People judging music without taking the required drug to appreciate the music: C or D?

and

"...proper appreciation for drug music without drugs comes later in life, when you are already experienced... this is not to say you can't appreciate drug music if you've never done drugs, but you certainly will not have experienced the album as it was intended and you certainly can't 'properly' appreciate it."

Oh, I don't know. Compare any music with and without LSD. See what music strikes you as wildly different and better and what strikes you as incredibly lame. LSD just happens to be behind the most innovative guitarists who create bizarre new sounds and styles of play. What might sound like annoying shit before, sounds amazingly cool after exposure on LSD.

Maybe listening to drug music straight would be like watching a porn video with no intent on masturbating. It's not made to be a quality, great movie on it's own terms, but it can provide an enjoyable experience within the parameters that it's designed for. And to take the analogy a step further, that kind of entertainment is frequently stashed under the bed and not played in public.

Having said all that, I can't think of any albums that make it plain that you have to be wacked out to enjoy them. I don't know if many artists would choose to limit themselves like that. Why not make something that's enjoyable stoned AND straight? So I suppose I'll say classic. If an album is good enough, and the listener is patient/attentive enough, drugs shouldn't be an issue in judging the music. They sure can help though.

"Techno" sounds great on ecstacy, cocaine, weed + beer...

And there are probably lots of people who would think stoner rock was boring even if they were on drugs. The genre is not justified by some half-baked stoner pipe dream about a universal enlightenment principle that would TURN ON THE WHOLE WORLD, MAN!

I think a lot of times, bands intentionally place covert drug messages as a wink to people who "get it" without alienating anyone. Sonic Youth did this so well, people still don't think of them as a drug band. Flaming Lips were not as convincing and Wayne now adamantly denies drug associations, yet gets "caught" even in recent years snorting white substances, which is not the kind of drug most people think of when they imagine his drug usage.

Seriously, WTF? Can I listen to Tom Waits sober? Should I smoke opium while reading Oscar Wilde in the precise places the author had?

You maintain that listening to music without drugs is akin to, say, watching a 3-D movie without the 3-D glasses. This is based on two horrendously faulty ideas: that drugs act in a predictable, uniform manner; and that music is not a complete product in and of itself (what about listening to surround-sound albums in stereo, or stereo records in MONO? OH NO!!).

You're forgiven, however, if you're 17 years old and just came back from your first big acid trip.

Then stop imagining that perception. "Enlightenment" simply means a certain kind of understanding. Ain't no way my mom could possibly understand the Butthole Surfers. Most of my high school friends couldn't and the ones who did generally after I exposed them to it while on acid.

The genre is not justified by some half-baked stoner pipe dream about a universal enlightenment principle that would TURN ON THE WHOLE WORLD, MAN!

You've got to stop having stupid thoughts like this.

Haha! You're secret's revealed. Now it is obvious why you hold your opinions. Read more about LSD. Do you think Jimi Hendrix was making music for people who had bad trips? No. Butthole Surfers? Yeah, kind of!

One night last spring I downloaded Spacemen 3's "Rollercoaster" and put it on the iPod without listening to it. The next morning I got an espresso, boarded a near-empty bus for the hour-plus ride to my job, took the seat in the very back, and put on the headphones.

In less than five minutes, my eyes were rolling back in my head as I air-strummed furiously and nearly involuntarily (though discreetly) to the tera-drone. It was one of the more ecstatic listening experiences I've had in the past year.

In sum, I tripped the fuck out to S3 while on the wrong drug, and while commuting. Wouldn't trade it for anything.

Idiot.

That was a piece of jokey bait. I have never taken acid and never will. I am a square. I watch a pale and wan world through a narrow peephole of sobriety and will never get to experience the esoteric glories in which the enlightened bask daily.

