13th Floor Elevators - Easter Everywhere (1967) [Mono Mix]

13th Floor Elevators - Easter Everywhere

Original 1967 White-Label Mono Promo LP
International Artists IA-LP-5  (Discogs)
~ThePoodleBites rip in 96 kHz / 24 bit FLAC + full high-res scans!~

Congratulations, you've found the hidden Poodle post! What took ya so long? Not still worried about the scintillating moon and dangly, eh? EH? Well, no matter. It's mono Elevators you came for, and it's mono Elevators you'll get.

I gushed about this album and provided some of its backstory on the stereo mix post before, but Elevators aficionados will immediately understand how special this follow-up is. While my ultimate preference is probably for the stereo mix, the mono variants of this psychedelic masterpiece are so damn rare that this opportunity cannot be passed up. This dedicated mono mix will, to most, probably be a surprising listen. Compared to the stereo variant the sound is even lower-fi, but the songs which are noticeably different absolutely must be heard by anyone who loves this album; which should be everyone. (Alas, we live in a world where auto-tuned pop music reigns supreme...)

Huge thanks to Y.S. for loaning out this LP for this transfer & restoration project!

The original front cover artwork for the mono variant appears identical to the first 'Posturos' stereo pressings

Danny Galindo with bass & headphones

As with the first Elevators LP, many of the compositions which grace this sophomore masterwork were only ever released in mono, even on the original stereo vinyl. For this album in particular, that includes "Slip Inside This House," "Dust," and "Postures." On the stereo LP, "Slip" and "Postures" have an off-balance of EQ between the left and right channels, where the superior treble from the right channel should be used for the restoration to true mono. The original mono vinyl forgoes this misbalance between the channels, but the sound of the album is much more dull overall; for example, the superior channel on the stereo "Slip" has a solid frequency response up to about 16 kHz, while the mono LP starts to roll off around 13.5 kHz. The mix is unmistakably identical, but the sound quality is poorer.

Similarly, when the remarkable 3D soundscapes that this record exemplifies are stuffed into a single channel, the result sounds a little claustrophobic. Part of what makes this album so remarkable is that it was a very early 8-track recording, documenting a completely grassroots voyage into uncharted psychedelic enclaves using state-of-the-art technology; the psychedelic potential of this novel recording technique was correspondingly explored to the fullest in that tiny Texan studio. The mono mix seems to lose some of "the eyebrows," as Frank Zappa would say; tiny details such as the panning of multi-tracked vocals are lost; the separation between the jug, the background effects, and Roky's piercing lead; the multi-channel drum tracks, like "Slide Machine"; etc. At the same time, the mono mix offers a more consistent balance between all of the different overdubs, which was undoubtedly difficult to achieve with so many things happening at once – the engineers should be celebrated for that feat. Still, it's often an afterthought for collectors when compared to the much-lauded original stereo version.

Original back cover slick, mono variant, differentiated only by "MONO" in the top right corner

Original inner sleeve, featuring all the lyrics for the songs on the album

Finding a clean copy of this album is no easy task. Estimates are that about 10,000 copies of this album were pressed in total, with only some very small percentage being mono. The mono promos are certainly rare, but stock mono variants are nearly nonexistent, with reissues claiming that there were only ~120 copies released. Recent research reveals that many mono copies were also sold with stereo labels in a stereo cover, with inspection of runout matrices revealing the monaural truth; indeed, it is not understood how many of these "mispressed" mono copies truly exist – perhaps more than either of the other variants.

In any case, for such a rare record it is sensible to perform a detailed study of the audio content juxtaposed to the more available version, namely the original stereo mix. A comparison of this mono mix to the stereo one yields some differences, which I list below. The following chart is color-coded using green and red, labeling each mono track as either substantially different from the mix on the stereo LP, or not substantially different, respectively. To help guide the eye, I've placed a dashed horizontal line at the beginning of each album side. In summary, it seems that only three of the tracks on this album are clearly unique mono mixes found solely on this LP; others appear on the stereo LP (in superior quality) or, in the case of "She Lives," on the 45.

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"Slip Inside This House": Identical mono mix, better fidelity is available on the stereo LP (as detailed in the text above). Note that the mono single is a shortened version of the same mix, but with substantially worse fidelity.

"Slide Machine": Unique, dedicated mono mix, with much better balance between instruments. The acoustic guitar and percussion (modulo hi-hat) are noticeably louder, and the guitars have been balanced with each other and given a light reverb. There's a phase cancellation effect before the final guitar notes – a mixing or editing artifact apparently on the original mono tape.

"She Lives (In A Time Of Her Own)": Dedicated mono mix, the same as used on the mono single but with less surface noise. All vocals are louder & clearer than on the folded stereo mix, and the jug is louder and has less reverb. The song sounds more "punchy" overall, though it is actually quite dynamic. The mono mix has less treble than the stereo mix.

"Nobody To Love": Likely stereo fold-down, with fidelity similar to / marginally worse than the stereo LP.

"(It's All Over Now) Baby Blue": Likely stereo fold-down, and seemingly the same as on the mono single. Worse fidelity than the stereo LP, with decreased treble response.

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Roky resting

"Earthquake": Likely stereo fold-down, with the only difference I can detect being more guitar/pedal noise in the intro: this starts in left channel of the stereo mix around 4 seconds in, but at the beginning in mono. This is more likely a mastering or cutting artifact on the stereo pressing. The rest of the song sounds like a straight fold, including barely audible 'earthquake' noises, and phase cancellation artifacts in the cymbals towards the end. The fidelity is accordingly worse than on the stereo LP.

"Dust": Identical mono mix, with fidelity comparable to the stereo LP; some may actually prefer this (slightly darker) master.

