#0072: The 13th Floor Elevators - Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators [**]

I had to clean my house urgently.

I'm not a very domesticated animal.  Things get messy fast when I live somewhere.  But it's not usually that long before I reach what I call "critical mess" and have a thorough clean and tidy up.  Then the cycle starts again.  Cleaning a bit less regularly every week until finally there's no point even trying to find a bin cuz the floor will do.

Having said that, I have had the benefit of living with a few very fastidious, let's face it, OCD nightmares who hoover twice a day etc.  So I know _how_ to get a place clean and how to stay on top of it.  I just tend to lose my way very easily.

I recently had a house inspection that caused a bit of a panic so I decided to set an alarm on my phone every day at 7pm to motivate me to stop what I was doing and go do half an hour's cleaning.  I divided the house up into zones and started in Zone 1 until the half hour was up.  The next night I would start where I left off.  My reasoning being that by the end of each week I would have cleaned the entire house at least once.

I needed the alarm tone to be something arresting and inspiring so I chose Iron Maiden's Phantom of the Opera.  I'm trying to deny to myself that this had anything to do with Lucozade or Daley Thompson.

While I was setting up for a gig a few days ago, my cleaning alarm went off.  The band who had just finished all remarked "Awesome ring tone!".

Having scored some rock n roll points from the kids, it would have been unwise of me to tell them what it was really for.

What does that have to do with this album?  Fuck all, really.  Except that I was trying to listen to it while I was cleaning the house up for the inspection.  What I found was that the album finished and I had completely different music going round in my head.  Clearly my subconscious felt that the soundtrack to my cleaning efforts should be something it liked.

It's clangy and tinny and so saturated with reverb it could indeed have been recorded in an elevator shaft.  There are loose, droney jams on here that are quite reminiscent of The Doors but I'm saving my spleen to vent for when Morrison and Co actually appear.  

The lyrics are indecipherable but that is a problem with the recording rather than the singer's diction, I think.  I've made several attempts to listen to this and even sat here listening intently it still can't hold my attention.  

I don't really know how to judge it cuz technically I still haven't heard it.  So, I'll go with a random two.  Two says, "So dull I never made it through a complete sitting."