John Coltrane and LSD
LargeA
Martin's, 1993) he writes, "John Coltrane began using LSD fairly regularly
some time in
1965. Although it has been stated by some that he took it only when he
record OM later
that year, he actually took it far more often during the last few years of
his life, according
to a number of people, including a member of the quartet who would prefer,
like others,
not to be quoted directly on this subject."
I don't put heroin and alcohol in the same category as the powerfully
stimulating LSD. I
can still say that Coltrane gave up drugs in 1957. For him, as with
myself, it proved
immensely helpful in understanding his soul, his mind, and his spiritual
place in the world.
The author points out that the experiences confirmed his insights rather
that changing
anything. For me, this revelation is the most important one in this
absorbing account of
John Coltrane. - Allen Large
Rolf Hanson
> I don't put heroin and alcohol in the same category as the powerfully
> stimulating LSD. I can still say that Coltrane gave up drugs in 1957.
For him, as with
> myself, it proved immensely helpful in understanding his soul, his mind,
and his
> spiritual place in the world.
does "it" refer to giving up drugs or to LSD? I am confused...
Nisenson's book says that he used it circa 1965, but the liner notes of
the Rhino "last giant" box state that he gave up drugs before 1960... are
one of the books in error, or is LSD not considered a "drug" among jazzers
used to alcohol and heroin?
-rolf
MMMbel
was a one-off time. The man's genius and music came from his spirit. He
did stop using heroin and the ilk in the mid-fifties, and devoted his life
to spiritual enlightenment through his music. I'm really tired of this
fascination with Trane and lsd. It was a ONE TIME experiment, and should
be treated as such. Its not some cool "tidbit" on Trane's life...
actually its meaningless.
Mikey
David C. Hall
>From: mmm...@aol.com (MMMbel)
>Subject: Re: John Coltrane and LSD
>Date: 29 Nov 1994 09:25:17 -0500
>Mikey
Mikey - No offence intended, honest, but how do you know it was a one-off
experience? I am curious as to your source - other musicians, hearsay,
interview? I am a great fan of Trane's music (and not hugely interested in
his alcohol/drug problems) but the scientist in me is a stickler for
accuracy in statement.
Thanks! David in Ithaca
*****@*****@*****@*****@*****@*****@*****@*****@*****@*****@*****@****
From the desk of: dc...@cornell.edu
David C. Hall, DVM, MSc
Dept. Agricultural Economics, 408 Warren Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY, U.S.A. 14853 Home phone/fax: (607)256-3248
LargeA
(Rolf Hanson) writes:
"It" meant LSD. I don't consider it a drug like heroin and alcohol. Rhino
was technically correct, but I don't think they or many others knew about
Trane and LSD.
Jeff Stuit
really disputes this statement. Nisenson claimed that Coltrane
was using LSD frequently during the mid-60's, and that "Om" was
recorded when the entire band was on an acid trip. He also said
that Coltrane was so embarrased with how "Om" came out that he
never wanted the recording released, and it only happened after his
death.
LargeA
David J. Strauss
: be treated as such. Its not some cool "tidbit" on Trane's life...
: actually its meaningless.
Nisenson seems to think otherwise. And if you listen to the newly
released Afro-Blue on the just reissued Live In Seattle, I think you'll
suspect the same (Much "Om-like" chanting in the middle of such). For all
the smack Romanticism, et al, involved in the Jazz legacy, the truth is
that most of us don't know very much about the individuals who made the
records that we obsessively pour over (& who but a fanatic would write
into this newsgroup day after day). Journalists tend to clam up about
warts and all (not unlike the days of John Kennedy), Miles implies
certain "disagreements" with bandmembers in his autobiography, we end up
knowing nothing. Let's out the truth once in a while, I think most of us
are big enough to take it.
MMMbel
Strauss) writes:
.Nisenson seems to think otherwise. And if you listen to the newly
.released Afro-Blue on the just reissued Live In Seattle, I think you'll
.suspect the same (Much "Om-like" chanting in the middle of such). For all
.the smack Romanticism, et al, involved in the Jazz legacy, the truth is
.that most of us don't know very much about the individuals who made the
.records that we obsessively pour over (& who but a fanatic would write
.into this newsgroup day after day). Journalists tend to clam up about
.warts and all (not unlike the days of John Kennedy), Miles implies
.certain "disagreements" with bandmembers in his autobiography, we end up
.knowing nothing. Let's out the truth once in a while, I think most of us
.are big enough to take it.
Well, well, well. Speaking for this cat, "romanticism" has nothing to do
with it. In fact, quite the opposite. The "romanticism" seems to be the
need to keep talking about musicians and drugs in the context of their
music. Certainly, none of us are striving to hold any up on a pedestal
for fear of having to "accept" the fact that a musician
took/experimented/quit/died with drugs (there are pleny of authors and
journalists taking care of that.) Not here to judge either way, just to
appreciate a musician on terms of experiencing his genius and creativity.
As for Trane, that knowledge was dropped to me by various friends and
contacts "connected" to the scene back then (not myself, being a young lad
of 30), and they say that was the word out on the street. Its really hard
for me to think that Trane was using lsd steadily in a prolific year like
1965, but if a JC Quartet member says so, then hey, who am I to argue. The
point is the usage, in the context of what was pouring out of that man, is
minute in my opinion. So, yes, Trane experimented with lsd in 1965, maybe
more than once, but for me, it ends there.
Mikey
LargeA
years ago, I met my wife! Anyone out there who has used it usefully, will
understand why it's so important to know that Coltrane discovered it, too.
It makes so much sense now, that I feel foolish not to even have suspected
it before. That's why I started this string..I had to get others' opinions
of Coltrane (whom I've always loved) and his use of this awesome
psychedelic.
Arild Hestvik
mmm...@aol.com (MMMbel) wrote:
> Trane used lsd only once (during the OM session), as far as I know. This
> was a one-off time. The man's genius and music came from his spirit. He
The Eric Nisenson (sp?) book I read on John Coltrane early this year
really disputes this statement. Nisenson claimed that Coltrane
was using LSD frequently during the mid-60's, and that "Om" was
recorded when the entire band was on an acid trip. He also said
that Coltrane was so embarrased with how "Om" came out that he
never wanted the recording released, and it only happened after his
death.
Why not ask Nisenson himself? He occasionally contributes here.
As for OM, I can understand Coltrane's embarassment---
-Arild
Walter Davis
>released Afro-Blue on the just reissued Live In Seattle, I think you'll
>suspect the same (Much "Om-like" chanting in the middle of such). For all
of monasteries.
>the smack Romanticism, et al, involved in the Jazz legacy, the truth is
>that most of us don't know very much about the individuals who made the
>records that we obsessively pour over (& who but a fanatic would write
whether Trane used lsd on a regular basis than I do. We do
have Niesenson citing unnamed sources (it's my understanding
that the book is full of unnamed sources and uncredited
references). Why give greater weight to the author who claims
it was a regular habit than to the ones who claim it wasn't?
>into this newsgroup day after day). Journalists tend to clam up about
>warts and all (not unlike the days of John Kennedy), Miles implies
>certain "disagreements" with bandmembers in his autobiography, we end up
>knowing nothing.
willing to talk about heroin habits and difficult personalities.
I won't say we get all the gory details, but use of lsd
seems pretty mild compared to the things we are told about.
>Let's out the truth once in a while, I think most of us
>are big enough to take it.
>
"including a bandmember!!!", that it was a regular habit?
My position - I don't know whether Coltrane took lsd. I
haven't read anything in this thread that comes remotely
close to credible evidence that he did. But guess what.
I don't give a fuck if he took lsd.
-walt
Walter Davis WALTER...@UNC.EDU
Department of Sociology and ph: (919) 962-1019
Health Data Analyst at the fax: (919) 962-IRSS
Institute for Research in Social Science
UNC - Chapel Hill
Tom Brown
Once is quite enough to be very meaningful.
Roger Stump
My position - I don't know whether Coltrane took lsd. I
haven't read anything in this thread that comes remotely
close to credible evidence that he did. But guess what.
I don't give a fuck if he took lsd.
-walt
Well said, Walt.
--
Roger Stump (rst...@geog.albany.edu)
Tom Storer
another. Musicians do all sorts of things in their lives: there
are/have been junkies, LSD users, drunks, chain-smokers, and no
doubt others who live lives of abstinence and ascetism. Every artist
has his or her own way of arriving at expression; as a person
interested in the lives of various artists, sure, it's interesting
to know as much as possible about individuals. As a music lover,
however, the bottom line is not whether Trane was dropping acid when
he was recording one record or another, but simply whether the
record was a good one or not.
--
"Le jazz, c'est comme les bananes - ca se consomme sur place."
Sartre
Ed Price
>Psychedelics are one thing, jazz musicians another, jazz music yet
>another. Musicians do all sorts of things in their lives: there
>are/have been junkies, LSD users, drunks, chain-smokers, and no
>doubt others who live lives of abstinence and ascetism. Every artist
>has his or her own way of arriving at expression; as a person
>interested in the lives of various artists, sure, it's interesting
>to know as much as possible about individuals. As a music lover,
>however, the bottom line is not whether Trane was dropping acid when
>he was recording one record or another, but simply whether the
>record was a good one or not.
Damn. I just went to the bookshelf to grab Hesse's "The Glass Bead Game"
cuz on page 357 if I remember correctly there's a nice (a little goofy but
hey) paragraph describing this one character, the "Music Master", who is
described as having developed a profound "serenity", presumably related to
his involvement in music -- but I forgot that I lent it to someone and I
never typed in that quote... Oh well. Anyway, from what I have read of
Trane, he seems to have been a real-life example of someone who really did
improve himself as a person as well as constantly developing as a musician,
and these were not unrelated, it seems to me.
Andrey Tarkovsky: ``I am convinced, and this is something that has often
struck me, that an artist needs both knowledge and the power of observation
only so that he can tell from what he is abstaining, and to be sure that
his abstention will not appear artificial or false. For in the end it is
important to confine yourself within a framework that will deepen your
world, not impoverish it, help you to create it, excluding all
pretentiousness and efforts to be original. As far as possible all links
with life have to be excluded, with no loss of truthfulness, discarding
only the superfluous trash that appears (or may appear to some people) to
be a sign of authenticity, of convincing argument. For such arguments lie
outside the parameters of image-thought, in an area where quantity can
never be transmuted into quality.'' [diary entry, July 7 1980, from _Time
Within Time_ p261]
Rilke (from _Selected Letters of 1902-1926_): ``Art is always the outcome
of one's having been in danger, of having gone right to the end of an
experience to where no human being can go further. And the further one
goes the more peculiarly personal and unique does an experience become, and
the art-object is but the necessary, irrepressible and most conclusive
utterance of this uniqueness.''
Rilke also says: ``... I am not one of those who neglect the body so as to
make of it an offering to the soul, for my soul would have no wish to be
served in such a manner. All the soaring of my spirit begins in the blood,
for which reason I let a pure and simple mode of living, free of narcotics
and stimulants, go on ahead of my work like an introductory prelude; in
this way I am not deceived of that true spiritual joy which is to be found
in a happy and radiant communion with the whole of Nature.''
It's a common viewpoint, that using "artificial" things like drugs (for
"spiritual" reasons at least) is somehow "cheating". Kenny Werner seemed
to have a similar message when he taught a class I was in. I don't happen
to agree, but maybe I will change my mind someday, who knows. It's sort of
an ends/means thing really; if an option is available and effective, why
*not* take advantage of it? (Like Glenn Gould's positive attitude towards
technology; and he had no qualms about using drugs as well, although in his
case they seem to have been of the legal prescription variety, but maybe
that was for primarily cultural reasons.) I would say balance is
important; after all, in determining whether an option is effective, it
makes sense to compare performance using it *and* not using it (ie this
suggests experimentation rather than addiction).
A passage from Joyce Carol Oates' cool book _On Boxing_:
The artist senses some kinship, however oblique and one-sided, with the
professional boxer in this matter of training. This fanatic subordination
of the self in terms of a wished-for destiny. One might compare the
time-bound public spectacle of the boxing match (which could be as brief as
an ignominious forty-five seconds -- the record for a title fight!) with
the publication of a writer's book. That which is "public" is but the
final stage in a protracted, arduous, grueling, and frequently despairing
period of preparation. Indeed, one of the reasons for the habitual
attraction of serious writers to boxing (from Swift, Pope, Johnson to
Hazlitt, Lord Byron, Hemingway, and our own Norman Mailer, George Plimpton,
Ted Hoagland, Wilfrid Sheed, Daniel Halpern, et al.) is the sport's
systematic cultivation of pain in the interests of a project, a life-goal:
the willed transposing of the sensation we know as pain (physical,
pyschological, emotional) into its polar opposite. If this is masochism --
and I doubt that it is, or that it is simply -- it is also intelligence,
cunning, strategy. It is an act of consummate self-determination -- the
constant re-establishment of the parameters of one's being. To not only
accept but to actively invite what most sane creatures avoid -- pain,
humiliation, loss, chaos -- is to experience the present moment as already,
in a sense, past. *Here* and *now* are but part of the design of *there*
and *then*: pain now but control, and therefore triumph, later. And pain
itself is miraculously transposed by dint of its context. Indeed it be
said that "context" is all.
The novelist George Garrett, an amateur boxer of some decades ago,
reminisces about his training period:
I learned something ... about the brotherhood of boxers. People went into
this brutal and often self-destructive activity for a rich variety of
motivations, most of them bitterly antisocial and verging on the psychotic.
Most of the fighters I knew of were wounded people who felt a deep,
powerful urge to wound others at real risk to themselves. In the
beginning. What happened was that in almost every case, there was so much
self-discipline required and craft involved, so much else besides one's
original motivations to concentrate on, that these motivations became at
least cloudy and vague and were often forgotten, lost completely. Many
good and experienced fighters (as has often been noted) become gentle and
kind people... They have the habit of leaving all their fight in the ring.
And even there, in the ring, it is dangerous to invoke too much anger. It
can be a stimulant, but is very expensive of energy. It is impractical to
get mad most of the time.
