The Smiley Smile Message Board

i despise drugs and i'm tired of reading/hearing/seeing musicians using them. i hate the idea that one has to become a spiritual beggar to make extraordinary music. i've seriously considered not listening to any music except some indian classical music ever again just because i want to be as far away from the drug influence as possible. perhaps you find this strange but it's for the same reasons i don't watch tv - i don't want that sh*t infiltrating my mind!!!

i was watching some clips of the 1969 woodstock thing on youtube last night. there was a ten minute segment showing thousands of people smoking pot. i hate woodstock, it stinks. it means nothing to me. i see it as a spiritually dull gathering of drug addicts and drugged musicians partying in mud. i have been listening to a certain new age type musician the past few months under the impression that he has never been involved in the drug scene. well i found out he was at woodstock and considered it an example of a shift in planetary consciousness. i don't want to listen to him anymore.

i'm tired of the whole influence being there like a shadow behind everything. i have a different perspective on things, neither the below which they assert they have risen above nor their particular level which they are seeing and thinking from and on.

and ian andrerson doesn't count in my book, despite claiming not to ever use the popular drugs, he still smoked cigarettes and a pipe

cigarettes are a terrible habit to get into, absolutely ugly

Is it at all possible for you to go on Blogspot and spew your ramblings there instead of here? This isn't a blog, it's a message board.

But since I assume you were actually SERIOUS with this thread, here's a SERIOUS reply.

Music is music. I suppose someone who writes a song while they're taking aspirin for a headache isn't worth listening to because it's influenced by the drugs, right? And of course the most bitter of ironies is that every post you write here comes off like it was done under the influence of about a sandwich bag's worth of pot. Wake up and smell the coffee.

I actually like most of these ramblings and I do agree about Woodstock.  :afro

I subscribe to what John Lennon said about it: Who cares whether a person is on drugs or in a swimming pool? The artist makes the music, not the drug.

here here pixletwin!

Nobody: See if this is true.. read it slowly and carefully. Drugs will not show you anything that is beyond your own consciousness, which is limited by experience, and so limited by the past, time.  Inspiration comes from beyond the mind and is always new. This is where creativity comes from.  For that which is beyond the mind to come about, the mind has to end, be silent, die.  Some drugs like hallucinogens and pot can appear to do this, but it is always limited by the experience which always comes to an end.  Drugs are dangerous because of the way the mind works.  Thought, which is the mind, looks back on the experience of the drug, which it labels as pleasurable, after it has passed out of the state of experiencing in the present (in which thought is not), and says "I must have that again," thus adding continuity to the experience and leading to endless desire for more, which is addiction.  If you see this, then drugs lose their significance as 'spiritual' tools.  Also, the word spiritual has become quite a worn-out, over-used, and corrupt word.

Time is thought.  Love is when thought is not.

it's not like he's posting a daily stream of "MY LIFE TODAY" threads or something. this is a music section — he asked a question about music that just happened to be framed by a lot of personal perspective. which is what messageboards are all about, anyhow...a discussion between various personal perspectives. what, pray tell, pissed you off about this particular post? its length?


this is missing the point entirely. and it's a pretty simple point.


that's what makes his posts entertaining! knowing he doesn't have to toke up/inject himself in order to write them is all the more entertaining. a lot of his posts have made me laugh out loud; ain't nothing wrong with that!

I think Zappa did not use street drugs, but he chainsmoked, as far as I know. And nicotin is one of the most addictive substances known to mankind (although the tar and small amounts of carcinogens and heavy metals (no pun) do the damage.

I happen to like music by various musicians who were enormous ingesters. Brian, John Fahey, Leonard Bernstein, the lot.

On the other hand, I think that drug use can bring a relatively brief episode of stimulation and elation, and then the rot sets in. But by then you are hooked. Cocaine brings perhaps 15 minutes of fun to the addict, and days of stark depression and withdrawal.

So: I indeed hate the days when drugs were 'cool', and supported by many people. I fear that many an elderly vagrant and beggar now once followed their advice.

It would be interesting to name more musicians who did not use (or are not thought to have used) drugs other than coffee and maybe cigarettes and think about their music from that perspective. Hmm, who can I think of?

 I guess REM used pot when they were very young but supposedly really haven't partaken since then (except drinking, but not to excess--unless you're Peter Buck). They Might Be Giants, who I loved in college, are a coffee-only band. Mozart? "Amadeus" suggested that he was a drinker, but biographies say that he really wasn't too into the wine. Michael Jackson apparently stayed away from the drugs until recent years. Gene Simmons. He could probably stand to mellow out a bit.

I'm not very good at this because my knowledge of musicians really isn't that wide.

Beethoven was a wine addict. He suffered from depression and irritable bowel syndrome, and probably he drank alot because of that, and also his hearing loss, which became 100%. But wine can also do lots of damage to your intestines and make you depressed.

And I think G.G. Allin used to smoke a tiny bit of the weed every  month or so.

Seems to me that a thread like this is difficult in most cases, we as listeners have no idea. You know the drug casualties. You know the people who constantly vaunt their abstinence. But after that it's pretty blurry, based on guesses or assumptions.

...which is, of course, true. Thank God for the cool and observing wit and wisdom of our Luther. If he did not exist already, we would have to invent him.

Whaddaguy!

BTW I'd think that David Thomas (Pere Ubu) and Prince, being Jehova's Witnesses, are (were) really clean. Little drink, no smoking, no street drugs is their policy.

I don't exist. You did invent me. These posts are yours.

