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Drugs and the Musician

Article from One Two Testing, February 1985

dangerous truths


Just what are the substances battling it out in the invasion of the musician's bloodstream? David Sinclair takes a leaf out of Dr Spliff's tin and finds out (for a friend).

"Sex and drugs and rock'n'roll
Is all my brain and body need
Sex and drugs and rock'n'roll
Is very good indeed"

Ian Dury (1977)

Wide-scale drug abuse is an integral part of the rock'n'roll mythology and, as serious musicians, we are often faced with a bewildering array of perception-distorting substances from which to choose. As an ageing consultant to the music industry, I am often asked, "What are drugs?", "Where do I get drugs?", "How much should I pay for them?" and "What do I do with them?" In yet another of those fearless exposes in which One Two Testing tackles the real issues facing today's musician, I shall attempt to enlighten the more inquisitive among you, and hopefully guide you to a fuller understanding of the imperative need for musicians with any kind of serious intent to wreck their nervous systems as swiftly and flamboyantly as is humanly possible, and how they do it.

What are the facts? Firstly, musicians take drugs. Now I know you'll probably jump up and down quoting all sorts of exceptions at me — the squeaky-clean Adam Ant or the fossilised Robin Trower — but, ask yourselves, are these people real musicians? Well, of course they're not. Like real cowboys coughing and spluttering their way through Marlboro country, real musicians are obviously all junkies barely able to sustain a visit to the bathroom without handfuls of exotic chemicals to protect them from the hostile environment.

Sadly, like all clichés, the image is rooted in a strong undercurrent of truth. Where does this stereotype come from? America naturally, and probably as far back as 1914 when the Harrison Act outlawing narcotics, and a rising feeling of repression that led to Prohibition in 1920, set the stage for the invention of the musician junkie as an anti-hero:

"They call him Jerry the Junker
He's down in Chinatown
Raggetty clothes and torn shoes
How that boy can sing the blues
Everything just seems to ooze from Jerry the Junker"

'Jerry The Junker' by Clarence Williams (1934)

Throughout the Thirties, Forties and Fifties, jazz and blues musicians were known to consume illicit drugs. Occasionally a high-profile tragedy would occur, such as the death of Billie Holiday, but by and large such indulgences among the music fraternity were discreet, and rarely excited much popular attention.

The sudden massive explosion of the rock/youth culture in the Sixties changed all that. Perhaps the first that most people in Britain became aware of the widespread nature of drug-taking by musicians was a series of News Of The World articles in 1967 titled "Pop Stars And Drugs". The articles alleged common use of marihuana and LSD amongst the pop music fraternity. Mick Jagger, who was named in one of the articles, threatened to sue the News Of The World, and got busted the following week along with Keith Richards and other friends. Against a backdrop of rising hysteria, Brian Jones was also busted, Jagger was sentenced to six months imprisonment (for possession of four legally-prescribed, but illegally-imported pep pills, would you believe?), and the Beatles (MBE) admitted they took drugs, and indeed cautiously recommended them as a handy method of "expanding consciousness", presumably for people who felt their consciousness to be unreasonably stunted.

With the onset, in earnest, of psychedelia and the love and peace movement, a whole generation looked to drugs as a new liberating force. Gatherings such as the Woodstock festival in 1969 assumed a quasi-religious importance. John Entwistle of the Who recalled that it was impossible backstage at Woodstock to drink anything that wasn't laced with LSD, unless it came direct from a bottle. "All I had in a bottle was brandy," he said. "It was very hot and so I just kept on drinking the brandy." For all his alcoholic inebriation, Entwistle retired in better shape from that bash than most of his musician colleagues.

Hendrix, in all respects the archetypal rock star, practically defined the limits to which drug abuse could be taken, as biographer Jerry Hopkins describes: "Cocaine or amphetamines started the day, barbiturates or heavy downers like heroin or Quaaludes ended the day, and in between came the recreational drugs: beer and wine and Scotch, LSD, pot, hash, peyote, soma, mushrooms, mescaline, and speedballs made of smack and coke."

The rash of drug-related deaths which began in 1967 with Brian Jones and carried through to the mid-Seventies sweeping away such talents as Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Paul Kossoff, gave some musicians pause for thought, and by the end of the decade even such heavy dopers as Eric Clapton, Keith Richards and Pete Townshend were off the really hard stuff. LSD was by this time hopelessly out of fashion anyway, and the expensive opiates were the preserve of the establishment elite and (when cut with crude additives) the gutter junkies only. For the moment, punk brought back the basic drug values of aggressive stimulation through alcohol and amphetamines, while discovering a few new cheapo thrills through the abuse of solvents.

