I'm not going to go into too much detail with compilations & bootlegs unless I really need to.
13th Floor Elevators - Live , San Francisco 1966 - 1980
A semi offical / bootleg which has been released a countless number of times of the band playing at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco on September 30th 1966 . Two months before the release of their debut album.
The sound quality is excellent to say this a soundboard recording from 1966 in fact i'd say it's better than that of their debut album. Splash 1 sounds much more beefed up & clearer than it's studio counterpart. There are seven songs on my issue of the album (some issues of it have 9). Four songs from the debut album , sadly not You're Gonna Miss Me which had already been a modest size hit for the band at this stage of their career and it's lack of inclusion is a minus point here.
There are also three covers on the album. The first being a cover of Buddy Holly's I'm Gonna Love You Too , with Erikson copying Holly's vocal mannerisms brilliantly but with the band still giving the song their trademark dirty garage fuzz. Following that is a cover of the Kinks You Really Got Me. Which is a pretty straight forward cover for the first couple of minutes. Then the bands electric jug comes into play and there seems to be extended jam sessions happening between each verse making the song almost 7 minutes long altogether. The final cover is of The Beatles song The Word of their Rubber Soul album, which to be honest I don't think i've ever heard before. So I can't comment on how it compares to the original. Only to say if I wasn't aware of it being a cover by the way it's played I would think it was one of their own songs.
On the whole not a bad recording thats only really soured by a couple of my favourites from the debut album not being included.
6/10
13th Floor Elevators - Up on the 13th Floor - 2000
A 17 track compilation album released in 2000 which was my first introduction to the band.
This is a pretty good comp to get started on the band although if I had known at the time that the band only had three albums out and that virtually all the best stuff was on the first two I doubt I would have bought this.
The first and second albums are pretty much split down the middle and take up 15 of the 17 songs available here , only two songs from the bands final album Bull Of The Woods are here but one of them is the best song on that album , May The Circle Remain Unbroken.
The song choice is pretty good too. I can't really think of any songs not on here that should be and I can't see any that shouldn't be on here either. This is a decent representation of the bands career. Although whether you need a compilation made up of essentially two albums is a different matter.