Another excerpt from _On Boxing_ with relevance to improvisation (and
competition -- one can easily think of the jam session "cutting contest"
scenario as the musical equivalent):
Each boxing match is a story -- a unique and highly condensed drama without
words. Even when nothing sensational happens: then the drama is "merely"
psychological. Boxers are there to establish an absolute experience, a
public accounting of the outermost limits of their beings; they will know,
as few of us can know of ourselves, what physical and psychic power they
possess -- of how much, or how little, they are capable. To enter the ring
near-naked and to risk one's life is to make of one's audience voyeurs of a
kind: boxing is so intimate. It is to ease out of sanity's consciousness
and into another, difficult to name. It is to risk, and sometimes to
realize, the agony of which *agon* (Greek, "contest") is the root.
In the boxing ring there are two principal players, overseen by a shadowy
third. The ceremonial ringing of the bell is a summoning to full
wakefulness for both boxers and spectators. It sets into motion, too, the
authority of Time.
The boxers will bring to the fight everything that is themselves, and
everything will be exposed -- including secrets about themselves they
cannot fully realize. The physical self, the maleness, one might say,
underlying the "self". There are boxers possessed of such remarkable
intuition, such uncanny prescience, one would think they were somehow
recalling their fights, not fighting them as we watch. There are boxers
who perform skillfully, not mechanically, who cannot improvise in response
to another's alteration of strategy; there are boxers performing at the
peak of their talent who come to realize, mid-fight, that it will not be
enough; there are boxers -- including great champions -- whose careers end
abruptly, and irrevocably, as we watch. There has been at least one boxer
possessed of an extraordinary and disquieting awareness not only of his
opponent's every move and anticipated move but of the audience's keenest
shifts in mood as well, for which he seems to have felt personally
responsible -- Cassius Clay / Muhammad Ali, of course. "The Sweet Science
of Bruising" celebrates the physicality of men even as it dramatizes the
limitations, sometimes tragic, more often poignant, of the physical.
Though male spectators identify with boxers no boxer behaves like a
"normal" man when he is in the ring and no combination of blows is
"natural". All is style.
(Miles was into boxing. Didn't he say that music was "all about style" in
his autobiography?)
*Every talent must unfold itself in fighting.* So Nietzsche speaks of
the Hellenic past, the history of the "contest" -- athletic, and otherwise
-- by which Greek youths were educated into Greek citizenry. Without the
ferocity of competition, without, even, "envy, jealousy, and ambition" in
the contest, the Hellenic city, like the Hellenic man, degenerated. If
death is a risk, death is also the prize -- for the winning athlete.
(Glenn Gould would have something to say about that... I won't interpolate
another quote, though, besides I've posted it here before... :)
[...]
If a boxing match is a story it is an always wayward story, one in which
anything can happen. And in a matter of seconds. Split seconds!
(Muhammad Ali boasted that he could throw a punch faster than the eye could
follow, and he may have been right.) In no other sport can so much take
place in so brief a period of time, and so irrevocably.
Because a boxing match is a story without words, this doesn't mean that
it has no text or no language, that it is somehow "brute", "primitive",
"inarticulate", only that the text is improvised in action; the language a
dialogue betweeen the boxers of the most refined sort (one might say, as
much neurological as psychological: a dialogue of split-second reflexes) in
a joint response to the mysterious will of the audience which is always
that the fight be a worthy one so that the crude paraphenalia of the
setting -- ring, lights, ropes, stained canvas, the staring onlookers
themselves -- be erased, forgotten. (As in the theater or the church,
settings are erased by way, ideally, of transcendent action.) Ringside
announcers give to the wordless spectacle a narrative unity, yet boxing as
performance is more clearly akin to dance or music than narrative.
To turn from an ordinary preliminary match to a "Fight of the Century"
like those between Joe Louis and Billy Conn, Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali,
Marvin Hagler and Thomas Hearns is to turn from listening or half-listening
to a guitar being idly plucked to hearing Bach's *Well-Tempered Clavier*
perfectly executed, and that too is part of the story's mystery: so much
happens so swiftly and such heart-stopping subtlety you cannot absorb it
except to know that something profound is happening and it is happening in
a place beyond words.
The "bottom line"? Well... I highly recommend INTERSTELLAR SPACE as a
Coltrane album (hmm, possibly a better choice above than the WTC? since it
is, after all, improvised music, and a duo as well)! Last two times I've
listened to this, I haven't gotten past the first tune, which is intense.
I seem to want silence after that. It knocks me out, I guess! :)
Ciao,
-Ed
Michael Kelly
: Psychedelics are one thing, jazz musicians another, jazz music yet
: are/have been junkies, LSD users, drunks, chain-smokers, and no
: doubt others who live lives of abstinence and ascetism. Every artist
: has his or her own way of arriving at expression; as a person
: interested in the lives of various artists, sure, it's interesting
: to know as much as possible about individuals. As a music lover,
: however, the bottom line is not whether Trane was dropping acid when
: he was recording one record or another, but simply whether the
: record was a good one or not.
I agree with your sentiment above Tom. I try not to confuse the artist
with the art. If you want to check out some really strange cats, take
a look at the great novelists! But, who really cares? The great
novels live on anyway!<g>
: --
: "Le jazz, c'est comme les bananes - ca se consomme sur place."
: Sartre
ciao
--
Mike
"Miles smiles for good reason!"
William Brown
life.
It was on the radio as I was on my way to a Kurasawa film festival. I had
to pull
over and heard the whole thing, both sides. It was like an extreme acid
trip. A
transformation of my self, ego and personality. Burning through layers
of
artifice uncovering deeper and deeper layers of truth and self. Pain,
suffering,
joy, enlightenment. Whew! Quite an evening.
Matt Wright
I'm surprised with the ferocity with which you proclaim that Trane's usage
of lsd is not worth discussion! The charter of our group is discussion.
Others have pointed out (inconclusive) evidence that Coltrane might have
taken LSD many times, which may be worthy of another discussion.
Personally, even if Coltrane took LSD only once, to record Om, I think
that's still an interesting starting point for a conversation.
Now I have no idea what drugs Coltrane took, but I would like to know, in
order to understand his music (and therefore all music) better. Let me take
some time to intersperse my musical perception of "Om" with some purely
fictional hypothetical psychology:
Musically, I've never understood how Om fit into Coltrane's musical
development. As an extremely crude, one-dimensional model of Coltrane's
career, one might say that he started more "inside" and moved "outside" as
time went on. There's no doubt that "Expression", "Interstellar Space", and
"Live In Japan", all from 6/66 to 3/67 sound more like each other than like
"Black Pearls" or "Lush Life" from 9 years earlier. But "Om" (10/65) is
something of a jump in that progression. "First Meditations", recorded in
9/65 (only one month earlier!) sounds *really* different.
To me, "First Meditations" sounds like a band that's still in the shadow of
"A Love Supreme", trying to see what possibilities lie ahead for moving
beyond that intense spirituality. I mean, what would *you* do, after
finishing "A Love Supreme", and then needing *another* album to live up to
it!?
I could see needing to meditate on that dilema, to use thought to try to
achieve the place that spirituality had brought me to previously. Hence
"First Meditations". Two months later, Coltrane had some more "Meditations"
(11/65). He wasn't meditating for the whole three months, though! In
October (near Halloween?), he dropped acid, maybe with his whole band.
While on acid, they played their most outside music yet, by a big margin.
Just in terms of dissonance, Coltrane spent the rest of his life catching
up to Om.
I find this very interesting! Now, I have no idea how any of the musicians
were feeling, or what drugs they were taking, but I'm sure their drugs
influenced their playing. I play *very* differently when I take lots of
caffeine, beers, antihistamines, etc., and I know that other people do too.
I also know that more enjoyment takes place when the listener of music
partakes of the same drugs that the musicians are taking. The Greatful
Dead, for example, are widely known as a band that takes lots of pot and
LSD, and whose fans take a lot of the same stuff. Fans say that the pot (or
whatever) enhances the music. My friends who like pot tend to like music
made by people known for smoking pot: Hendrix, the Beatles, Miles, Bob
Marley. Furthermore, they enjoy those artists more while smoking pot than
while sober. Maybe people in general hear things a certain way when they're
stoned, so stoned music makes more sense when you're stoned too. I don't
know.
So part of me thinks I'll understand Coltrane better if I listen to "Om" on
LSD, but a much bigger part of me never wants to try LSD. I appreciate
first-hand reports from people who've done LSD and who like the same kind of
music I do (Ed Price, Andrew Homsy (sp?) --- thanks).
So to sum up, I don't think it's right to conclude that "actually, it's
meaningless." If Coltrane took acid only once, then Om is the *only*
document we have of LSD's effect on him. Are you saying that the LSD had no
effect on the music, because I find that hard to believe? Or are you
shouting "we don't need to talk about this!" for some other reason?
I'd like to hear responses to my ideas from some people who know more than I
do! :-)
Sorry for being so long,
-Matt
Ed Price
[...interesting discussion of late Coltrane...]
>I also know that more enjoyment takes place when the listener of music
>partakes of the same drugs that the musicians are taking. The Greatful
>Dead, for example, are widely known as a band that takes lots of pot and
>LSD, and whose fans take a lot of the same stuff. Fans say that the pot (or
>whatever) enhances the music. My friends who like pot tend to like music
>made by people known for smoking pot: Hendrix, the Beatles, Miles, Bob
^^^^^
Actually, I'm pretty sure Miles didn't like pot. (He talks about it in his
autobiography if I remember correctly.)
>Marley. Furthermore, they enjoy those artists more while smoking pot than
>while sober. Maybe people in general hear things a certain way when they're
>stoned, so stoned music makes more sense when you're stoned too. I don't
>know.
Personally, I don't believe that taking the same drugs the musicians used
will enhance a listening experience or provide any special insight into the
music. Of course, I haven't done *extensive* *comprehensive* testing of
this issue :) nor do I really want to -- I don't like being drunk and I
have minimal interest in heroin...
Here's something I wrote a fairly long time ago:
|From: e...@panix.com (Ed Price)
|Newsgroups: alt.drugs
|Date: 13 Oct 1993 05:08:47 -0400
|
|"Greg" writes:
|
| Not *one* improved their playing by using pot. That's my opinion. Try
| talking to a few mature musicians about the role of drugs in their playing
| (not kids who are still enjoying the rush, but people who have made a
| living playing for years). I believe that when all is said and done,
| musicians use drugs for the same reasons non-musicians do, and it is
| an utter myth that drugs help their playing.
|
|Well, your opinion is one thing. I think it is impossible to know whether
|certain musicians would be better or worse or simply different had they not
|used "drugs" or whatever. I see no reason to assume that it's impossible
|to gain anything from playing music while stoned. And *certainly* for
|listening to music, it's great. BTW, besides being a musician myself, I
|happen to know a lot of musicians (including some accomplished and
|successful professionals) who smoke pot.
|
|software....@satalink.com (Software Interspec) writes:
|
| Here I am going to side with those who argue you don't know how this
| could work if you haven't tried it. This is a weak argument in your
| opinion. But MJ adds a depth to *hearing* and understanding music that
| you are unaware of. "Hearing" isn't the right word here, there probably
| isn't a word to convey what I am trying to say.
|
|"Hearing" is precisely correct IMHO.
|
|Especially with respect to free improvisation (something I happen to be in
|favor of; IMHO it's the truest test of someone's musicianship) the most
|important skill one needs to have the ability to really *listen* well. To
|yourself, as well as anyone else who is playing. At least, this is what I
|think is important; others may have different agendas. In any case I have
|a lot of experience doing this while stoned and while sober, and with
|groups of people who's states also vary from time to time (not all drug
|users are constantly under-an-influence). Personally I'd have to say that
|there is a certain amount of physical coordination which is lost when one
|is stoned, but a good musician can play something worthwhile and meaningful
|without having to resort to *technical* (perhaps I should say "mechanical")
|ability -- I believe this strongly, irregardless of the "drug issue".
|Whether the music produced (by myself and/or others) while stoned is better
|or worse than that we produce while sober, well, I see no easy correlation.
|
|Someday maybe I will try an experiment. I'll record 30 minutes of music
|played totally drug free (no caffeine!!! that could wreak *havoc* with
|one's touch and phrasing!!! :) and another 30 minutes of music played while
|heavily stoned. Then conduct a survey to see if there's any relationship
|between that variable and how much people like what they hear (without
|telling them anything of course). Could also vary whether the listener is
|stoned and see how that matched up. I would certainly be interested to see
|the results of such an experiment.
|
|-Ed ... who has been known to follow along with the score for the Well
|Tempered Clavier (JS Bach is my main free improv hero), listening to it
|while on acid.
|
|PS This article was written under the influence of caffeine. All grammar
|and spelling mistakes are the result of that evil drug playing its "tricks"
|on my poor abused brain, which is no doubt mutating in hideous ways due to
|the strychnine with which I hear the local delis are lacing their coffee.
Looks like my opinion has changed a little bit since then. I think now I
have less doubt about the performance-enhancing effects of pot. Maybe
there was a loss of physical coordination at first, but I don't think
that's true any more; it might have just required a certain amount of
experience to become familiar with playing in that state. Like adjusting
to a different action on an instrument: at first it may seem weird and will
interfere with your playing but you get used to it and after a while it
becomes totally normal (and could well be an improvement).
There's a recent thread in rec.music.classical about "Classical Musicians
and Drugs" but the only drug under discussion seems to be something called
a "beta-blocker", which I had never even heard of before; it's a legal
prescription drug, used to reduce physical symptoms of performance anxiety.
Sounds pretty boring, really... :)
Keith Jarrett: ``I don't have any drug stories to tell about myself. Once
somebody met me on the street when my quartet was going into Slug's -- it
was just after Lee Morgan's wife had shot him dead at Slug's [in 1972].
And this guy said, "You still going there playing?" And I said, "Well,
your wife can shoot you anywhere! And I need the work and we're going to
Slug's." And he said something about getting high and I said, "Yeah -- on
the music." For me, it's hard to understand why a musician needs more than
the music. When I went to Europe the first time with Charles Lloyd, after
the first or second set there were people coming up to Charles asking him
if there was anything they could do for me! Because to them I was so crazy
that I must be on something! So they were saying, "What can we do for
Keith, we'd really like to help him, he looks so far gone!" But I wasn't
drinking, smoking, taking any drugs ... I never have taken drugs ... no
interest in it.'' [quoted by Ian Carr, _Keith Jarrett_, p194]
Some of this doesn't quite make sense. In particular, the bit about why a
musician should need "more" than music. Well, Keith has explored various
religious/spiritual systems -- why should he need that? For that matter,
as a human being, why should one even need music?