"(I've Got) Levitation": Unique, dedicated mono mix, with much louder bass & rhythm guitar tracks, and a later fade-out. In this mono mix, one of Roky's double-tracked vocals is mixed louder than the other one, whereas the two vocal tracks are more balanced on the stereo version. The tambourine is missing during the first two choruses, but appears in the third. The jug is audible throughout, as in the stereo LP mix: note that the mono LP mix is different from the mono single mix, the latter of which does not have any audible jug.

"I Had To Tell You": Unique, dedicated mono mix, with extra harmonica parts audible which were mixed out of the stereo version. The harmonica is also generally "drier," though some reverb comes out during the solo section. The acoustic guitar is mixed higher, the bass is a little bit lower, and Roky's voice is louder with respect to Clementine's harmony.

"Postures (Leave Your Body Behind)": Identical mono mix, better fidelity is available on the stereo LP.

Stacy Sutherland

Roky Erickson

Danny Thomas

Tommy Hall, overseeing his artistic vision during the Easter Everywhere album sessions

The mono version of this album has been bootlegged on vinyl several times from the original LP, with some yellow-label counterfeits suspected to date back to the 1980s. It was first redistributed digitally through the Roky Erickson CD Club circa 2004 (catalog number ROKCDR033), but much like the club's stereo remaster, the sound quality was poor. Charly Records, the UK company that acquired rights to the IA catalog, began reissuing the mono mix in 2009 as part of their Sign Of The 3-Eyed Men boxset, using a vinyl dub with heavy-handed noise reduction which both failed to remove noise during the music and added noticeable artifacts during the quiet moments. This dub was reused for several subsequent vinyl reissues from the label, with marginal (if any) quality improvements. This year, a new pressing was done from a 24 bit / 96 kHz dub of the mono vinyl, which the company hilariously claims eliminated turntable rumble by "using a valve signal at minus ten decibels" -- or, in layman's terms, turning down the volume. This gaffe alone should reveal the incompetency of the restoration engineers involved.

Making a clean master of this mix is no easy task, as many copies of the mono LP have significant noise issues, likely due to over-use of the stampers, or quiet reuse after the stereo stampers had worn out. Like all International Artists LPs, even copies made with early stampers suffer from pressing noise, which makes buying any copy of this album a bit like playing Russian Roulette with 5 chambers loaded. That is why when Y.S. offered to loan me his white-label promo for a transfer, I gratefully accepted, and I was happy to find that it played much nicer than my personal copy. Nonetheless, given the lack of treble and very low volume on this LP, even this nice copy was saturated with clicks and pops, meaning that many, many months of manual restoration work were required to restore this transfer to master tape fidelity. The result speaks for itself; I consider this a major improvement over the bootlegs, NR'd digital masters, and all subsequent remasters since, and I think anyone with discerning ears will agree. The mono Easter Everywhere will never be an audiophile mix nor recording, but this is probably its pinnacle sonic appearance. Much like my stereo release, I have maintained the original sonic presentation of the mono mix, so that this may be an archival digital copy for generations to come.

Note that several tracks on this LP have an extraordinarily long silence between them; "Dust", for example, is followed by a buffer of 13 seconds(!) before "Levitation" begins. Though I think that this is far too long, this is nonetheless the way that the music was presented on the original mono LP, so I've therefore left it as-is.

Organizing during the recording session

Lineup:
• Roky Erickson -- vocals, guitar
• Stacy Sutherland -- vocal (tr. 4), guitars
• Tommy Hall -- backing vocals, electric jug
• Clementine Hall -- backing vocals (tr. 9)
• Dan Galindo -- electric bass
• Danny Thomas -- drum set
• Ronnie Leatherman -- electric bass (tr. 3 & 8)
• John Ike Walton -- drums & percussion (tr. 3 & 8)

Track listing:
1) "Slip Inside This House" (Hall/Erickson) - 8:06
2) "Slide Machine" (Powell St. John) - 3:44
3) "She Lives (In A Time Of Her Own)" (Hall/Erickson) - 3:00
4) "Nobody To Love" (Stacy Sutherland) - 3:04
5) "Baby Blue" (Bob Dylan) - 5:16
6) "Earthquake" (Hall/Erickson) - 4:53
7) "Dust" (Hall/Erickson) - 4:10
8) "(I've Got) Levitation" (Hall/Sutherland) - 2:47
9) "I Had To Tell You" (Clementine Hall/Erickson) - 2:30
10) "Postures (Leave Your Body Behind)" (Hall/Erickson) - 6:29

Equipment Lineage:
– Audio-Technica VMN40ML stylus on AT150MLx dual moving-magnet cartridge
– Audio-Technica AT-LP1240-USB direct drive professional turntable (internal stock preamp/ADC removed)
– Pro-Ject Phono Box S2 Ultra preamp with dedicated Zero Zone linear power supply
– Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 MkII (96kHz / 24bit)
– Adobe Audition CC 2020 (recording)
– iZotope RX 11 audio editor (manual declicking, EQ subtraction, additional adjustments)
– Audacity 2.3.3 (fades between tracks, split tracks)
– Foobar2000 v2.1.5 (tagging, dynamic range analysis)

Thanks for taking the time to read my posts and check out my blog. I'd greatly appreciate it if you leave a small comment below. Notes from my readers are what inspire me to keep going. Thanks!
MEGA: https://mega.nz/folder/AglBBayZ#sS5h1O6qEV8OE2JqNpg3pw

I noticed when uploading these files that the size of all the FLACs together is exactly 420 MB. Coincidence...?

 

Enjoy!  :)

Comments on the stereo mix of this LP had to be disabled -- so please, play nice now, children!

This post was first published on 14 Oct 2024 at 11:16 GMT. It has instead been marked with a nonsensical, earlier date and timestamp in order to obscure it from the front page of the blog.