The respite was brief as, in the Eighties, heroin became available on every street corner. But now, a strange thing began happening. Pillars of the hellraising rock establishment such as Pete Townshend and Phil Lynott started to speak out against the insidious menace of heroin. The bright young career musicians, while not above snorting a few lines of suitably pure cocaine, added their voices to the rising chorus condemning the killer drug, heroin. Meanwhile, LSD has made a small comeback and virtually any drug that musicians, or anybody else for that matter, wants, is available in increasingly evident quantity.

Despite these latterday pangs of conscience there is no doubt that drugs and musicians are inextricably linked. Leaving aside the rather feeble insecurities and glaring personality disorders that seem to afflict many of the people involved in this attention-seeking business, it must be said that the taking of drugs is in many ways a function of the job and the environment. Musicians live on the fringes of society, operating in a nervy atmosphere where short bursts of excitement are followed by long spells of boredom. Drugs are everywhere in abundance and the temptation to use them is paramount. Taking drugs is a form of rebellion, and for many musos, rebellion is both a tool of the trade, and a way of life. When you were a kid you probably sat at home rolling joints out of old bits of carpet and banana peel. Forget the nauseous taste and delayed need to vomit — it was an adventure, and an acceptable mark of disrespect to authority. Most musicians are simply overgrown kids with the resources to get the real thing.

Furthermore, drugs can enhance one's perceived appreciation of music. In the right circumstances they act as aural monosodium glutomate, sharpening the taste of jaded musical palates, and many musicians (and fans too) find that after a number of artificially-induced highs they need the drug to get the buzz from the music. It's an illusion of course, but then music has a pronounced illusory quality. Bits of taut plastic are banged with sticks of wood, thin strips of stretched metal are twanged, and electronic impulses are transformed into tonal noises. The whole is enormously greater than the sum of the literal parts, and for some people the chemistry of musical creation needs to be aided by chemistry of a more prosaic nature.

With these heavy historical and sociological vibes firmly established, we may proceed with a brief examination of specific drugs, relating them to the kind of beautiful people who use them. What's your poison?

OPIATES


Morphine, heroin, opium, cocaine. Used medically as painkillers.

The vital function of heroin, or any of the opiates, is the capacity for blotting out anxiety. Heroin wraps you in a warm cocoon, giving a blissful impression of nirvana. Morphine and opium eradicate any physical pain, and cocaine gives you a stimulating lift. Cocaine, at £60/gram, is thought of as the champagne of drugs and is nowadays to be found in bowls set round the tables at high-class Hollywood parties. In its pure form it is the drug of the wealthy and sophisticated star. It is not as addictive as heroin which, at £40-£60/gram, is the real killer. Death from heroin is caused most commonly by accidental overdose or from disease caused by using unhygienic equipment to inject. At present there is a glut of heroin in Britain, and it's possible to buy it in £5 packs, though this will most likely be cut (ie mixed) with anything from Dextrose and glucose to Vim and brick dust. Heroin has been responsible for more premature deaths in the music business than any other drug.

For high society rollers and heavy dopeheads only.

BARBITURATES


(Downers) Mandrax, Valium, Quaaludes, Seconal, Tuinol. Used medically as sedatives.

Barbiturates range from the mild, such as Valium, to the heavy downers, such as Quaaludes — an American drug used to sedate mental patients — and Seconal, little bright red pills, two or three of which produce an effect similar to drinking seven or eight pints of beer in about half an hour. They are commonly produced as medicines to be taken on prescription in specific limited quantities, and the names are proprietary brand names. Widespread abuse has led to some, such as Mandrax, being taken off the market.

A drug ideally suited to head-bangers and sufferers of metal fatigue generally.

AMPHETAMINES


(Uppers, speed) Sulphates, Amyl Nitrate, Drinamyl (Purple Hearts), Benzedrine, Dexadrine, Methradine, Durophet (Black Bombers). Used medically as stimulants.

The drug for anyone who wants to be ultra-speedy, or just keep going beyond the normal limits of human endurance. 72 million Benzedrine tablets were issued to British forces during World War II. Thus a favourite of the pogoing punks, and their forerunners, the Sixties mods, who used to take 50 or so Purple Hearts (prescribed dose not more than three every 24 hours), drive down to Brighton on their scooters and engage in pitched battles with rockers all weekend.