Back to Matt:
>So part of me thinks I'll understand Coltrane better if I listen to "Om" on
>LSD, but a much bigger part of me never wants to try LSD.
Why not? (Just out of curiosity; I respect your decision.)
> I appreciate
>first-hand reports from people who've done LSD and who like the same kind of
>music I do (Ed Price, Andrew Homsy (sp?) --- thanks).
(No problem. Well, hopefully not, anyway!:)
It is too bad that Coltrane didn't talk about his experiences with LSD. I
would have been curious to know what he got out of it.
-Ed
(contemplating the chemical options for Blind Idiot God tonight...)
William Burnette
: "Om" for me was one of the great spiritual and musical revelations of my
: life.
: WB..
: wb...@echonyc.com
It was the same way for me. It wasn't the first time Id' heard it
but it was the first time I Heard it. I was actuallly doing opium at
the time. All those emotions filtered down inot one simple peace for
me. At first I was a bit scared--but that didn't last long, as I
realized the importance of shared struggle. I definitely went through
a metamorphosis that night.--Kelly Burnette
--
Im not just a bum, Im the son of God.
Tom Brown
>I also know that more enjoyment takes place when the listener of music
>partakes of the same drugs that the musicians are taking. The Greatful
>Dead, for example, are widely known as a band that takes lots of pot and
>LSD, and whose fans take a lot of the same stuff. Fans say that the pot (or
>whatever) enhances the music. My friends who like pot tend to like music
>made by people known for smoking pot: Hendrix, the Beatles, Miles, Bob
>Marley. Furthermore, they enjoy those artists more while smoking pot than
>while sober. Maybe people in general hear things a certain way when they're
>stoned, so stoned music makes more sense when you're stoned too. I don't
>know.
I don't think it's necessary to be in the same frame of mind as the
artist to appreciate the work. I have found that psychadelic drugs can
give me another perspective on the music, but not necessarily a more
perceptive one. I do enjoy listening to music much more when I'm in an
herbal state of mind, but I actually enjoy playing *less*, because I can't
concentrate and I sound bad when stoned. For this reason, I don't
get high very often. I'd rather be productive.
>So part of me thinks I'll understand Coltrane better if I listen to "Om" on
>LSD, but a much bigger part of me never wants to try LSD. I appreciate
>first-hand reports from people who've done LSD and who like the same kind of
>music I do (Ed Price, Andrew Homsy (sp?) --- thanks).
If you don't want to do LSD, don't. It's not necessary. I haven't done any
for at least ten years, and have no plans to. I don't think you'll miss
anything from Coltrane.
Scott H. Silverman
[lots of stuff about specific moments in the Coltrane oeuvre deleted]
Matt,
First, if I'm falling for a gag, shame on me. Let's say I'm not: Following
hard on the essay in the latest Village Voice (by the main rock critic,
Robert-what's- his name) about the late, great Kurt Cobain, your post has
depressed me no end. As the father of two young children I had hoped the
intervening generation between mine and theirs -- I'm guessing you're a
twentysomething -- had learned a little something from the excessive
stupidity of mine in particular. Apparently every era has to reproduce
history just to prove how universally ignorant is the human condition.
Please don't misunderstand; I am hardly a Puritan, neither of the neo- nor
true-believer variety, but I have spent enough time cleaning up after my
own mistakes and those of some good friends to know that whatever black
urges drive us to this:
[Matt opines]> I find this very interesting! Now, I have no idea how any
of the >musicians
> were feeling, or what drugs they were taking, but I'm sure their drugs
> influenced their playing. I play *very* differently when I take lots of
> caffeine, beers, antihistamines, etc., and I know that other people do too.
the results are rarely improved by the experience. Do you think a kicked
Bird could not have made great music? Do you think a still-on-heroin
Coltrane -- putting aside LSD for now -- could have improved on _Love
Supreme_ and "Alabama" and "Impressions" and "Africa"?
[Matt states further]> I also know that more enjoyment takes place when the
>listener of music
> partakes of the same drugs that the musicians are taking. The Greatful
> Dead, for example, are widely known as a band that takes lots of pot and
> LSD, and whose fans take a lot of the same stuff. Fans say that the pot (or
> whatever) enhances the music. My friends who like pot tend to like music
> made by people known for smoking pot: Hendrix, the Beatles, Miles, Bob
> Marley. Furthermore, they enjoy those artists more while smoking pot than
Forgive me, but some might say that the exaggerated veneration which some
fans pay these musicians is more due to the emulation of their
extra-musical lives than to an actual appreciation of the music. Now then,
am I to suppose that reggae is really only appropriately appreciated after
smoking pot, but to be shunned when tripping? This would make sense given
that Marley's preferred high was marijuana rather than LSD. On the other
hand, Janis Joplin "enjoyed" everything, so to hear her really properly I
should shoot smack, drink several shots of Jack Daniels and do a bowl or
two before I put on her CDs? No wait, it would have to be vinyl, since how
can you appreciate any music in a format other than its original medium?
[Matt again]> while sober. Maybe people in general hear things a certain
way >when they're
> stoned, so stoned music makes more sense when you're stoned too. I don't
> know.
>
It never occured to you that some folks just hear "made up shit" when they
are stoned? That some of that experience from being high or drunk or both
results from a chemical reaction inside your head that is basically going
to kill you if you work at it hard enough?
[Matt]> So part of me thinks I'll understand Coltrane better if I listen to
"Om" >on
> LSD, but a much bigger part of me never wants to try LSD. I appreciate
> first-hand reports from people who've done LSD and who like the same kind of
> music I do (Ed Price, Andrew Homsy (sp?) --- thanks).
I've done LSD, not since 1975, but I've done it. If you feel you need to
experience something before you can have an opinion, do it. If you think
you need to have this experience in particular to "appreciate the music,"
do EVERYTHING the guys who came up hard did: don't just trip, do heroin;
get hold of some crack too, but remember: that ain't the authentic deal.
Drink very heavily because it eases the agony of being strungout. Don't do
anything to protect the legacy of your compositions either; being ripped
off is an authentic jazz experience too.
[Matt again]> So to sum up, I don't think it's right to conclude that
"actually, >it's
> meaningless." If Coltrane took acid only once, then Om is the *only*
> document we have of LSD's effect on him. Are you saying that the LSD had no
> effect on the music, because I find that hard to believe? Or are you
> shouting "we don't need to talk about this!" for some other reason?
God, Matt, are you really that unsophisticated? Hey, if I change a tire
while suffering from a kidney stone attack does the way I changed that tire
become a milestone piece of evidence in my personal medical history? Even
if Coltrane was tripping his ass off recording _Om_ -- and trust me, I
don't care -- it is only one factor that explains what you're now hearing
on that record today -- whether you're doing a hit of windowpane or sipping
Poland Spring.
> I'd like to hear responses to my ideas from some people who know more than I
> do! :-)
I have no idea if you know more than I do but this is my reaction. By the
way, if I had your address I would have preferred NOT letting the whole
world read my feelings. I've responded because I think you living in
dangerous oblivion.
>
> Sorry for being so long,
>
> -Matt
Sorry for being so serious,
Scott
eri...@delphi.com
in on this subject. I had misgvings about writing this part of the book,
since I knew that it might be mis understood or used to detract from
the tremendous respect felt toward Trane. But I could hardly ignore it.
I was told this by three different parties, all of whom I absolutely
trusted and all of whom were in a position to know (one was Miles Davis).
It is a very small part of my book after all, but my book is about
Coltrane's spiritual quest. I know that these days acid is looked upon
as just another way to get high, but in the Fifties and up until the
rise of the counterculture, taking it was a way by serious inner
exploreers to find ultimate truths about themselves and ultimate
spiritual truths. Taken under the right circumstance, it was a profound
experience that changed many lives for the better. For a pilgrim like
John Coltrane, a man who was seeking both the ultimate essence of music
and with it the mind of God, such a tool as LSD can be was simply a
thing he would have to explore. This should not, hopefully, detract from
anyone's respect for this genuinely great man.--Eric Nisenson
Rolf Hanson
> If you don't want to do LSD, don't. It's not necessary. I haven't done any
> for at least ten years, and have no plans to. I don't think you'll miss
> anything from Coltrane.
Listening to Coltrane is *better* than LSD.
-rolf
Ed Price
>It never occured to you that some folks just hear "made up shit" when they
>are stoned?
What do you mean here? A number people in this group, for example, have
commented on how great musicians like Miles Davis, Bill Frisell can seem to
cause one to hear things that they don't actually play. This probably has
something to do with "imagination". Now, I doubt that everyone who has
observed this effect has done so stoned. So, basically my point is that
even *if* being stoned does improve your ability to identify with a musical
performance ("listen to it as if you're the one playing it" -- the advice
of Arnie Lawrence), to be more fully involved with it, so that your
imagination is engaged in a productive way, what's the problem? Isn't that
a good thing? Unless you're talking about something else, some other
variety of "made up shit" perhaps, in which case, what?
> That some of that experience from being high or drunk or both
>results from a chemical reaction inside your head that is basically going
>to kill you if you work at it hard enough?
Whoah! I don't like the sense of equivalency between "high" and "drunk" in
the above... Big difference there IMHO!
The thought that marijuana might be harmful to one's health is a reasonable
one. And, sure, it no doubt *is* harmful -- to *some* extent. But to what
extent? As bad as alchohol? I apologize for indulging in a slight
digression on this subject (hey, marijuana is involved in the culture and
history of jazz so the following is at least vaguely relevant to r.m.b...:)
but here is some information...
Excerpts from the alt.drugs FAQ:
|5. Can you overdose on acid/pot?
|
| No, overdosing on pot would require smoking several KILOS of the stuff
|within 15 minutes. Assuming you did manage this feat, you would instantly
|throw up most of it. Overdosing on LSD is equally difficult. There
|is a case where a number of people snorted a massive overdose (equal to
|around 1250 hits) of pure LSD tartrate, believing it to be cocaine; some
|of them fell into comas and had other severe physical reactions, but lived
|through the experience with no permanent physical or mental damage.
|9. Will marijuana do <X> to my body?
|
| Marijuana does *not* cause brain/immune/reproductive system damage,
|concentrate in the brain/testicles, enlarge breasts in males or damage
|chromosomes. It *can* cause lung ailments such as cancer, and driving
|while stoned *can* cause accidents. MJ smoke is *not* 10 times worse than
|tobacco, they are roughly equal, it may even be less harmful. See Marijuana
|Myths or the Cannabis Hemp (alt.hemp) FAQ for more details.
Folowing that pointer... Excerpts from alt.hemp FAQ:
|3a) Doesn't Marijuana cause brain damage?
|
| The short answer: No.
|
| The long answer: The reason why you ask this is because you
| probably heard or read somewhere that marijuana damages
| brain cells, or makes you stupid. These claims are untrue.
|
| The first one -- marijuana kills brain cells -- is based on
| research done during the second Reefer Madness Movement. A
| study attempted to show that marijuana smoking damaged brain
| structures in monkeys. However, the study was poorly
| performed and it was severely criticized by a medical review
| board. Studies done afterwards failed to show any brain
| damage, in fact a very recent study on Rhesus monkeys used
| technology so sensitive that scientists could actually see
| the effect of learning on brain cells, and it found no
| damage.
|
| But this was Reefer Madness II, and the prohibitionists were
| looking around for anything they could find to keep the
| marijuana legalization movement in check, so this study was
| widely used in anti-marijuana propaganda. It was recanted
| later.
|
| (To this day, the radical anti-drug groups, like P.R.I.D.E.
| and Dr. Gabriel Nahas, still use it -- In fact, America's
| most popular drug education program, Drug Abuse Resistance
| Education, claims that marijuana ``can impair memory
| perception & judgement by destroying brain cells.'' When
| police and teachers read this and believe it, our job gets
| really tough, since it takes a long time to explain to
| children how Ms. Jones and Officer Bob were wrong.)
|
| The truth is, no study has ever demonstrated cellular
| damage, stupidity, mental impairment, or insanity brought on
| specifically by marijuana use -- even heavy marijuana use.
| This is not to say that it cannot be abused, however.
|3b) If it doesn't kill brain cells, how does it get you `high'?
|
| Killing brain cells is not a pre-requisite for getting
| `high.' Marijuana contains a chemical which substitutes for
| a natural brain chemical, with a few differences. This
| chemical touches special `buttons' on brain cells called
| `receptors.' Essentially, marijuana `tickles' brain cells.
| The legal drug alcohol also tickles brain cells, but it will
| damage and kill them by producing toxins (poisons) and
| sometimes mini-seizures. Also, some drugs will wear out the
| buttons which they push, but marijuana does not.
|4) Don't people die from smoking pot?
|
| Nobody has ever overdosed. For any given substance,
| there are bound to be some people who have allergic
| reactions. With marijuana this is extremely rare, but it
| could happen with anything from apples to pop-tarts. Not
| one death has ever been directly linked to marijuana itself.
| In contrast, many legal drugs cause hundreds to hundreds of
| thousands of deaths per year, foremost among them are
| alcohol, nicotine, valium, aspirin, and caffiene. The
| biggest danger with marijuana is that it is illegal, and
| someone may mix it with another drug like PCP.
|
| Marijuana is so safe that it would be almost impossible to
| overdose on it. Doctors determine how safe a drug is by
| measuring how much it takes to kill a person (they call this
| the LD50) and comparing it to the amount of the drug which
| is usually taken (ED50). This makes marijuana hundreds of
| times safer than alcohol, tobacco, or caffiene. According
| to a DEA Judge ``marijuana is the safest therapeutically
| active substance known to mankind.''
|5) I forgot, does marijuana cause short-term memory impairment?
|
| The effect of marijuana on memory is its most dramatic
| and the easiest to notice. Many inexperienced marijuana
| users find that they have very strange, sudden and
| unexpected memory lapses. These usually take the form of
| completely forgetting what you were talking about when you
| were right in the middle of saying something important.
| However, these symptoms only occur while a person is `high'.
| They do not carry over or become permanent, and examinations
| of extremely heavy users has not shown any memory or
| thinking problems. More experienced marijuana users seem to
| be able to remember about as well as they do when they are
| not `high.'
|
| Studies which have claimed to show short-term memory
| impairment have not stood up to scrutiny and have not been
| duplicated. Newer studies show that marijuana does not
| impair simple, real-world memory processes. Marijuana does
| slow reaction time slightly, and this effect has sometimes
| been misconstrued as a memory problem. To put things in
| perspective, one group of researchers made a control group
| hold their breath, like marijuana smokers do. Marijuana
| itself only produced about twice as many effects on test
| scores as breath holding. Many people use marijuana to
| study. Other people cannot, for some reason, use marijuana
| and do anything that involves deep thought. Nobody knows
| what makes the difference.
