13th Floor Elevator Saturday Night Psychedelic Attitude Dance Celebrating Stacey Sutherland’s 2022 Birthday

As I present each year in my tribute to Rocky, 13th Floor Elevator was the first band to feature the word “psychedelic” on an album cover. They were the prototype psychedelic sound created by amazing lyrics, guitar work and an electric jug bass that was tuned by adding or decreasing the volume inside it! (It’s legend anyway. How he actually got that amazing sound is another story. But the band was seriously into LSD for a while, and of course everyone smoked.) And it was all about “2 Too Life for a Joint” Redneck Texas in the mid 60s!!

He made a pilgrimage to San Francisco in the autumn of 1966 to promote his single “You’re Gonna Miss Me”, where he shared bills with Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Great Society with Grace Slick and Moby Grape. There is no doubt that Lift had a slightly greater influence on many of the bands that played around those parts due to their fundamentally original style of music and playing. The elevators to the 13th floor can sometimes be of disproportionate brilliance, but no doubt because of the radical amount of hallucinations ingested by all the players during that very psychedelic time in history.

The story of Lyft, Rocky, Stacy, and others reads like an epic tragedy from the era when the experiment was underway, when we sang “the kingdom of heaven is within you,” and a little rebellion against the supposedly machine. would be relatively harmless, which it certainly was not.

Almost nothing is known about Stacey Sutherland (28 May 1946 – 24 August 1978), except for her work for Elevator and a short article about her tragic life and relationship which I have included at the end of this tribute . From Wiki after the elevator collapsed as Rocky was imprisoned at Rusk State Hospital for the insane, “Stacey Sutherland formed her own band, Ice, which only performed in Houston and never released any material. In 1969, Heroin After a battle with drug addiction, he was imprisoned in Texas on drug charges… After his release, Sutherland began to drink heavily. He occasionally interacted with former members of Elevator in the 1970s. continued to play music together sporadically. Sutherland was accidentally shot and killed by his wife, Bunny, on August 24, 1978, during a domestic dispute.”

Texas may have been romanticized as an “outlaw country” in the ’70s, where long hair and red color could come together at concerts, but for some, it was a very rough time and place. The police were strict, and the drug laws were strict. And of course, the elevator was torn down by his Houston record company, just like other legends who came to that very tough city.

So let’s celebrate his life and work. There are precious little live video performances of the band, and most of Lift’s music ranges from studio recordings to stills. But I got a little bit, so enjoy one of the most unique sounds in the history of modern music! For your enjoyment, Roki Erickson, Stacy Sutherland, Tommy Hall, and the Thirteenth Floor Elevator! Stacey’s dominant rhythm was unique, exciting and very psychedelic, often drenched in reverb and other special effects, when such things barely existed.

This is where the legend began! Rare footage of Rocky and the elevator in September 1966 where is the action Lip-syncing to their national hit “You’re Gonna Miss Me” with lots of closeups of Tommy Hall and his electric jug! (Dick called him “the sixteenth floor elevator…..)

Here’s another appearance american bandstand Last year’s clip featured interviews after the song “You’re Gonna Miss Me” with Lyft lip-syncing (with some pretty weird camera effects) from October of the same year. When Dick asks Tommy “who’s the head” Tommy replies “We’re all heads.” very nice. It wasn’t monkeys, guys! This year the entire clip is gone, but here is the 1-minute interview. “you will miss me”

To give you a sense of how pioneering Elevator’s sound was, here are some of their first two studio albums, set in pictures and on the album cover:

from their first album psychedelic sounds of the thirteenth floor elevator, “Roller Coaster” and “Reverberation (Doubt)”

Here’s an “uptempo” version of this great tune, live in Houston in 1967! “echo”

Here’s a reverb and buzz-drenched live version, slow and a bit sloppy, but they were still unique! “echo”

Super rare footage from a radio interview after a live performance of “Fire Engine”

a real treat! It is the “B” side of “You’re Gonna Miss Me” and has a much faster tempo than the album, which is far more behind. “Tried to Hide” is the album’s version here, with a more determined driving groove. “tried to hide”

Here’s the exciting “Fire Engine”

I have a gem this year! It is an unused alternative take from the recording of the first album, with far less production and a cleaner sound. “Roller Coaster”.

Here’s a live performance of “Fire Engines” by Lift at the Avalon Ballroom in 1966

Last year I had audio of “Roller Coaster” from Avalon gig, but this year it just disappeared.

Some cover from that gig! The first is Rocky who’s like Mick trying to put out the R&B classic “Have Mercy.” He took a shot at the kinks with this version of “You Really Got Me” and went full R&B with “Before You Know Me.” We’ll close with one of the stranger renditions of the Beatles’ tune “The Word”

Introducing 43 minutes of that show! The 13th Lift Lives in the Avalon Ballroom – September 1966

From that West Coast tour, here’s some very grainy live performance footage of the thirteenth floor elevator to “Fire Engine” after a great interview (sounds like an LA DJ)

Two from the first album! “Don’t fall down” and “The kingdom of heaven is within you”

Here’s a full live show of the classic lift performance at Houston’s La Maison Club in 1965 or 1966! I put them in the order of the set list.

“leverage”

“roller coaster”

“fire engine”

“echo”

“Don’t fall down”

“tried to hide”

“Splash 1”

“you will miss me”

“monkey Island”

“The kingdom of heaven is within you.”

“She Lives in Her Time”

Coming to the studio, here is the wonderful poetic work called the “Transcendent Epic”. from his second album Easter everywhere, “Slip Inside This House”

than even Easter everywhere, “Leverage” and the equally terrible “earthquake.” The album ended with the strange psychedelic soul tune “Pictures (Leave Your Body Behind)”.

