Fun Stuff > BAND
drugs: visual art versus audible art
Kai:
Man, if I just stopped listening to artists who used drugs during that whole process, a good, probably, 98% of the bands I listen to are totally out.
Phrozen:
--- Quote from: Aneurhythmia ---Clarify how these two sentences don't contradict eachother.
--- End quote ---
I'm not sure I understand where your confusion lies, perhas I'm just a bit dense...
"Drugs are for beginners" is something I used to say a lot. I have a lot of fun with life, Ive done a lot of strange things. Life is plenty wierd for me. So whe I say "Drugs are for beginners" I'm saying that if you need drugs to have fun or be creative, you're doing something wrong. *shrug* its a personal thing.
--- Quote ---
I can't even imagine what you listen to.
--- End quote ---
I should have put more emphasis on rarely...
Honestly, I'm sure a lot of the musicians I listen to have used drugs while writing their music. Honestly? I dont want to know about it, once I find out a band used drugs to "enhance" their creative abilities I lose a lot of respect for them. It just seems like cheating to me, as though they were incapable of writing good music without drugs, then I have to ask myself: "Was it the drugs or their actual skills?" Perhaps this comes from a lack of first hand experience, I've never taken any mind altering drugs and really don't intend on it(Barring, of course, alchohol, caffeiene and nicotene.).
Also, so many of these awesome artists who use illicit substances often end up dead because of them, and thats just un-fucking-forgiveable. I get so mad when I hear about some musician I loved or respected ended up OD'ing on some shit he shouldn't have been taking in the first place. I'll always hate that bastard Mitch Hedburg for OD'ing... God damnit it if he wasn't hilarious.
Sorry, this is all anecdotal and ultra-biased opinion, I recommend you take it at face value.
onewheelwizzard:
--- Quote from: Phrozen ---
"Drugs are for beginners" is something I used to say a lot. I have a lot of fun with life, Ive done a lot of strange things. Life is plenty wierd for me. So whe I say "Drugs are for beginners" I'm saying that if you need drugs to have fun or be creative, you're doing something wrong. *shrug* its a personal thing.
--- End quote ---
I think you're missing a few very important points here. While a great deal of anti-drug propaganda has given the majority of society a very skewed idea of what drugs do, the fact remains that anyone who can't be fun or creative without drugs will certainly offer only pale imitations of creativity with them. Drugs are best, in fact, for people like you, people who have fun with life and do strange things and feel good about the interesting things in the world. All they do is open more interesting and weird and creative things up, and someone with musical skill will only benefit from this expanded perspective if they already know how to channel their inherent creative talent into an expression of their drug-enhanced experience. To say that drawing from drug experiences to make better music is cheating is a bit like saying it's cheating to write a song about a breakup when you haven't actually broken up with anyone, or when you've watched your friend break up with their S/O but you remain with your own. It's still creative expression that comes from the artist and the artist's ideas.
--- Quote ---Honestly, I'm sure a lot of the musicians I listen to have used drugs while writing their music. Honestly? I dont want to know about it, once I find out a band used drugs to "enhance" their creative abilities I lose a lot of respect for them. It just seems like cheating to me, as though they were incapable of writing good music without drugs, then I have to ask myself: "Was it the drugs or their actual skills?" Perhaps this comes from a lack of first hand experience, I've never taken any mind altering drugs and really don't intend on it(Barring, of course, alchohol, caffeiene and nicotene.).
--- End quote ---
First of all, I don't want to sound hostile because I realize that these remarks are coming from someone who does not, in fact, understand the nature of drug use and therefore doesn't know any better, but really, who are you to assume that using drugs to enhance creative expression is in any way indicative of an inability to express the same creativity without drugs? THe Beatles were amazing songwriters when they had never taken a hit of marijuana, and they remained amazing songwriters all the way through their phase of marijuana and LSD use. The drugs they used affected their creative output, for sure, but to label this effect as negative just because some cranky old white guys decided that taking LSD was a degenerate thing and should be criminalized would be outrageous. I'm not denying that there are musicians out there who rely on drugs to give them ideas, but I'm not defending them. I'm defending the vast majority of musicians whose competency and creative inspiration remain constant throughout both sober and mind-altered periods of expression. Bottom line is, for you to assume that drug use deteriorates a musician's creativity is premature in the highest degree and I would dispute your right to make such claims.
As for your choice of substance use, this makes me very, very sad. For one thing, all three of the substances you've mentioned are, in fact, highly addictive and harmful substances that do very little to aid anyone's life in any way that they couldn't help themselves with minus the substance. Simply because a bunch of old white men have legally sanctioned alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine use does not mean that there is any difference between them and the use of opiates, marijuana, and methamphetamines. Any serious examination of the actual physical effects of legal mind alterants vs. illegal ones will bring to light the blatant hypocrisy that remains at the center of drug laws.
--- Quote ---Also, so many of these awesome artists who use illicit substances often end up dead because of them, and thats just un-fucking-forgiveable. I get so mad when I hear about some musician I loved or respected ended up OD'ing on some shit he shouldn't have been taking in the first place. I'll always hate that bastard Mitch Hedburg for OD'ing... God damnit it if he wasn't hilarious.
--- End quote ---
Then why are you OK with musicians who drink and smoke, but not with musicians who smoke weed and take mushrooms or LSD? Hallucinogens are literally the precise opposite of narcotics. You can't OD on them and you can't addict yourself to them. Not a single person has ever died from marijuana or LSD toxicity, and only a single report that I know of references someone who died from eating too many mushrooms (and that person also drank 21 beers during the same time frame).
My main point is, find out what you're talking about before you start forming opinions about what it means. I highly recommend that you do some research on Erowid.org or a similar website and figure out what exactly drugs do before you start deciding what you think of the people who use them.
KharBevNor:
*clap clap clap*
That is all I have to say on the matter.
Also, anti-drugs dude.
Smoke a joint. Just one. Share it with someone, whatever.
Do that, and then watch Reefer Madness.
Compare what the people who banned marijuana thought, as expressed through that film, to what you have just experienced.
Come to the realisation that the only reason any mind and mood altering substances are banned is because:
a) they can't be taxed (weed)
b) black people use them (cocaine)
c) gay people use them (amyl nitrate, at least in the US)
Realise that anything DARE or an equivalent scheme has ever told you about drugs is bullshit.
I mean, I smoke, and I drink coffee and booze, but man, every cigarette you are sucking The Mans cock.
I mean shit.
Praeserpium Machinarum:
There is quite an interesting inlay in Bonnie 'Prince' Billy & Matt Sweeney - Superwolf which(as far as I can remember, I don't have the cd here) compares the western choice of legal narcotics with the Middle Eastern choice. Basically westerners use nicotine and alcohol and the Middle East use hashish, and it argues that this choice has had a significant impact on the evolution of those two "civilizations". It also toys with the idea of turning it all around to see what our society then would be like.
On topic I don't mind really, I wouldn't do it because I am far too cautious and my parents would kill me. But if it helps the musicians to make better music then by all means smoke. I read The Doors of Perception(Aldous Huxley's account on using mescaline) once and I thought the whole idea that more "harmless" drugs like mescaline could take the place of the ones legal today was great. Trouble is, people don't to want to get a mind altering illustrations of colours in everything around them, they want to get hammered. And then there is the problem with people who are not fit to use it such as people with mental illness and so on.
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