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42 years ago today....


RowdyMoon

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I know there have been way to may rock tragedies but this one ( set of ) really hit the rock world hard...most people think of the big three passing ( Hendrix, Joplin , Morrison)but for me it's the big 4 and it started with my man Alan Wilson from Canned Heat who died 42 years ago today...2 weeks later Hendrix, a few weeks later after that Joplin would pass...and year later Morrison....life is short so be safe and enjoy the ride..R.I.P Alan ...

 

and , sadly..all 4 of them are part of the famous "27" club.

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QexOuH8GS-Y

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlCSYBGPySY

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I still have 'Hooker & Heat' - the 1st record is John Lee and Blind Owl in duo - that's the REAL deal.

A truly great harmonica player and the lead vocalist on 'Goin' up the Country' and 'On the Road Again'.

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I know this will sound horrid to some, but while I feel sympathy for those who might have suffered a personal loss at these folks' passing, I feel none for them.

 

I was "there" in roughly the same age group, and playing music... I saw use of too much drugs and way too much booze... a horrid, dangerous and violent or potentially violent lifestyle... It wasn't necessary to creativity, IMHO. There was a total lack of self care of so many "kids" my age to the point that frankly I thought it was far past a "rush" and entered the sphere of being suicidal.

 

Drugs of various sorts from booze to heroin and LSD were technically available to almost anyone anywhere if one were willing to believe that the sales person purveying allegedly illegal substances actually knew what was in what they sold...

 

Sad, but they were adults.

 

Praise the music if you will - I enjoyed some of it myself - but for heaven's sake don't portray it as an appropriate lifestyle because so many unknowns suffered a similar fate. I'd hate to think any of our younger pickers on this forum would see it as a lifestyle to emulate.

 

m

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...It wasn't necessary to creativity, IMHO... Praise the music if you will - I enjoyed some of it myself - but for heaven's sake don't portray it as an appropriate lifestyle because so many unknowns suffered a similar fate.

 

We've had this discussion before. I don't think many of these people used drugs/alcohol to enhance creativity so much as that their temperaments and personalities were predisposed to having an addictive and self-abusive nature. Creative artists throughout history seem to have a similar nature to abuse drugs/alcohol. It seems some mental conditions, e.g. bi-polar disease, seem to have these addictive signatures and are common in creative types.

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It wasn't necessary to creativity, IMHO.

 

 

m

 

 

I respectfully disagree. It's all relative. The Beatles were one of the greatest examples of it.

If it weren't for pot, there would be no Revolver. If it weren't for LSD, there would be no SGT Peppers.

Even the Beatles admit it affected their creativity.

Were they already creative? Yes. But it certainly took them on another path musically and for me is when the

Beatles really come to life.

Give me "Happiness is a Warm Gun" over "I Wanna Hold your Hand" any day of the week. (8 days a week for that matter..lol)

 

 

Will it enhance/alter creativity? Definitely yes. Is it necessary for creativity? Absolutely not.

 

One of my all time favorites to ever walk the planet did no drugs or alcohol at all.

One Francis Vincent Zappa. He was one of the most creative musicians/composers I have ever heard.

And he did it all with no mind alterations whatsoever.

 

To each his own. Long as it sounds good and nobody gets hurt I'm good.

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Enhance/alter creativity?

 

We're talking about very young guys. Any experience much different from the ethos in which we are raised can easily be said to enhance and alter creativity - creativity whether in "art" or even in learning to operate heavy equipment well.

 

I'm far from young by most measures, but I can tell you now that the access to Youtube and similar opportunities for music vids has made some serious changes - I hope enhancement - in how I play. And that's perhaps in ways as much change as my first few years of picking.

 

As for the self destructive side... again, my observation is that we're not talking "just" drugs and alcohol, either.

 

But once one enters a psychological whirlpool within a culture of "who cares," it's not entirely unexpected that getting out can be incredibly difficult. That same individual in a different cultural environment might do far better. Or that same individual in a slightly different circumstance who didn't allow a difficult cultural environment to destroy however one wishes to describe "conscience" or call it "self preservation" mentality.

 

m

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I'm not attempting to condone drug use.

 

Nor do I care to delve into a deep philosophical discussion about the evils of drug abuse.

 

Simply stating that, like it or not, they do affect a persons perception, and in some instances, like the Beatles music, it was a good thing. In many cases it's not and death is a possibility.

 

As for what lifestyle the young pickers on this forum choose to emulate is entirely up to them.

I'm pretty certain that what I say isn't going to make all the young pickers on here run out and by some dope.

Nor will they run to the nearest clinic if I ask them to quit.

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Actually "dope use" is the least of it, IMHO.

 

Drugs are not the only mode of rapidly, or less rapidly, experiencing a change in how one's mind functions. Some alternatives may, in fact, be somewhat to far more dangerous.

 

My point was that all experience will change one's perspectives in "art." Were it not drugs, but just travel, it would change, too. The thing is, the Beatles and others of that era were in a pro-drug subculture that had some folks I knew trying to follow up on the underground proclamations of the benefits of mainlining mayonnaise.

 

There's a difference between being wild, even wild and rebellious, (which some might suggest I haven't yet outgrown) and being so uncaring of one's own safety without calculation, that it has to be considered suicidal.

 

m

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4Hayden...

 

That's because the young are known and noticed by other young folks - and their parents, even grandparents. Even by young folks in various news media.

 

OTOH, while folks nowadays may talk generically about their grandparents' generation, they haven't a clue. Period.

 

Not a clue. Just some irrelevant old guy or some old woman. Not until they're dead do you see the "Oh, yeah, she was a great trick rider back in ancient history in the late 1930s" or, "Yeah, he did stuff in those cute little planes/tanks/ships in WWII you can't believe."

 

There's a total disconnect that older folks have been there, done that; the girls were foxy, the boys hunks. When he or she are still creaking around, though, it's so often, "Jee, why does he/she even try?"

 

We've even heard that sorta thing on this forum about some "older" rockers...

 

Older folks owe respect to those who show it to them but... younger folks owe respect to those who show it to them too.

 

Sumthin' to think about.

 

m

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The great American journalist and writer,Hunter S. Thompson once said "Although I don't condone the use of drugs,I know that they've certainly worked for me." Tragically Thompson too died before his time but by his own hand-which really wasn't a big surprise to anyone who knew him.

 

BTW:There have been a couple of excellent movies portraying his life."Where The Buffalo Roam"starring Bill Murray as H.S.T. and "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"with Johnny Depp starring as H.S.T.-Thompson was so impressed with Depp when he came out to Thompson's ranch to study his moves and mannerisms for the movie that they became the closest of friends.

 

Thompson always wrote while under the influence of copious amounts of booze and/or drugs of many and any types yet he was one of the most revered writers of the 20th century and the winner of too numerous journalism prizes to mention.

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"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro..." - H S Thompson

 

"The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it, because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over." - H S Thompson

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