by Robert Wilkinson
Today is the birthday of one of the truly tragic figures in rock and roll. Stacy Sutherland was a founder and the “lead rhythm” player for the legendary 13th Floor Elevators. As he and his bandmate Roky Erickson are playing in the Greatest Band in the Galaxy, we'll start this tribute to the psychedelic sounds of the Elevators early!
As I offer each year in my tribute to Roky, the 13th Floor Elevators were the first band to feature the word "psychedelic" on an album cover. They were the prototypical psychedelic sound created by amazing songs, guitar work, and an electric jug bass that was tuned by adding to or subtracting from the amount of weed inside of it! (That's the 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 all this in "2 to life for a joint" redneck Texas in the mid-60s!!
They made the pilgrimage to San Francisco in the Autumn of 1966 to promote their single “You’re Gonna Miss Me,” where they shared bills with Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Great Society with Grace Slick, and Moby Grape. No doubt the Elevators had more than a little effect on many of the bands playing around those parts because of the radically original style of their music and playing. The 13th Floor Elevators may have been uneven talents at times, but it was no doubt due to the radical amounts of hallucinogens ingested by all the players during that very psychedelic time in history.
The story of the Elevators, Roky, Stacy, and the others reads like an epic tragedy of an era when experimentation was in, when we sang that "The Kingdom of Heaven is Within You," and believed that a little rebellion against the machine would be relatively harmless, which of course it wasn't.
There’s almost nothing known about Stacy Sutherland (May 28 1946 – Aug 24 1978) other than his work for the Elevators and a little article about his tragic life and relationship which I've included at the end of this tribute. From wiki, after the Elevators broke up due to Roky being imprisoned at the Rusk State Hospital for the Insane, “Stacy Sutherland formed his own band, Ice, which performed only in Houston and never released any material. In 1969, after a battle with heroin addiction, he was imprisoned in Texas on drug charges … After his release Sutherland began to drink heavily. He continued to sporadically play music throughout the 1970s, occasionally with former members of the Elevators. Sutherland was accidentally shot and killed by his wife Bunny on August 24, 1978 during a domestic dispute.”
Texas in the 70s may be romanticized as "outlaw country" where long hairs and rednecks could come together at concerts, but for some, it was a very rough time and place. The cops were tough, and the drug laws tougher. And of course, the Elevators got ripped off by their Houston record company, the same as the other legends who came up in that very tough city.
So let's celebrate his life and work. There's precious little live video performances of the band, and most of the Elevators' music out there are from the studio recordings set to stills. But I found a bit, so enjoy one of the most unique sounds in the history of modern music! For your enjoyment, Roky Erickson, Stacy Sutherland, Tommy Hall, and the Thirteenth Floor Elevators! Stacy's lead rhythms were unique, exciting, and very psychedelic, often drenched in reverb and other special effects back in the age when such things barely existed.
Here's where the legend began! Rare footage of Roky and the Elevators in September 1966 on Where the Action Is lip-synching to their national hit "You're Gonna Miss Me" with lots of closeups of Tommy Hall and his electric jug! (Dick called them “the Sixteenth Floor Elevators…..)
Here's another appearance on American Bandstand from October of that same year (with some very strange camera effects) with the Elevators lip-synching to "You're Gonna Miss Me" Last year’s clip featured the interview after the song. When Dick asks Tommy "who's the head" Tommy responds "We're all heads." Wow. This wasn’t the Monkees, folks! This year the whole clip is gone, but here’s the 1 minute interview. "You're Gonna Miss Me"
To give you a sense of just how pioneering the Elevators' sound was, here are a few off their first two studio albums, set to pictures and the album covers:
From their first album The Psychedelic Sounds of the Thirteenth Floor Elevators, "Roller Coaster" and "Reverberation (Doubt)"
Here’s an “uptempo” version of this magnificent tune, live in Houston in 1967! “Reverberation”
Here’s a reverb and echo drenched live version, slower and a bit sloppier, but they were still unique! “Reverberation”
Super rare footage from a radio interview followed by a live performance of “Fire Engine”
A real treat! This is the “B” side of “You’re Gonna Miss Me,” and a lot faster tempo than the album, which is far more laid back. "Tried to Hide" Here’s the version on the album, with a more laid back driving groove. "Tried to Hide"
Here’s the exciting "Fire Engine"
This year I have a gem! It’s an unused alternate take from the recordings of the first album, with a lot less production and a cleaner sound. “Roller Coaster.”
Here’s a live performance by the Elevators at the Avalon Ballroom in 1966 of “Fire Engine”
Last year I had the audio of “Roller Coaster” from the Avalon gig, but it’s disappeared this year.
A few covers from that gig! The first is Roky trying to sound like Mick belting out the R&B classic “Have Mercy.” They took a shot at the Kinks with this version of “You Really Got Me,” and went full R&B with “Before You Accuse Me.” We’ll close with one of the stranger renditions of the Beatles’ tune “The Word”
Here’s 43 minutes of that show! The 13th Elevators Live at the Avalon Ballroom – September 1966
From that West Coast tour, here’s a great interview (sounds like an LA DJ) followed by some very grainy live performance footage of the Thirteenth Floor Elevators of “Fire Engine”
Two from the first album! "Don't Fall Down" and "The Kingdom of Heaven Is Within You"
Here’s the entire live show from the La Maison club in Houston in 1965 or 1966 of a classic Elevators performance! I put them in order of the set list.