Later,
-Ed
Walter Davis
>order to understand his music (and therefore all music) better. Let me take
or musicianship was related to the drugs he may have taken.
>Musically, I've never understood how Om fit into Coltrane's musical
>development. As an extremely crude, one-dimensional model of Coltrane's
>career, one might say that he started more "inside" and moved "outside" as
>time went on. There's no doubt that "Expression", "Interstellar Space", and
>"Live In Japan", all from 6/66 to 3/67 sound more like each other than like
>"Black Pearls" or "Lush Life" from 9 years earlier. But "Om" (10/65) is
>something of a jump in that progression. "First Meditations", recorded in
>9/65 (only one month earlier!) sounds *really* different.
>
>To me, "First Meditations" sounds like a band that's still in the shadow of
>"A Love Supreme", trying to see what possibilities lie ahead for moving
>beyond that intense spirituality. I mean, what would *you* do, after
>finishing "A Love Supreme", and then needing *another* album to live up to
>it!?
>
prior to "First Meditations" as well)? If Coltrane took a quantum
leap to the outside, I'd put it there. "Live in Seattle" is also
well outside, by the way, but since it was recorded the night
before "Om" it's quite plausible that he/they were on LSD then.
>I could see needing to meditate on that dilema, to use thought to try to
>achieve the place that spirituality had brought me to previously. Hence
>"First Meditations". Two months later, Coltrane had some more "Meditations"
>(11/65). He wasn't meditating for the whole three months, though! In
>October (near Halloween?), he dropped acid, maybe with his whole band.
>While on acid, they played their most outside music yet, by a big margin.
>Just in terms of dissonance, Coltrane spent the rest of his life catching
>up to Om.
>
"Ascension" clearly marks his move to the outside. Shortly
after that he records "First Meditations" but isn't pleased
with it (it was a posthomous release if I'm not mistaken),
probably because it came out "too inside". "Ascension"
also shows his desire to incorporate more musicians, whereas
FM was a quartet session. This experiment with larger groups
and more outside music continues through that whole year
of 65, with "Kulu Se Mama", "Selflessness", "Live in Seattle",
"Om", and the released "Meditations" being recorded evidence.
Perhaps the move back from "Om" (if there really was such a
thing) was a reflection of displeasure with it, just as the
later version of "Meditations" is evidence that the original
didn't meet with his approval. Someone else in this thread
wrote that Coltrane once said that he was embarassed by "Om".
Anyway, I think there's clear evidence that Coltrane was
moving toward larger groups and more outside music without
the aid of LSD. Remember, "A Love Supreme" was supposed to
continue adding Archie Shepp and others, showing that
even at that time he was going for a larger sound (and
if adding Shepp is any indication, moving outside).
>I also know that more enjoyment takes place when the listener of music
>partakes of the same drugs that the musicians are taking. The Greatful
drunk has never increased my enjoyment of music, especially jazz.
John Hiatt claims to not even remember the "Warming up to the Ice
Age" sessions - do I really need to be in a drunken stupor to
enjoy that album? Does this go for literature too? Dance, etc?
>
>So part of me thinks I'll understand Coltrane better if I listen to "Om" on
>LSD, but a much bigger part of me never wants to try LSD. I appreciate
>first-hand reports from people who've done LSD and who like the same kind of
>music I do (Ed Price, Andrew Homsy (sp?) --- thanks).
>
all that great 50's jazz...and keep a bottle of scotch nearby
too....and lots of cigarettes and coffee....probably some
speed too. And break up with your significant other if
that happened to the musician just before the session.
>So to sum up, I don't think it's right to conclude that "actually, it's
>meaningless." If Coltrane took acid only once, then Om is the *only*
>document we have of LSD's effect on him. Are you saying that the LSD had no
>effect on the music, because I find that hard to believe? Or are you
>shouting "we don't need to talk about this!" for some other reason?
>
Do I believe that the effect of LSD on Coltrane's music is
miniscule compared to his vision and his spirituality? Yes.
Do I care if he took LSD? No.
Joshua_R...@brown.edu
marijuana for that matter) is just an inappropriate comparison. Alcohol
just dulls you and makes you stupid - although, granted, for a musician it
can loosen you up if used in moderation.
LDS and pot are profoundly mind-opening substances that in many ways do
the opposite to you that alcohol does. How many people do you know of who
smoke grass and then get into brawls? How many people get drunk and then
listen to music with intense concentration? Do you see what I'm saying?
If the only "drug" experience you have is with alcohol, you are just not
in a position to understand this - I encourage you to expand your
horizons.
By the way, YES, this does go for literature and dance, too.
-Josh
Scott H. Silverman
<Joshua_Rosenstock...@cis-ts5-slip3.cis.brown.edu>,
Joshua_R...@brown.edu wrote:
> Sorry, but comparing a drunken stupor to the experience of taking LSD (or
> marijuana for that matter) is just an inappropriate comparison. Alcohol
> just dulls you and makes you stupid - although, granted, for a musician it
> can loosen you up if used in moderation.
> LDS and pot are profoundly mind-opening substances that in many ways do
> the opposite to you that alcohol does. How many people do you know of who
> smoke grass and then get into brawls? How many people get drunk and then
> listen to music with intense concentration? Do you see what I'm saying?
I'm sorry. I'm really trying to be a nice, restrained, tolerant person,
but this is absolute ill-informed crapola. Not the comparision between
drunkeness and altered states per se; you are right, the intoxication of
alcohol has a different physical sensation than does being "blown out" or
tripping. I am quite impressed by your empirical evidence extolling the
virtues of LSD. How long have you been compiling all this data on
profundity? I don't pretend to scientific objectivity, but there is
nothing particuarly profound about being totally addled, nothing
particularly uplifting about thinking everyone in a room is involved in a
demonic conspiracy against you. Put it this way; I don't want to be
driving on any road that you're driving on. A friend of mine had the
experience in 1970 of having his face melt off into a pond on Key West.
Man, that was profound alrighty. Also, I can assure you that people who
get high also _can_ get violent. (In fact, more people than not who get
high also get drunk, at least in my experience, and often in tandem. And
frankly, my experience is NOT limited.) BTW, I know lots of drunks who
don't start brawls, and for all I know plenty of Mormon boyscouts -- no
offense to either group intended -- do.
Now I'll let the discussion return to music. For now long, I promise
Matt/Ed/Joshua that if you don't tell us, I for one promise I won't ask
you.
Scott
ssil...@brynmawr.edu for those of you just dying to tell me what an a-hole
I am.
Ed Price
>Joshua_R...@brown.edu wrote:
>
>> Sorry, but comparing a drunken stupor to the experience of taking LSD (or
>> marijuana for that matter) is just an inappropriate comparison. Alcohol
>> just dulls you and makes you stupid - although, granted, for a musician it
>> can loosen you up if used in moderation.
>> LDS and pot are profoundly mind-opening substances that in many ways do
>> the opposite to you that alcohol does. How many people do you know of who
>> smoke grass and then get into brawls? How many people get drunk and then
>> listen to music with intense concentration? Do you see what I'm saying?
>
>I'm sorry. I'm really trying to be a nice, restrained, tolerant person,
>but this is absolute ill-informed crapola.
is not! (is too! is not! is too! is not! ...)
>I don't pretend to scientific objectivity, but there is
>nothing particuarly profound about being totally addled, nothing
>particularly uplifting about thinking everyone in a room is involved in a
>demonic conspiracy against you.
that happened to you?
hmm... you know, religion can do that to people as well... :)
people have wide ranges of experiences on acid. i don't doubt that "bad
trips" can happen, but i have never experienced one myself.
> Put it this way; I don't want to be
>driving on any road that you're driving on.
common sense: it is unwise to operate heavy machinery etc. while impaired
(whether drunk, stoned, tripping, sleep-deprived, or whatever).
> A friend of mine had the
>experience in 1970 of having his face melt off into a pond on Key West.
>Man, that was profound alrighty.
well, i don't know about profound, but it sounds interesting.
> Also, I can assure you that people who
>get high also _can_ get violent. (In fact, more people than not who get
>high also get drunk, at least in my experience, and often in tandem. And
>frankly, my experience is NOT limited.) BTW, I know lots of drunks who
>don't start brawls, and for all I know plenty of Mormon boyscouts -- no
>offense to either group intended -- do.
no doubt. none of us are "pretending to scientific objectivity", i think;
it is a little too harsh IMHO to call someone's description of their
experience and impressions "absolute ill-informed crapola". what he said
sounded fairly accurate to me, certainly no more subjective or ill-informed
than what you've posted. (for more "objective" information, there are
probably statistics available somewhere that one could investigate...)
>Now I'll let the discussion return to music. For now long, I promise
>Matt/Ed/Joshua that if you don't tell us, I for one promise I won't ask
>you.
fine with me.
>ssil...@brynmawr.edu for those of you just dying to tell me what an a-hole
>I am.
i think i can handle the disagreement without getting abusive.
ciao,
-ed
Genie Baker
>people have wide ranges of experiences on acid. i don't doubt that "bad
>trips" can happen,
Then why do you become so combative whenever someone responds to one of
your "drugs are a really cool experience" posts with descriptions of bad
experiences that either they or their friends/family have had?
> (for more "objective" information, there are
>probably statistics available somewhere that one could investigate...)
I kind of got a kick out of this. Statistical research is what I
do for a living. There is nothing inherently objective about it, I assure
you. (At a minimum, which questions get asked and which don't involves a
great deal of prior belief (or prejudice) about how the world works.)
But more importantly to me, adding "1" to the number of people who
become addicted, or overdose, or do something to hurt themselves or
others while tripping, &c, each time something like that happens is an
awfully cold way of ignoring the very real agony that drug abuse --
however rare -- brings into a lot of people's lives.
>i think i can handle the disagreement without getting abusive.
I think your flip responses to people who describe drug experiences
that were horrifying to them *are* abusive, however unintentional on your
part.
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Genie Baker gba...@umich.edu
Ed Price
[edp]
>>people have wide ranges of experiences on acid. i don't doubt that "bad
>>trips" can happen,
>
>Then why do you become so combative whenever someone responds to one of
>your "drugs are a really cool experience" posts with descriptions of bad
>experiences that either they or their friends/family have had?
I think people have been doing a little more than that. I also think I've
been doing a little more than simply glorifying drug use, at least I hope
so. Also I just enjoy arguing about it, I guess. I became somewhat
combative I suppose some months ago when people were criticizing Keith
Jarrett, for some of the same reasons -- because I have gotten so much out
of his music, it means a lot to me, and I want to present that perspective.
I *want* to hear about bad experiences with drugs, and with Keith Jarrett
for that matter, because they are part of the truth too, but I try to be
accurate and honest about my perceptions and opinions and I hope that
others will as well.
>> (for more "objective" information, there are
>>probably statistics available somewhere that one could investigate...)
>
> I kind of got a kick out of this. Statistical research is what I
>do for a living. There is nothing inherently objective about it, I assure
>you. (At a minimum, which questions get asked and which don't involves a
>great deal of prior belief (or prejudice) about how the world works.)
That's why I put the word in quotes.
> But more importantly to me, adding "1" to the number of people who
>become addicted, or overdose, or do something to hurt themselves or
>others while tripping, &c, each time something like that happens is an
>awfully cold way of ignoring the very real agony that drug abuse --
>however rare -- brings into a lot of people's lives.
No argument from me here. I am against drug abuse.
(Not to be combative, but... the War On Drugs brings a lot of agony into
people's lives too... If we agree that drug abuse is a bad thing, which I
assume we do, maybe this is the real issue -- what to do about it?)
>>i think i can handle the disagreement without getting abusive.
>
> I think your flip responses to people who describe drug experiences
>that were horrifying to them *are* abusive, however unintentional on your
>part.
I am really sorry if I have hurt anyone with anything I've said. It is, of
course, unintentional. Sometimes I do regret having said something online.
Another issue we can become combative on, free jazz, was the cause of a
certain amount of misunderstanding a while back when Garth Jowett said some
things centering around late Coltrane, and I, among others, responded in a
way that was, if not abusive, at least easily interpreted that way, and I
felt bad about that. As I've said many times in this group, discussion is
a good thing, and controversial topics can often lead to very interesting
discussions. Flip? When people become agitated it seems to me that
remaining calm is a good idea, since otherwise things will just escalate
into an irrational flame-war and no-one will learn anything except maybe
about some of the less inspiring aspects of human nature.
Apologies again for the digression.
Pharoah Sanders and Charles Gayle tonight at the Knitting Factory!
-Ed
Brett Anderson
with LSD and pot, you're not in a position to judge their effects with
reference to alcohol. I've done all three many times, and I can tell y
that the three experiences couldn't be more different, both in their
alteration of one's senses and their impairment and lack thereof. Whil
I don't advocate airline pilots dropping tabs before taking off with M
black ass in row 14, I certainly wouldn't make a blanket statement abo
drugs in general as you have done, while dismissing Josh so rudely.
My 2 cents. They come from a self-confessed LSD-user, so feel free to
dismiss them as well man. We're all totally demented anyway..
--
Genie Baker
>
>(Not to be combative, but... the War On Drugs brings a lot of agony into
>people's lives too... If we agree that drug abuse is a bad thing, which I
>assume we do, maybe this is the real issue -- what to do about it?)
Yeah; you've made a lot of interesting points in the past in this
regard.
I guess I feel that at a minimum, people should make informed choices
for themselves. The people I know who have had serious problems with
drugs are extremely unlikely to ever post anything on a newsgroup anywhere
(supporting or fighting addictions can become pretty consuming), so I
wonder how possible it is to have a balanced discussion here.
