One of the psych icons has left us at 71.:white_frowning_face:

I shed a few tears listening to Easter Everywhere today.
We're so fortunate to have the first two 13th floor elevators albums and some later if rarer glimpses of clarity and insight that Roky gave us in his songs.
This tormented soul can at last rest in peace. I hope all his troubles ended with his life.



The pro-straight-psychiatry and anti-psychedelia brigade are already shouting their dumbarse mouths off about this creative rock & roll genius with their misinformed bullshit. Believe their ignorant rants if you so chose but at least consider the alternative views.



I read he succeeded in weening himself off of the anti-psychotic drugs he'd willingly accepted from the straight establishment's doctors [I believe he agreed to take them due to his feelings of complete helplessness in the face of a mental tsunami and under pressure from misinformed yet well intentioned friends and family] and he recovered to a great degree from the electro-convulsive therapy he unfortunately asked for when it all just got too much for him to bear.

I like to think his elevator carried on taking him up and onwards beyond the 13th floor to Rock & Roll Heaven where we'll meet him again!

Shine on, Roky, you star.

First two elevators albums are classics.

Please note my error in my tribute to Roky. Sorry. He never asked for any fucking electro-convulsive therapy - it's something the mind control criminals inflict on those deemed to be 'mentally ill' as some sort of last resort experiment to try to kill the will of those who transcend the norms of society, assuming their behaviour must be 'madness'.

To be different was/is unacceptable to these numbskulls as it challenges everything about their social systems, politics, religions, imposed society structures etc. The alternative anti-establishment culture is a threat to their view of our world, where oppression, greed and cruelty rule and peace, love and understanding cannot be allowed.



If someone classed as 'undesirable' is working above their acceptable threat level, the establishment will do their best to kill the minds or the bodies of those people.

That's why so many peaceloving anti-establishment brothers and sisters die under suspicious circumstances and all too often, so very young. Or their brains get scrambled and the shit-for-brains ones can then bleat on about 'yet another acid casualty'.

Freedom & Liberty forever.

Mental illness and legal problems

In 1968, while performing at HemisFair, Erickson began speaking gibberish. He was soon diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and sent to a Houston psychiatric hospital, where he involuntarily received electroconvulsive therapy.

The Elevators were vocal proponents of marijuana and psychedelic drug use, and were subject to extra attention from law enforcement agencies. In 1969, Erickson was arrested for possession of a single marijuana joint in Austin. Facing a potential ten-year incarceration, Erickson pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to avoid prison. He was first sent to the Austin State Hospital. After several escapes, he was sent to the Rusk State Hospital in Rusk, Texas, where he was subjected to more electroconvulsive therapy and Thorazine treatments, ultimately remaining in custody until 1972. Six tracks from the 1999 Erickson collection Never Say Goodbye were recorded during his time there.


https://youtu.be/a6JLKbSjH3E



He lived a lot longer than guitarist Stacy Sutherland. Sutherland was mostly responsible for the Bull Of The Woods album.......

Bull of the Woods, released in 1969, was the 13th Floor Elevators' last released album on which they worked as a group, and was largely the work of Stacy Sutherland. Erickson, due to health and legal problems, and Tommy Hall were only involved with a few tracks, including "Livin' On", "Never Another", "Dear Doctor Doom", and "May the Circle Remain Unbroken".


Stacy Sutherland formed his own band, Ice, which performed only in Houston and never released any material. ... Sutherland was accidentally shot and killed by his wife Bunny on August 24, 1978 during a domestic dispute, and is buried in Center Point, Kerr County, Texas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQcfSq8QVNs