Like what? Examples of these "nuances" plz.

http://www.fiddlebooks.com/ocyc01.jpeg
http://www.giltedgedgoblins.com/images/trolls%20fiddle.jpg

Layered, warped and twisted stereo-optic visionary sonics. Also, crackly, flat, dry, extra-wet, echoey effects. Sounds that make your skin crawl. Sounds that mimic "sparkling". Music that sounds both fast and slow at warp speeds, pumps you up without aggrevating you or changing beat (one-directional sounding) as if consistently rising higher and higher. Bizarre tunings. All of this stuff was invented by drug users with "expanded" minds.

I'm not convinced of it, but in thinking about his workaholic tendencies in the Fearless Freaks, I actually can picture him speeding up and building Xmas on Mars sets more than I can see him smoking and sitting on his ass.

But it really doesn't seem like his thing. It's not as though Wayne spent a lot of time convincing people that he was a total druggie and then did an about face for some reason. I just think he's realistic about his audience and he knows that their music sounds great under the influence, even if he isn't.

And no, drugs do not act in a predictably uniform manner. Anyone can have a bad trip even in the best of circumstances, all it takes is a chain reaction of thoughts to lead you down that shit hole. And then there are the Syd's and the Brian Wilson's that had pre-existing conditions that the drugs brought out and amplified. And then there's the matter of sometimes not knowing exactly what's in the drugs you are taking. God, I feel like my Mom now.

Folks, look at his name. I Take Drugs To Listen To Music That Was Made To Take Drugs To And Then I Ask STUPID Questions About It On ILM To ANNOY People Who Will Disagree With Me.

But conventional music can sound really fucking boring. Motley Crue was made for cocaine and beer, if anything. Well, okay, the beginning of Shout At The Devil might be neat on acid.

You're preaching to the choir, man. Too bad you don't realize there's more to your doctrine than you know.

so untrue. have you ever done acid? good acid? psychedelic music is great on acid, but so is almost anything. motley crue. homer & jethro. Mister Mister. It doesn't matter.

the thing of it is, most people hate really repetitive music. and good drug music is often very repetitive. most people just want music to do a little dance for them and then go away.

Dude I'm not addressing you directly because there's no point in it. Everybody else has pointed out: if you go to 7-11 on acid, it seems like 7-11s were made for acid. And in the case of the music you're describing, you can bet your ass that mixdown (where so many of the effects that dazzle you were tweaked & perfected) wasn't done while frying. You just had a pretty thought while high once, that's all, and unfortunately now there's the internet, so there's less to stop you from sharing your ridiculous high-things-for-high-people idea.

All I'm saying is I'm willing to appreciate music for what it is, rather than wishing something about it was different to suit my current preferences.

Even if I don't particularly care for any of the bands listed on this thread (true, I don't), I would never put them down or complain about the production. That always annoys me when people complain about production, for some reason. People always want to remaster albums by today's (their) standards, as if the production ruined the music or something. It was made to sound the way it sounds for a reason, usually, and if the artists are happy with it, then it seems really arrogant to say the drum sound should be changed to suit your ears or whatever. This really applies to drug music more than anything, however. I completely understand why people complain about Metallica's drums on St. Anger. I can't see how that would add anything in any respect under any circumstances.

Hahahahaaaa
For some reason, this cracked me up something fierce.

"Dude! Dude, I know!! Let's pan everything hard left."
"Everything?"
"EVERYTHING. And make it REALLY QUIET."

No shit, but a lot of classic albums were recorded that way. Sgt. Peppers, for instance. You don't need to be frying on acid to mix an album. You can always take a copy out and fry on it to "test it" properly.

I don't think so.

but what you're saying here is that the mixers are able to understand the album without being high, which disproves your own ridiculous original contention. Also, there's no evidence outside of your guesswork that any such thing ever occurred. The fact is that most people making music aren't particularly interested in a proposition like "music made especially for people who are high" - most musicians, even really hard-drugging ones, have a rather broader view of music than that.

