13th Floor Elevators "Roky" Psyche Men's T-Shirt

The psychedelic music of the 13th Floor Elevators is more important than you might already know... they are credited with being the FIRST psychedelic rock band... founded in Austin, Texas.

The bands most recognizable member... Roky Erickson (featured on this t-shirt)... has had a long sordid history of drug use and metal instability... unfortunately this became a regular occurrence in rock music over the years... as other massively talented and well known musicians such as Peter Green from Fleetwood Mac and Syd Barrett from Pink Floyd both wandered down the same unfortunate path.

What makes Rocky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators so special above these other bands (besides his use of the Gibson ES-335 Guitar, later made famous by Alvin Lee of Ten Years After)... is the time period and the long reverberating aftershock of their presence... they came on the scene in 1965 with their hit song "You're Gonna Miss Me" (featured in the movie John Cusak music movie High Fidelity)... this was four years before the Summer of Love in San Francisco's Haight Ashbury... they introduced the burgeoning hippie scene to psych music... a new path.

As if that isn't a special enough reason to appreciate this band... consider that 44 years later I'm sitting here listening to bands like Mars Volta, Radio Moscow and The Black Angels... just a few of the many bands today that create more-outgoing and further-reaching psychedelic rock music than they did yesterday... all because Roky and the 13th Floor Elevators started the ball rolling and showed us the way... now that is cool!!

So go ahead... buy this rare psyche shirt... those "in the know" will love it... and you know this design won't be around forever... one day it'll be shattered... along with the rest of your life... because we're all just working in the Kremlin with a two-headed dog!

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