A Not So Brief History of Roky (and the 13th Floor Elevators)

Posted about 1 year ago

Artist:

Josh Ritter
Album:

The Historical Conquests Of
Track:
- PLAY
- QUEUE
Mind's Eye - (with Doug Rice/Matt Douglas/Tony Barba/Kirk Knuffke/Sarah Whitney/The Great North Sound Society Orchestra/Ariane Barbanell/Bill Fagley/Joelle Lurie)

What I poses in my hand's is a bit of a miracle. Miracle in at least two senses. One sense is, that upon requesting it as a purchase at my local library, my request would not be filled. Oh well I shrugged, I get so many great books from the library, it's no skin off my back. The other is more profound.
Author Paul Drummond spent 8 years researching and putting together this exhaustive biography - low tome of the Roky Erikson and the 13th Floor Elevators, "Eye Mind: The Saga of Roky Erikson and The 13th Floor Elevators, The Pioneers of the Psychedelic Sound". There's a good 414 pages of the band history, in a fairly small text size, at that. I don't know whether to read the book or put it in a shrine to perseverance and human tenacity.
I have yet to do much but thumb through the book and look at the great collections of photos and such. It truly is a feat of rock journalism, and probably belongs in your collection, though you don't know it.
Here's a link to Amazon, if your feeling a bit more curious
Eye Mind: The Saga of Roky Erikson and The 13th Floor Elevators, The Pioneers of the Psychedelic Sound on Amazon.

Comments (6)

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fistula spume says Cool. These two sentences alone make me want to read it: "Lead singer Roky Erickson was forced into a real-life enactment of One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest and was put away in a maximum-security unit for the criminally insane for years. Tommy Hall, their Svengali lyricist, lived in a cave. Guitarist Stacy Sutherland was imprisoned. The drummer was involuntarily subjected to electric shock treatments, and the bassist was drafted into the Vietnam War." Gonna have to check it out. My library doesn't have it either. :(

Permalink posted 03/13/2008
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contrabandwidth says As much as I find the area I live extremely overpriced and somewhat culturally vapid - I do live by on of the best libraries I have ever known. I swear I'm probably the only one who will read this book, but I love them for filling my requests. And my wife loves them for saving us the $23 and saving the shelf space another book I couldn't get rid of would take up.

Permalink posted 03/13/2008
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Jonh Ingham says Thanks for alerting us to this. I've got an mp3 of the Elevators at the Avalon in late 66 or so - it's fantastic. So learning the story will be a pleasure. In my late teenage years on the streets of Hollywood I met a guy from Austin who reckoned that he was the jug blower from the Elevators. I couldn't decide if it was a lie, but I figured that if you were going to bullshit somebody, saying that was not the lie to tell. so I asked him about the band and got some very funny stories about Roky and co. He proved himself to be a real loser, which for me seemed in keeping with the band. I may have been wrong, but what does an 18 yr old know?

Permalink posted 03/13/2008
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Cody B says Their tour bus/van must've been frightening..Sounds cool. I was all excited about the Sun Ra biography (John Szwed, I think), but it had more typos than my posts do..anyway I didn't end up liking it, but the history was still cool to read. I'm gonna keep an eye peeled for this one.

Permalink posted 03/13/2008
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Hermes says Yeah, the synopsis reads great. This would be a book for me, but also for a friend of mine, who's into all things beeing psychedelic. Found it on German Amazon, but no good library around. I miss my university library big time ... . But soon I'm gonna move in a bigger town with bigger libraries ..yiehaaa. That track isn't bad neither.

Permalink posted 03/24/2008
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White and Nerdy says Someday I'll have the time to read that book! I hope you've seen the Roky documentary film. Wow, didn't that explain a lot about Roky and the band?

Permalink posted 03/27/2008