The Roky CD Club is set to release the second volume of “Attack of the LPs” by the 13th Floor Elevators. This is the band’s second album, “Easter Everywhere”, backed by their unfinished swan song LP: “Bull of the Woods”.
Two things make these different from every previous reissue:
• they are distributed to the fans freely
• the signal was ripped directly from the original LP pressings as issued by the International Artists label.
The Roky CD Club is a group of Internet-based fans (loosely affiliated with the Texas Psych Google group) who collect, catalog, restore, preserve and share hard-to-find American garage-psych music. They have been active for upwards of ten years and have produced approximately fifty volumes of material with a strong emphasis on Texas Psych.
“Attack of the LP’s” II follows the first volume which was “Psychedelic Sounds of the Thirteenth Floor Elevators”, backed by the “Live” album. This went out around the beginning of 2007 to much acclaim. Last summer, they released “Attack of the 8-Tracks” which is the four 13th Floor Elevators albums ripped from the original 8-track cartridges. These 8-track cartridges proved to be the source of “lost” versions of these albums. Not only are the mixes different, but the order of the tracks as well.
A great deal of care goes into the production and distribution of Roky CD Club releases. Initially, the signal is ripped to digital in a professional recording studio. Then a determination is made regarding which cleaning & processing techniques are best utilized. Any LP sourced material, like "Attack of the LPs", is manually de-clicked, click by click, by our Engineer (sometimes taking upwards of thirty hours on one LP!), to ensure only vinyl noise is removed and no music with it. Given a tape source, the Club has a plethora of noise reduction and EQ technology solutions available. The Engineers prefer to utilize a mix of several solutions lightly rather than relying too heavily on any one in particular.
Distribution is done by a “tree and leaf” method and FTP. For the “tree and leaf”; Trunks volunteer making copies for Branches; Branches volunteer making copies for Leaves. The flow of files from the Trunks > Branches is done strictly utilizing some form of “lossless compression” (FLAC, SHN, APE). Thus, pristine copies get distributed to the Branches. As a rule, any CD art is combined with those files too. Sometimes the group will also make a “statement” or insert hidden messages into the files. Leaves can continue to go lossless or opt for getting a CD copy. After the initial distribution, FLAC or SHN files go up on FTP server and torrent sites for worldwide distribution.
What drives the Roky CD Club? A Spokesperson for the Roky CD Club replies; “What has been done to the 13th Floor Elevators’ recorded music is a crime. So the master tapes are “’lost’” well… at least care enough to use an original LP! At least care enough to not completely butcher the transfer & mixing! But see…nobody does care, or hasn't up until now. We have access to these priceless LPs in mint condition. We have access to a professional recording studio. We have access to this technology. We are a network of fans with access to new types of distribution methods. We are using this technology. We will make it better, faster, stronger… If the reissue labels cannot, or will not, see the vision well… we do.”
What does the future hold? The Spokesman says: “Well, stuff always pops up. There’s something that we call the “’Lurkin Archive’”. This is just about every Roky Erickson solo recording session ever done. We have access to it and its being transferred to DVD-ROM. This will be DVD-ROMs that hold approximately fifteen CDs worth of material (in FLAC or SHN) along with corresponding artwork. The trader just obtains one of these DVDs, copies the files, converts them and burns them to CD. Then they just print out the art. It’s a beautiful thing. There is also talk of 13th Floor Elevators reel-to-reel mixes. These are the rarest of the IA formats and were the “’audiophile’”
When asked if the Roky CD Club is in possession of the multi-track master tapes for the ‘Elevators album “Easter Everywhere” the Spokesman replied; “I can neither confirm nor deny that.”
The Texas Psych Google group is an Internet-based group of fans dedicated to discussing, promoting and preserving psychedelic music from the State of Texas. Find out more about them here:
http://groups.google.com/
