Easter Everywhere

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Easter Everywhere is the second studio album by the American psychedelic rock band the 13th Floor Elevators. It was released on 25 October 1967, through record label International Artists.<ref name="AcidArchives">Template:Cite book</ref>

Background

Easter Everywhere was packaged with lyrics printed on the inner sleeve, gold ink on the cover, and full color pictures on the reverse. The packaging was quite expensive at the time of release.<ref name="Drummond">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp

Symbolism

The front cover, hand-drawn by George Banks, prominently features a primeval Eastern sun, intended to represent the open blazing third eye.<ref name="Drummond" />Template:Rp Above this is the seventh chakra, the ultimate realm of Nirvana. The gold color on which this is printed was chosen as a symbolic color for the divine.<ref name="Drummond" />Template:Rp Below the sun is the band's name, colored red and formatted to look like the eyebrows of Buddha. This image concept was selected by lyricist and jug player Tommy Hall, along with the rear cover image of a meditating yogi, which is from a photograph of an eighteenth-century painting hanging in the National Museum of Indian Art in New Delhi.<ref name="Drummond" />Template:Rp Hall selected these images from a Tantric art book, intending to communicate that evolution is obtainable through alignment of the chakras and opening of the third eye (corresponding to the pineal gland); thus a soul coalesces with the collective primeval life force and retains a latent knowledge of its previous existence, therefore consciously achieving immortality.

Title

While the use of the term Easter in the album's title is often misconstrued as implying the album to be of primarily Christian merit, the album's composition melds the beliefs of multiple religions, combining Buddhist, Hindu, and Gnostic scriptures into a single unifying spiritual concept evaluated from a Western, Christian perspective.<ref name="Drummond" />Template:Rp In the band's first and only interview, given to Houston fanzine Mother on November 20, 1967, Tommy Hall explained the correct interpretation of the title:

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Release

The album features songs ranging from their own psychedelic "Slip Inside this House" to a psychedelic cover version of Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue". "Levitation," which was also released as a single—the latter ranks among the band's well-known songs. As on the previous album, Tommy Hall's electric jug is prominent in the music. The album was met with lukewarm reviews upon initial release, with a review in Billboard Magazine writing "call it intellectual-rock or call it musical flights of fancy, except for tunes that sound almost like each other, this group is inventive over-all".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The master tapes are considered missing (or presumed destroyed). The International Artists label was revived by Lelan Rogers in the late 1970s, who reissued Easter Everywhere along with the label's entire LP catalog in 1979. The album was again reissued on vinyl in 1988 and for the first time on CD in 1991 by Charly Records UK under the Decal imprints.

Following a lawsuit filed by the family of Roky Erickson against Lelan Rogers in 1993 for unpaid royalties, Charly Records purchased the licensing to the full International Artists catalog from Rogers in 1995, which included Easter Everywhere.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Some of the surviving analog tapes were delivered to Charly Records. In 2009, the original mono version (sourced from vinyl) and an alternate stereo version were released as part of the Sign Of The 3-Eyed Men box set. In 2010, Charly Records re-released the album in a limited edition CD set featuring "Fire In My Bones", originally released in 1985 on an outtakes album of the same name. The album was again released on vinyl in 2012 as part of the Music Of The Spheres box set, which Charly Records advertised as "mastered from the original tape source",<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>.

In April 2024, the band’s biographer Paul Drummond produced a half-speed master of the album, cut by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios. This is the only reissue available that replicates the original 1967 stereo pressing – cut from a tape source. Fans have incorrectly assumed that previous reissues were made from a “1970s phased tape”, they were not, the original cutting engineer in 1967 switched the left and right channels. The half-speed mastered version meticulously replicates all the decisions made by the original engineer who cut the lacquer at Columbia Mastering in 1967.

Personnel

• Roky Erickson – lead vocal, rhythm guitar, harmonica
• Tommy Hall – electric jug
• Stacy Sutherland – lead guitar, lead vocal Template:Small
• Dan Galindo – bass guitar
• Danny Thomas – drums
• John Ike Walton – drums Template:Small
• Ronnie Leatherman – bass guitar Template:Small
• Clementine Hall – backing vocals Template:Small

Technical

• Lelan Rogers – production
• Frank Davis – engineering
• Walt Andrus – engineering
• Guy Clark – sleeve photography
• Russell Wheelock – sleeve photography

Sources

• Drummond, Paul (2009). Liner notes to The 13th Floor Elevators - Easter Everywhere, Charly Records.

External links

• Template:Discogs master