It's my MPD again! Next thing you know, I'll be Brian Wilson, twittering merrily away about the non-imminent release of that SMiLE box set...

If you were Brian Wilson, there's a good chance you'd have no idea what a box set is. Or Smile, for that matter.

 :lol I can't top that...

I was aquainted with Frank for a while and I would say that he was not a "chainsmoker",  but that he was a fairly heavy smoker as well as a heavy espresso drinker.  He did not have nuerotic smoking habits that I ever saw - like multiple cigarettes going nor was he lost without a cigarette.  He was more of  a deliberate smoker.  It is still too bad though that he avoided all the drugs except the worst one.

other no drug artists for sure:
Bruce Springsteen - also no smoke
John Mayall - (also no smoke? I think)    
Clifford Brown - significant in that he was clean and arguably the best best jazz trumpet player in the 1950's in a scene that was rampant with heroin addiction. 

Yes, very worthy of mention. And also, like Frank (though even more so) died way too young. Clifford was in his 20s when he died.

Clifford died in an automobile accident.  He was a passenger in a car where the driver lost control and plunged off an embankment.   

I recall an interview with Zappa.  I paraphrase;  I don't do drugs unless you count cigarettes, pots of coffee and some Jack Daniels.

I remember reading somewhere that Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips said he doesn't do drugs.

He might not do them any more, but he's admitted to doing acid a lot when he was younger.

Didn't one of the Flaming Lips do heroin at one time?

You can add Weird Al to the 'clean cut' pile too.  Doesn't smoke, doesn't drink, never did drugs.  The only time he had to smoke something was a clove cigarette for the "UHF" video (where he, as Billy Idol, puffs out a mouthful of smoke), and he said it made him extremely ill.

Considering the amount of weed that seemed to be around the Dr. Demento Show when young Al was a staple there, it's surprising.  But I'm willing to give Al the benefit of the doubt. 

As for celebs who cleaned up.... Aerosmith is well known for having kicked both drugs and alcohol in the late 80's - early 90's.  (Though I think Steven Tyler had some issues recently.)  Trying to think of any actors who are totally clean - Jason Mewes (Jay of "...and Silent Bob") and Steve-O from "Jackass" come to mind immediately.  Both had shockingly severe, life threatening drug addictions before, though.

Captain Beefheart... supposedly

Roy Wood.

Drink, hell, yes - oceans of it. But not drugs (oddly, for someone who penned the lyric "I can hear the grass grow")

Ted Nugent has, by his account, never taken drugs.

Al Jardine.

This is why I can't stand Frank Zappa as a person. Cigarettes, coffee, and Jack Daniels? Geez, he would've been better off smoking pot. He's just being smug. I can understand if he didn't like the typical pothead or whatever, but the way he talks about drugs bothers me. He really thinks his cigarettes, Jack, and coffee is healthier, mentally or physically, than most drugs?

Considering how bizarre much of the music Frank made, I think we should all count our lucky stars he DIDNT take any drugs. I don't think the human brain could possibly withstand the weirdness that would have resulted if Zappa had wrote songs whilst high!

Does Mike Love count? Or does his meditation addiction count as "drugs"? I mean, isn't he addicted, in part at least, to what happens chemically in his brain when he meditates?

And I completely agree about Woodstock! The whole thing just reeks of a bunch of drugged out assholes making a mess of some guy's farm and not paying attention to what little bit of good music was actually coming from the stage!

I think The Band had the right idea of (To quote Levon) "We piled into the helicopter and got the hell out of there"

I hate drugs!

IMHOP, drugs (specifically psychedelics) are for people who don't have active imaginations or inner universes! I mean, just look what they did to Brian and Dennis! Sure, both guys were nuts from day one, perhaps, but the drugs just made things worse!

H'mm. According to Barnes's biography, he certainly like his acid in the early days...

Robert Fripp is another matter: "Me and a book is a party. Me and a book and a cup of coffee is an orgy."   

I doubt if The Shaggs took drugs either.

I'm only aware of a couple rock and roll guys that never got into the drug scene - Paul Revere and Randy Bachman. In Revere's case, his anti-drug stance caused friction between him and his younger bandmates (although they recorded one of the first anti-drug songs, "Kicks", but Mark Lindsay says he didn't get that part of the message at the time). Bachman's aversion to drugs lead to him quitting The Guess Who - those guys were heavy duty party animals.

                                                                           J O N A T H A N   R I C H M A N

Sort of 3 categories I'm seeing here -- those who never used drugs or alcohol, those who may have a small alcohol intake but no other drugs generally, and those who did a sh*t ton of drugs and booze but are now clean and sober.  There is a fairly significant number in that last group.

Funny - Robert Fripp is another matter: "Me and a book is a party. Me and a book and a cup of coffee is an orgy."  

LOL!

It looks like you guys are struggling to cough up some straight artists.  Interesting...


(I also think woodstock was overrated, but I wasn't there, so can't be entirely certain.  ;))

When the current active threads fail to appeal for whatever reason, I look for an old topic to dig up----this one, for instance...

Cory Wells, who died recently, seems to have been a clean liver.

As for Woodstock, I think Monterey in '67 was a far more magical and less bloated affair. I wasn't at either----makes you wonder if anyone here was...




 

Recent threads are fine but some of us weren't here from eons ago. We missed some of the initial discussions. Therefore, it's totally okay to post in an old thread &/or quote an old post if there is sth. to agree with/dispute/catch up.

Chuck Negron confirms in his autobio that Cory was not into drugs. But Danny and especially Chuck did enough dope for the three - or seven - of them.