Scott H. Silverman
From: ssil...@brynmawr.edu (Scott H. Silverman)
Newsgroups: rec.music.bluenote
Followup-To: rec.music.bluenote
Subject: Re: John Coltrane and LSD
Message-ID: <ssilverm-1...@165.106.148.57>
References: <hanson-2811...@141.224.192.28>
<3bfdkd$g...@newsbf01.news.aol.com> <EDP.94De...@panix.panix.com>
Organization: Bryn Mawr College Library
Folks, I think I've shown an intolerant aspect of my personality that does
not convey the whole essence of me.:-) I do disagree fundamentally with the
tendency of some of these posts to impute intellectual qualities to acid,
and yes -- I believe acid is basically in the same family of abused
subtances and that substance abuse needs to be divested of the romantic
aura that many still hold for it. But that's not why I'm writing. In
hindsight, I was irresponsible in alluding to my now famous friend of the
melting face. At least 2 pieces of private email indicate that some have
read this as a description of a tragedy. No, it was merely a hallucination,
one about which I discern no redeeming intellectual qualities but that some
find intriguing. The person who had it is alive, VERY WELL, and would
rightly kill me if he saw this post. So I, for one, am officially shutting
up (until y'all tick me off again). :-) BTW, I actually listen and enjoy
the music too. Remember that? :-)
Scott
ssil...@brynmawr.edu
Jeff Volkman
I get a kick out of this too. The "bottom line" is that drugs are tools
which can be used or abused. I had a bad experience with a phillips head
screwdriver once, so now I only use flatheads.
--Jeff
Genie Baker
Jeff Volkman <ve...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
> I had a bad experience with a phillips head
>screwdriver once, so now I only use flatheads.
I feel your pain, Jeff, and will give a lot more thought to my own
use of phillips head screwdrivers.
Michael Kelly
[ deletia ]
: I get a kick out of this too. The "bottom line" is that drugs are tools
: which can be used or abused. I had a bad experience with a phillips head
: screwdriver once, so now I only use flatheads.
I guess it depends on what you have a mind to screw around with Jeff! :)
btw-I just happen to be listening to a trane CD for the first time.
John Coltrane Quartet _Coltrane_
Relaxed, but has a good rhythm to it. Nice!
ciao
: --Jeff
--
Mike
"To commit the perfect crime, you don't have to be intelligent,
just in charge of the investigation that follows."
Jeff Volkman
On Mon, 19 Dec 1994 gba...@econ.lsa.umich.edu wrote:
> In article <Pine.ULT.3.91a.94121...@stein1.u.washington.edu> you write:
> > I had a bad experience with a phillips head
> >screwdriver once, so now I only use flatheads.
>
> I feel your pain, Jeff, and will give a lot more thought to my use of
> phillips head screwdrivers.
>
> --
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Genie Baker gba...@umich.edu
>
I trust your judgement Genie.
--Jeff
Ed Price
>Folks, I think I've shown an intolerant aspect of my personality that does
>not convey the whole essence of me.:-) I do disagree fundamentally with the
>tendency of some of these posts to impute intellectual qualities to acid,
>and yes -- I believe acid is basically in the same family of abused
>subtances and that substance abuse needs to be divested of the romantic
>aura that many still hold for it.
This reminds me very much of some of Glenn Gould's criticism of *music*
(especially certain Romantic notions about it in fact). Interesting...
It is probably true that, just like music, acid can be "indulgent" rather
than profound. I don't think it was irresponsible of you to point that
out. It *is* irresponsible to deny the possibility of *either* extreme --
I trust you agree that using acid *can* be uplifting (I posted about a very
positive experience early in this thread for example). In talking about
something like music or drugs it makes sense to me to try to communicate
what is worthwhile and valuable to you about it, and what is not. This is
what we do all the time in this group, after all. Hopefully the result is
that people are better able to experience the good and avoid the bad.
Well, I hope this is not excessively provocative. I will attempt to shut
up on this topic now as well.
Ciao,
-Ed
Tom Brown
>In article <Pine.ULT.3.91a.94121...@stein1.u.washington.edu>,
>Jeff Volkman <ve...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>> I had a bad experience with a phillips head
>>screwdriver once, so now I only use flatheads.
>
> I feel your pain, Jeff, and will give a lot more thought to my own
>use of phillips head screwdrivers.
Personally, I prefer grapefruit screwdrivers, but I'm weird that way.
Glenn Lea
This reminds me very much of some of Glenn Gould's criticism of *music*
(especially certain Romantic notions about it in fact). Interesting...
I have to laugh -- Ed, you can find an appropriate Glenn Gould
reference in ANYTHING :)
--
Glenn Lea
Michael Kelly
: On 19 Dec 1994, Tom Brown wrote:
: >
: >
: >
: They make me paranoid, and sometimes my face melts, but hey - to each
: his/her own. We're all adults here (aren't we?). I'm hoping for an
: electric screwdriver in my Christmas stocking this year.
: --Jeff
That's Vodka, orange juice, and acid isn't it? :)
ciao
--
Mike
Jeff Volkman
On 19 Dec 1994, Tom Brown wrote:
They make me paranoid, and sometimes my face melts, but hey - to each
Walter Davis
Brett Anderson <74431...@CompuServe.COM> writes:
>
>I'll second Josh's reply--if you have no personal first-hand experienc
>with LSD and pot, you're not in a position to judge their effects with
>reference to alcohol. I've done all three many times, and I can tell y
>that the three experiences couldn't be more different, both in their
>
notes, you'll notice that at no time do I compare the "highs"
of any drugs. The original poster said that drugs enhanced
the musical experience. Not LSD or other specific drugs,
just "drugs". I countered with the example of alcohol.
Later that poster suggested that since Coltrane was on LSD
when recording OM that we, as listeners, would better appreciate
and understand the music if we were also on LSD. Since I considered
this to be one of the most nonsensical things I've ever read,
I countered with the example of having to be in a drunken
stupor to listen to early John Hiatt (who, as far as I know,
has been sober for many years now).
The original poster then went on to make the even more general
statement that if listeners did the same drugs as the performers,
they'd better understand and enjoy the music (using the Dead
as an example). I suggested that he also get a good heroin
connection.
So, I never equated the highs of LSD/pot to alcohol. I
ridiculed the idea that listeners _should_ do the same
drugs as the performers, an idea I consider to be idiotic
drivel. Rude? Yeah, probably so. But if you're going
to disagree with what I write, please be sure to actually
read what I write.
c...@uchicago.edu
I wouldn't mind dropping some LSD again someday, if some kind soul has
some for me :-) I'll even listen to Coltrane while I do it, and report
the results :-)
Scott H. Silverman
Davis, Jr. Our comments are close in content but not equivalent, and in
fact I have gone out of my way to advertise that I base my comments on
direct, first-hand experience. (I direct this at whoever it is in this
interminable thread who suggests the "anti" faction is empirically
innocent.) Second, I really thought the screwdriver line was funny, so
funny that we could all have quit right there. Heck, the person who was
most on my "side," the "anti" side, laughed the mostest! Third, however,
the thread has not died. Fourth, I believe anyone can post/say/do what
they want in this free world of ours, virtual or real, but SIXTH -- come
on, can't we please consider dropping this at least until New Year's? At
the very least almost nothing that's been said since Matt Wright's early
post has had a damn thing to do with Coltrane.
scott with is final, he promises yes he does, $.02.:-)
Scott
ssil...@brynmawr.edu
Jeff Volkman
Yes, also known as the Electric Koolaid Screwdriver.
--Jeff
eri...@delphi.com
that is the basis for all these Coltrane/acid posts, I feel I have
to weigh in once again. I am part of the "Woodstock" generation, or whatever
you want to call us. I spent my time in the Haight and the East Village.
It was irresponsible use of drugs, the constant, mindless use of hard drugs
which killed the utopian dreams of my generation probably at least as much
as any other factor. I haven't used drugs of any sort for many years.
And I can only feel despair at the drug epidemic throughout our society. But
in the very early days of the psychedelic movement there was a wonderful
feeling of hope and a feeling of evolution that is impossible to describe.
The use of psychedelic drugs have an ancient, and for the most part an
honorable place in the sprititual history of mankind. There are some who
believe that even major religions were at least to some degree influenced
by the intake of various psychedelic substances. In some native societies, the
first use of a psychedelic substance is an initiation into manhood-an
introduction to the deeper wells of the spirit. Psychiatrists, artists,
and writers have all explored the use of psychedelics. Certainly everyone
should be aware of Aldous Huxley's books on the subject. However, in
all these cases a psychedelic drug was used within a structured situation,
and used like a tool, often in conjunction with a guide. Under such
circumstances, psychedelics can, I believe, open up areas of the mind and
the spirit. However, they are a true existentialist drug--as Huxley wrote,
they can bring one heaven or hell. It is a far too powerful experience
simply to be treated as just a way to have one's jollies. And it has
not connection to addictive drugs like heroin or cocaine, drugs that,
in the early psychedelic movement, were as disdained as alcohol and
tobacco. So it is far too easy, and I believe wrong, just to make a
blanket condemnation of the psychedelic experience. But one can only
validate that experience with plenty of caveats.And I am certain that
John Coltrane never thought of acid as just a way to get high. He was
looking for ultimate truth. LSD cannot provide that truth, but it can
certainly help point the way. If it is, as Coltrane did, used wisely and
with proper respect for its great power---Eric Nisenson
JOHN TEMMERMAN
EE> John Coltrane never thought of acid as just a way to get high. He
EE> was looking for ultimate truth. LSD cannot provide that truth, but
EE> it can certainly help point the way. If it is, as Coltrane did, used
EE> wisely and with proper respect for its great power---Eric Nisenson
This post is highly irresponsible. You've just given the impressionable
folks of this list an excuse to experiment. I can think of many paths to
enlightenment that require no usage of hallucinogens.
If you are saying that Trane played better because of LSD, I dispute
that. The 13-hour practice sessions and undisputed supreme talent had
more to do with it IMHO. He may have believed that the LSD helped, but
lots of folks believe that they are functioning better under the
influence than they actually are.
..joHN
* RM 1.3 02111 * Tenor Madness needs no cure
Ed Price
>EE> John Coltrane never thought of acid as just a way to get high. He
>EE> was looking for ultimate truth. LSD cannot provide that truth, but
>EE> it can certainly help point the way. If it is, as Coltrane did, used
>EE> wisely and with proper respect for its great power---Eric Nisenson
>
>This post is highly irresponsible.
no it's not. pretty accurate, my only quibble is that eric should give a
little more credit to those who *still* believe in the positive potential
of psychedelics. terence mckenna has some provocative things to say in
"the archaic revival" (1991) about the importance of psychedelics (but he's
less into LSD, more interested in natural ones, plants, as used in cultures
with shamanistic traditions). coltrane probably would have found what he
had to say pretty interesting, i speculate...
> You've just given the impressionable
>folks of this list an excuse to experiment.
oh no. the world would be so much better off without experiments, right...
where would jazz be without experiment?
> I can think of many paths to
>enlightenment that require no usage of hallucinogens.
sure, maybe, but what's wrong with hallucinogens?
>If you are saying that Trane played better because of LSD, I dispute
>that.
i wouldn't claim that, but i wouldn't claim to know it's false either
>The 13-hour practice sessions and undisputed supreme talent had
>more to do with it IMHO.
i agree with you on this.
>He may have believed that the LSD helped, but lots of folks believe that
>they are functioning better under the influence than they actually are.
sounds quite plausible too.
-ed
JOHN TEMMERMAN
EP> oh no. the world would be so much better off without experiments,
EP> right...
EP> where would jazz be without experiment?
nowhere. But experimentation in a musical context is different than
experiments with altered states of perception, which have tremendous
potential for abuse. I view a musical "clinker" as being temporarily
uncomfortable at worst. Musical creation is different that withdrawal
from reality.
Regarding whether people ought to be free to experiment with illegal
substances, I would say, "Yes" provided that society and myself through
taxes do not pick up the bill of experiments gone awry. You will note
that I am currently paying for costs of prosecution and incarceration -
I choose to believe that those costs are less damaging that the
alternative - decriminalization and pick up the pieces.
Jeff Volkman
You really should do some research about this subject, if you're
interested in it. Read about the success of the Dutch system. Nothing
more needs to be said.
--Jeff
Jeff Volkman
Who the hell are you to say? Ultimately John Coltrane created John
Coltrane's sound and style, using John Coltrane's judgement and
intellect. I think he did a pretty good job. Lot's of guys practice 12
hours a day. Go hang out at Berklee. Few of them "innovate." (Lot's of
them practice memorizing John Coltrane solos and licks. Go figure.)
--Jeff
Ed Price
patterns, which gordon brisker mentioned recently. like, as a simple
example, B G E D C# E G Bb | A F D C B D F Ab | etc. i try to do them in
different ways; another progression which sounds useful to me for example
is E-7 A7 F#-7 B7 E-7 A7 Dmaj7 ... and i should do whatever else i can
think of, so that i don't just use the same patterns all the time.
although i haven't really gotten into this too much yet -- still lack
disipline :) -- it seems to have helped.
john.te...@midas.com (JOHN TEMMERMAN) writes:
>Regarding whether people ought to be free to experiment with illegal
>substances, I would say, "Yes" provided that society and myself through
>taxes do not pick up the bill of experiments gone awry. You will note
>that I am currently paying for costs of prosecution and incarceration -
>I choose to believe that those costs are less damaging that the
>alternative - decriminalization and pick up the pieces.
well, there is a certain trend among "pro-drug" people these days to
advocate less radical solutions, "harm reduction" policies as opposed to
full legalization. maybe you would support something like that? at least
you are thinking about the issue -- my hope is that given more information
you (and others who think similarly, i'm sure there are many) might change
your mind...
however, i have to admit that i find this attitude of (it seems to me)
"it's wrong but it costs less" a little disturbing. i mean, people
probably argued against the abolition of slavery using economic
justifications too... isn't it worth a little extra "cost" to free people
from wrongful oppression?
but in any case, the cost is not as great as you imagine...
if drugs were legal, sales could be taxed and therefore drug users would be
paying for whatever costs they impose on society. currently, that is not
the case -- the profits are going to drug *dealers*. you're paying taxes,
they're not... the illegal drug trade is huge. what if that economic
power could be put to good use? education, treatment, research, and so on,
wouldn't that be preferable?
also, if drugs were legal, they could be regulated, quality could be
controlled, people would know what they are getting, and therefore there
would be less chance of problems like overdoses, which cost society (one of
those costs is human suffering, which, as genie baker suggested, should not
be ignored despite being less easily quantified...). if drug-use were not
so stigmatized, people with problems (such as addiction) would feel less
guilty about it and might seek help more readily.
