (Red Temple Prayer)
02. I Think of Demons
03. Creature with the Atom Brain
04. The wind and more
05. Don't shake me Lucifer
06. Bloody hammer
07. Stand for the fire demon
08. Click your fingers applauding the play
09. If you have ghosts
10. I walked with a zombie
11. Night of the vampire
12. It's a cold night for alligators
13. Mine mine mind
14. Sputnik
15. White faces
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More focused and even more trippy than their first album, "Easter Everywhere" features the 13th Floor Elevators at their best. The songs are eerie, rambling, and potent, so powerful that they overcome the lo-fi production that plagued the Elevators throughout their career. Roky Erickson's vocals are sometimes eerily reminiscent of Robert Plant. This is a heavily psychedelic album and shows a San Francisco influence; at this point in their career the Elevators had played in SF and shared stages with the Jefferson Airplane, among other 60s psych groups.
The difference is that the Elevators mean every word and note. They were really trying to "break on through to the other side," unlike some psych groups who were just in it for the money. As a result "Easter Everywhere" is spookier and edgier than most psychedelia. At times it approaches Syd Barrett territory. Highly recommended.

Recording Quality Geek Note: The import version on Charly has better sound than the Collectables reissue, but not by much. This is because the master tapes for all the Elevators' albums remain undiscovered - or their location is undisclosed at this time, nobody's sure which. It's way past time for somebody to go on a search for the master tapes and do a remastered version, because this CD (as well as the other Elevators' albums) deserves it.
Tracks
1. Slip Inside This House
2. Slide Machine
3. She Lives (In a Time of Her Own)
4. Nobody to Love
5. It's All over Now, Baby Blue
6. Earthquake
7. Dust
8. I've Got Levitation
9. I Had to Tell You
10. Pictures (Leave Your Body Behind)
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The Golden Dawn started out in the murky time and space of Austin, Texas in late 1966, along with many other wild groups now holding legendary status, but most notably with the kings of the Texas Psychedelic scene, the 13th Floor Elevators. George Kinney and Roky Erickson of the Elevators grew up together and played in high school bands with each other, and by the time of the Great Mind Expansion, the Elevators and the Dawn were in close contact.
On Power Plant, you find lyrics that are aligned with similar subjects as those approached by the 'vators Tommy Hall, yet all original in Kinney's inimmitable style. Possibly it was relative to this similarity that led, unfortunately, to the two bands' record company, the infamous International Artists label out of Houston, to make a decision that seems to have um, "shafted," the career of the vibrant Golden Dawn.
This is what happened: a few months after the release of the 13th Floor Elevators' "Psychedelic Sounds" debut, the Dawn had finished "Power Plant" in mid 1967, and were ready to let it fly. But, by that time, the Elevators were beginning to record their second album (and magnum opus) "Easter Everywhere," which the record company management thought, for whatever reason, should come out first.
And so it went... much to the dismay of George Kinney (voc, guitar), Tom Ramsey (lead guitar), Jimmy Bird (rhythm guitar), Bill Hallmark (bass), and Bobby Rector (drums)--collectively, the Golden Dawn. When "Power Plant" was finally released, in 1968, it was largely panned as the work of an Elevators knock-off band, and it was unjustly snubbed in a big enough way to discourage the development of this excellent and unique band.
The thing is, you ultimately cannot stop something that is as great as "Power Plant," so naturally, through the years it climbed in "cult" status, to the point where recognition of this great music drew out George Kinney once again to reform the band in 2002, and perform live all over the States. And now, we have an all-original album of fresh music from the enigmatic Golden Dawn.
Texas Medicine
Tracks
1. Evolution
2. This Way Please
3. Starvation
4. I'll Be Around
5. Seeing Is Believing
6. My Time - Golden Dawn, Bird
7. A Nice Surprise
8. Every Day
9. Tell Me Why
10. Reaching Out to You
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