The 13th Floor Elevators were probably one of the first bands to describe their music as “psychedelic”. Then again, they did have an electric jug player to back it up.

Poised on the cusp of no wave: Richard Hell and James Chance, by Julia Gorton. James Chance was founder/mad frontman of Flaming Youth, The Contortions, James White & The Blacks and Pill Factory. Richard Hell is a punk musician, poet and writer, best known for penning “Blank Generation”.

“Beneath the scowls of derision, the antagonism and acrimony, and the nearly unbearable shrillness that was our soundtrack, we were howling with delight, laughing like lunatics in the madhouse that was New York City, thrilled to be rubbing up against the freaks and other outcasts, who somehow, for some unknowable reason, had all decided to run to land’s end and all at once scream their bloody heads off.”
- Lydia Lunch