The mixdown point really is the simplest pin to your sad balloon. Peace to everybody up there at Woodstock.

xpost and of course everybody except you knows that it makes fuck-all difference what the author "meant"

No, jackass, it does not disprove anything. You think the band records, leaves, gets a copy of their album in the mail and goes, "Shit, that's nothing like what we expected it to sound like!" Or that producers haven't always been doing drugs right along with them? Or that the band does a lot of its own production? Or that the band knows pretty damn well what it's going to sound like before mixdown?

xpost as I have been making albums for ten-plus years, I know exactly how it works. Bands generally aren't even present for mix, genius. But I bet your idea of how it works is a lot more sparkly-horizon than the reality. Especially this:

You think the band records, leaves, gets a copy of their album in the mail and goes, "Shit, that's nothing like what we expected it to sound like!"

Go actually talk to some bands sometime. The scenario you describe happens all the time.

Gee, it might just be that other bands did the same thing!

Sonic Youth twirled mics above their set-up while recording to get a strange panning effect, rigged their own guitars. Hendrix had people making special effects for him. Etc.

Yeah, to lame bands like yours who have no vision, no control or direction.

You're also actually stupid enough to believe that I think they are just frying away in the studio wasting $$$ and time recording an album? You clearly have NO EXPERIENCE and should shut the fuck up with your ridiculous accusations.

SOME BANDS do record and mix totally fucked up, such as independent bands who have the luxury (Butthole Surfers) or pioneering bands such as the Beatles. But, most drug bands work out the drug sounds prior to recording. So, no the mic man doesn't have to be drugged.

I said, "What does he do?"

He says, "I think he sings."

I said, "What do you mean, you think he sings? Is it instrumental?"

"He's gonna come to your office. He'll talk to you, Maurice. Talk to him. See what kind of a deal you can do. We have to sign him."

"Can I hear a tape?"

He says, "We have to sign him, Kantner wants him signed."

That's how we got groups back then. That's why it didn't last long...their friends.

So he comes into my office. I didn't know who this Reality guy was, I didn't know his name yet. He's just a guy coming in. He comes in, he's got a long beard, and he's smoking a joint made out of newspaper with marijuana. He says, "Is Maurice here?"

I said, "Yeah, you're talking to him."

He says, "I gotta talk to you about a record deal." He sits down in my chair and lights up this joint. Inhales, exhales. "Maurice, I want to do a recording."

I said, "All right. Who sent you in here?"

"Paul. I gotta do a recording. But I gotta do it on a certain day,Maurice." He takes another hit.

"What do you mean, a certain day?"

He says, "I wanna do it in Bolinas." Takes another hit.

I go, "Why Bolinas?"

"Because I'm waiting for this wave to come in."

I said, "Wave?"

"Yeah. At 4:32 on this particular day, a wave is coming in and I want you to record this wave."

"Record the wave?"

"Yeah. That's the wave that I want"--takes another hit--"for my sound."

I said, "Where's this wave coming in?"

"In Bolinas."

"You want me to set up recording equipment at the ocean? How am I gonna know which wave?"

He takes another hit and he says, "At 4:32, it's coming in."

I said, "Where'd you get this information?"

"From the almanac." Another hit.

This is how he's talking to me. And his eyes are bleary. So I get up and I go, "Okay. Is that what you want?"

He says, "But let me tell you, I want you in a row boat. Because as the boat's coming in with this wave, I want to get the highs and lows.

So I want a microphone for the top of the wave and a microphone for the bottom."

I said, "Hey, I can't get a microphone underneath the water. Jacques Cousteau is who you gotta call, not me! I can't do that! The only way I can record this, and I don't even know which wave you're talking about..."

"It's coming in at 4:32!"

After he left, stoned, he bumped into the wall, the door. He couldn't even walk down the stairs. I thought he was gonna tumble down my steps.

He leaves. I get on the phone, I get Paul. I said, "Paul, there's no way I'm signing this guy. I don't even know what the hell he does. What does he do!?"

Paul says, "He does things with his throat."

Ever the trouper, Maurice actually made arrangements to have recording equipment dragged down to the ocean in Bolinas, to record Reality D. Blipcrotch and the perfect wave.

