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[QUOTE=fable]Ray who? What movie? And what quote? Do you mean Ray Charles? He wasn't a jazz artist, much less a bebopper, and he was one of the lucky ones whose system was especially resistant. He never used drugs on the job, and he also acknowledged he used it just for the buzz. He certainly never claimed he played better while on drugs, because he kept it completely separate from his work.[/QUOTE]
Oh, I thought that he was a Jazz artist. But yes the movie was called Ray, Jamie Foxx played Ray.

Have you read any biographies of Ray Charles? Because if you want to quote his background, that's the way to go. Quoting a film about somebody only tells you what a screenwriter says. Even if that screenwriter has the inside track with the biography subject, it's still a matter of their word--usually much after an event, and sugar-coated. Nobody likes to recall the worst things they said and did, especially for a film. And films about living popular artists typically focus only on the positive.

In any case, I honestly can't think of a single jazz great who ever praised drugs or drink, except as an escape, a thrill. None of them ever saw it as a means to improve their art. To the contrary: nearly all of them were intensely competitive people who practiced incessantly, and/or engaged in "cutting sessions" where they would play against all comers in bars and halls afterhours. You didn't want to be high for those. You wanted to be in your best condition, and that meant being as sober but brilliant as possible.

Monk also used heroin and got busted for it in the 30s, IIRC. Anyway, I bow to your knowledge on the subject.

I maintain Lou Reed would still praise heroin as an art enhancer.

As for punk, the pioneers, the Velvet Underground were almost all junkies, and wrote most of their songs either on or about junk. Iggy & the Stooges lived together because they were taking and selling it together at one point, and hence maintained a fragile band. When 'the scene' actually happened, punks new each other and hung out together because they bought it from the same places, and formed a unified front more around the drug as the music (which was disparate and not especially recognisable as a style in the late 70s). The New York Dolls, The Ramones, Patti Smith's band, Television, The Voidoids, Jonathon Richman & the Modern Lovers, Blondie, The Sex Pistols, The Dead Boys all had incestuous membership and would meet one another through mutual dealers and shooting galleries. If heroin did not actually imrpove their song writing abilities etc, it provided material for a huge ammount of lyrics, and the unity of their community. Jonny Thunders & The Heartbreakers only formed in order to score, etc.

Lou Reed is the archtype of the defiant rocker. While I respect his anger and more so, his humor, I would be disinclined to take him seriously in an argument. He'll gravitate to whatever position sticks it to authority.

As you know, there's a huge gulf between writing about drugs as material for songs communicating to a counter-culture, and insisting that drugs made creation and/or performance better. I've spoken to people who claimed drugs enhanced their creativity, but when asked how, they always moved to a discussion of the sensory input received on drugs--which anybody can get without drugs, if they just work at circumventing their own internal walls. More to the point, none of them were recognized as good artists in their fields. My own feeling is that they were mistaking sensory indulgence for artistic quality, the neural messenger for the message. Or think of it this way: if you're drunk and you listen to poety that touches you immensely, then find it appaling when sober, is it the poetry that's changed? Altered states of consciousness lead to a difference in apprehending the universe, but the universe isn't changed. And I still think there are far safer ways to get to those desireable states.

[QUOTE=fable]More to the point, none of them were recognized as good artists in their fields. [/QUOTE]
lol. That settles the matter

As you know, there's a huge gulf between writing about drugs as material for songs communicating to a counter-culture, and insisting that drugs made creation and/or performance better

This is not true. If the drugs are the subject and inspiration for a song, then they absolutely do make the songs 'creation and/or performance' better - if without drugs the song would not exist, they make it 100% better. I don't know if you have ever written music, but much more goes on than selecting some notes and a rhythm. If you examined the creation process of the song 'Heroin', you would find that most of the ideas in it were a response to or an expression of being on heroin (and whatsmore, they were probably mostly penned while he was on heroin, but this is a guess). If Lou Reed hadn't taken any heroin, the song would have been ****, I'm sure of it (See Blink 182 doing The Only One's junk masterpiece 'Another Girl, Another Planet' )

I agree that tripping etc can be mistaken for inspiration by hacks. But can anybody get the same stimulus by 'circumventing internal walls' as by taking acid?? This is a very big claim. Ooops, I realise we were talking about heroin, but I suppose any drug induced revelations count, LSD revelations are just rather more obvious and easier to pin down. I think that the Psychedelic Sound of the 13th Floor Elevators is a towering work of art. It could not have taken place without LSD, and I think that it is preposterous to claim that the musicians could have envisaged the sounds that they did by meditation, auto-disinhibition or so forth. That means that LSD improved the act of creation.

If all poetry written due to drunkeness were bad, I would accept your point. All music created as a result of having taken drugs is notbad (I see aesthetic subjectivity looming), and in fact I believe that I could name hundreds of albums and bands which are brilliant and in which drugs were central or formitive. Drugs can be good for music QED?