-ed
Roger Stump
Jeff Volkman wrote:
You really should do some research about this subject, if you're
interested in it. Read about the success of the Dutch system. Nothing
more needs to be said.
Nothing more needs to be said only if you accept that any social
experiment tried in the Netherlands will also work in the U.S. (or the
U.K, or Japan, or anywhere else). To accept that assumption, you have
to be willing to assume that Dutch society and American society do not
differ in terms of the motivations for and social ecology of drug use
-- an assumption that I would certainly not be willing to make.
The fact that the United States possesses a considerably larger
underclass, for example, suggests to me that social conditions are
sufficiently different in the two countries that the alleged success
of the Dutch system has relatively little relevance here. For the
Dutch system to work in the U.S., American society would have to be
completely recreated on the Dutch model, wouldn't it?
--
Roger Stump (rst...@geog.albany.edu)
Jeff Volkman
I don't know. Probably not. It couldn't hurt to at least look at what
they've learned. Their system has been in place for a number of years
now, and from what I've learned, it seems to be an unqualified success.
You probably know more about it than 99.9% of the American public. "Just
Say No" is the full extent of the average American's knowledge on this
issue. I'm not one to come up with conspiracy theories, but it almost
seems as though the facts are being hidden from our society.
--Jeff
Jeff Volkman
In hindsight, I realize I shouldn't have been so hard on Mr. Temmerman. I
don't even know the guy, and he might be very sensitive. So let me revise
the first sentence of my rather hard-nosed reply to say: Who are we to say?
Don't want to receive any threatening E-mail. Love and kisses to all.
--Jeff
Tom Storer
drugs-and-jazz discussion. On the one hand, we wear the hat of
Citizen, in which role we may, or may not, be concerned about what
frightful effects drugs may have in the hands of foolish mortals. On
the other hand, we wear the hat of Music-Loving Individual, in which
role we are concerned with hearing great music. There is a certain
conflict between these roles inherent in the fact that jazz, like
any art, feeds off the artist's life, which may be singularly
unhealthy and full of suffering and craziness. As Citizen, we may be
unwilling to even consider that suffering and craziness may be an
essential stop on the road some artists take to expression, for this
would seem to justify behavior we frown upon; but as Music-Loving
Individual, how can we deny it? But one important thing about
artistic expression, IMHO, is that while the effects may be general
- millions love Bird - the source is always intimate, individual and
in the final analysis secret. It seems just as silly to me to say
"get high, look at all those great musicians who created
masterpieces under the influence" as it does to say "never get high,
look at all the great musicians who were clean-living." Artists will
find their own way regardless of considerations that are merely
social.
--
"Le jazz, c'est comme les bananes - ca se consomme sur place."
Sartre
JOHN TEMMERMAN
References: <Pine.ULT.3.91a.95010...@stein3.u.washington.edu> <5I24IOg...@delphi.com> <hanson-2811941506390001#141.224.192.28
jeff Volkmann said:
JV> Who the hell are you to say? Ultimately John Coltrane created John
I can say anything the hell I want, including a public objection to
someone attepting to condone usage of IMO dangerous drugs. If you think
dropping acid will make you play like Trane, you already are in need
of a drug test!
..joHN
* RM 1.3 02111 * The joy of Sax!
John Perry
> folks of this list an excuse to experiment. I can think of many paths to
> enlightenment that require no usage of hallucinogens.
Who are these impressionable types ?
Bet *you* weren't tempted by that posting ? Nothing personal,
but it's always somebody else isn't it. In England we have gangs of
public-spirited of old ladies who monitor TV for sex and then complain
vociferously about the harm suffered by those who happen to see it.
Amazing how the self-appointed custodians are always exempt ....
.\\
Jeff Volkman
Well said.
--Jeff
Jeff Volkman
Absolutely right Mr. Temmerman. You can say anything you want in this
free country. Please do. And please note that I didn't say "don't say
that," nor did I ever advocate drug use. You're a little sloppy with your
facts Mr. Temmerman, but don't go changin', cause I love you just the say
you are. (Smiley faces, etc. for those who choose to partake in that sort
of thing.)
--Jeff
JM Davis
current status quo at any point in time, not with whether or not a
particular substance or activity is bad. Compare deaths from LSD,
marijuana, what-have-you, with the death rate from tobacco and alchohol.
Who's paying the tab for those drunk killers behind the wheel. It's
political and monetary motivation that's behind the illegality of hemp, not
concern over it's effect on users. Also, if drug such as heroin are so bad
for us, why are there U.S. government agencies involved with smuggling?
Care to comment on that? Rap music is being censored now and record store
clerks have been arrested for selling it. Soon the assholes will be after
those drug-infested jazz musicians and their records. Then what?
--Grand Most Chilly
-------
ProLine: j...@pro-algonquin.mn.org
Ed Price
enjoyed it quite a bit. he does some cool things, technically and
musically. i remember the end of his solo on "bluesette" for example being
intense, extended relentless long driving lines, something i love to hear.
he's got to be one of the most impressively contrapuntal guitar players
ever! counterpoint is of course another thing i love to hear... i will
have to get more of his albums...
here are some quotes from terence mckenna's _the archaic revival_:
``The solution to much of modern malaise, including chemical dependencies
and repressed psychoses and neuroses, is direct exposure to the authentic
dimensions of risk represented by the experience of psychedelic plants.
The pro-psychedelic plant position is clearly an antidrug position. Drug
dependencies are the result of habitual, unexamined, and obsessive
behavior; these are precisely the tendencies in our psychological makeup
that the psychedelics mitigate. The plant hallucinogens dissolve habits
and hold motivations up to inspection by a wider, less egocentric, and more
grounded point of view within the individual. It is foolish to suggest
that there is no risk, but it is equally uninformed to suggest that the
risk is not worth taking.''
``All plants should be declared legal, and all animals for that matter.
The notion of illegal plants and animals is obnoxious and ridiculous.''
``[Psychedelics] hold a certain fascination for a persistent minority, and
in that way they do their catalytic work upon society, which is to
introduce new ideas and to release a certain kind of creative energy into
society. I certainly would not like to see a return to the psychedelic
hysteria of the 1960s. I think it's fine that these things are now the
subject of interest of a much smaller group of people, but perhaps a group
of people with a greater committment, a better idea of exactly what these
things are.''
``I hear people saying that there may be another pass at the psychedelic
experience as a social phenomenon. I certainly hope if there is that those
of us who went through the 1960s will have processed that experience and
learned the lessons from it. I think these things should not be done in
large groups.
The most fruitful way to approach the psychedelic experience is in the
environment almost, though not formally, of sensory deprivation. Lie down
in complete darkness and silence and watch the back of your eyelids. I'm
amazed how exotic this advice seems to be to other people. It is common
sense that would lead you to do that. After all, you're trying to observe
a mental phenomenon. To see the mental phenomenon uncontaminated by
outside sources of information, you must put yourself in a situation where
it can fully manifest itself. At the effective doses of these substances,
I guarantee anyone that it is not going to be a boring experience.''
``It's possible to see the whole human growth movement of the 1970s as a
wish to continue the inward quest without having to put yourself on the
line the way you had to when you took 250 gamma of LSD. I think all these
other methods are efficacious, but I think it's the sheer power of
hallucinogens that puts people off. You either love them or you hate them,
and that's because they dissolve worldviews. If you like the experience of
having your entire ontological structure disappear out from under you -- if
you think that's a thrill -- you'll probably love the psychedelics. On the
other hand, for some people that's the most horrible thing they can
possibly imagine. They navigate reality through various forms of faith;
whereas with the psychedelics the doors of perception are cleansed and you
see very, very deeply.
I spent time in India and I always visited the local sadhus of great
reputation. I met many people who possessed what I call wise-old-man
wisdom, but wise-old-man wisdom is a kind of Tao of how to live. It has
nothing to say about the dimensions that the psychedelics reveal. For that
you have to go places where hallucinogenic shamanism is practiced,
specifically the Amazon Basin, and there you discover that beyond the
wisdom of simply how to live in ordinary reality there is a gnosis of how
to navigate in extraordinary reality. This reality is so extraordinary
that we cannot approach what these people are doing with any degree of
smugness, because the frank fact of the matter is that we have no more
viable theory of what Mind is than they. The beliefs of a Witoto shaman
and the beliefs of a Princeton phenomenologist have an equal chance of
being correct, and there are no arbiters of who is right. Here is
something we have not assimilated. We have been to the moon, we have
charted the depths of the ocean and the heart of the atom, but we have a
fear of looking inwar to ourselves because we sense that is where all the
contradictions flow together. The kind of prejudice leveled against
psychedelics attended psychoanalysis during the twenties and thirties when
it was thought to be superfluous or some kind of fad. Psycehdelics touch a
very sensitive nerve. They touch the issue of the nature of humans, and
some people are uncomfortable with this.''
``People need to be empowered, and you're not empowered by placing your
spiritual development in the hands of a guru. You're spiritually empowered
by taking responsibility for your spiritual development, by looking around
and seeing what can be done. In a way, I see the entire New Age as a
flight from the psychedelic experience. People will do anything other than
take a psychedelic compound. Be rebirthed, Rolfed, this, that, and the
other thing. Because they instinctively sense that the psychedelic
experience is real. It puts you on the line. It isn't like a five-hour
drumming session, or deep-tissue work.
So the issue finally comes down to the citizen versus the self. The
citizen is an extremely limited definition of human potential. The self is
a definition of human potential so broad that it threatens the obligations
of the citizen.''
[last bit is like what tom storer said about wearing different "hats"!]
``I believe, along with Gordon Wasson and others, but in distinction to
Mircea Eliade, who is a major writer on shamanism, that it is
hallucinogenic shamanism that is primary. Where shamanic techniques are
used to the exclusion of hallucinogenic plant ingestion, the shamanism
tends to be vitiated; it is more like a ritual enactment of what real
shamanism is. The shamanism that is coming to be is coming to be within
people in our culture who feel comfortable with psychedelic plants and who,
by going into these spaces and then returning with works of art or poetic
accounts or scientific ideas, are actually changing the face of the
culture.
I connect the psychedelic dimension to the dimension of inspiration and
dream, and I think history has always progressed by the bubbling up of
ideas from these nether dimensions into the minds of receptive men and
women. It is simply that now, with the hallucinogens, we actually have a
tool to push the button.''
that's enough for now... reading this book has definitely increased my
urge to experiment... keep in mind, if you're going to experiment, try to
do so responsibly -- be careful and as well-informed as possible.
-ed
Barrett Tsuji
> Well said.
> --Jeff
Agreed. Finally a Jazz fan who isn't so anal-retentive. Who cares
where the creativity came from?!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Barrett Tsuji
Carleton University
Email address: bts...@chat.carleton.ca
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"I spent three years in highschool and wound up a freshman"
Charlie Parker 1920-1955
William Brown
>
> john.te...@midas.com (JOHN TEMMERMAN) writes:
>
> >EE> John Coltrane never thought of acid as just a way to get high. He
> >EE> was looking for ultimate truth. LSD cannot provide that truth, but
> >EE> it can certainly help point the way. If it is, as Coltrane did, used
> >EE> wisely and with proper respect for its great power---Eric Nisenson
> >
> >This post is highly irresponsible.
>
Just to add to the thread, sometimes a human being reaches out for states of new understanding whether because of emotional pain, drugs or whatever. Sometimes that glimpse confirms and/or gives the first vision of what they already felt was next in their spiritual or musical development. It's natural. Only misuse of a substance is a problem.
William Brown
>
> nowhere. But experimentation in a musical context is different than
> experiments with altered states of perception, which have tremendous
> potential for abuse
No it's really not much different. The emotional risks involved are much the same.
Sociology Dept
>
>EE> John Coltrane never thought of acid as just a way to get high. He
>EE> was looking for ultimate truth. LSD cannot provide that truth, but
>EE> it can certainly help point the way. If it is, as Coltrane did, used
>EE> wisely and with proper respect for its great power---Eric Nisenson
>
>This post is highly irresponsible. You've just given the impressionable
>folks of this list an excuse to experiment.
Yeah, we don't want those musicians experimenting or anything.
Who knows what could happen....
Sociology Dept
>Nothing more needs to be said only if you accept that any social
>experiment tried in the Netherlands will also work in the U.S. (or the
>U.K, or Japan, or anywhere else). To accept that assumption, you have
>to be willing to assume that Dutch society and American society do not
>differ in terms of the motivations for and social ecology of drug use
>-- an assumption that I would certainly not be willing to make.
>The fact that the United States possesses a considerably larger
>underclass, for example, suggests to me that social conditions are
>sufficiently different in the two countries that the alleged success
>of the Dutch system has relatively little relevance here. For the
>Dutch system to work in the U.S., American society would have to be
>completely recreated on the Dutch model, wouldn't it?
By this logic, Japan couldn't possibly become an industrialized
country because its social conditions are so different from the US's.
The point is, you only need to select out the most important variables
and their relationships to effect a comparison. But if you still don't
like the Dutch comparison, consider the alcohol prohibition in
this country, which was eliminated without great social costs.
ObJazz: That NHOP was one hell of a bass player, eh?
So like--is he dead or what?
Roger Stump
: rst...@itchy.geog.albany.edu (Roger Stump) writes:
: >Nothing more needs to be said only if you accept that any social
: >experiment tried in the Netherlands will also work in the U.S. (or the
: >U.K, or Japan, or anywhere else). To accept that assumption, you have
: >to be willing to assume that Dutch society and American society do not
: >differ in terms of the motivations for and social ecology of drug use
: >-- an assumption that I would certainly not be willing to make.
