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DuncGOLD Member
playing the days away
7,263 posts
Location: The Middle lands, United Kingdom


Posted:
ok serious debate bout serious subject involving music and substances...

In the past 100 years or so (and much longer) there's been some great music created by various folks who were "off their t1ts" to put it mildly.

Now does anyone think that and of the various substance influenced musicians a) created such great music because of the drugs b) their music/inspiration was only 'helped along' by the drugs c) didn't need them to create what they did but took them anyway or d) shouldnt have taken them to begin with

And to top it off, can anyone think of any musicians who were well into their mind expansion but when they stopped they continued to make great music?!

Feel free to discuss any or all points...you may end up helping me out with this one!! p.s. this isn't meant to be a 'pro' or 'anti' dedate.

PEACE!!

Let's relight this forum ubblove


DuncGOLD Member
playing the days away
7,263 posts
Location: The Middle lands, United Kingdom


Posted:
quote:
Originally posted by Magnus:

Sounds to me like the original poster is thinking of taking drugs to 'enhance' their creativity. Is that the case, Custom Bug?

No tis not at all, my creativity is doin just fine thanks both with and without drug...erm...association!!

It started from a debate that I was having with friends as (some) scientists believe that we would never have evolved without eating Magic Mushrooms thousands of years ago as it was by eating them that made us self aware (aware of our own existance, aware that we are alive) and it is this that has seperated us from each living thing the world has ever seen. So without 'drugs' we wouldn't even be here debating, or spinning our poi! *HORROR*!! It just turned into a creativity debate that I thought I'd carry on here as I can read the opinions of folk from around the world and not just my mates.
It's interesting to see the level of 'real' and not propaganda education people have on the subject too and it really varies doesn't it!!

Glad everyone is enjoying the debate

Let's relight this forum ubblove


onewheeldaveGOLD Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
3,252 posts
Location: sheffield, United Kingdom


Posted:
quote:
Originally posted by Astar:
The addiction I believe is more psychological then physical. Smokeing is such a routine based activity plus such a social activity that it is more addictive then most substances.....
Also, I smoke a tobacco pipe whenever I feel like it, probably only 5 or 6 times a year randomly. I don't find it addictive at all (unless the height of my addiction is 5 or 6 times a year without any routine)


Not posting this to be argumentative but because I have looked into smoking a lot.

In my opinion you're right about the addiction being primarily psychological than physical; I just don't see it as being particularly relevant, it still means that a lot of people are trapped into taking a substance they would rather not be taking.

As for your infrequent pipe smoking I sincerely advise you to give it some serious thought. The majority of hard core smokers didn't commence their habit by deciding one day that they were going to become 40-a-day smokers, they started on one a day, feeling very much in control, often in the guise of a pleasant little ritual.

I'm not saying that it's inevitable, but given that billions of people have gone from feeling in control smoking a few a day, to full blown addiction; as the intelligent and aware person you undoubtably are, it would be useful to reflect on the wisdom of what you are doing.

Smoking is not a trivial matter W.H.O statistics currently say that 3,000,000 people worldwide per year die as a result of smoking; that's not a hobby, it's a cull.

"You can't outrun Death forever.
But you can make the Bastard work for it."

--MAJOR KORGO KORGAR,
"Last of The Lancers"
AFC 32


Educate your self in the Hazards of Fire Breathing STAY SAFE!


DuncGOLD Member
playing the days away
7,263 posts
Location: The Middle lands, United Kingdom


Posted:
How did this get onto addiction? It's supposed to be about Music / Drugs Astar!
Unless of course the Stimulating effects of Nicotine as the most abundent drug in a cigarette has influenced music in some way.....

Let's relight this forum ubblove


Astarmember
1,591 posts
Location: Nova Scotia, Canada.


Posted:
I guess my overall point is everything has addictive potential and anything is harmful if used wrong.

My constant debating online is definatly a bad habbit of mine.

Anyways I think it's relevant because psychological addiction is something you have power over. Unlike physical addiction which is beyond your control.

Although the hardest thing to conquer seems to be the human psyche.

And back on the subject of creativity. Maybe people who have faced addiction of any sort substitue one addiction for the other. Like substituting addiction to drugs for addiction to art.

