Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs

Subject: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 19 Jan 13 - 08:19 AM

If you cut that Grammy Award winning album fueled by LSD or whatnot, do you really deserve an award? Haven't you cheated?
Lots of musicians think they need a little shot or hit or line of whatever to be their best.
But are they their best?
=(:-( o)

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: Will Fly
Date: 19 Jan 13 - 08:25 AM

Bit of a social difference here, Henry, between sports and music.

Sports are competitive, with a prize at the end. There has to be a winner.

Music isn't overtly a competition. There are no real winners, and the musicians have little idea whether they'll get a (usually pointless) award or not. And we don't drug test musicians after a concert or after recording an album!

And who gives a rats ass what they take? Anyone I've ever known personally who's played while imbibing or ingesting something dubious has always sounded like shit.

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 19 Jan 13 - 08:34 AM

Why care about what the athletes take? If their heart explodes that's their bad decision to make.
And music is extremely competitive.
Awards and prizes in every genre.
The Beatles cheated by using LSD to attain artificial inspiration.
=(:-( 0)

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: Leadfingers
Date: 19 Jan 13 - 09:09 AM

Krink - GO AWAY if you cant be even VAGUELY constructive . What have The Beatles to do with Folk and Blues ?

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: paul vaughan
Date: 19 Jan 13 - 09:29 AM

My own particular performance enhancing drug of choice is several pints of Harveys Sussex Best Bitter which,coincidentaly, is available for a very reasonable £3.20 at the Ark pub in Newhaven. This is also, purely coincidentaly, the venue for a very friendly Open Mic night every wednesday night from 8pm. The fact that I host the aforementioned Open Mic is also purely coincidental as I would not be so brazen as to use a public forum such as this to publicise an event out of personal interest.
(Did I mention it's at the Ark,in Newhaven,BN9 9BP, every wednesday,8pm?)
(Friendly folkies are welcome if kept on a lead.)

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: Ron Davies
Date: 19 Jan 13 - 09:29 AM

The idea of "cheating" by taking drugs is totally absurd.   What matters is the result. But for somebody who doesn't take drugs, the result is usually not very good music.   Only really good piece of music I can think of which may---it's unclear--be influenced by a drug, in this case opium, is Symphonie Fantastique. A wonderful piece.    And it may just be Berlioz' talent (and obsession with a woman) that made it so good--no drugs required.

The Beatles did take drugs. And, sure enough, their music went right down the tubes--became pretentious and stupid.   But they thought evidently that it became more profound.

And a whole cottage industry sprang up to support this thesis.

So it seems to boil down to whether the audience is also taking drugs. If so, they can be just as deluded as the performers.

But in general music does not benefit from anybody taking drugs.

Good music--of any kind--can be, and is, the best drug there is. No pharaceuticals needed to produce or enjoy it.

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: paul vaughan
Date: 19 Jan 13 - 09:33 AM

Except a nice pint of Harveys. ;) sorry. Couldn't stop meself!

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 19 Jan 13 - 09:37 AM

Why care about what the athletes take

Because they are competing against one another for some sort of prize, whether it be money or prestige. Why should an athlete who cares about his long-term health be forced to use life-shortening drugs to be competitive against someone who is willing to sacrifice long-term health for short-term gain? How would you feel if you had to use dangerous drugs to keep your job? That's exactly what would happen if drug-enhanced athletes were allowed to compete freely against clean athletes.

But the main difference between athletic drug use and drug use by musicians is that one produces empirical, measurable, physical results while the other produces a subjective esperience that can't be quantified. There is no drug that can be taken by a musician that makes him capable of playing something an undrugged musician of similar abilities could not possibly play. There are drugs that can be taken by an athlete which can make him capable of a performance an undrugged athlete cannot possibly duplicate.

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 19 Jan 13 - 09:49 AM

I say legalize it all. Let it all hang out. Some will crash and burn. But that's the price to pay.
=(:-( D)

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: GUEST,Backwoodsman
Date: 19 Jan 13 - 10:06 AM

I repeat my post from the 'Turd de France' thread where Krankle dragged this same bullshit idea into the Lance Armstrong debate:-

Some of us abhor drug-abuse by anyone for any reason, including musicians who 'used drugs to connect with their inner muse'. My drug, in my early musical life, was alcohol. After a gig where I thought my alcohol-fuelled playing and singing had reached new, astronomical heights of brilliance, a band-mate whose talent I held in high regard told me, "The only person who thinks you play better when you're pissed-up is you!"

