Drugs and Music

Originally posted by Izzy Junior
The fact that so many of you take extacy only further helps to confirm my theories that 90% of Opeth fans are homosexuals.
The fact that you use "homosexuals" as an insult only helps to confirm my theories that your opinion on this topic means absolutely nothing.
 
if you need drugs to get some inspriration i feel sorry for you....
i get much more inspiration when i am on my own without something that can distracts me, emotions are top then.
 
Wow everyone is fighting in this thread...

Umm all I have to say is I write the absolute worst music when I'm stoned. I mean like, I'll smoke a blunt to the face, pick up my guitar and get incredibly into what I'm playing, and I'm like "holy shit this the greatest riff I've ever written!". So I proceed to record it, and listen to it whence sober, and it's absolute garbage. This has happened to me on 3 different occasions, back before I quit pot. Oh, and dont get me started on my lyric writing whence stoned...Two words, one song, can sum that all up..."Dinosaurs Vs. Aliens - The concept album" :lol:

Now jealousy, anger, and depression, THAT makes for some excellent writing, both musiclly and lyricly.
 
[MINDLESS ZOMBIE] Yes, yes, it HAS spoken! *thornie runs off to invest whatever money he has left in his bank account to record "Dinosaurs Vs. Aliens" and purchace a few oz. of weed in the process *big dumb smile* [/MINDLESS ZOMBIE]

;)
 
Originally posted by Thorns of Sorrow


Now jealousy, anger, and depression, THAT makes for some excellent writing, both musiclly and lyricly.
Definately. I believe that's actually the style of adreniline I'd prefer to be on... Though I'm sure tripping on hallucinogins is a more pleasureable experience than being depressed and suicidal.
 
Satori was awfully fired up about defending drugs. I think in the end, it's just a matter of personal choice. Drugs themselves aren't bad OR good, it's how the people taking them react that is bad or good.

I know that they aren't for me (after much experimentation and regular use), so I don't do 'em, but anyone who wants to, so long as they are not a danger to others, should be allowed to.

I think we all know that stuff like coke and smack and certain other hard drugs will fuck you up in the long run... even if you had an unlimited supply of money to support such a habit, eventually it will kill you (that is, if you are an addict, not everyone is).

But again, I think that music is something that exists completely independent of drugs, and any percieved "connection" between them is purely in the eye of the beholder. I don't think it was nearly as easy to get pot or cocaine or whatever else back when Bach and Mozart were writing symphonies, and frankly, the idea that they might have been on drugs is laughable.

So there ya go.
 
Originally posted by IanDork107
Cutter's just a druggie trying to pass himself off as an intellectual.

druggie's are intellectuals silly! :D

uh... i mean... yea.

you know, there's okay drugs, good drugs, bad drugs. to be honest, it's all on personal preferance. if you don't like drugs, don't do 'em. if you can take them responsibly, go nuts (wait... that's not respons...).

i was introduced to pot a few years ago, and alcohol when i was 13. i have not seen a more destructive drug than alcohol, but in moderation, it can be a pleasant way to spend some evenings. i have never had ecstacy, heroin, crack, cocaine, lsd, etc. i fear ecstacy for the very fact of how often it's laced with something else, such as pcp and stuff like that. in a diluted and safe format, i'm sure it might be tolerable, but otherwise, it's just to dangerous off the streets, but that only goes to show how our government likes to regulate things.

i have a friend, who's had two very TERRIBLE trips on pot, not lsd, ecstacy, or anything crazy and excessive, but POT. i remember i had the first toke, then my bro, and then my friend. and the shit was terribly old, it was practically dirt, very ugly shit. then we were watching a movie (i don't remember which one! ... a testatament to the memory argument u guys were having there...). and my friend started laughing and getting the giggles, quickly me and my bro got jealous and were wondering what he got that we didn't. And a little while later he started saying "man, i'm not feeling so good..." and we were like "dude, you alright?"... "nah man... " and then later he went to the restroom. he was vomiting his lungs up... off pot! i've never seen such a thing.