: >The fact that the United States possesses a considerably larger
: >underclass, for example, suggests to me that social conditions are
: >sufficiently different in the two countries that the alleged success
: >of the Dutch system has relatively little relevance here. For the
: >Dutch system to work in the U.S., American society would have to be
: >completely recreated on the Dutch model, wouldn't it?
: By this logic, Japan couldn't possibly become an industrialized
: country because its social conditions are so different from the US's.
Sorry, you're wrong. I never said that the U.S. could not conceivably
legalize drugs, I only said that using the Netherlands as a model wasn't
particularly convincing. To adopt your analogy, this logic would NOT
lead to the conclusion that Japan couldn't industrialize -- only that
industrialization in Japan was not likely to follow the same model as
industrialization in the United States. The U.S. model involved
supporting a high rate of population increase (based to a large extent
on mass immigration), rapid territorial expansion resulting in the
appropriation of a huge resource base, government policies supporting
laissez-faire capitalism, and generation of wealth prior to
industrialization through the export of agricultural products and
other raw materials. None of these factors are relevant to Japan's
process of industrialization. Again, that doesn't mean that Japan couldn't
become industrialized, only that in doing so it would not follow the
American model. Returning to the drugs issue, I would argue that
Dutch society and American society are sufficiently different that the
alleged success of the Dutch system is pretty much irrelevant to the
development of workable policies in the U.S.
: The point is, you only need to select out the most important variables
: and their relationships to effect a comparison. But if you still don't
: like the Dutch comparison, consider the alcohol prohibition in
: this country, which was eliminated without great social costs.
Your first sentence above echoes the main idea of my earlier post -- that
the motivations for and social ecology of drug use in the Netherlands
are not the same as in the United States. These ARE the important
variables. As for the example of prohibition, I think that that is
also a red herring. The U.S. had a long history of widespread alcohol
use before prohibition was imposed. Indeed, consumption of alcohol in
some form has been an integral part of the cultural baggage brought by
most immigrant groups coming to this country. Removing prohibition
essentially resulted in a return to an earlier status quo. Legalizing
street drugs would be very different, and its outcome less predictable.
Would it be an unmitigated social disaster to legalize drugs?
Probably not, but neither the Dutch model nor the end of prohibition
offer much useful evidence one way or the other.
--
Roger Stump (rst...@geog.albany.edu)
Jeff Volkman
On 10 Jan 1995, William Brown wrote: > I agree the pre not irresponsible
at all. > > Just to add to the thread, sometimes a human being reaches
out for states of new understanding whether because of emotional pain,
drugs or whatever. Sometimes that glimpse confirms and/or gives the first
vision of what they already felt was next in their spiritual or musical
development. It's natural. Only misuse of a substance is a problem.
> >
I agree. Substances are not evil. Substances in the hands of humans are
tools. Almost any tool has the potential for abuse. The solution to this
problem is education. Most kids learn to be careful about handling power
tools, or flame, etc. But we don't teach kids that these things are bad
or evil (at least I assume most of us don't). I think the idea of
misinforming students, or omitting things from their educations for
political or idealogical (or economic) reasons is a tragic mistake.
(my $O.O2 worth)
--Jeff
Roger Stump
:>legalize drugs, I only said that using the Netherlands as a model wasn't
:>particularly convincing.
:Why not? The dutch have decriminalized drugs and treated them
:as a health issue, not a crime issue. What are the cultural
:or social barriers that would prevent the US from accomplishing
:this?
I'm reluctant to continue this debate here, as this really isn't the
proper forum and I doubt that anything I say will change anyone's mind
on the issue. Still, I feel obliged to respond to the above.
1) The population of the Netherlands is around 15 million. Well over
90% of those people are of ethnic Dutch ancestry. The solution to ANY
social problem in the U.S. is likely to be more complex, simply
because of our larger and more diverse population.
2) The Netherlands possesses a much more comprehensive and accessible
health care system than does the United States -- indeed, the whole
social support network is much better developed. The Dutch are thus
in a much better position than we are to treat drugs as a health issue
rather than a crime issue. I agree that their approach makes a
certain amount of sense, but with the miserable job that the U.S.
currently does in providing health care to the working poor and the
unemployed underclass, I don't see how handling drugs as a health
problem is going to improve things for, say, the typical inner-city
crack addict. It probably wouldn't make things much worse, but it's
not going to do much to help.
3) Related to the above, the Netherlands does not possess the large
urban underclass that the United States does. The issue of drug use
within that underclass, and particularly the abuse of highly addictive
street drugs, does not directly correspond, to my knowledge, to
anything in the Dutch experience.
4) The Netherlands has a much stronger tradition of tolerance in areas
of "personal morality" than the United States does. Simply getting
the population at large to accept the idea of decriminalization or
legalization would be much more difficult here, particularly given the
continuing good fortunes of political conservatives in this country.
:>As for the example of prohibition, I think that that is
:>also a red herring. The U.S. had a long history of widespread alcohol
:>use before prohibition was imposed. Indeed, consumption of alcohol in
:>some form has been an integral part of the cultural baggage brought by
:>most immigrant groups coming to this country. Removing prohibition
:>essentially resulted in a return to an earlier status quo. Legalizing
:>street drugs would be very different, and its outcome less predictable.
:
:Hemp has an equally long record of use in this country. Cocaine,
:morphine, and heroin were all sold over the counter as patent
:medicines. So what? No one here has argued for a return to
:*that* particular status quo--only for a libertarian regard
:for individual rights, or for a social democratic regard
:for public health. Both perspectives suggest decriminalization
:as an improvement over our present, unworkable system.
I disagree that the tradition of hemp use in this country is
comparable to the tradition of alcohol use. In any case, the
arguments that you make above directly support my contention that any
reference to prohibition in this debate is a red herring. Prohibition
WASN'T repealed because of widepsread libertarian regard for
individual rights or because of a social democratic regard for public
health. It was repealed because there was no way it could work in a
society with such a long and widepsread history of alcohol use. There
may be good reasons for decriminalizing street drugs, but I would
argue that they have little to do with the reasons for repealing prohibition.
:While the outcome of decriminalization may seem unpredictable
:enough to make you nervous, the status quo is what's worrying
:me--we KNOW that's not working. Criminalizing substance use
:has created a very ugly black market and has not even addressed
:the public health consequences. Decriminalization would seriously
:undermine the black market.
This is focus of the debate, I think. Would decriminalization
undermine the black market? I am very skeptical that it would. The
simple act of decriminalizing the possession and use of street drugs
does not address the issue of supply. How will supply be managed?
Will all drugs be equally accessible to everyone? If access to drugs
is restricted in any way (through control of supply or through
taxation), the black market will continue to exist.
:>Would it be an unmitigated social disaster to legalize drugs?
:>Probably not, but neither the Dutch model nor the end of prohibition
:>offer much useful evidence one way or the other.
:
:Both cases suggest that decriminalizing substance use can be
:accomplished without great social cost.
Under some circumstances, yes (depending on how you define "great
social cost") -- but under every circumstance? Not necessarily. My
last word on the topic: I think that it is not particularly useful to
make glib references to the Netherlands or to prohibition repeal as
primary evidence in the argument to decriminalize or legalize drugs.
--
Roger Stump (rst...@geog.albany.edu)
Tom Holt
Jeff Volkman wrote:
>I agree. Substances are not evil. Substances in the hands of humans are
>tools. Almost any tool has the potential for abuse. The solution to this
>problem is education. Most kids learn to be careful about handling power
>tools, or flame, etc. But we don't teach kids that these things are bad
>or evil (at least I assume most of us don't). I think the idea of
>misinforming students, or omitting things from their educations for
>political or idealogical (or economic) reasons is a tragic mistake.
>(my $O.O2 worth)
Following your logic Jeff, you must concede that addictive substances are
'evil'. If, for example, hammers were addictive in their use and people went
around hitting everything and everyone with them, then hammers would be
regarded as pretty 'evil' too. As for chainsaws .....
Not too seriously,
Tom
Ed Price
>If "who you are" is a guy that practices all day, you will
>sound probably very technically able and musically proficient.
>OTOH, if you are a psycheadelic shaman who spends most of
>his time adventuring in uncharted psychic territories, you
>will bring something entirely different to your performances,
>regardless of whatever musical chops you may have acquired.
>
>I think the second example is what Ed was trying to describe,
>I also think that dismissing such intentions as indulgence
>suggests that you either haven't understood what Ed is getting
>at, or that you are being disrespectful of a perfectly
>viable performance tradition.
well, i'm not so sure what i'm getting at either... :)
but i'll see what happens if i try to comment on this...
from what i've read, shamans don't actually spend anywhere near "most" of
their time in altered states. in fact there is quite a bit of training,
study, knowledge of plants, where to find them, how to prepare them, and so
on, and the actual psychedelic experience is, i suppose, the goal towards
which all of this activity is directed, but sort of just the tip of the
iceberg in terms of their whole life. does this process remind musically
inclined readers of anything? :)
the function of the shaman, the purpose of their activities (again, from
what i've read) is to cure people. not all musicians would say that this
is their goal -- maybe some only care aobut entertaining people, just as
some people only care about, say, LSD's "recreational" potential. but it
seems to me that many of the musicians i respect the most have a certain
desire to achieve some sort of "good" through the power of their music
(whatever that might be...). which doesn't contradict the fact that it
certainly can be *fun* too! nothing wrong with that, after all...
many great improvisers have this ability to not be overwhemled even when
they introduce astonishingly "weird" things into their music, things that
would seem to threaten the form or structure they are improvising on,
things which cause listeners to freak out and other musicians to become
confused... but which they manage to control perfectly. that ability to
deal even when things get crazy strikes me as highly reminiscent of what
happens (hopefully:) when one drops acid. seems to me that either activity
(music or psychedelics) might very possibly help the other (ie musical
experience might in fact make one better at taking acid just as much as
vice versa!).
actually i suspect that the relationship of something like acid to musical
expression is more or less the same as the relationship between something
like love to musical expression. ie, it can *fuck you up* but it can also
inspire the hell out of you! (or it could be completely irrelevant...?)
maybe if you're lucky (or particularly well-adjusted or something) you can
avoid "bad trips", but it's hard to predict something like that... you
won't really know until it happens, which will probably be when don't
suspect it. no-one with any sense would recommend a particular "method" of
incorporating this sort of thing into one's musical studies. but if music
is seen as an art which is personal, emotional, expressive, etc., it would
make sense that these kinds of experiences have an effect on one's playing.
``Clergymen, and people who use phrases without wisdom, sometimes talk of
suffering as a mystery. It is really a revelation. One discerns things
that one never discerned before.''
-- Oscar Wilde [_Selected Letters_]
that's true, i think. it forces you to ask questions, examine things more
closely, think more deeply... when things are going well, people probably
are less likely to wonder about why that might be the case as when they are
going very badly!
improvising on some tune, if you play unusual notes, dissonances you aren't
so familiar with, often this will make you play much better because in
order to make sense of it, you are forced to listen harder to figure out
what should happen. it really is an illustration of the above principle!
whereas if you just play patterns you know, you don't need to be paying
attention. taking risks like this is not easy of course -- it's hard to be
constantly "creative" because the uncertainty of it can cause anxiety and
the intense effort can be painful! (this was the point of some of those
excerpts from joyce carol oates' cool book "on boxing" i posted a while
back, about boxers' "systematic cultivation of pain" or something like
that...) but it does cause you to learn, and ultimately makes doing cool
things much easier, which repeating what you already know doesn't. and
eventually you might realize that it is actually a lot of fun, maybe not
quite as much of an unwanted struggle as one might have thought at first.
well, that's the theory...
just to make sure i'm not giving the wrong impression, it is not my belief
that taking LSD is a good method for musical improvement. what i am
suggesting is that maybe practicing music *as if it were LSD* is what
really counts! i get the impression that coltrane was doing that long
before he actually (allegedly) got into acid. i speculate that when he
tripped he probably more or less recognized the territory.
-ed
Jeff Volkman
Uh, well I don't think that does follow my logic. But what about guns?
Lots of people are addicted to guns, and some even do evil things with them.
Are guns evil?
--Jeff
Jeff Volkman
On 11 Jan 1995, Roger Stump wrote:
[snip]
>
> I'm reluctant to continue this debate here, as this really isn't the
> proper forum
I agree, but what the heck; we're here.
> and I doubt that anything I say will change anyone's mind
> on the issue. Still, I feel obliged to respond to the above.
>
> 1) The population of the Netherlands is around 15 million. Well over
> 90% of those people are of ethnic Dutch ancestry. The solution to ANY
> social problem in the U.S. is likely to be more complex, simply
> because of our larger and more diverse population.
Agreed. This is no reason to give up or conclude that it wouldn't work,
or that we have nothing to learn from them.
>
> 2) The Netherlands possesses a much more comprehensive and accessible
> health care system than does the United States -- indeed, the whole
> social support network is much better developed. The Dutch are thus
> in a much better position than we are to treat drugs as a health issue
> rather than a crime issue. I agree that their approach makes a
> certain amount of sense, but with the miserable job that the U.S.
> currently does in providing health care to the working poor and the
> unemployed underclass, I don't see how handling drugs as a health
> problem is going to improve things for, say, the typical inner-city
> crack addict. It probably wouldn't make things much worse, but it's
> not going to do much to help.
The money spent on the "war on drugs" would be better spent on health care.
Agreed?
> 3) Related to the above, the Netherlands does not possess the large
> urban underclass that the United States does. The issue of drug use
> within that underclass, and particularly the abuse of highly addictive
> street drugs, does not directly correspond, to my knowledge, to
> anything in the Dutch experience.
Is the problem of drug use and the "underclass" really a good argument for
prohibition? I think it's a symptom of prohibition.
>
> 4) The Netherlands has a much stronger tradition of tolerance in areas
> of "personal morality" than the United States does. Simply getting
> the population at large to accept the idea of decriminalization or
> legalization would be much more difficult here, particularly given the
> continuing good fortunes of political conservatives in this country.
>
Yes, but the pendulum no doubt continues swinging, as it always has.
> :>As for the example of prohibition, I think that that is
> :>also a red herring. The U.S. had a long history of widespread alcohol
> :>use before prohibition was imposed. Indeed, consumption of alcohol in
> :>some form has been an integral part of the cultural baggage brought by
> :>most immigrant groups coming to this country. Removing prohibition
> :>essentially resulted in a return to an earlier status quo.
