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The association of music and intoxicants?


RudyH

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Judging from history, I always figured that musicians were a bunch of drug addicts and boozers. It never occurred to me that it might mess up their playing. Then I had a couple of glasses of wine and played guitar for a while. It was no fun at all. I wasn't playing right, so I gave up. It was a bad feeling. I will never do that agaiin.

 

Do some people actually like to be intoxicated while playing music?

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different strokes for different folks. if you're a pro and folks are paying to see you, you owe it to them to be on your game. if you're a hobbyist, which i am, do what makes you feel good. i'm a concert promoter and have been for 28 years, nothing pisses me off more than some s**thead showing up loaded and giving the folks a crap show. i could type a laundry list here of some of your fav guitar players who've been guilty of that. but i won't. mox nix. when i'm at the house surrounded by my guitars, it's usually after a few libations and whatever else, that i'm able to get lost and explore in my guitars. the only right answer is what feels right for you. i probably "practice" from 7AM to 9AM most every day, but in the evening, after dinner and drinks, i play. don't rule anything out. some of the greatest music ever written was done so under the influence.

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I can't play drunk, and I usually don't drink at practice. At the gig I'll have a drink in a tall glass during the 2nd or 3rd set so I can use it as a slide.

 

No matter whether you're Drunk, High, or Sober if you forget the audience is listening it's time to clear the stage for the next act. Go do a bad job setting tile and get the heck out of my Art.

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I refuse to answer on the grounds that it might tend to incriminate me. :)

 

Judging from history' date=' I always figured that musicians were a bunch of drug addicts and boozers. It never occurred to me that it might mess up their playing. Then I had a couple of glasses of wine and played guitar for a while. It was no fun at all. I wasn't playing right, so I gave up. It was a bad feeling. I will never do that agaiin.

 

Do some people actually like to be intoxicated while playing music?[/quote']

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I've found that there's a certain level of familiarity you have to have with the guitar/music before you can play while under the effect of whatever your chosen substance is. I've been... well, lets just say I've been "smoking" for years, and playing guitar for about as long (picked the two up at about the same time, although one did not cause the other. just a coincidence). Not until recently have I been able to string together more than a few chords while under the influence. I tried several times before when I was just starting in on the guitar, but I have to say it all sounded like ball-gargling noise, until a few months or so ago, and I think it's just that I've internalized so much music that I no longer have to concentrate to play the music I'm comfortable with. I won't say it's any more or less fun, but I certainly am much more loose, relaxed, and I explore and try out a lot more new things than I would otherwise. Playing music is a feeling thing for me and smoking just puts me in a different mood and mindset, so it naturally changes how I'm going to play.

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I've tried a few things in the 70's, never managed to do it while playing though.

One of those things that you can neither confirm nor deny...

The past is what it is, musicians have been associated with at least a passing fancy for the experimental since at least the Jazz age.

So, I won't knock anyone that prefers to imbibe while playing.

 

Machs-Nichst, there's bound to be a few of them.

The one I actually saw was that infamous 5-way intersection in Stuttgart.

I saw another in old Sacramento.

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These 'herbal remedies' I've found zone me out too much and I forget what I'm playing (or that I'm even playing) but I find a like bit of the drink calms me down and makes me a bit less self conscious in my playing and lets me just kind of get into it, however as many of our fellow members have mentioned, too much of the drink does not reflect well on playing ability

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The evening starts out with bong hits. Then on to speed balls and lots of pills. Red, white, and blue ones usually get the job done. On to shots of whisky and lots of beer. Next we all take turns driving around the block just to test the local cops for when we get fu*ked up later in the evening. After another round of shots and a party ball or two it's on to the show. After tripping while trying to get on the stage and causing a nasty contusion to the temple area of the right side of your face you realize you didn't bring your guitar. Since there's more drinking to do you beg your old lady to run home for the guitar.

 

It flashes through your mind that you probably shouldn't trust your old lady with your favorite guitar. She seems to b1tch about that guitar more then anything. She hates the guitar. She has said so and has expressed how much she wishes it dead. ..... Your guitar again flashes to mind. And Again. Beer more beer.

 

You look up and there she is. She's a beauty; a reissue of a 1959 LP.

 

You plug and play. You suck, but it was loud... real loud.

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Oh man this is my specialty....

 

I've been smoking weed and playing guitar since the end of middle school. Thats how I learned.

 

I don't record unless I'm baked. I usually try not to perform unless I'm baked. I smoke everyday and copiously throughout the day. I practice technical stuff like scales and chords when I'm sober but work on my soul and licks while I'm high. While it may work for some people pot adds a real spark to my playing.

 

Beer I can't do. I'm a big lightweight and while I can play well after one beer, anymore than that and I'm passed out on the floor. My signature move is to drink a Colt 45 and pass out within 45 minutes.

 

I've only jammed with people on mushrooms and it was awesome. I felt the music in my hands and I could see it in the air. It obviously sounded awesome to me while I was tripping, but I actually played my heart out that day. The kids I jammed with thought I was the holy messiah afterwards. (They were not tripping.)

 

I also played upright bass while tripping on mushrooms during one of my free jazz combos smaller concerts. It was nasty. Nobody noticed except my girlfriend who had no idea until halfway during the concert when I finally looked up at the crowd with a look on my face of pure joy.

 

I've jammed on acid once and it was fun at first but halfway through I realized I had been strumming cuticles first viciously and bloodied up my Strat. I had also worn away most of two fingernails. Not only that but my hand hurt so bad I couldn't even think. At that point I put the guitar down and smoked a bowl to calm myself down because I was starting to get overwhelmed. The kid I was jamming with is the other guy in my band so he understood.

 

 

I love playing under the influence. I figure, all the best musicians had some type of substance muse and that their most highly regarded work is under the influence of something. Did you know Paul McCartney was doing a LOT of coke during the making of Sgt. Peppers? David Bowie was obviously all coked out all the time. He doesn't even remember making Station To Station which is in many people's opinions his best album.

 

Let me also say coke is very very bad. I only tried it once when I was younger and even stupider. It can turn anyone into a very bad person.

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Okay, an old guy again.

 

Most of the guys I played music with in the 60s are dead. Booze, drugs or a combination. I did more booze than I should have on occasions and it wasn't good for my playing as I discovered recording a batch of blues one night.

 

When a friend went to his car to sleep off an over-big bit of bourbon one night at a party, he woke up and decided to go back in for more. The problem is that a friend was driving him home at the time. The road rash wasn't pretty, but he was lucky that was all.

 

After that - I was 21 at the time - I changed jobs, changed towns, didn't touch a drop for a year to prove to myself I wasn't alcoholic, and did country with drunks instead of rock with guys that were doing stuff that could at the time put you into prison. I've seen prisons. Toured them through my day job at the time and that was enough.

 

So now I may smoke too much tobacco, but the single-malt Islay Scotch is too expensive to guzzle. I may not be that great a guitar player, but I'm a lot better than the average corpse.

 

I know that sounds pretty harsh, but what bugs me about illegal drugs, especially, or even legal ones that are taken illegally, is that the effect of whatever they are seems to have really screwed up or killed too many friends. I don't like that. I don't even know if the quadriplegic bass player was any better off than dead these 35 years later. And given the life span of a man with four-limb paralysis, I s'pose he's gone, too.

 

Harsh? Yeah. I dunno. Like I say, I was the guy who didn't play well with friends when they were high. The music style changed, their circle of friends changed, their interests otherwise changed, their money went to stuff other than guitars and more than a few died.

 

So... whatever.

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