The what's going on in Thrash thread

[redfly]

Yeah I've seen too many mates take the wrong road. It's good when they make it back, but hard when they don't. We are all taught about peer pressure when we are kids but when drugs, especially hard drugs are involved the first hit might be peer pressure, but more often than not any subsequent hits are less about pressure of others and more about the hold the drug has.

The silly thing is I never thought of the 27 club. I'm older than him and didn't get anywhere near into the drug scene like he did, but I never thought about joining the club, yet he took it so seriously that it changed his life. I remember at the time we were sitting in the Hard Rock Cafe in Melbourne, underneath a picture of Janis Joplin sitting on her Porsche, a picture that's been in thousands of mags, and he just looked up and said, "I don't want to end up like her." We'd been binging a bit on Janis at the time, but where I was enjoying her music and life stories, his mind was telling him something completely different.

It's not my music to put up, I worked on different aspects of his stuff like album covers and production etc but he did all the music. I tried to convince him to use YT 20 years ago as an advertising platform but he didn't want it to happen and as far as I know still doesn't.

I've been pretty lucky. I've had a couple friends of friends die from heroin and alcohol abuse. But none of my friends.
That's great that he took such meaning from the 27 club. I don't think I've ever seen that photo of Joplin lol.

 

[redfly]

Elvis and The Beatles didn't get on drugs until later in their careers when they were rich. Their music early on before that was great. Even then, Paul was the most sober Beatle and the best songwriter. The biggest druggie of that band was George, who was the worst songwriter. After the Beatles, Lennon became a heroin freak and his music was far worse than it was during his Beatles days.

How exactly does a scientific study measure creativity anyway? Yeah, that sounds really scientific and objective.

Lol ok there's two example and doesn't take away from the main point that you can't say definitively that no one has ever been more creative on drugs. Besides Sgt Pepper is one of their most hailed albums.
Your take on John's music is also subjective.

One of the study's I read were using brain scans and how it affected those centers of brain and when they turned on during drug use.
So yes. It was scientific.

 

[redfly]

 

[Slammed]

I've been pretty lucky. I've had a couple friends of friends die from heroin and alcohol abuse. But none of my friends.
That's great that he took such meaning from the 27 club. I don't think I've ever seen that photo of Joplin lol.

It really doesn't matter where one's wake up call comes from, just as long as they hear it

This Janis pic.

 

[Slammed]

Lol ok there's two example and doesn't take away from the main point that you can't say definitively that no one has ever been more creative on drugs. Besides Sgt Pepper is one of their most hailed albums.
Your take on John's music is also subjective.

One of the study's I read were using brain scans and how it affected those centers of brain and when they turned on during drug use.
So yes. It was scientific.

It goes a lot further than just music too, it's art in all forms. Pictures, paintings, drawings, there is stories of people going back hundreds of years who were off their heads on the drugs of the day that produced stuff well and beyond what others were doing. There has even been studies done with white collar workers, where drugs like cocaine are rife in some areas, that show how effective some people have been while off their nuts.

 

[Slammed]

I was reading MA forum's take on the new Exdous this morning and I was reminded of the drug conversation. The so called fans on that forum love to praise the early Exodus stuff quoting that the new songs don't compare to songs from Bonded, or Pleasures, or even Fab Des. They go on about how Exodus/Gary can't write like that any more. The days they seem to like were the best times of metal, which is fine but they can't seem to get past those days, they want today's music to sound like stuff from the 80's.

In this instance (and there is a lot of other factors), it's the fans holding the music back as much as the drugs. People want Gary to write like he did when he and the band were off their heads and nothing they write today will compare. I know the fans aren't advocating to return to the days of drugs, but they do seem to be stuck firmly on the idea that todays music can not be as good as yesterdays music.

 

[redfly]

It really doesn't matter where one's wake up call comes from, just as long as they hear it

This Janis pic.

Yeah that's very true.
Pretty cool pic!

 

[redfly]

It goes a lot further than just music too, it's art in all forms. Pictures, paintings, drawings, there is stories of people going back hundreds of years who were off their heads on the drugs of the day that produced stuff well and beyond what others were doing. There has even been studies done with white collar workers, where drugs like cocaine are rife in some areas, that show how effective some people have been while off their nuts.

Yup, they have found some very ancient evidence of the creative world mixed with drugs. Even thousands of years ago. Some of it is really astonishing. Lol, Yeah a lot of those Wall St guys and Silicone Valley guys are all coked up or on speed. I watched a Doc that had interviews with a lot of those people. And these are people making serious bank at their jobs.

 

[Slammed]

Yeah that's very true.
Pretty cool pic!

Pretty cool chick, although she had more problems than just the drugs.

 

[redfly]

I was reading MA forum's take on the new Exdous this morning and I was reminded of the drug conversation. The so called fans on that forum love to praise the early Exodus stuff quoting that the new songs don't compare to songs from Bonded, or Pleasures, or even Fab Des. They go on about how Exodus/Gary can't write like that any more. The days they seem to like were the best times of metal, which is fine but they can't seem to get past those days, they want today's music to sound like stuff from the 80's.

In this instance (and there is a lot of other factors), it's the fans holding the music back as much as the drugs. People want Gary to write like he did when he and the band were off their heads and nothing they write today will compare. I know the fans aren't advocating to return to the days of drugs, but they do seem to be stuck firmly on the idea that todays music can not be as good as yesterdays music.