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 19 Jan 13 - 10:34 AM

I say legalize it all. Let it all hang out. Some will crash and burn. But that's the price to pay.

No, all would crash and burn. It would amount to demoting athletes from positive role models to a subclass of people who are willing to sacrifice their lives to entertain the rest of us, scarcely a step above the bulls in the bullring. What parent would knowingly encourage his child to participate in athletics if he knew that the only way to win was to use a product guaranteed to carry negative health consequences?

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 19 Jan 13 - 10:27 PM

Whatever you all may think about Henry Krinkle, there is a perfectly reasonable answer to his question. To wit:

There are formal rules for athletic competitions, such as bicycling, set by organizations such as the UCI(Union Cycliste Internationale) and USAC (USA Cycling). These associations have decided that certain drugs enhance performance and have decide that they may not be used by competitors. In order to compete in their events competitors agree not to use them. If you don't follow the rules, you're out. It's that simple.

The Grammies have rules (though God only knows what they are), but they don't have a drug rule. Maybe if they did, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, et al, wouldn't be dead. Or maybe they just wouldn't be eligible for Grammies.

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: GUEST,999
Date: 19 Jan 13 - 10:37 PM

Stim, well said.

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: Stanron
Date: 19 Jan 13 - 10:40 PM

Henry

I enjoy your provocative postings a lot. But surely this time you've shot yourself in the foot. Or other anatomical part of your choice.

A performance enhancing drug presumably enhances a performance. That performance wins an award. What's the problem?

I dearly wish I could get hold of any kind of drug at all, other than alcohol, but I can't.

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: Don Firth
Date: 20 Jan 13 - 01:18 AM

Fairly early on, I was acquainted with one particular small group of folk singers who performed regularly at one particular coffee house. They were fairly decent singers and guitarists, but away from the coffee house, they invariably broke out the pot about halfway through the evening.

On a couple of occasions, I tried the stuff. Got the usual time-dilations and spacial weirdnesses, and it was an interesting experience, I didn't enjoy it, so twice was enough for me. When it's going the rounds, I stick to a few beers or a glass or two of wine, enough for convivial good fellowship, but not until I get blasted.

During one particular song fest in a private home, when the pot was doing the rounds, all the participants were going on about how they were, gee whiz, playing better than they ever did. The pot really enhanced their playing and they were doing better than they ever did.

Or so they were sure their playing was so much better and "inspired" than when they were straight.

I, however, couldn't help noticing that their playing may have sounded much more inspired—to them—but in actuality, they were much sloppier than they normally were when they were straight.

They performed in Carnegie Hall every week—in their minds. So why should they bother to work so hard to achieve the real thing? The thing is, they don't.

I'll pass, thanks.

My drug of choice is music inself.

That way, any success I have is my own. Not some mind-altering substance or pharmaceutical supercharger.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: GUEST,Backwoodsman
Date: 20 Jan 13 - 02:29 AM

Sagely words, Don. You're absolutely right, and you eloquently reinforce the point I tried to make earlier.

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: GUEST,Backwoodsman
Date: 20 Jan 13 - 02:35 AM

In fact these drugs, be they illegal or legal, are not 'performance enhancing' at all, they merely enhance the performer's perception of his performance. He thinks he's playing brilliantly, but his audience (or those in his audience with clear, un-intoxicated brains) know he's playing crap.

I've never heard anyone play better because they're stoned or pissed, always the opposite. Perhaps the thread should have been titled 'Musicians and performance-affecting drugs'.

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: greg stephens
Date: 20 Jan 13 - 03:54 AM

Will Fly says: "Anyone I've ever known personally who's played while imbibing or ingesting something dubious has always sounded like shit."
Well, I never knowingly play without drinking beer. Are you saying I sound like shit? Come up the Greyhound on Wednesday and say that in person.

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: Will Fly
Date: 20 Jan 13 - 04:34 AM

Beer? - "something dubious"? Shock horror!

I think not, Greg. Beer was the staple drink of us all until clean water came along. It's good wholesome stuff. I personally make sure I put a pint a day inside me to keep the innards going, keep the heart stimulated and the wit sparkling.

Come to think of it, if this post sounds rather dull, it's because it's 9.30 on Sunday morning and I haven't had my pint of "Devil's Dyke" porter, brewed in the Long Man brewery (Eastbourne).

As for you playing like shit, well, I might just get my arse over to Penkhull on 6th February and feed you several pints of the local brew - just to see what happens... All in the name of scientific research you understand.

