High Baptismal Flow: Kiloh Smith

Kiloh Smith is the self-described "Supreme Moderator" of the Texas Psych list on Yahoo! as well as the Laughing Madcaps, the world's largest Barrett group at nearly 2,000 members. As such, he acts as clearing-house for tree ideas and as a project manager for the various efforts, including High Baptismal Flow, the celebrated trade-only 2-CD disc of 13th Floor Elevators singles and select additional cuts [see "Tuned In, Burnt Out: Psychedelic Sounds on CD-R," p.56].

Austin Chronicle: Who came up with the idea for the CD?

Kiloh Smith: I did. I thought it would be cool to group all the International Artist singles together by the Elevators. Then it was group all the IA singles along with other sundry rare vinyl bits.

AC: How was it put together?

KS: A vinyl fetishist ripped all his IA singles and rare vinyl to disc for us. We then processed it lightly by removing surface noise. Vinyl fetishists usually don't like to share, but this guy, Hey Joe Rein, was cool and saw the vision. We then treed it out.

AC: Who was involved?

KS: Myself, Hey Joe, the guy who processed the raw discs, the people that treed them out. A lot of people were "involved."

AC: How many copies of High Baptismal Flow have been made?

KS: A few hundred were treed out initially, then it went up on FTP. It's been up on FTP for over a year. Those initial few hundred went right out to traders.

AC: How would you say this benefits Roky directly?

KS: It benefits his fans by getting the music out of collectors' hands and into the fans' hands. As far as I know, it's the first time he has ever been paid for these recordings. He gains new fans; it's a very popular set. Some of his best work is now in circulation. That's a good thing.

Nobody thought to do this in 35 years? That's fucked up! We thought to do it. And we're no threat to a legit label that will do it right. But hey, we wanted to hear this stuff. It just shows you how poor the situation was for the fans. It takes real fans to think to do this.