13th Floor Elevators - "Live in California" (1966) - International Artists
Hello Friends,
We're enjoying another record from our Music of the Spheres Box Set tonight.
Recorded "live on LSD" in San Francisco in the fall of 1966, the Live in California LP captures rock & roll's first psychedelic band at the height of their demonic powers and its presence in the box set marks the first time that this LP would be officially released on vinyl.
Live in California is much better quality than most of the bootleg-type live stuff that we've heard from the Elevators. The rhythm section gets a little muddy-sounding at times but still the vocals, guitars and electric jug come across sounding crisp and alive! (Its much better, for example, than the official 1968 release "Live" which is basically outtakes of songs "enhanced" by fake crowds and overdubbed clapping!)
Presumably recorded from a series of gigs at San Francisco's Avalon Ballroom, the exact dates or locations of these recordings remain a mystery. What is known is that in the Fall of 1966, the Elevators migrated from Austin, TX to San Francisco, CA and shocked/awed/inspired audiences in the Bay Area. During their tenure, they played with bands like Big Brother & The Holding Company, The Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Jefferson Airplane & The Sir Douglas Quintet. A real who's who of what was to become known as the "San Francisco sound." There's no doubt that the Elevators presence in this scene was hugely influential not only because of their ground-breaking sound, but because of their LSD-fueled frenzied live performances. Like demons slithering in Eden.
Kicking things off on the record is a raucous cover of Solomon Burke's "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love"-- an R&B song covered by practically every garage band from 1964 to 1968-- however in Roky Erickson's hands it becomes a demented-druggy sermon to his eager parishioners: "So glad to be here tonight / It's so good to be home / And I've got a message I want to tell everybody tonight..." Intense and furious.
Another oft-covered blues tune, Bo Diddley's "Before You Accuse Me", is next. If you were on acid seeing these guys perform, no doubt by the second song you were convinced that ringleader Roky Erickson, with fire in his eyes, was some sort of rock and roll demon and that maniacal boop-boop-boop-boop sound being made by the kid with the ceramic jug was actually sounds emitting from the innards of your own subconscious!
The originals "You Don't Know (How Young You Are)" and "Splash 1" are next and sound pretty close to the record versions. By this time in their young career, they've probably knew these songs inside-out but considering the generous amounts of mind-altering substances they were ingesting on a daily basis, they do a great job holding things together!
The Buddy Holly hit, "I'm Gonna Love You Too" makes an appearance and wouldn't be heard from again until Blondie covered it in 1978.
"You Really Got Me" closes out Side One and the Kinks have never sounded so threatening and dark!
Side Two begins with a howling version of "Fire Engine" with some extra crazy-sounding electric jug!
Next up there's two more cover songs, the oft-covered Chuck Berry classic, "Roll Over Beethoven", followed by the Rubber Sole classic, "The Word". Not your typical cover song in 1966, but in the Roky Erikcson and the Elevators' hands it sounds less like a pot-influenced love song and much more like a fiery, drug-fueled, Revelation-inspired sermon. Charlie Manson would be proud!
The side closes out with "Monkey Island" and an excellent, extended version of "Roller Coaster" complete with start-stops, tempo changes and more Erickson howling litanies:
"You've gotta open up your mind and let everything come through..."
Kinda funny how "You're Gonna Miss Me" is absent from the set considering how it would have been the band's biggest (and only) "hit" of the time and you think the band would have been playing it any chance they got! We're not really complaining though because we really like this record as is!
RATING: 4.5 starts like a roller coaster ride so real it takes your breath away out of 5
Cost: $21.00