“the Kingdom of Heaven is Within You.”“She Lives In A Time of Her Own”
Moving into the studio, here's the amazing poetic masterpiece which said to be a "transcendental epic." From their second album Easter Everywhere, "Slip Inside This House"
Also from Easter Everywhere, "Levitation" and the equally awesome "Earthquake." The album ended with this strange psychedelic soul tune "Pictures (Leave Your Body Behind)”
This was a promotional copy sent to DJs, and is longer than what was released on the album. "Earthquake"
Here are four extraordinary Stacy Sutherland psychedelic compositions from Bull of the Woods. If you listen closely, you’ll hear things which sound a whole lot like many musical influences also found in the Bay Area psychedelic music years. Some of his playing could easily have been an influence on mid-60s Jefferson Airplane or Quicksilver at the beginning of their careers.
"Scarlet and Gold"Stacy wrote this with Tommy, and it’s a good song but the horns were unnecessary. “Dear Dr. Doom”
And a royal treat! The astonishing closing number of that album, written by Roky, and exquisitely delivered by Stacy, set to a video of the band performing some other song back when drenched in a red hue. "May The Circle Remain Unbroken"
The following are all live performances set to still photos or other types of video effects:
From May 1966, a live recording of the Elevators set to a very interesting and hypnotic visual doing their hit "Roller Coaster"
Last year I had an audio clip of the band live on The Larry Kane Show in Houston doing “Don't Fall Down" but it’s gone this year.
Here’s a weird clip by the 13th Floor Elevators! This is one of the stranger versions of Chuck Berry’s classic tune plus another strange version of the Beatles’ “The Word.” For your enjoyment, from very psychedelic Austin in 1967 (when Gilbert Shelton and the Furry Freak Brothers still lived there), “Roll Over Beethoven” and “The Word”
Also from Austin in 1967, “Fire In My Bones”
The Elevators doing Van Morrison's hit "Gloria"
Here’s another live version of them doing the Kinks smash hit "You Really Got Me"
Last year I had the entire 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!
Here are entire 13th Floor Elevator albums!
The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators (1966 – 35 minutes)
Easter Everywhere (1967 – 43 minutes)
The first two were pretty much done at the same time, and the band disintegrated shortly after Easter. That left Stacy to assemble what he could of a band, and this features his songwriting, both solo and with Tommy Hall.
Bull of the Woods (1969 – 34 minutes)
It’s gone again. Every so often a copy of their unreleased 1968 album, A Love That’s Sound shows up, but this year it’s disappeared, as has the clip of “Wait for my Love” which I had last year.
Here are a few single clips from that album!
“Sweet Surprise (Sign of the Three Eyed Men)”
Last year I had the whole 64 minute album from 1999 titled 13th Floor Elevators – Singles and Rare Stuff, but this year it’s nowhere to be found. This year it’s still gone, as is the 121 minute 1999 gem with some true rarities, Thirteenth Floor Elevators – His Eye Is On the Pyramid. I also had a monster 2 hour 26 clip from one of the oldest TFE fan groups on the web, with all their studio material on one clip, but Thirteenth Floor Elevators – Attack of the 8 Tracks is gone.
We’ll close this Elevators section with our intro clip from Where the Action Is in September 1966 with the band doing what they do best to a backing track, cranking out the unmistakable psychedelic sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators at their peak, screaming and howling, giving us the classic “You’re Gonna Miss Me”
This year we’ve lost a classic show. It was some serious kinetic energy from a 1966 live show at the New Orleans Club at 11th and Red River in Austin Texas, which was 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’s said to be the earliest recording of a live 13th Floor Elevators show, but this year these two short sets of the Elevators live courtesy of KAZZ are gone. Better luck next year.
This year I found this great 3 hour clip with several live performances from a 1966 radio show, several tunes from the Sumpin’ Else TV show, some of the La Maison 1966 concert, some of the Avalon Ballroom set, the electric Grandmother show, and a few by Roky from 1973 and 1984. 13th Floor Elevators Live in Texas – The Ultimate Live Collection 1966-1984
In a final nod to the Elevators, here’s a 39 minute documentary on the band. 13th Floor Elevators Documentary “You’re Gonna Miss Me.”
This year the hour and 4 set from 1971 by Stacy, Ronnie Leatherman and Raincrow is gone. Still, I found this classic! Stacy Sutherland - “All Along the Watchtower” (Last year a comment on the video states: "Just want folks to know that this recording was not from the Jade Room in Austin but the Famous Door in Kerrville." That makes sense, since if Stacy had played Austin I'd have been there!)
Last year I found 3 performances from 1977, probably the last stuff he ever did. This year “Last Thing on My Mind” and “Midnight Special” have disappeared, but I still have “Smoke Signals”
Unfortunately, the compilation “The Last Stacy Sutherland Music You’ll Ever Hear” with “Positively 4th Street,” “Last Thing on My Mind,” “Smoke Signal,” “Midnight Special,” and “Nadine” is gone., as is the hour and 45 clip from 1977 of his interview. Still, here’s 3 ½ minutes from 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. It’s how I found his birthday and death day. Stacy Sutherland was a true rock and roll tragedy. He lived hard, died hard, and along the way made iconic music, helping create prototypical psychedelic music in 1966-68, influencing the music of Texas as well as the Bay Area for all time!
Stacy and Bunni: A Montrose love story
RIP Stacy. Wish you stuck around longer. Aum and blessings.
© Copyright 2022 Robert Wilkinson
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