Drugs

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The drugs mythology of rock bothers me. On one hand I'm totally sick of hearing how many bags of charlie it took artist X to record album Y, or how the tour bus for artist Z was a motorised pharmaceutical factory. Stories like this always end up making me think that the band/journo/hangers-on are total wankers. Also did/does a large drug intake ever make for good music? Maybe for some artists it loosens their imaginations/inhibitions and affords them a degree of creativity that wouldn't be possible otherwise. Problem is, I suspect that for everyone of these we get three or four talentless numbskulls desparate to emulate Keef. This helps perpetuate stereotypical rock n roll idiocy for the next generation. Where do YOU think the balance lies?

Is there anything more boring than artists who are totally defined by drugs, sing about drugs and use endless lazy drug metaphors? Spiritualized, for example.

What do you think?

― Dr. C, Monday, 8 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

You are absolutely spot on with the drugs heritage in rock. There is nothing sadder than a 1970's metal drummer desperately clinging on to his heyday via his heinous bleach blonde receding perm on VH1 making lightly veiled references to chemical debauchery. But I disagree that musicians should not make music about drugs. Taking vast amounts of heroin is something that would have a great effect on a person, life-changing even, and if artists write about the effects that love or an experience has on them they should also be allowed to write about how drugs have affected them. The lyrics are certainly not my favourite part of Spiritualized, but the towering sentiment of their music must show there is some feeling in the subject.

― Barnaby, Monday, 8 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

plenty of good reggae tracks written about marijuana or made under the influence of marijuana, and plenty of good songs in other styles about drinking. maybe it is only hard drugs that inspire rubbish?

― michael, Monday, 8 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

(or were you only meaning hard drugs in the question?)

― michael, Monday, 8 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

it usually makes for smug cred ("look how crazy we are"), but i wonder if in the past drug use amongst the public was lower, so keef style exploits had a voyeuristic exciting quality. now, of course, the bulk of young people have had some sort of class A, so that "i'm debauched' schtick just doesn't cut it. how exciting is it if rock star x is chemically fuelled, when so is simon who works at asda?

the way around this is to make music that invokes the feel of it, rather than being a descriptive/mythologising thing, which is where dance music has a great strength, because its not about drugs, but there are textures and sounds which are implicitly narcoticized (cf. acen making records using all the sounds he saw working in pilled up raves)

― gareth, Monday, 8 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Well said young man, couldnt agree more

― kiwi, Monday, 8 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Most of the best music ever made has been made by ppl pumped full of drugs (this is esp. true of jazz, of course.) Many of the same artists turned to shit as soon as they got 'straight' (see Lou Reed, D. Bowie esp.) Drug tales no more or less boring than 'hilarious' anecdotes abt the time Band XYZ drank 3000 pints of snakebite and threw up over their roadie/guitar case/tour bus/groupies etc.

Frank Zappa was famously 'straight edge'. I rest my case.

― Andrew L, Monday, 8 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

p.o.d. vs the pink fairies. oh dear and who has the misfortune to remember the stinkin awful "magic mushroom band". ALSO: pot-head pixies. drug taking is like when terribly boring folks wear a t shirt that says "i'd fuck charlie manson... if he was under 12"

― bob snoom, Monday, 8 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The reason musicians take drugs is because they have to work incredibly stupid hours (hence speed, coke), which makes it difficult to sleep (hence pot, booze, Mandrax), and also because most of them are typical shy introverts who are suddenly in a position where they need to talk to loads of assholes in confident fashion (booze and coke again). It's only when they start taking stuff to 'break writer's block' when the danger signs appear. Danger as in 'crap record alert', NOT 'danger-to-health', which is irrelevant and tough shit anyhow.

― dave q, Monday, 8 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I think it has more to do with the shyness Dave mentions than anything - antisocial types stuck in social situations and grabbing the same the rest of us use to make a friday night more tolerable, but friday night coming 7 nights a week.

Also musicians are entertainers, they are the people we pay to sing and dance for us, to encourage us to do a little dance make a little love etc etc - so it hardly seems fair to scold them for indulging themselves.

― fritz, Monday, 8 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I read a Terry Riley interview in some book (I think "talking music:interviews with modern composers...) He said something along the lines that he likes to use a drug once or a few times and then aim to make his music like that mysterious feeling, but the overuse is when the problems arise. Many of the minimalist composers were influenced by the eastern hypnotic drugs. La Monte Young, etc.

― A Nairn, Monday, 8 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Musicians, when high, are the most excruciatingly boring conversationalists in the entire history of the world.

― John Darnielle, Monday, 8 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

When not high, Oscar Wilde himself rises from his grave to praise them. Surely.

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 8 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I think trying to use drugs to enhance music is a ridiculous idea. Sure, some people can make incredible music when under the influence of a substance, but I think it's rare and it makes me wonder how much better the music would be without the drugs. Sure, David Bowie and Lou Reed might have made worse music when they were sober, but they were also older and had passed their prime. At least in my experience, any drug is completely detrimental to the attempt to make music. Even pot disables you from performing to the best of your ability. I'm also extremely tired of hearing musicians brag about how fucked up they get or how out of their minds they were when they made this album or that song. Blah blah blah. Who cares?

― lou, Monday, 8 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

that is an interesting sentiment considering your email address has references to RDJ and Mike Paradinas. FYI, I know for a fact that they both like to get fucked up, A friend of mine on Skam has the pictures to prove it. ;)

― mt, Tuesday, 9 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Hahahah. Good point. Of course I realized this- Richard D. James just recently mentioned drug use in an interview and it's kind of obvious (even though his song "4" was used for an anti-drug commercial, which doesn't really prove anything). Like I said though, some people can make great music and do drugs, but I think it's rare and they could make even better music without the drugs.

― lou, Tuesday, 9 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

doing music AND doing drugs is OK. doing drugs WHILE you do music tends to be a dumb idea if yr trying to making anything that sounds halfway decent. i always thought the dwarves rocked harder than fugazi. ozric tentacles, however >ahem< ...

― bob snoom, Tuesday, 9 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

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