EDIT: Some related examples - I am friends with the singer and guitarist in a garage band, quite big locally. He never drinks on the job, knowing that it will ruin his coordination. But he claims that his best gigs have been played on speed and MDMA - they make him faster and more furious at playing, and better able to 'enter into the song'. If he plays fastly and furiously, forgetting himself in the song, it's a matter of opinion whether it sounds better or not, but it's what he would like to be able to sound like when he's sober. Drugs make his music better or not?

I am also friendly with an incredible alto sax player. He can (and frequently does) play for 13 hours straight to whatever music is around, but he finds that smoking weed further 'musicalises' his thought patterns, (and it evidently does - he begins to speak in more and more musical terms and have a much more powerful urge to create and express with his instrument) and allows him to carry on playing indefinately. Hearing him play free jazz/reggae at 11 in the morning after an all night rave, I am convinced that he gets a massive boost out of weed, it benefits his music. He choses to smoke because he knows he can involve himself more in music and hence play better and longer when he's stoned...or is he wrong?

I am not saying that being a heroin addict is at all beneficial to life or health or even that it is beneficial to the majority of music, or that musicians ought to become drug addicts and die from it, I am saying that in many cases drugs improve music.

[QUOTE=frogus23]This is not true. If the drugs are the subject and inspiration for a song, then they absolutely do make the songs 'creation and/or performance' better - if without drugs the song would not exist, they make it 100% better.[/quote]

That makes a hash of logic--just because a song wouldn't otherwise exist doesn't mean its "better" in quality for that existence. We both know music surely that would be far better if it *didn't* exist. Further, your comments misrepresent what I wrote. I stated, "and insisting that drugs made creation and/or performance better," thus dealing with a piece of music that would have existed in any case. Drugs don't improve the music, at all. They have the opposite effect.

I don't know if you have ever written music, but much more goes on than selecting some notes and a rhythm. If you examined the creation process of the song 'Heroin', you would find that most of the ideas in it were a response to or an expression of being on heroin (and whatsmore, they were probably mostly penned while he was on heroin, but this is a guess). If Lou Reed hadn't taken any heroin, the song would have been ****, I'm sure of it (See Blink 182 doing The Only One's junk masterpiece 'Another Girl, Another Planet' )

1) Yes, I have written music. Quite a bit at one point, actually. 2) You're saying that Reed penned Heroin when he was "probably" on heroin means you don't know. 3) Even if he penned the lyrics, it wouldn't mean he penned the music, and 4) even if he penned both, it wouldn't mean he didn't improve it greatly when he lost the buzz. Short answer: you don't know.

I agree that tripping etc can be mistaken for inspiration by hacks. But can anybody get the same stimulus by 'circumventing internal walls' as by taking acid?? This is a very big claim.

Why do you think so? Tell me, what different methods of "circumventing internal walls" have you tried, that leads you to make a qualitative statement regarding their relative lack of success compared to drugs or a specific drug?

I think that the Psychedelic Sound of the 13th Floor Elevators is a towering work of art. It could not have taken place without LSD, and I think that it is preposterous to claim that the musicians could have envisaged the sounds that they did by meditation, auto-disinhibition or so forth. That means that LSD improved the act of creation.

...Or it means you enjoy something which may be qualitatively inferior, but which you like because it celebrates an aspect of counter-culture you subscribe to. Not being familiar with the musicians or the music, I can't comment one way or the other. Can you produce a generally accepted work of art among jazz that was done while tripping, and which is claimed as great? I can give you a list of stuff Parker cut for Dial while high on drugs or liquor that are considered incredibly bad by just about anybody who has heard them. But it doesn't appear that Parker's extraordinary status or quality as a musician can furnish a touchstone for you. I can give you many other names, too, but I get a sense that you this won't work for you. Either that, or you're just trying to play devil's advocate; in which case I'll stop posting. I sincerely hope you're not doing that, since we both have better ways to spend our time, and my opinion of you will drop immeasurably if that proves the case. (This may not matter to you. It does to me, since I regard you as among the most intelligent and thought-provoking people in this, our little corner of sanity.)

If all poetry written due to drunkeness were bad, I would accept your point. All music created as a result of having taken drugs is notbad (I see aesthetic subjectivity looming), and in fact I believe that I could name hundreds of albums and bands which are brilliant and in which drugs were central or formitive. Drugs can be good for music QED?

How do you judge the quality of the music you're considering? I know there have been some very good analyses done of Parker's improvised solos, bar by bar; and there have been musicians who simply pointed out, based on their knowledge of jazz, just how bad his stuff was when high. Furthermore, Parker himself admitted this time and again, after listening to the results. And I've heard some of the things Bird put to track while buzzing; they were just as bad as he and others thought.

I also know of other fine musicians who tried cutting tracks while experiencing the buzz, only to realize later the stuff they'd laid down was godawful--Max Roach and Tadd Dameron come to mind, but there were many more. All of them claimed they were far better musically when not high. So it's basically your opinion and that of friends of yours against those of a crowd of great composing/peforming artists over several generations whose opinions about music I respect highly. I don't really foresee any future for a discussion where the frames of cultural reference are so far apart.

Fable I hate to make you angry - I am not playing mind games with you.