This was a promotional copy sent to the DJ, and is longer than what was issued on the album. “earthquake”

Here are four extraordinary Stacy Sutherland psychedelic creations Jungle bull. If you listen closely, you’ll hear things that sound like a whole lot of Bay Area psychedelic music. Many musical influences have also been found over the years. Some of his games could easily have made an impact on Jefferson Airplane or Quicksilver early in his career in the mid-60s.

“Rose and Thorn”

“Street Song”

“Till then”

“Scarlet and Gold”

Stacy co-wrote it with Tommy, and it’s a good song but the horns were unnecessary. “Dear Dr. Doom”

And a royal feast! That album’s surprising closing number, written by Rocky, and excellently distributed by Stacy, was the set for a video of the band performing some of the other song while drenched in red. “May the circle remain unbroken”

All of the following live performances are set to still photos or other types of video effects:

From May 1966, a live recording of Lift was set to a very interesting and hypnotic scene, performing their hit “roller coaster”.

Last year I had an audio clip of the band live The Larry Kane Show Doing “Don’t Fall Down” in Houston but it’s gone this year.

Here is a funny clip of the lift of the 13th floor! It is one of the stranger versions of Chuck Berry’s classic tune as well as a more awkward version of The Beatles’ “The Word”. For your enjoyment, from the very psychedelic Austin in 1967 (when Gilbert Shelton and the beloved Freak Brothers still lived there), “Roll Over Beethoven” and “The Word”

“Fire in My Bones”, also from Austin in 1967

Elevators doing Van Morrison’s hit “Gloria”

Here’s Another Live Version Of Him Performing The Kinks Smash Hit “You Really Got Me”

Last year I had a full 78-minute set of The Thirteenth Floor Elevators Reverberation in the Round – Live at the Houston Music Theater from 1967, but it’s gone. However, I found these three clips from that classic show!

“I’ve Got Levitation”

“Light Sky”

“Don’t fall down”

Here’s the full 13th Floor Elevator Album!

Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevator (1966 – 35 min)

easter everywhere (1967 – 43 min)

The first two were done quite a bit at the same time, and the band soon disbanded. Easter. This left Stacy to assemble as a band, and it includes both her songwriting, solo and Tommy Hall.

bull of woods (1969 – 34 min)

It’s gone again. Each time a copy of his unreleased 1968 album, a love that sound Appears, but this year it has disappeared, as has the clip from “Wait for my love” that I had last year.

Here are some single clips from that album!

“it’s you”

“Moon Song”

“Dr. Doom”

“Sweet Surprise (Sign of the Three-Eyed Men)”

Last year I had a full 64 minute album from 1999 titled 13th Floor Lift – Single And Rare Stuff, But this year it was nowhere to be found. This year it’s still gone, as is the 121 minute 1999 gem with some true rarities, Thirteenth Floor Elevator – His eyes are on the pyramid. I also had a Monster 2 Hour 26 clip from one of the oldest TFE fan groups on the web, which had all their studio material on one clip, but Thirteenth Floor Lift – 8 Tracks Attack has gone.

We’ll close this lift section with our intro clip where is the action In September 1966 the band was doing what it did best for a backing track, cranking up the unmistakable psychedelic sounds of the 13th-floor elevators to their peak, screaming and howling, giving us the classic “You’re Gonna Miss Me”. was.

This year we have lost a classic show. It had some serious kinetic energy from a 1966 live show at the New Orleans Club at 11th Place and Red River in Austin Texas, one of my hangouts from 1969 to the early ’70s, and is now part of the Symphony Square complex . From February and March 1966, it is said to be the earliest recording of a 13th-floor lift show, but this year these two smaller sets of elevators are gone, courtesy of Kaz. Better luck next year.

This year I found this great 3 hour clip with several live performances from a 1966 radio show other TV shows, some La Maison 1966 concerts, some Avalon Ballroom sets, Electric Grandmother shows, and some by Rocky from 1973 and 1984. 13th Floor Elevators Live in Texas – Last Live Collection 1966-1984

Last to Lift, a 39-minute documentary on the band. 13th Floor Elevator Documentary “You’re Gonna Miss Me.”

Gone is the Hour and 4 set from 1971 by Stacey, Ronnie Leatherman and Rencro this year. Still, I found this classic! Stacy Sutherland – “All Along the Watchtower” (a comment on the video last year said: “Just for people to know this recording was not from the Z Room in Austin but from the famous doorway in Kerrville.” It makes sense because if Stacy had played Austin I would have been there!)

Last year I got 3 performances from 1977, probably the last he did. “Last Thing on My Mind” and “Midnight Special” have disappeared this year, but I still have “Smoke Signals.”

Unfortunately, the compilation “The Last Stacey Sutherland Music You’ll Ever Hear” is gone, along with “Positively 4th Street,” “Last Thing on My Mind,” “Smoke Signal,” “Midnight Special,” and “Nadine.” There is a clip of hours and 45 of his interview. Still, it’s three and a half minutes from here An interview with Stacy Sutherland

As I mentioned earlier, here’s an interesting article from March 2011 that goes into detail about Stacy, Bunny, and their lives together and separately. This is how I found his birthday and death day. Stacy Sutherland was a true rock and roll tragedy. He lived hard, died hard, and created iconic music along the way, helping to create prototypical psychedelic music in 1966–68, influencing Texas music as well as the Bay Area forever!

Stacy and Bunny: A Montrose Love Story

RIP Stacy. I wish you stayed longer. Aum and blessings.

© Copyright 2022 Robert Wilkinson