Yeah that's a really good point. I mean, maybe it'd be different if they'd started their careers straight. Then maybe they could continue to write that way. But a lot of them were kids on drugs from the get go. Remove that headspace and it may just be different.

 

[redfly]

Pretty cool chick, although she had more problems than just the drugs.

No Janis, no Axel!

 

[Slammed]

Yup, they have found some very ancient evidence of the creative world mixed with drugs. Even thousands of years ago. Some of it is really astonishing. Lol, Yeah a lot of those Wall St guys and Silicone Valley guys are all coked up or on speed. I watched a Doc that had interviews with a lot of those people. And these are people making serious bank at their jobs.

The underlying fact still remains that drugs, especially hard drugs do cause problems and those problems are wide and varied. But just like people have known about high functioning alcoholics for years there is what's known as high function drug addicts. I think it would be hard to find anyone in science who recommends someone with writers block, or a guitarist looking for that million dollar riff, go out and try crack just to see what happens, but the same scientist would be happy to study the person's mind if they did!

 

[redfly]

Absolutely. I'd never dispute that.

Hahaha! Also so true!

 

[Slammed]

Yeah that's a really good point. I mean, maybe it'd be different if they'd started their careers straight. Then maybe they could continue to write that way. But a lot of them were kids on drugs from the get go. Remove that headspace and it may just be different.

I reckon that if bands like Exodus hadn't grown in 40 years there would be more whinging and complaining than we currently have. I'm not sure too many people could have survived 40 years of hard drugs, but bands getting clean is a good thing. I'd much rather hear a band like Exodus come up with something new today, than continually writing/re-writing classic songs like Verbal Razors (for example) time and time again because they are stuck in a headspace that fans seem to think was the best ever.

 

[Slammed]

No Janis, no Axel!

Hmm could we get Janis back and let (whoever) take Axel?

 

[Slammed]

Absolutely. I'd never dispute that.

Hahaha! Also so true!

It's left for today's generation to hypothesise just how much different art (as a whole) would be without the drugs. The problem is that because we know the effects of drugs it's too easy to just sit back and say they had a negative effect and ignore any positive effect they might have had.

 

[Neptune]

The British Joplin!

 

[Slammed]

Happy Birthday Mr. Skolnick

 

[TempleOfBlood]

you can't say definitively that no one has ever been more creative on drugs.

I didn't say that, and I think you know that I didn't. I am speaking in generalities.

The primary reasons artists make great music and later on don't is:
1. free time
2. effort
3. focus
4. motivation
5. lack of commercial pandering
6. their lifestyle is less expensive when they are younger

These things often diminish as a musician gets married, has kids, needs to stop living on sofas, etc. and their priorities change drastically. It's happened with every musician I know, and I think much more so in ones that have "made it".

The overlap here that confuses people IMHO is that most people take most of their drugs when they are younger, and when they are older they tend to take less (if they live through their youth). They confuse correlation with causation.

Drugs might occasionally provide some sparks of inspiration, but also occasionally diminish the ability to see things through.
I can't tell you how many potheads out there are talented musicians but are too doped up to follow through with any project.

There are many more metal bands who've dropped one great album than bands who have several in a row. That's what separates the men from the boys.

The "brain waves" = "great creativity" claim is dubious at best, but so is much of the social sciences. Is the performance of athletes equivalent too if you can show their muscles react just as much? Talk about something that is subjective. People always try to mathematically quantify things that are unquantifiable. If this really worked, musicians would be clamoring to find ways to increase their brain waves instead of practicing their instruments, etc.

I believe for one that Megadeth (or Dave Mustaine) would've gone farther without his drug/alcohol problems. He might never have even gotten kicked out of Metallica! Some of those lineup changes would've never happened. It wouldn't have set the band back months having to find/break in new musicians and they could've used that time to move forward. I don't think any of his great songwriting is attributable to drug use, more like in spite of it, and he has never said in interviews that he used drugs to inspire him. Even though he took a ton of drugs, his music isn't psychedelic "drug music" like Pink Floyd.

 

[TempleOfBlood]

I reckon that if bands like Exodus hadn't grown in 40 years there would be more whinging and complaining than we currently have. I'm not sure too many people could have survived 40 years of hard drugs, but bands getting clean is a good thing. I'd much rather hear a band like Exodus come up with something new today, than continually writing/re-writing classic songs like Verbal Razors (for example) time and time again because they are stuck in a headspace that fans seem to think was the best ever.

Most Exodus fans today don't even like Verbal Razors. I hear very often that BBB was the only good thing they did and that Zetro ruined them.

This is what the band themselves have heard for years and this is why they sound the way they do now. They stripped down their sound, just make it very aggressive, remove almost all the melody, and go for that Sneap/Juan Urtega production that everyone says is so great these days.

I think these 2 new songs, and the last album suck ... but not because I want them to remain the same all the time. I'm the staunchest defender of Force of Habit that you'll find, though admittedly some of the stuff there was very cringe-y.

I would even argue that between PoTF and FoH if you just listen to all of those songs there is already a lot of variety in that material, from the classical interludes to Toxic Waltz, Only Death Decides, Seeds of Hate, Feeding Time at the Zoo, Chemikill, Low Rider, Like Father Like Son, etc etc. That's not a band that wrote the same song over and over.

If I had to point to the single greatest flaw with their current sound, I'd say it is believing that you only need to be "heavy" and that melody isn't really important for Exodus.