Speed is a basic requirement for most roadie's survival kit, enabling them to maintain incredibly long hours, many of them behind a steering wheel. A line of amphetamine sulphate would last about six hours. A gram, at a cost of about £15, would be enough to keep the average person awake for about three days by which time they would be unable to string a sentence together. This would be the cue to take some downers to ensure a sound night's sleep.

Applied by roadies, speedfreaks, punks, and journalists behind on their deadline.

CANNABIS


Ganja, marihuana, resin.

Surely the most widely-used illegal drug in Britain today, and a stimulant that has achieved such far-reaching acceptance that a quantity was even discovered on board the Queen's plane during her Autumn tour of Canada last year (Richard Hatfield, 53, Premier of the Canadian province of New Brunswick and renowned "nightclubber", was questioned about the find). A religion for rastas and symbiotically linked to reggae music. Current prices about £60 to £90 an ounce — unless you grow your own.

For accountants, loosening up with old Pink Floyd records, and rastas.

HALLUCINOGENS


LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide), psilocybin, mescaline, peyote, magic mushrooms.

The reality shifters and the most unpredictable of all the drugs. LSD is a chemical synthesis of mescaline, the principal active alkaloid in the Mexican peyote cactus. In the Fifties and Sixties LSD was acclaimed as a psychotherapeutic wonder drug and used extensively for the treatment of acute alcoholics. It was only made illegal in the States as late as October 1966, and even then medics such as Dr Timothy Leary continued advocating its use. The drug was used with devotional enthusiasm by the psychedelic bands of the late Sixties, particularly in America, where groups like the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane regarded tripping as close to a religious experience. The drug disappeared for a while in the Seventies, but a new, less potent form has recently emerged.

For nature lovers, magic mushrooms which have a similarly disorientating effect can be found by wandering the dingley dells in most parts of Britain. They are actually quite legal until dried out, a process which makes them much stronger.

Applicable to ageing hippies; Steve Hillage, Neil etc.

ALCOHOL



If alcohol, instead of being a beneficent gift from the gods in the remote past, was invented today by a research chemist, there is little doubt it would immediately be stringently controlled by law. In itself it is still one of the most damaging and lethal of all the drugs, and in the rock'n'roll world its dangers are compounded by the likelihood of its being consumed freely and excessively in conjunction with any or all of the aforementioned drugs. In common with all the others, it is not what you take, but how much and how often.

Drugs are part and parcel of the rock'n'roll lifestyle, and in a sense it's a bit late for moral judgements. Perhaps they do inspire creativity, and they undoubtedly remove inhibition and fear, at least in the short term. If everyone behaved sensibly, there might be no problem. But while drugs will never make a bad musician good, they've frequently destroyed good musicians. And for every high, there's an alarming low the other side.

IN MEMORY OF:

Brian Jones (1967 — barbiturates)
Brian Epstein (1967 — heroin)
Al Wilson (1970 — barbiturates)
Jimi Hendrix (1970 — barbiturates)
Janis Joplin (1970 — alcohol/heroin)
Jim Morrison (1971 — alcohol)
Gram Parsons (1973 — heroin)
Ron 'Pigpen' McKernan (1973 — alcohol)
Robbie McIntosh (1974 — heroin/cocaine)
Tim Buckley (1975 — heroin/morphine)
Paul Kossoff (1976 — heroin)
Tommy Bolin (1976 — heroin)
Elvis Presley (1977 — barbiturates)
Keith Moon (1978 — barbiturates)
Jimmy McCullough (1979 — morphine/alcohol)
Sid Vicious (1979 — heroin)
Lowell George (1979 — heroin/cocaine)
John Bonham (1980 — alcohol)
Carl Radie (1980 — heroin)
Bon Scott (1980 — alcohol)
Mike Bloomfield (1981 — heroin)
Tim Hardin (1981 — heroin)
James Honeyman-Scott (1982 — heroin)
Pete Farndon (1983 — heroin)


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Beyond E Major

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Publisher: One Two Testing - IPC Magazines Ltd, Northern & Shell Ltd.

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One Two Testing - Feb 1985

Feature by Dr Spliff

Previous article in this issue:

> Beyond E Major

Next article in this issue:

> A Hire Plane


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