Psychedelic Rock...The 13th Floor Elevators

The Elevators were the first band to refer to their music as psychedelic rock, with the first known use of the term appearing on their business card in January 1966.

These guys were from Austin, Texas. I used to see them from time to time in Houston. They used to play "Eight Miles High" by the Byrds. I think I learned that song from them.

Psychedelic music has a wide range of styles and genres often used in an attempt to describe or enhance the use of psychedelic drugs, which were legal in the beginning.

I have been doing a lot of research on this subject. It is much more complex and had a much more significant effect on music going forward from that time period than I was aware of.

We can write about all this, but it is likely impossible to put into words what it actually felt like to listen to this music live in that time period and observe all that was going on. There where new expressions based on older expressions like "far out man" that took on new meanings, meaning beyond just the words. Some of those idioms became cultural identification markers used by the counter culture with significance in the production of visual art.

There were guys in Texas who got sent to the Huntsville Texas State Penitentiary for terms of forty years for smoking pot, mostly black guys. It has the most active execution chamber in the United States.

The people of the counter-culture that produced psychedelic music were largely responsible for more moderate changes that eventually ocured to the laws concerning marijuana.

The whole psychedelic aspect of music/art/counter couture is related to LSD and to two or three other related drugs. We made all these drugs ilegal which is not surprising, though they did little damage.

Some years later we let the legal drug companies sell millions of opiods for billions of dollars and kill hundreds of thousands of people. Way to go, Unkle Sam!

I guess we now have come full circle as the VA is now experimenting with psychedelic drugs to treat people with PTSD.

Billy

“Amazing! I’ll be working with Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and Buddy Rich, and you’re telling me it’s not that great of a gig?
“Well…” Saint Peter, hesitated, “God’s got this girlfriend who thinks she can sing…”