My introduction to Roky Erikson's psych garage jug band, the 13th Floor Elevators, came via Spacemen 3 and their cavernous cover of Rollercoaster. Watching it live, feeling my rib cage buckle. Love at first bruising listen.
This book is a visual history of this pivotal, essential and truly unique band. A band that formed the blueprint for psychedelic music, blew the roof of the nascent musical underground and played a huge part in the counterculture struggle against authority.
Writer Paul Drummond has pulled together an unprecedented catalogue of primary materials—including scores of previously-unseen band photographs, rare and iconic artwork of the era, items from family scrapbooks and personal diaries, new and archival interviews, dozens of contemporaneous press accounts, and no shortage of Austin Police Department records—to tell the complete and unvarnished story of a band which, until now, has been tragically underdocumented.
As the Elevators said themselves 'you gotta open up your mind and let everything come through'.
Size: 298 x 229mm
Pages: 272
Publisher: Anthology Editions
