Although it's assumed, because it's such a garage rock classic, that "You're Gonna Miss Me" was a hit in the summer of '66, the record peaked at #55 on the Billboard singles chart. It's noted more for what it inspired, plus the way it's turned into a Texas "last call" rock anthem. The debut LP The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators(International Artists), which includes that first single, plus "Roller Coaster," "Reverberation" and three songs from Powell St. John, was the first time "psychedelic" had been used to sell music. But this was no mere marketing ploy. This was a band that backed that far-out lifestyle all the way, with a "play the acid" mantra. They were right in time with Haight-Asbury, though 2,000 miles away.

"Tommy just wanted to get everybody high" Evelyn Erickson told me in 2007. "Well, Roky was already high. That's where the trouble started." Roky was the oldest of five boys, but always doted on like he was the youngest. Evelyn was a former opera singer turned religious, who liked to dress up and wrote poetry. Roky's father Roger, an architect, was a workaholic and alcoholic, often away on business, so the first born became Evelyn's neurotic obsession.

The band's habit of ingesting LSD before every performance (except drummer John Ike Walton, who swore off after a bad trip) was not conducive to a long run. Who was thinking about the future during the time of assassinations and Vietnam? The band, featuring Stacy Sutherland's proto-psych guitar, peaked with second LP Easter Everywhere, released 11 months after the debut. Third and final studio album Bull of the Woods, which finds Sutherland stepping up front for a barely-there Roky, was a frazzled double LP that had its moments. But mind expansion had turned into musical excess. Without Roky's voice, the Elevators were too much like everybody else.

And that was it for the beloved cult band, which experienced a flashback of kudos after the inclusion of "You're Gonna Miss Me" (which Roky wrote as the 15-year-old) on the landmark 1972 Nuggets compilation.