Pat "Maurice" Ieraci: We get a Wally Heider truck, with all the recording equipment, because I had to. This is part of the deal. I have no say-so. I had to get a permit to go down on the beach, to do a live recording. My stomach is turning. I'm really to the point. But I can't, I've gotta use my finesse. So we go out there. We had to. This is what he wants.

I tell the guys, "4:32 that wave's supposed to come in. I want you to record a half hour before 4:32, and a half hour after 4:32, to make sure I get that wave."

Then I said to him, "What happens if I blow it? We gotta wait another year?"

But I got the truck, and we got the recording.

It was still far from over though. Reality was still orbiting high above planet reality.

Pat "Maurice" Ieraci: I get back, I'm in my office. We get it all mixed down. It sounds like waves, "whooo whooo." He does little weird things with his throat, with the band. I didn't understand any of this.
But my job is to find artwork now, for the cover, and I have to pay for the artwork too. He wanted a big "1" on the cover, and it cost me $5,000.

Then what happened was, I said, "I'm gonna go to Indianapolis and make test pressings. I'll come back and I'll listen to it and then I'll call you and I'll let you know."

He says, "But, Maurice, before you go to Indianapolis, I want a couple of special things."

So I take out my pen. I said, "What do you want?" I still didn't know his name at that point. I didn't know what to call him. No one knew anything about this man.

Anyway, Reality is sitting in my office, and I take out my pen and he says, "Maurice, this is what I want. On band three, bar 30, I want a marijuana leaf to pop out."

I write down, "Band three, bar 30, marijuana leaf pop out." Pop out of the record. He's putting me on, right? But I write it down!

I said, "What else?"

"One more thing, one more thing." He takes a deep toke. "One more thing, Maurice, one more thing."

"Yeah?"

"At the end of side two, as it rejects, I want the record to self-destruct."

So I write down, "End of side two, self-destruct." I wrote this down on a piece of paper.

"Why do you want it to self-destruct?"

He takes a toke and says, "You know why I want it to self-destruct? Because they'll go out and buy it again and I'll get double sales."

So I put down, "Double sales." Good logic.

He leaves. I take the pad, I throw it out.

But the Master of the Machines still hadn't seen the last of the Master of Un-Reality.

Pat "Maurice" Ieraci: I go to Indianapolis. I do the test pressings. I bring back the test presses. I listen to it. I don't know what it is, but it's got no pops, no ticks.

I called him up, I said, "Reality, I got the pressings. Take one home and listen to it."

He comes into my office that night as I'm working with another group. He takes a toke--he's smoking constantly. I said, "You take the test pressings, tell me what you think. If you like it I'll get it all pressed and we'll get the record out."

Two-and-a-half, three weeks later, he calls me up and he's yelling. "You bastard! You cocksucker!" He called me every name in the book.

I said, "What the hell are you talking about?" I hung up on him. What right does he have?

He comes in the door, he takes that test pressing and he flings it and it ricochets off the wall, and it cracks! I grabbed him and I threw him in the chair, and he's smoking a joint. I said, "What the hell's wrong with you? Are you crazy? Don't you dare walk in the office like that!"
He said, "You lied! You cheated!"

I said, "What are you talking about? What's wrong with the test pressing? Here, put the test pressing on."

"You told me that that marijuana leaf will pop out on the third band, on bar 30!"

"What?! A marijuana leaf? You're putting me on! How am I gonna get a marijuana leaf to pop out of a goddamn groove? "

He says, "And then you lied again! I played side two until I'm blue in the face and the damn thing never reached its self-destruct!"

I never wrote anything down again, unless I was sure it was legitimate.

That record was the worst. The worst! I refused it. I rejected it. But they approved it so it had to come out because it's Kantner's friend. I went back to RCA and I said, "I'm gonna tell you right now. There's no way I can work like this."

Maurice got the worst of it, but Stephen Barncard, who worked on the mixing of the 1 album, also recalls Mr. Blipcrotch and friends.