[ 22. October 2003, 03:54: Message edited by: Astar ]

Magnusmember
279 posts
Location: Bath, UK


Posted:
quote:
Originally posted by Custom Bug:
...we would never have evolved without eating Magic Mushrooms thousands of years ago as it was by eating them that made us self aware (aware of our own existance, aware that we are alive) and it is this that has seperated us from each living thing the world has ever seen
Now that is interesting!

Anyone know of any experiments of feeding drugs to animals to achieve the same effect?

Magnus... pay it forward


KristieEBmember
108 posts
Location: Oakland, CA


Posted:
i just thought i would add that a lot of the swing music from the 20's/30's/40's was created with the added ingredient of drug influence. "mary jane" was used quite frequently by musicians and songs by cab calloway fairly openly refer to it in his lyrics.

i think drugs allow people to express more of what is actually inside them ... and often this is not a good thing, but sometimes it is. i am glad thelonius monk was stoned part of the time. there are some amazing jazz recordings as a result.

i personally don't use drugs ... except VERY occasionally for fun. so i know i don't need them to get through my life and if they weren't there it wouldn't make a difference to me overall. but i do like the option once in a while to experience something of myself i don't normally see ... without using therapy (which i am convinced is another type of addition our society has).

even though i don't smoke, my boyfriend does and recently i started smoking his ... just one or two a night (ok, i admit it, maybe three or four)while i was out drinking on the weekend. i tried to run the lake (3.5 miles) the other day, something i do fairly regularly and don't normally have a problem with. my lungs felt awful. AWFUL. that little buzz i got the night before was definitely not worth not being able to run. NOT worth destroying my health and making my lungs ache. and that was only after a few weeks. i am done with that. done.

people who should not have taken drugs:

barry bonds and his steroids ... do you really feel that his home run records are valid, when steroids weren't available to the people he is eclipsing?

the beatles ... ok they were alright when they were just smoking pot, but the hallucinogens affected their music in NOT A GOOD WAY in my oh so humble opinion.

jim balushi ... *sigh* i think he was just convinced he wasn't having enough fun.

so many more, but i don't have time for an exhaustive list.

DuncGOLD Member
playing the days away
7,263 posts
Location: The Middle lands, United Kingdom


Posted:
quote:
Originally posted by Magnus:
Anyone know of any experiments of feeding drugs to animals to achieve the same effect?
My dog once got stoned from being in a room full of lots of skunky smoke but he never evolved into anything accept himself, maybe we should have left him for 60,000 years or so....and he certainly didn't learn to play my guitar either, well not very well!!

Let's relight this forum ubblove


DuncGOLD Member
playing the days away
7,263 posts
Location: The Middle lands, United Kingdom


Posted:
quote:
Originally posted by KristieEB:
[QB
jim balushi ... *sigh* i think he was just convinced he wasn't having enough fun.
[/QB]
God that's so true, he was a genius.

On the lungs/running thing. Don't forget it's only the ingestion method you chose that caused that, the drug itself wasn't to blame....agree?

Let's relight this forum ubblove


Astarmember
1,591 posts
Location: Nova Scotia, Canada.


Posted:
Which is a good point. Id like to see the vapourization method catch on. It's more cost effective anyways.

KristieEBmember
108 posts
Location: Oakland, CA


Posted:
ok, i'm trying to imagine a different way to get a clove buzz in public ... but i'm just not seeing it

joe_sixstepsmULti-torTOISe
310 posts
Location: Kent currently, Cornwall soon, New Zealand eventua...


Posted:
So, I've just been reading through this, and there seems to be a lot of stuff about NEEDING things. Can't remember who posted that, but it reminds me of a conversation a friend and I had about drugs a year or so ago...

*settles more comfortably into chair and takes a big swig of his whiske... er... water*

The division of opinion on the value (if any) of taking drugs seems to fall almost completely onto whether or not you see drug use as creating a need, the satisfaction of which gives pleasure, or as giving pleasure in and of itself. Everyone can agree that the most dangerous drugs seem to be legal, and that the illegal ones are mainly dangerous because of their illegality. (Cut with bad chemicals, poor safety information to users, no support system if users in trouble, criminalisation of users.) The main question seems to be simply this:

If you take a drug to have a good time, are you:
a) filling a vacuum in your life (the NEED argument) or
b) adding something to your life.

