Easter Everywhere
Easter Everywhere is the second studio album by the American psychedelic rock band the 13th Floor Elevators. It was released on 25 October 1967, through record label International Artists. It is regarded by many critics to be one of the finest psychedelic albums ever released.[1]
| Easter Everywhere | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | October 25, 1967 | |||
| Recorded | September 1967 | |||
| Studio | Walt Andrus Studios | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 41:29 | |||
| Label | International Artists | |||
| Producer | Lelan Rogers | |||
| The 13th Floor Elevators chronology | ||||
| ||||
Background
Easter Everywhere was packaged with lyrics printed on the inner sleeve, gold ink on the cover (which flaked off), and full color pictures on the reverse. The packaging was quite expensive at the time of release.[2]:281
Symbolism
The front cover, hand-drawn by the bands' informal manager George Banks, prominently features a primeval Eastern sun, intended to represent the open blazing third eye.[2]:281 Above this is the seventh chakra, the ultimate realm of Nirvana. The gold color on which this is printed was chosen as a symbolic color for the divine.[2]:281 Below the sun is the band's name, colored red and formatted to look like the eyebrows of Buddha. This image concept was selected by lyricist and jug player Tommy Hall, along with the rear cover image of a meditating yogi, which is from a photograph of an eighteenth-century painting hanging in the National Museum of Indian Art in New Delhi.[2]:280 Hall selected these images from a Tantric art book, intending to communicate that evolution is obtainable through alignment of the chakras and opening of the third eye (corresponding to the pineal gland); thus a soul coalesces with the collective primeval life force and retains a latent knowledge of its previous existence, therefore consciously achieving immortality.
Much of the album's original lyrical content is explained in the context of Alfred Korzybski's general semantics.
Title
While the use of the term Easter in the album's title is often misconstrued as implying the album to be of primarily Christian merit, the album's composition melds the beliefs of multiple religions, combining Buddhist, Hindu, and Gnostic scriptures into a single unifying spiritual concept evaluated from a Western, Christian perspective.[2]:280 In the band's first and only interview, given to Houston fanzine Mother on November 20, 1967, Tommy Hall explained the correct interpretation of the title:
Well, [the title] comes from the idea of Christ Consciousness. And realizing that you can be born again; that you can constantly change and be reformed into a better and better person. It's like a progressive perfection, and Easter Everywhere is sort of the combination or culmination of this idea as echoed in the public. It's like everyone is snapping to this; that there is a middle ground between the Eastern trip and the Western trip, and that is by learning to use your emotion and realizing what emotion is and why it is there and how to control it from a pleasure point of view so that you don't get hung up in a down place. It's just the idea of rising from the dead all over, everywhere.[2]:280
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [3] |
| Stylus Magazine | C+[4] |
| The Lama Reviews | 10/10 (stereo)[5] |
Release
The album features songs ranging from their own psychedelic "Slip Inside this House" to a psychedelic cover version of Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue". "Levitation" ranks among the band's well-known songs. As on the previous album, Tommy Hall's electric jug is prominent in the music.
International Artists reissued the band's entire LP catalog in 1979, using new stereo mixes for some albums, presumably due to damaged or missing master tapes. The album was reissued on CD by Charly Records UK in 1988. The master tapes are today considered missing (or presumed destroyed). In 2009, the original mono version (sourced from vinyl) and a new, alternate stereo version were released as part of the Sign of the 3-Eyed Men box set. Both versions featured different bonus tracks, some that were previously unreleased. In 2010, Charly Records re-released the album in mono and stereo together in a limited edition CD set featuring "Fire in My Bones", previously released in 1985 on an unofficial outtakes album and in 1994 on the 1966–1967 Unreleased Masters Collection.
The liner notes for the 2009 Charly re-release state of the differences between the two mixes:
The mono edition of this album is ridiculously rare - surviving IA paperwork suggests only very few were pressed as white label promos for AM radio, and even fewer as mono stock copies (the paperwork suggests as few as 120 copies) that were probably only sold to order. The mono mix offers a more solid sound throughout, with a notably heavier bass mix compared to stereo. There are also some obvious differences: the jug on 'She Lives (In a Time of Her Own)' is far more prominent; 'Levitation' has a double tracked vocal; [lead singer] Roky [Erickson]’s harmonica solo on 'I Had to Tell You' is far clearer.[6]
Track listing
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Slip Inside This House" | Roky Erickson, Tommy Hall | 8:03 |
| 2. | "Slide Machine" | Powell St. John | 3:43 |
| 3. | "She Lives (In a Time of Her Own)" | Erickson, Hall | 2:58 |
| 4. | "Nobody to Love" | Stacy Sutherland | 3:00 |
| 5. | "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" | Bob Dylan | 5:17 |
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Earthquake" | Erickson, Hall | 4:51 |
| 2. | "Dust" | Erickson, Hall | 4:02 |
| 3. | "I've Got Levitation" | Hall, Sutherland | 2:41 |
| 4. | "I Had to Tell You" | Erickson, Clementine Hall | 2:28 |
| 5. | "Postures (Leave Your Body Behind)" | Erickson, Hall | 6:30 |
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11. | "Splash 1" (recorded live in Texas, 1967) | Erickson, Hall | 4:21 |
| 12. | "Kingdom of Heaven" (recorded live in Texas, 1967) | St. John | 3:33 |
| 13. | "You're Gonna Miss Me" (recorded live in Texas, 1967) | Erickson | 3:42 |
| 14. | "Reverberation (Doubt)" (recorded live in Texas, 1967) | Erickson, Hall, Sutherland | 3:23 |
| 15. | "You Don't Know" (recorded live in San Francisco, 1966) | St. John | 2:35 |
| 16. | "Fire Engine" (recorded live in San Francisco, 1966) | Erickson, Hall | 3:00 |
| 17. | "Monkey Island" (recorded live in San Francisco, 1966) | St. John | 2:42 |
| 18. | "Roller Coaster" (recorded live in San Francisco, 1966) | Erickson, Hall | 5:41 |
| 19. | "Levitation" | Hall, Sutherland | 4:11 |
| 20. | "I Don't Ever Want to Come Down" | Unidentified | 2:41 |
Personnel
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Technical
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References
- Lundborg, Patrick (2010). The Acid Archives: A Guide To Underground Sounds, 1965-1982. Lysergia. ISBN 978-1520636160.
- Drummond, Paul; Cope, Julian (2007). Eye Mind: The Saga Of Roky Erickson And The 13th Floor Elevators, The Pioneers Of Psychedelic Sound. Process. ISBN 978-0976082262.
- Deming, Mark. "Easter Everywhere – The 13th Floor Elevators : Songs, Reviews, Credits, Awards : AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved June 3, 2013.
- Parrish, Peter (March 9, 2004). "The 13th Floor Elevators – Easter Everywhere". Stylus Magazine. Archived from the original on September 14, 2006. Retrieved April 4, 2018.
- Lundborg, Patrick. "The Lama Reviews: A Fairly Reliable Guide To The World Of Psychedelic Music". Retrieved March 5, 2019.
- Drummond, p. 3
Sources
- Drummond, Paul (2009). Line notes to The 13th Floor Elevators - Easter Everywhere, Charly Records.