I don't think it was a return to status quo. I think there was an attempt
to regulate and control the situation better (in other words, an attempt
to learn from history).
> Legalizing
> :>street drugs would be very different, and its outcome less predictable.
> :
This is where that darned Netherlands data comes into play.
> :Hemp has an equally long record of use in this country. Cocaine,
> :morphine, and heroin were all sold over the counter as patent
> :medicines. So what? No one here has argued for a return to
> :*that* particular status quo--only for a libertarian regard
> :for individual rights, or for a social democratic regard
> :for public health. Both perspectives suggest decriminalization
> :as an improvement over our present, unworkable system.
>
> I disagree that the tradition of hemp use in this country is
> comparable to the tradition of alcohol use. In any case, the
> arguments that you make above directly support my contention that any
> reference to prohibition in this debate is a red herring. Prohibition
> WASN'T repealed because of widepsread libertarian regard for
> individual rights or because of a social democratic regard for public
> health. It was repealed because there was no way it could work in a
> society with such a long and widepsread history of alcohol use.
I think this is an oversimplification. Kids at this time were forced to
participate in Protestant Christian prayer in school. Fundamentalist
fervor played a major role in the formation of public policy (even more
than today). A similar mentality did indeed play a role in the
prohibition of hemp.
> There
> may be good reasons for decriminalizing street drugs, but I would
> argue that they have little to do with the reasons for repealing prohibition.
>
> :While the outcome of decriminalization may seem unpredictable
> :enough to make you nervous, the status quo is what's worrying
> :me--we KNOW that's not working. Criminalizing substance use
> :has created a very ugly black market and has not even addressed
> :the public health consequences. Decriminalization would seriously
> :undermine the black market.
>
> This is focus of the debate, I think. Would decriminalization
> undermine the black market? I am very skeptical that it would. The
> simple act of decriminalizing the possession and use of street drugs
> does not address the issue of supply. How will supply be managed?
> Will all drugs be equally accessible to everyone? If access to drugs
> is restricted in any way (through control of supply or through
> taxation), the black market will continue to exist.
Criminalization IS the black market. The two go hand in hand. The means
are available to regulate and manage everything just fine.
>
> :>Would it be an unmitigated social disaster to legalize drugs?
> :>Probably not, but neither the Dutch model nor the end of prohibition
> :>offer much useful evidence one way or the other.
> :
> :Both cases suggest that decriminalizing substance use can be
> :accomplished without great social cost.
>
> Under some circumstances, yes (depending on how you define "great
> social cost") -- but under every circumstance? Not necessarily. My
> last word on the topic: I think that it is not particularly useful to
> make glib references to the Netherlands or to prohibition repeal as
> primary evidence in the argument to decriminalize or legalize drugs.
> --
> Roger Stump (rst...@geog.albany.edu)
>
>
My original glib referance to the Netherlands was directed at a
particular poster who seemed to be rather uninformed about the topic. It
wasn't directed at you (Roger). Sorry if the glibness put you off.
--Jeff
Bassmania
Hallucinogens are extremely volatile substances. They can be dangerous
and can inflict harm on people who ingest them. So can hang gliders, surf
boards and cars. Tripping, at its best, offers something that only an
elite few may obtain through non-drug means: a glimpse into the
non-rational, multi-dimensional world beyond our normal perception.
When ingested in a natural setting, this can (and usually does) trigger a
giddy, lucid, affectionate and profound sense of interconnectedness of all
living things. Sound trivial? It's an earth shattering insight for those
of us who have had it. Interpersonally, it can open up layers of thought,
paths of insight and options for expression which can create unique and
sophisticated communications. Musically, there can be a resolution
between individual parts of the music, a heightened sense of harmony and
an ability to comprehend music as a total sound which is educational as
well as pleasureable. Obviously, I've done this once or twice.
I've also played music (I'm a bassist) tripping. It can be a great
learning too, not as a full time pursuit but as an occasional experience.
The "set and setting" is crucial as are personal relationships with other
musicians. There is nothing simple about undertaking a trip with other
people. I've had insights about my instrument and learned things about
music which have persisted well beyond the duration of a trip. This is not
a cocaine rush we're talking about.
One of the reasons that psychedelics and music have been either dismissed
or ignored in the last decade is probably due to the Grateful Dead being
the seemingly only progenitors of the interconnection. Most jazz fans
disdain the Dead for their sloppy musicianship and erratic performances.
That said (and it's true), I love what the Dead invented through LSD. They
used the experience combined with improvisational techniques borrowed from
jazz to invent a style of music. Their tunes from this era, most notably
Dark Star, St. Stephen, the Other One show this music at its highest
state. Their success at employing LSD for musical exploration was equalled
by the audience in appreciating the music. This is no coincidence because
the social factors which affect the experience and render it into a
manageable and positive form were being observed. Although their music has
become less fresh and imaginitive, the audience still manages to use LSD
in a positive manner to appreciate the music. Even if you don't respect
Dead Heads or the Dead, this scene is an incredible example of how viable
psychedelics are in social settings for musical appreciation and creation.
My point is this: Tripping is a miraculous clue! If you've never
experienced it, don't condemn it. If you are curious, research the subject
thoroughly. Read, talk and prepare yourself properly. "Storming Heaven" by
Jay Stevens is an excellent book on LSD. The musical uses of LSD (or
mushrooms etc.) is an infant science. Although hallucinogenic substances
have been used for centuries, the type of use we're talking about is still
brand new. Don't dismiss something this powerful because it's complicated
and hard to quantify and may have negative effects on certain people at
certain times. Tripping is one of the most insightful experiences I've
ever had and has impacted my music in some undeniably positive ways. It
hasn't caused me to become some tripped out weirdo who eschews musical
form, rules and order for my own mystical world.
I can feel the flames already. Have fun!
Peace,
rob
Matthew Snyder
> Hallucinogens are extremely volatile substances. They can be dangerous
>and can inflict harm on people who ingest them. So can hang gliders, surf
>boards and cars. Tripping, at its best, offers something that only an
>elite few may obtain through non-drug means: a glimpse into the
>non-rational, multi-dimensional world beyond our normal perception.
Quite true. It's definitely not something to be entered into lightly,
which was the major problem of the 1960's, when millions casually tried
it and were unprepared for an experience which shakes you to your roots.
>My point is this: Tripping is a miraculous clue! If you've never
>experienced it, don't condemn it. If you are curious, research the subject
>thoroughly. Read, talk and prepare yourself properly. "Storming Heaven" by
>Jay Stevens is an excellent book on LSD. The musical uses of LSD (or
>mushrooms etc.) is an infant science. Although hallucinogenic substances
>have been used for centuries, the type of use we're talking about is still
>brand new. Don't dismiss something this powerful because it's complicated
>and hard to quantify and may have negative effects on certain people at
>certain times. Tripping is one of the most insightful experiences I've
>ever had and has impacted my music in some undeniably positive ways. It
>hasn't caused me to become some tripped out weirdo who eschews musical
>form, rules and order for my own mystical world.
I feel you may be overstating to a certain extent the benefits of
playing while in that state. True, you feel yourself to be in a very
powerful and different creative mode, but the slight numbness of the jaw
which accompanies tripping made it impossible for me to get a good sound
going (as a wind player). I guess playing bass is probably easier.
But you're right, too many people have these knee-jerk reactions: "You're
just a spaced out idiot who will die by trying to fly out of a window,"
or, "There can be no possible benefit from doing that, and let's not have
any research into it which may prove me wrong."
Matt Snyder
hsn...@crab.rutgers.edu
Roger Stump
Jeff Volkman <ve...@u.washington.edu> writes:
[...]
> 1) The population of the Netherlands is around 15 million. Well over
> 90% of those people are of ethnic Dutch ancestry. The solution to ANY
> social problem in the U.S. is likely to be more complex, simply
> because of our larger and more diverse population.
Agreed. This is no reason to give up or conclude that it wouldn't work,
or that we have nothing to learn from them.
My point here: neither is there any reason to believe that their
experience will be particularly relevant to ours.
> 2) The Netherlands possesses a much more comprehensive and accessible
> health care system than does the United States -- indeed, the whole
> social support network is much better developed. The Dutch are thus
> in a much better position than we are to treat drugs as a health issue
> rather than a crime issue. I agree that their approach makes a
> certain amount of sense, but with the miserable job that the U.S.
> currently does in providing health care to the working poor and the
> unemployed underclass, I don't see how handling drugs as a health
> problem is going to improve things for, say, the typical inner-city
> crack addict. It probably wouldn't make things much worse, but it's
> not going to do much to help.
The money spent on the "war on drugs" would be better spent on health care.
Agreed?
Absolutely.
> 3) Related to the above, the Netherlands does not possess the large
> urban underclass that the United States does. The issue of drug use
> within that underclass, and particularly the abuse of highly addictive
> street drugs, does not directly correspond, to my knowledge, to
> anything in the Dutch experience.
Is the problem of drug use and the "underclass" really a good argument for
prohibition? I think it's a symptom of prohibition.
Two points here. I have not been arguing in favor of prohibition.
I've been against making what seem to me to be unwarranted assumptions
about the likely outcomes of prohibition, based on other countries'
experiences. (I would also argue that the existence of an underclass in
American society is not primarily a product of the prohibition of drugs.)
[...]
> :>As for the example of prohibition, I think that that is
> :>also a red herring. The U.S. had a long history of widespread alcohol
> :>use before prohibition was imposed. Indeed, consumption of alcohol in
> :>some form has been an integral part of the cultural baggage brought by
> :>most immigrant groups coming to this country. Removing prohibition
> :>essentially resulted in a return to an earlier status quo.
I don't think it was a return to status quo. I think there was an attempt
to regulate and control the situation better (in other words, an attempt
to learn from history).
In terms of drinking behavior, the repeal of prohibition essentially
meant a return to the status quo.
> :Hemp has an equally long record of use in this country. Cocaine,
> :morphine, and heroin were all sold over the counter as patent
> :medicines. So what? No one here has argued for a return to
> :*that* particular status quo--only for a libertarian regard
> :for individual rights, or for a social democratic regard
> :for public health. Both perspectives suggest decriminalization
> :as an improvement over our present, unworkable system.
>
> I disagree that the tradition of hemp use in this country is
> comparable to the tradition of alcohol use. In any case, the
> arguments that you make above directly support my contention that any
> reference to prohibition in this debate is a red herring. Prohibition
> WASN'T repealed because of widepsread libertarian regard for
> individual rights or because of a social democratic regard for public
> health. It was repealed because there was no way it could work in a
> society with such a long and widepsread history of alcohol use.
I think this is an oversimplification. Kids at this time were forced to
participate in Protestant Christian prayer in school. Fundamentalist
fervor played a major role in the formation of public policy (even more
than today). A similar mentality did indeed play a role in the
prohibition of hemp.
I agree with your last sentence here, but it doesn't address what I
was talking about in the earlier paragraph. Most of the paragraph to
which you were responding doesn't have anything to do with hemp use,
or why hemp use was prohibited. It has to do with why the prohibition
of alcohol was repealed. And the reasons that the prohibition of
alcohol was repealed have little to do with the arguments presented in
another post in support of repealing the prohibition of drugs -- that
is, liberation regard for individual rights, and social democratic
regard for public health.
[...]
> This is focus of the debate, I think. Would decriminalization
> undermine the black market? I am very skeptical that it would. The
> simple act of decriminalizing the possession and use of street drugs
> does not address the issue of supply. How will supply be managed?
> Will all drugs be equally accessible to everyone? If access to drugs
> is restricted in any way (through control of supply or through
> taxation), the black market will continue to exist.
Criminalization IS the black market. The two go hand in hand. The means
are available to regulate and manage everything just fine.
Well, I disagree wholeheartedly. The fact that things would have to be
"regulated and managed" virtually guarantees that a black market would
continue to exist. A black market still exists for untaxed cigarettes
and alcohol, for example, as does a black market of sorts for alcohol
to be consumed by minors. Why wouldn't one exist for street drugs,
particularly if access to particular drugs were limited? Your
confidence in our ability to "regulate and manage" is certainly far
greater than mine.
[...]
My original glib referance to the Netherlands was directed at a
particular poster who seemed to be rather uninformed about the topic. It
wasn't directed at you (Roger). Sorry if the glibness put you off.
No need to aoplogize -- just one of the hazards of communicating via
electrons rather than via photons and sound waves!
--
Roger Stump (rst...@geog.albany.edu)
Jeff Volkman
On Tue, 17 Jan 1995, Tom Holt wrote:
> > Sorry Jeff, I won't get into an argument about guns with an American
male over > the net. However, if you are ever in Norwich, UK give me a
call and I > will be pleased to discuss the matter over a beer. > > Now,
about jazz ..... > > -- Tom > > >
Not to worry Tom, I'm one of the good guys (white hat, white horse, etc.).
And guns are not a favourite topic of mine either. Like many American
males, my teeth are straight but my Geography sucks: I can't recall where
Norwich is. But I may actually be in the UK in the next few months. Thanks
for the invite. Cheers.
--Jeff
Tom Holt
>From: Jeff Volkman <ve...@u.washington.edu>
>Subject: Re: John Coltrane and LSяяяяя
>Date: Thu, 12 Jan 1995 09:30:44 -0800
>--Jeff
Sorry Jeff, I won't get into an argument about guns with an American male over
William Brown
>sake of current social fashion.--Eric Nisenson
Right on!
WB..
WmBro...@aol.com
wb...@echonyc.com
William Brown
>experienced it, don't condemn it.
Tripping is one of the most insightful experiences I've
>ever had and has impacted my music in some undeniably positive ways. It
>hasn't caused me to become some tripped out weirdo who eschews musical
>form, rules and order for my own mystical world.
>Peace,
>rob
Thanks rob for such a complete and well reasoned post.
Best wishes.
WB...
WmBro...@aol.com
wb...@echonyc.com
Alec Horgan
are big advocates of hallucinogen-inspired music. Although their music is
not especially complex, it is undeniably some of the most provocative
stuff coming out of the world of rock.
Alec
--
"Perhaps the only true dignity of man is his capacity to despise himself."
---George Santayana, _The Ethics of Spinoza_