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: GUEST,Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 Jan 13 - 04:40 AM

Well I find myself agreeing with Henry.

I've certainly known musicians who somehow cut loose with their imagination - dared to play a few bum notes and and worked through to find a new solo, none of us were expecting -under the influence of something relaxing.

Its not everybody's cup of tea. I quite like that sort of thing though. Louis Armstong is said to have smoked pot every day of his life.

However he did it. he was pretty bloody good.

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: Will Fly
Date: 20 Jan 13 - 05:38 AM

I don't know about pot, Al, but Louis was certainly a massive user of Swiss Kriss.

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: alanabit
Date: 20 Jan 13 - 07:55 AM

Maybe it's a case of horses for courses with musicians. I am fairly sure that in my own case I play better without any alcohol or dope at all. Sometimes I will take a pint towards the end of my final set. Some of the musicians I play with drink a pint or two during the gig - to no discernable disadvantage. Performers who are discernably drunk or stoned on stage are usually a pain in the neck to work with and (imo) look like amateurish buffoons to their audience.
To say baldly that The Beatles - or anyone else - "cheated" by using drugs is a gross over-simplification of what was happening in their lives at the time. Drugs were part of a culture which, in the view of many of us, produced extraordinary music. I think there is little profit in speculating upon whether that would or would not have happened had there been no drugs.

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: GUEST,Musket sans cookie
Date: 20 Jan 13 - 08:59 AM

Sucking a Fisherman's Friend has always helped me sing slightly better.

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: erosconpollo
Date: 20 Jan 13 - 09:24 AM

I tried steroids and it didn't help my playing at all. But I did look much more imposing on stage.

Seriously, I find that even a single beer can be detrimental to my dexterity. A little caffeine, however, may actually be beneficial and improve short term memory---won't forget those lyrics this time!

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: GUEST,Backwoodsman
Date: 20 Jan 13 - 10:44 AM

I agree, but I suspect that Krinkle didn't have 'a single beer' or 'a little caffeine', or even a few puffs of a spliff in mind in his OP - musicians seldom (if ever) perform well when they're 'off their faces' in my long experience.

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 20 Jan 13 - 12:59 PM

Works best if it's the audience that partakes--not necessarily the performer.

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Jan 13 - 03:55 PM

Define drugs...

B~

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 Jan 13 - 05:17 PM

I think we know what we're talking about. Psychotropic Scooby snax, Mind altering goodies.

The thing everybody remembers about Beiderbecke (those who were there) was that the solos were LONG - not just the two minutes or so we get on the records.

Check out the booze fuelled schedules that generation of jazzers worked. Read about it in Eddie Condon's biography. they were doing gigs, then the action started- checking out other musicians in after hours speakeasies, then going off to jam sessions and playing till they collapsed.

Small wonder they got good. Similar things could possibly be said about the Beatles and the amphetamines in Hamburg.

Theres no guarantee you're going to end up a genius. But if you're going to apply yourself to a relatively simple format. The focus you need, to rise above the common herd has to be extraordinary.

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: GUEST,Backwoodsman
Date: 21 Jan 13 - 03:38 AM

If its a choice between wrecking my mind and/or body or the faint possibility of becoming a 'genius' (although in fairness, one man's 'genius' is another man's 'shite' - and I'm not getting drawn into naming names there!), I'm happy to remain where I've always been as a performer - one of The Common Herd!

Over many years I've played in bands with drunks and pot-heads (although never with 'hard' drug-abusers) . They all got fired because, good though they were when they weren't in their cups, they couldn't play with the rest of us when they were shit-faced.

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: GUEST,Backwoodsman
Date: 21 Jan 13 - 03:40 AM

And they were unreliable.

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: GUEST,BobL
Date: 21 Jan 13 - 04:08 AM

Drifting slightly, there is such a thing as Conditioned Recall. It's the reason why Morris dancers (for example) who practise at a pub won't be at their best level of performance before the first pint.

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 21 Jan 13 - 05:34 AM

Yes. The men who recorded the early bluesmen and women said they had to put some booze into them to get the best performance.
I'm referring to everything from coffee and cigarettes to heroin and LSD in my little thread here.
Access those inner demons with mind altering substances.
Be the next Robert Johnson. Hank Williams.
=(:-( ))

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Jan 13 - 06:33 AM

I do believe in legalising all drugs.That does not mean I approve of taking heroin or crack, I think drug distribution has to be taken out of the hands of criminals.