I know it's off topic, but I reckon that all this talk of drugs being for the weak (sorry, but I find that deeply ignorant - lots of drugs are used both legally and illegally to help people who through no fault of their own are in need... using weak in this sense as a perjorative term is tantamount to bigotry), and discussion of whether drugs aid or hinder the creative process seems somewhat to hinge on the above question.

I feel that both are to a degree true. Just as adverts create a want in our lives that we satisfy by buying the advertised product, so a large part of the effect of any drug is the satisfaction of taking it... a sort of placebo effect independant of any "true" effect of the drug itself. In addition, I believe that most drugs, used "sensibly," can add something to one's life. Tobacco, for example, is used by the Ayahuascari in their rituals, as well as being the mass killer it is today.

As far as experience of drugs goes, it's another catch 22. Those who have tried them often say that it adds to their lives, whilst those who haven't say that the drugs make you think that taking them is worthwhile. I'm not writing very well am I? Too much rant... the problem seems to be that to know what you're talking about you have to try, well, everything... but as soon as you do your opinion becomes devalued. Just another druggie... I've been a user of pretty much everything, and an addict of some things (so re-evaluate your opinion of me by your own personal bias) but I still think that, so long as you look after yourself, it's all good fun and new experience. Maybe it's creating a need, maybe it's just fun, maybe it's a mix of both... maybe I should just lighten up, go have a spliff...

Sorry about all this essaying, and if I've said the wrong thing anywhere. Was frothing about in my head and I needed to type it. Remember kids - winners don't inhale!

The Confusion Squid has many tentacles


onewheeldaveGOLD Member
Carpal \'Tunnel
3,252 posts
Location: sheffield, United Kingdom


Posted:
quote:
Originally posted by joe_sixsteps:

The main question seems to be simply this:

If you take a drug to have a good time, are you:
a) filling a vacuum in your life (the NEED argument) or
b) adding something to your life.


That's a good concise way to put it.

I'd be inclined add a third element of transition/development i.e. that b can often drift seamlessly into a; eg initial experiences are good, then become a pleasant habit, then a need, and can ultimatley become a life destroying addiction.

As many will want to point out this doesn't happen to everyone, but it has happened to the millions of alcoholics and unwilling smokers in the world today.

Lastly, for most, the transition from b to a has a definite bias i.e. it's far easier to progress from b to a than to go back again.

"You can't outrun Death forever.
But you can make the Bastard work for it."

--MAJOR KORGO KORGAR,
"Last of The Lancers"
AFC 32


Educate your self in the Hazards of Fire Breathing STAY SAFE!


Astarmember
1,591 posts
Location: Nova Scotia, Canada.


Posted:
another thought I have is that it seems all geniuses, or atleast the ones who have had a great impact on our society are people who have very high intelligence in some areas and average to bellow average intelligence in others. We used to look at inelligence as a single value. High or low. But the new model is a model of multiple itelligences (basic crash course here https://www.funderstanding.com/multiple_intelligence.cfm

It really seems like the great minds of our time just have really high levels of intelligence in specific areas. Because most of them are really lacking in others (example einstein was a bit of a dork and also actually had very poor abilitys in the traditional academic sense, and yet he developed ideas that have changed our world. Maybe some drugs, used by some people and in the right amounts cause a deprivation of intelligence in some areas and the mind compensates by increasing levels of intelligence in others. Kind of like a person loseing their eye sight and
having increadible abilitys that sometimes cannot be explained (quasi-daredevil sort of stuff)

Also if you look at history a lot of the genuises
didn't use drugs. But they suffered from insomnia or mental illness's. Others were deprived of freedome, food, social contact or any number of things (examples, nelson mandella and martin luther king wrote their best works while in prison.

And there seems to be a bunch of greats who were just ordinary people with fairly balanced healthy lives. So there is an exception to everything.

also, for every genius who has written great works, invented great things and fought great battles, there is a bunch who no one knows about because they really don't accomplish anything and a lot of their ideas are generally bad and only make sense in their own minds.