anyway that was the first time. after the second time, we concluded he must be allergic to sweet mary jane. so we were like "no more for him". and he hasn't done it since. as for the rest of us, our bodies are quite tolerant.

i have another friend, who's been an alcoholic for over twelve years. his life is a sad, sad story... so sad i don't want to get into it. if pot is deemed so terrible a thing that it's harmful and should be illegal, the world must be blind to allow such drugs as alcohol to continue to be legal. but we know why it is. the government tried to prohobit it, but what happened? gangs sold bootlegs and made gold mines off it while the government prohobited it. then it was reintroduced to america, and the gangs that thrived off the bootlegging slowly began to lose their footholds.

freevibe.com has an entre site dedicated to "facts" about drugs. facts like "drugs are bad, mmmkay". well i was raised with that bullshit, and the backlash against it is obvious. i live in california, the very definition of me being here means i've probably smoked pot before. i was particularly raised in the south valley, and believe the vast majority of people smoke pot. now, how can a society of potheads function if indeed it is so distracting in how to operate? i have many friends that are leading successful lives, are not addicted, and take pot in moderation. like satori said, it's the horror stories you hear about that is ALL you hear about. the drug culture is just that... a "culture", it is a way of being.... a way of life. native americans used poettii (did i spell that right?) in ceremonies and rituals as apart of their culture, that's how big the drug influence was. if drugs are so destructive, how did their culture survive?

people who simply dub drugs for losers, are ignorant of what drugs are. you can't judge it unless you've done it. if you don't know what it feels like first hand, shut ur face. it's like judging a book before you read it, it simply doesn't add up. for those who have done drugs and didn't like them, well, you have every right to protest, i only ask you take a mature stance (which has for the most part been done well on these forums, and i personally appreciate that).

i remember a time i smoked over a friend's of mine, and we were in this garage (yes, how stereotypical). my friend was playing guitar, and some dude i don't remember was jamming on the drums. now, my friend has this neil young / stevie ray vaughn / santana / metallica / black sabbath - style on guitars. and they were just jamming out. and i was just sitting on this couch and i started headbanging. the beat was amazing, and the fact i was high just made the rhythm even more mind blowing. it's like falling into a sea of ecstacy (no reference to the drug here).

i take pot in moderation, and for me it helps calm my nerves after my stressful week. it's a weekly thing for me. i was without pot from july to december of last year. and it's not like i'm addicted, but my stressful schedule without pot was very, very shitty. i had no way of releasing myself on the weekends. i worked 35 hours a week and was going to school full-time. and then i had homework, it was a very disasterous schedule. it was the most depressed i'd ever been in my life, alone, work, school, a long ass commute every day. i was operating on a little over twelve hours of sleep for a week, every week. to be honest, it's the most sober i've ever been, but i remember only images of my day. i'd remember the mirror, the showerhead at 4:30 in the morning, and then me waiting at the train station, then all of a sudden i'd be in class downtown. this trip is about two hours every morning, about an hour to get to the train, and an hour on the train. the way back took three hours because of traffic.

anyway, that's a long story i'm just gonna shut up about, point is my life without pot is shitty and depressing. with it, i can release my pain and relax, allowing me to operate, and do that homework, and study for that final. however, i only use it when i wanna relax, if my week isn't so stressful, i don't need it, and sometimes i go without it for a month or two. since early january, my schedule and workload has decreased significantly, and i haven't done it all that often.