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: GUEST,Frug
Date: 21 Jan 13 - 04:35 PM

"Sucking a Fisherman's Friend has always helped me sing slightly better"

LOL

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: Amos
Date: 21 Jan 13 - 04:51 PM

There's a difference between physical competition and artistic performance where you are competing only with yourself, really. Personally I have found that black coffee with a little single-malt in it does wonders to elevate my public reputation, and endurance during the long-night sessions of the Getaway. It seems to assist my dexterity as wlel, but I can't be the judge of that! :D

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: GUEST,bIG aL wHITTLE
Date: 21 Jan 13 - 06:34 PM

"Sucking a Fisherman's Friend has always helped me sing slightly better"

What a colourful picture of English folk music you are painting for our transatlantic friends.

You ought to be writing for the English Tourist Board really.

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 21 Jan 13 - 06:55 PM

Since money is involved I think all of the American Idol contestants should be drug tested.
=(:-( ))

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: Jeri
Date: 21 Jan 13 - 06:56 PM

We have Fishermand's Friend over here, too.

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 Jan 13 - 07:24 PM

I don't take drugs (except an occasional aspirin and whatever a doctor might prescribe), especially psychotropic or "mind-altering" drugs of any kind. When I perform officially in front of an audience—concert, television, or other gig—I don't drink alcohol. There is too much for me to think about in giving a good performance for me to try to perform impaired by alcohol or anything else. If the audience is paying me, I owe them, and I intend to deliver.

In a social situation, say, at a party, or what we around here have always called a "hootenanny," or simply a "hoot," where a bunch of us are sitting around informally singing for each other and anyone else who wants to listen, I will indulge in a little beer or wine along with the others. This is not a "performance" as such, and since "hoots" are where many people try out new songs they have learned, sometimes the songs still need a bit of work. It's a whole different thing.

Tell you what, Henry: when I finish my performance in the concert theater and pick up my check, I'll be sure to drop a dollar or two in your tin cup as I saunter home past where you're busking,

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: Elmore
Date: 21 Jan 13 - 08:15 PM

In 2004 Leonard Cohen said it was tough making the song "Suzanne" sound authentic, "but a lot of red wine will do it."

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Jan 13 - 08:56 PM

I wouldn't say the drugs themselves make someone play better. I can imagine the stoned musician imagines they are because they are involved a whole lot more with what they are doing....being more observant. Being stoned can make you more aware with what your doing and how you observe things. Of course that doesn't account for everyone, but some people sure.

Without a doubt being stoned/high can increase your inspiration and awareness with music. When your in an altered state your going to see things differently than if you hadn't...and in that case that increased awareness and inspiration can be used to produce new ideas. The more angles you can see the same thing from the better one may be off...again for some people.

A musician could get stoned, play music, then re listen to it sober and see what he thinks...he could play sober and re listen to it stoned to see if he could get anything out of that....or he could do both.

-My thoughts from being in altered states.

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: The Sandman
Date: 22 Jan 13 - 03:53 AM

in my opinion the best way to play music well is to practise a lot, and have your body and mind in their best physical condition.
taking drugs generally messes your body up and has destroyed many talented musicians.

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: GUEST,Backwoodsman
Date: 22 Jan 13 - 07:16 AM

Spot-on, Dick. Couldn't agree more.

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: Will Fly
Date: 22 Jan 13 - 07:49 AM

When I was playing and gigging in London in the late '60s, a bass-playing mate of mine got invited to rehearse with four other blokes to form a sort of good-time, jug band.

So, one Sunday afternoon, we drove along to this flat in Cromwell Road and met up with the other musicians. After a chat, etc., we sat down and one of the guys rolled a spliff. They passed it round - but neither me nor the bassist were interested - and we dipped out.

Some minutes later, the four of them were giggling and talking nonsense or dropping asleep - not a note played, and afternoon wasted.

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: alanabit
Date: 22 Jan 13 - 08:10 AM

"In my opinion the best way to play music well is to practise a lot, and have your body and mind in their best physical condition.
taking drugs generally messes your body up and has destroyed many talented musicians."

"I do believe in legalising all drugs.That does not mean I approve of taking heroin or crack, I think drug distribution has to be taken out of the hands of criminals."

Two posts above from Good Soldier Schweik - both of which I agree with wholeheartedly.

Subject: RE: Musicians & Performance Enhancing Drugs
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 22 Jan 13 - 07:15 PM

Only a dollar or two Mr. Firth? I'm worth at least $5.
Maybe more.
=(:-( D)