DuncGOLD Member
playing the days away
7,263 posts
Location: The Middle lands, United Kingdom


Posted:
quote:
Originally posted by frostypaw:
[QUOTE] These options are a little one sided.
Agree, and not really inline with the topic either! But seeing as folk seem more interested in discussing social issues and their opinions of drugs instead of substance influence on music...

quote:
post by Astar
it seems all geniuses, or at least the ones who have had a great impact on our society are people who have very high intelligence in some areas and average to bellow average intelligence in others
What is the point of this and drugs? Do you think that drugs may help increase one sector of intelligence? Or perhaps reduce 1 part so the brain could have increased intelligence in another?

quote:
post by Astar
Also if you look at history a lot of the genuises
didn't use drugs
How would anyone actually know this to be true? If where the geniuses lived drug use was frowned upon socially doesn't that mean it wouldn't have been recorded in the annals of time? And also if they didn't think the association important enough would they record this?

Let's relight this forum ubblove


Ali-birdmember
102 posts
Location: London


Posted:
I should get my music producer boyfriend to post here!

He always gets massively inspired after a weekend of clubbing, or after a trip - not *while* he's experiencing something, but very much so afterwards. I understand his point - hallucinogenics and psychotropics in particular change your viewpoint on the world and can send your thought processes off in most odd directions, which can lead to enhanced creative process (some of his best work has been post-club experience).

Also, you must remember that most of the major musical shifts of the century have been closely allied with certain drugs - Marijuana and Opium with Jazz in the 20s, Speed pills with early Rock n Roll in the 50s for example, not to mention the obvious links of Acid and marijuana with the late sixties. It carries on through the 'ludes in the 70s into the 90s with MDMA and Dance music.

Whether or not the drugs inspire the music or vice versa I feel is impossible to say - BUT the two (and the people who make the music) are definitely and inextricably linked.

Much as I'd like to let the comment slide, I can't - whoever said that "Drugs are for the weak". You've got it all backwards, I would venture to say. I tried LSD for the first time a year ago and I believe that it takes a very strong personality to take the plunge and open your mind to certain experiences, rather than a weak or frightened one - quite the opposite of your (imho) blinkered assertion. Drugs are not the problem - the effect they have on a person is entirely based on the kind of person they are.

Which brings me neatly back to Music I suppose. If you've got a talent for it, it'll find a way out. If drugs have any effect on musicians, it's simply to open their minds to different ways of working or hearing sounds in a different way. The creativity is already there. Certain drugs can help germinate ideas, but it takes a talent to make them into something useable.

Sorry, that's a rather long post now, innit.

Why is it that everthing which is fun is illegal, immoral, or fattening?


DuncGOLD Member
playing the days away
7,263 posts
Location: The Middle lands, United Kingdom


Posted:
quote:
Originally posted by Ali-bird:

whoever said that "Drugs are for the weak". You've got it all backwards,

Couldn't agree more Ali-bird. LSD opens valves in the brain that are normally, in most people, closed. It takes a lot of handling and brain ability to be able to use drugs properly and safely. It's those without guidance and help will most likely fall to the whey side and appear in the news!!

And at last, a decent opinion, Music and Drugs are inexplicably linked, always have been always will be. Be they legal, natural, self produced, man made or unknown. They're only chemicals and that what we're all made of really. (please nobody through up the DNA/electron thing, don't be so pedantic please)

And tt's only chemicals that keep us spinning too

weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Let's relight this forum ubblove


Flipmodiusmember
103 posts
Location: Halifax, N.S


Posted:
snoop quit and he is still one of the best and most respected rappers ever.

some will understand. -buddah


KatBRONZE Member
Pooh-Bah
2,211 posts
Location: London, Wales (UK)


Posted:
Hmm its a bit like saying the greatest writers are all alcoholics using Hemingway, Faulkner, Behan as examples

Or that to achieve great fame in the art world you have to be off your tree bonkers like Van Gogh and Tracy Emin.

Some people are creative and some people are not. Drugs won't help someone if they have no talent to work with in the first place, what may be creative may to the non drug taking soul just look / sound like a pile of poo.

A nice quote from Hunter S. Thompson

quote:
I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've always worked for me


It is my belief that yes, drugs may kick-start or accelerate creativity but for anyone who cannot be creative *without* the help of drugs, I would suggest a new career!

Come faeries, take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame.

- W B Yeats


colemanSILVER Member
big and good and broken
7,330 posts
Location: lunn dunn, yoo kay, United Kingdom


Posted:
i'm pretty sure that if snoop quit weed the world would end...

"i see you at 'dis cafe.
i come to 'dis cafe quite a lot myself.
they do porridge."
- tim westwood


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