Beach Boy drug use...?

[MBE]

It's a small world. I wonder who or what was influenced the acid.

[audiodrome]

Bruce at least LOOKs very stoned on that "Time To Get Alone" video segment from "American Band."

[petsite]

Saw a doc on Sundance channel recently that just killed me. It was called ROCK AND ROLL - THE DRUG YEARS (also ran as an edited version on VH1).

The film talked about drug use and how it has gone hand in hand with rock through out the years (from disco to punk to raves etc.)  What really just floored me (and has always bothered me about the '60s kiddies ) is that numerous people interviewed said that all of the people that did drugs after the 60's were just looking to get high and f'ed up. But no one in the 60s was interested in getting high. They were only doing drugs to find a deeper awareness in their lives and they were pure in their drug use. PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If they had come forward and said that they were on a journey of self awareness but also like to just get f'ed up, I would respect them more. But everyone comes on like they are Mother Tersea and all of the following generations are just crap comparred to them. They were the mystic ones. Like Loren Daro and the rest of that group were mystic leaders. These guys could lead a dog with raw meat tied to their ass!!!

[MBE]

Well medically they dangers were not as well known but yeah most of it was to party. Perhaps LSD was supposed to help you be creative. Still even that was mostly to get off. Uppers and downers while touring may have not always been to get stoned.

[Lola Jane]

Drug use was common in the entertainment industry for years before the 60's.  You just never got to hear about it.  Thesps were regularly 'treated' to inject life into performances and then to come down from them.  Some drugs took on different names, and LSD was the buzz for a while etc.  The 60's made it more mainstream.  I laughed at a recent programme I saw about America's history of drug use - Mr and Mrs Normal from middle America having a doob in the parlour and heating up their weed in the frying pan for an afternoon's social.  State legalisations made it more common, but the children of the 60's just decided to tap it because it allowed them to reduce personal responsibility (OK, that bit's IMO) and get naked and get high.  'Mystical wisdom' was an unfortunate by-product of people talking trash.
The Beach Boys were like a plethora of other rich Americans, it was there so use it.  Unfortunate really, even if it did provide some quality music.  Drugs are still common in entertainment, even if they don't talk about it.

Andrew G Doe
Ah, Charles, if only t'were thus...  On A. N. Other forum, I've just finished outlining to people who I wouldn't consider newbies at all, why a stereo mix of "GV" is currently (and most like permanently) impossible. For something like the 10th time in the last few years.

'Fess up, Andrew.  You love it. 

[Custom Machine]

A couple of things to remember concerning Bruce playing piano on LSD-25 (the flip side of the Moon Dawg 45):

(1)  Although drugs were certainly more prevalent in the entertainment industry than in society in general, most members of the general public didn’t have a clue what LSD was in 1959 – 60.  The title would have seemed innocuous to most people back then.  It would be five years later, in 1965, that LSD became a hot news item and topic of conversation, with such news and discussion exploding in 1966.  And, it was still a legal drug at this point in time.


(2)  Bruce did not write or title the song, and may have not even known its title when he played the session.

[the captain]

Drug use was common in the entertainment industry for years before the 60's. 

No question about it. Jazz musicians were widely using heroin and marijuana, at least. Rock 'n' rollers were using speed (um, Beatles in Hamburg?). Go back further and writers and musicians were drinking absinthe or taking opium. As long as substances have altered minds, it seems artists of any genre have been interested in having their minds altered.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Further back than that - silent star Wallace Reid died in 1923 as a consequence of his morphine addiction. It's a huge irony that he was first given the drug by the studio doctor to combat the pain of a back injury he sustained while helping rescue people from a train wreck.

[the captain]

Farther back than "as long as substances have altered minds"? Wow, 1923 was pre-Big Bang!

 

[Andrew G. Doe]

Wally Reid is usualy cited as Year Zero for Hollywood drug abuse.

[the captain]

Would it paint me immature to respond with "Hollywood Schmollywood"?

In other news, I waste far, far too much time on days off. And far, far too much alcohol.

But really, considering I know authors and poets to have drug habits going back at least into the 19th century, at least, I wonder as to musicians.

[Jeff Mason]

Silent films are an eyeopener for those thinking that social ills are a recent development....


Douglas Fairbanks did a parody of Sherlock Holmes called Coke Ennyday.  This detective sat around between cases, spinning a wheel to decide whether to eat, coke up, shoot up, or drink a shot.  He had a belt full of hypos that he used liberally, and a case of flour that was actually pure cocaine.  1916, people.

Charlie Chaplin's most famous and possibly best short subject, Easy Street, had a scene where Charlie as policeman falls into an opium den accidentally.  His rump falls onto a syringe which injects into his body in full.  In a drug rush, Charlie suddenly has the strength to defeat all of his foes, followed ironically by a scene where Charlie as cop has cleaned up the street and everyone goes to church.

Scandals were severe then too.  There is the Reid one, plus the Fatty Arbuckle one with the dead actress and the accusations of rape that were untrue (destroying his career).  The parties in the 20s were legendary in Hollywood and some would make the 60's look tame.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Three words: Edgar. Allen. Poe.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Three more words:

Samuel. Taylor. Coleridge.