Drugs and Music

Not only "spacerock", (a la Gong, Hawkwind, Brain Ticket etc.) is "enhanced" by a state of herbally enduced happiness. Notably,an appreciation of good reggae is particularly improved by the heady atmospere of sweet blue smoke.

This in mind, and harking back to my earlier "prog-friendly non-prog" thread, try "Reggae Fi Dadda", from Linton Kwesi Johnson's brilliant album "Making History".

Tokin' Prog fans who find themselves in Amsterdam should check out Coffee Shop "Pink Floyd" for great sounds to chill out to.

Quote:

" One of my buddies used to make it in the chem lab when we were at university"

Not in the UK either.

After Operation Julie, which busted former Reading University graduates who devised a way of getting higher yields of LSD, UK police by law have to monitor solvent uses in the local university laboratories and other labs - a considerable amount over and above that a PhD chemist's normally  needs were used by those guys.

Never felt a need of those drugs - good music always got me high. Arthur Lee & Love managed that 18 months ago reenacting "Forever Changes" live in Leicester, probably the best rock gig I've ever seen - previously held by Beck Boggart & Appice with Flash as support, in the early 70's at Loughborough Uni., (also the last ever venue of the Bonzo Dog Do Dah Band). As a fringe weekend hippy, I watch friends who were paid up proper weekend hippies (i.e. folks who did the weekend happenings, but had a proper day job the rest of the week - but they would get to see early Floyd or Softs), get doped up on a bottle of cough medicine  with morphine as the active ingredient, and off to the London underground clubs they would go - and be just about sober at 9am the following Monday. They alway came back with great albums (discovered Touch that way) - but moonlighting in record shop on Saturdays was my passport to underground and the new progressive music.

To Raggy

To pass beyond the countless worlds
The eternal wheel
The ceaseless tides of selves
Ever passing away before your eyes...

All life's light that I've seen...
Here before me. . .

Hare hare supermarket !
Hare hare supermarket !
Hare hare hare supermarket !
Hare hare London bus !
Hare hare ladies' lavatory...
Hare hare hare hare hare hare...

There's a hole in the morning,

It's the holiday you're born in,

and the old man is yaw-aw-awnin'!

The first psychedelic/proto prog' band of Perú Traffic Sound had very druggy lyrics, their music was inspired by Pink Floyd and other psyche bands, but as in the song I copy, they had to hide the lyrics and leave a positive message at the end because in the late 60's we had a Military Government that almost banned Rock with the excuse that it perverted the mind of the young.

Suzette is a cake which is often baked with marihuana.

TIBET' S SUZETTES
(You can' t appreciate a gift from God)

Feeling' lonely to starve in Tibet?
No, I will not go and let you die.
Cease all your pleas and eat my suzettes
Gently, guaranteed to get you high.

Feeling' lonely to fly in Tibet?
No, I will not go and let you cry.
Take all my friends and ten more suzettes,
If you need more wings, I will spare a dime.

Feeling' lonely to fight on Tibet?
Now I think I will go and let you die.
Eat what you kill but no more suzettes,
You can' t appreciate a gift from God!

Their earlier lyrics were more evident (like in Meshkalina) because in those years there was a democratic government.

Iván

any music recommendations for music during first time mushrooms?

...it's for a friend...

Joren:

Schizophrenia is a quantifiable, defined medical condition: it cannot be "caused" by the ingestion of any substance.  Perhaps traits "suggestive" of schizophrenia can be caused by various drugs, but drugs don't cause schizophrenia.

5 minute solo:

Is Frank ever not smoking pot?  

Goose:

Re mushrooms, I can recommend quite a few groups, not all of them prog.  Of the prog groups, early Genesis and early Tull work well.  So does Brian Eno's "Ambient" period.  For "heavier" music (though you need to gauge yourself here...), try Hendrix, Zep, any classic 60s (Joplin, etc.).

Certif1ed:

Right you are: the reaction of a particular person to the ingestion of any particular "drug" is dependent entirely upon individual metabolism, and one's general psycho-emotional (and, I would argue, spiritual) state.  You are also only the second person I know (other than me) who actually researched things before doing them.  Except for pot and hash, I researched every drug I took, so I knew  how it would affect me biochemically, and what it could and might do - at least to the degree that it is possible to know that from whatever was published at the time.

Most drugs affect the transfer of serotonin between the axons of the brain, which is why it "enhances" the senses.  Indeed, the reason that some people who use LSD "smell" colors and "see" sounds, etc., is because the LSD is messing with the sensory signals that are controlled by the serotonin.  And because LSD also affects the cerebral cortex and optic centers, this is why many people see "trails" and other visual effects, including auditory and visual hallucinations.

Ultimately, the use of drugs for "recreational," "educational" or other "benign" purposes is, as you suggest, a "crapshoot."  One may feel/believe that they will be able to handle the effects of hallucinogens; however, unless one has a very good "sense of themselves" - i.e., honest self-appraisal, humility (yup), and self-awareness vis-a-vis one's psycho-emotional make-up - I would not recommend the use of anything stronger than pot and hash.

Peace.