when i saw opeth friday nite i smoked half a fat joint, and damn, that put me right in the fucking zone. i don't think you have to smoke pot to enjoy music, but i sure enjoy it. and when i saw my favorite band on stage for the first time, no more than five feet away from me, i had the time of my life. it's simply beyond words how i felt. i can only describe it as: i was in heaven (yes, hence the use of the word "high"). but with the beautiful music that i loved dearly, it was just a much more beautiful moment. i remember actually crying and laughing, while headbanging and singing. the show was a very big emotional release for me. and since, i've just been happy and mellow. i can't tell you how relaxed i feel right now, i'm just happy still after two days of the show. i had a great time, and being high interconnected me with the moment, and made the length of one riff an eternity.

i remember when they opened with the leper affinity, at the very end they played a jazzed-out drum beat. i think it's 8 minutes into the song on the original recording. the guitars and the drums in this moment had an awesome groove. i was moving to it, with the rest of the crowd, and it just felt great. when they played advent (at 5 minutes in the original song), that clean guitar effect played with the rest of the band... LIVE is one of the most amazing things i've ever heard, and friday nite, it was fucking amazing. i could just feel the rhythm, and most enjoyable was the way the clean guitar effect would seem to echo off the walls (which obviously didn't happen, at least at my angle), but it sounded like it was. and when they played deliverance (at 7:40 in the original track), that heavy riff that backs the solo and vocals, i could've sworn remembering them play it extra long, without vocals or lead guitar, just that riff alone. either they did play it that way, or i was stuck in that riff in my own world for a good five minutes which seemed like an eternity in its own right. it was simply an amazing feeling.

i could go on and on (and i know i did to some extent) on how pot influenced how i felt that night, but it didn't take away how great the experience was, in fact, it just multiplied it higher than i could have ever imagined. a "symbiotic" experience as some might call it.

i'm not trying to come off as an intelligent person, but if i do, then that's my own fault. i'd like to think i am, of course, but that's for others to judge; otherwise, i just like to live in the moment. and nobody could ever take those away from me and make them go sour, it's just impossible.

is pot harmless? no, i don't think so; but neither are the very legal cigarettes or alcohol. is pot harmful? it can be if the individual doesn't understand its properties and its proper use and takes it for granted that other drugs would not have an unexpected outcome.

as chapelle said it, "i love mary jane!" (referencing both the weed... and the pussy :D)
 
Originally posted by Moonlapse
EDIT: I also don't think I'm twisting reality any... I just think my viewpoint is conflicting with yours in some instances (they are both relative, so who's to say who's twisting reality).

If you re-read your initial post which I replied to, you will see that you aren't giving a balanced perspective, you are dwelling completely on the negatives without even mentioning the positives (except perhaps to imply that there aren't any positives).

Even when I rant about religion I am careful to point out that there are positives in it, I just feel the positives are far outweighed by the negatives. Your post which I replied to initially would be like me saying that nothing good ever came from religion (which is clearly not the case, which is why I would never say that).

It's ok to take a side and argue in favour of it, but if you cannot see both sides of the coin (cannot relate to the other point of view) then how are you to presume that one side is totally bright and the other side totally dark? It's impossible.

Like most things, recreational drugs have benefits AND drawbacks for music on the whole, and I think that's extremely evident.

Regardless of how your parents raised you, you received the "all recreational drugs (with perhaps the hypocritical exception of tobacco & alcohol) are inherently bad" message. It's a message we all receive (and it's a good message for kids). But as adults we eventually have to sort through these messages and test their validity, and in doing so we see that the message isn't always accurate. The fact is, the message given to kids about drugs is greatly skewed, as it should be, the idea is to scare them away from drugs, and that's a good thing for the most part. But the message itself is skewed and incomplete, something we generally figure out as we get older and wiser.

You spoke of someone you knew who went loopy after having a little weed. I don't doubt that that's possible (anything's possible), but this doesn't discount the literal millions (probably many multiple billions if you take into account all of human history) of people who didn't go loopy. Likewise, we all know of people who drank themselves to death one night, or someone who is driving for a year and gets killed in a car accident, but these are the exceptions and they don't imply in the slightest that someone who starts driving is very likely to get killed or that someone who goes out with the intention of having a few drinks will end up dying from alcohol poisoning. We can't take such remote possibilities as being "the norm", which is why it's legal to drive, and legal to drink alcohol.

see what I'm saying?