I think we seem to have several points of conflict here. Please correct me if I am wrong.

1) I believe that there are states of mind reachable by drugs which are unreachable without drugs. You apparently do not.

2) You believe that the quality of music can to some extent be qualitatively evaluated and analysed in an objective way. I think that music taste is as ubjective as subjective can possibly be.

3) You believe that the jazz scene of the fifties and jazz musicians and reviewers subsequently are a better authority on musical quality than the 'countercultural' musicians of the sixties and seventies and subsequent 'subscribers' to their counter-culture.

4) I think that it is possible to talk about hypothetical music (i.e Heroin without the heroin) while you think that this is meaningless.

I think these are impassable hurdles. I think what this comes down to is 'it's a matter of opinion innit?' The 13th Floor Elevators after all are not just my bag. They're on the Hi-Fidelity soundtrack too . I mean you can't throw out music on the grounds that it's a niche - probably as many people will vouch for Psychedelic Sounds greatness as will to Bird & Diz (they may well be the same people ) and as far as I can see you've got a skewed conception of what it takes to make music great. As far as you can see I don't even know what great means. This is subjectivity....

Now I'm gonna go and get loaded on mescaline and bang a flowerpot for seven days. Speaking of which have you herd about the band John Cale was in before the Velvet Underground?

[QUOTE=frogus23]
I'm gonna go and get loaded on mescaline and bang a flowerpot for seven days.[/QUOTE]

Just reeks of authoritativeness doesn't he?






J/k

That'll be the funk of love you're smelling Jop

Are you sure? It smells vaguely of the pachouli-stink of hippydom..

Death to hippies!!!

Fable, Fable I'm being persecuted!

Why is there no forum rule against oppressing minority counter-cultures?!

I'm staging a sit-in.

*sits*

"I'm being oppressed, I'm bein oppressed!!!"

We'll be here in the morning with the bull dozer and the chicago PD.

Just kiddin'. I'm only annoyed by some hippies not all.

[QUOTE=frogus23]Fable I hate to make you angry - I am not playing mind games with you.[/quote]

Fair enough. I'd have hated to think that was the case. You're too intelligent to waste a mind on debating.

1) I believe that there are states of mind reachable by drugs which are unreachable without drugs. You apparently do not.

I think any state of mind that can be reached with drugs can be reached without them, though some require a lot of work. There are even people who can completely drown the responses of their own pain receptors naturally; and of course pain removal is a major use for drugs--though regrettably I've never found how to go about doing it, myself.

2) You believe that the quality of music can to some extent be qualitatively evaluated and analysed in an objective way. I think that music taste is as ubjective as subjective can possibly be.

We agree-to absolutely differ.

3) You believe that the jazz scene of the fifties and jazz musicians and reviewers subsequently are a better authority on musical quality than the 'countercultural' musicians of the sixties and seventies and subsequent 'subscribers' to their counter-culture.

Not so. If you're going to include rock in counter-culture, then we have to make allowances for the many musicians who said outright that drugs never did anything for their music, such as Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa or Aerosmith, and others who could achieve that buzzing state without drugs and avoided it, such as Captain Beefheart.

4) I think that it is possible to talk about hypothetical music (i.e Heroin without the heroin) while you think that this is meaningless.

Fair enough.

I think these are impassable hurdles. I think what this comes down to is 'it's a matter of opinion innit?' The 13th Floor Elevators after all are not just my bag. They're on the Hi-Fidelity soundtrack too . I mean you can't throw out music on the grounds that it's a niche - probably as many people will vouch for Psychedelic Sounds greatness as will to Bird & Diz (they may well be the same people ) and as far as I can see you've got a skewed conception of what it takes to make music great. As far as you can see I don't even know what great means. This is subjectivity....

This is a significant difference of opinion, without which, the world is the smaller, duller place that Bush and Blair wish it to be.

Now I'm gonna go and get loaded on mescaline and bang a flowerpot for seven days. Speaking of which have you herd about the band John Cale was in before the Velvet Underground?

You mean the Dream Syndicate? But of course. I always thought his most interesting work happened after he discovered the possibilities in Brian Eno's environment music. The work he did with Terry Riley was fascinating, though Cale had his own take on it.

The Dream Syndicate sound like a bad joke to me...

I have no ear for minimalism and can't stand any of Riley's compositions...Jazzers always like minimalism, non? Does this mean it's clever or something?

I have never heard Cale doing what I'd call 'environment music', even in his collaborations with Eno Do you mean Music For Films by environment music? Which albums are you talking about?

I think Cale's best work is his evil solo stuff (besides his monologue on The Gift ) like Fear. I have an awesome compilation of his called GUTS which is basically all his most unpleasant songs on a record Including Heartbreak Hotel which has Eno on it, and is anything but ambient...

Also I have immense respect for the records he has produced, although I think that is more a case of luck than judgment...Patti Smith Horses, Nico The Marble Index, The Stooges eponymous record etc.

He's a swell guy, and what's more has a dulcet and euphonious welsh accent, which improves anyone in my reckoning