Satori
 
I hate people who say they would never wanna write while on drugs because it would be the drug comming through rather than your own talent or creativity . How fucking ignorant is that .. so your saying that half of the great musicians on this planet have no talent and really are making money and great music by taking drugs ... well ... Acid opens up your mind to new creative levels ... you have heard of people hearing colors and seeing sounds .. well there's an example there ... you can use these different levels to reach new places in music ...
Most of the music I write now is under the influence of LSd .. our band is 10x as tight when were on tabs ... it's a much better vibe ... and we have recorded to find out if it wasn't hte drug just making it sound better .. and we were wrong .. we were actually playing a lot better ... while playing a show you can get the music to move your body rather than just head bangin to the music .. which is cool to an extent ..

You can write cool lyrics while baked or trippin too .. everything gives a meaning .. and it's much easier to get that on paper ..

but then again everyone isn't like me but denying the fact that drugs won't improve your writing is complete bullshit ..
 
As far as my experience go's, drugs warp my perceptions, they don't bring about any truly new ideas. The underlying idea is already there...but the drugs help bring them out, albeit skewed or hopelessly biased. I may realise a great idea while high, but I might write it down in a very subjective way, with little thought given to alternative viewpoints. Thats why, when I'm sober, and looking over those notes later, they may seem like bullshit. But, after experimenting for a while, amongst all this shit I've written, I've still managed to come up with a few gems that I'm fairly proud of. Alot of its come down to taking an idea to the limit, or its ultimate conclusion, from a theoretical point of view, and I rarely have the patience if I'm not on something. But, as has been said before, moderation is the key.
 
well, warsofwinter, whether it improves your writing or not, i think that depends per person. sometimes i get stoned out of my mind, and to be honest, i'm so fucked up i can't write ANYTHING, lol. for me, on a personal level, i like drugs to give me a feeling i can't get while sober, it makes me THINK of things i've never thought of, so yea, maybe it'd make me write weird things; but i've found the best stuff i write is sober.

to be just straight out honest, i AM a pothead, okaY? there i admitted it, no more sophisticated bullshit, I'M A POTHEAD! now, i like pot to help me think of things i've never thought of before, and the best ideas i remember when i'm sober (that i thought of when i was high), and then i write it down then.

now you guys are talking about music, i write music both ways, which one comes out better? you know, it's hard to weigh, i like both of the stuff i come up when i'm sober and under the influence. but what i like are the crazy ideas i come up with for my "story", yes i write stories, besides lyrics and riffs i just write "stuff". it's about this interdemensional crazy ass world with angels and interdemensional equals, god, satan, u now, that old bag, just in a different way. and in the process of writing this story, sometimes i hit a wall, where i get stuck and things don't make sense. after a few hits, just hanging out, not thinking about it, BOOM the idea hits me... "so this guy is this guys brother .... which means i can make this character do this!" and then i go to my computer the next day and start typing my ass off with one simple idea i couldn't come up with sober.

for some, it might help the writing process, but i think it's naive to think that it comes completely from drugs, because the person that writes it still has to be capable of writing. an idiot who gets high and is an idiot when sober, will still write idiodic things when either high or sober, to me that's just a fact. so jimmy hendrix, and janis joplin and all the musicians that ever did anything, were still talented ppl despite the fact they took drugs; being under the influence is hardly the only thing driving our creative juices, it's simply an aid to some, or a hindrance to others.

maybe i'm being to anal, maybe we're all being to anal, but in the end, it just all depends on the individual, that ONE PERSON. it works for some, and doesn't for others, and that's just the way it is. i think it's really stupid for somebody to say they have the right answer and it can only be done that way. in fact, that's what my crazy ass epic story is about, there is no right answer.