Stephen Barncard: I remember a particular session that I did not participate in where they were trying to record a teapot. They had a part in a song where they wanted the teapot to whistle on cue, so they would back the tape up and try to anticipate the delay after the heat was turned on. Nobody told them they didn't have to do it that way; they could have recorded it separately on a two-track and spun it in. But they were too wasted to think of that.

Blipcrotch was this weird character that was the leader of the band. I have no idea why Paul signed them, I thought they were terrible, besides being idiots. I think since Paul lived in the same town as them, he felt sorry for them or something.

forgive me if that joke was made upthread, I'm too lazy to read all of it.

It appears to be from http://www.gotarevolution.com/reality.htm

You'd know.

There's that experience, though, where you're just happy to be in THE SOUND WORLD. It's all a trip. My dumb epiphany when I was a teenager was "All records are good; some are just better." (Sorry to share that.)

SOME BANDS do record and mix totally fucked up, such as independent bands who have the luxury (Butthole Surfers) or pioneering bands such as the Beatles. But, most drug bands work out the drug sounds prior to recording. So, no the mic man doesn't have to be drugged.

not to flex, but I actually know some of the BH Surfers, and you have no idea what you're talking about. Nobody's working out any "drug sounds" except in your fantasies. You have no idea of what you're talking about and I have no idea why I'm arguing with you as it's clear that you pulled all your ideas out of your ass. In the future though this is a poor way of thinking something through. The best way is usually to consult people who know.

If your theory were in any way defensible: you'd need to get depressed to appreciate music/literature/whatever by depressed people, kill yourself to appreciate art by suicidal people, etc. Unless you wanna argue that drug-states are some Magical Special Exception!! which I'd imagine you do.

2) can people really appreciate drugs if they're not listening to the right music?
Haha, I like this turningaround!

3) a crap record still sounds like crap when I'm high or drunk or whatever, just like a great record sounds extraordinary stone cold sober
Matos, I cannot say this always applies to me. Or maybe I could agree about "crap"/"great" if it's totally so. But is anything regardless of subject? Not sure. Btw I love jbr's "What's so great about great records anyway?" quip posted here somewhere.

4) When you say "drugs" and "music" I think of the first time (age ca 16) I put on my newlybought Rum, Sodomy and the Lash. Home from school to parent's house, obv sober and everything, but that first song ("The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn") made me feel deliriously *drunk*! So much that I turned it down FOR SHAME haha.

5) Threadstarter did fauxpas in using word "required". "Intended" perhaps?

Paul Leary still smokes pot at least 4 or 5 times a day. He regularly "checks out" music this way. Not to mention his turds and daytime tv.

At least Locust Abortion Technician and Rembrandt Pussyhorse were partially done using lofi tape splicing methods in their living environments. Gibby recorded several songs drunk and stoned, making lyrics up spontaneously. Paul also came up with stuff spontaneously and their music was created on drugs for listening to on drugs.

You're a dipshit and a liar.

Then there was the Royal Trux, who did their own recording and even delivered the final mix themselves, saying the original recordings were destroyed and this was all that was left.

It's been good fun checking your IPs and all that.

Now, what does that have to do with anything? Have you caught me being a dipshit and a liar? A dipshit, I can imagine. A liar, possibly. But not to the extreme of claiming I know a band I clearly have no clue about to win an argument, surely?

Best conclusion I've ever heard! Quite hilarious.

"Too Formal? Not? I leave that up to you. But now you can say you've heard bits of it read by me. And if you didn't know you wanted to hear it, I don't know entirely either but now you have. And you can't erase that experience from your mind. Aren't you a happy soul?"

You need to do voices for cartoons and such.

(Naïve me don't see why all antagonism, is this old a.m.a beef like geir or something?)

(Naïve me don't see why all antagonism, is this old a.m.a beef like geir or something?)

No, I will not get back on topic. As a matter of fact, I'm leaving to get the first 6 pack I've had in at least a few months to drink alone and listen to music! Since I have no drugs. And a 6 pack is probably all I can handle anymore, anyway.

Perhaps when I get back I will get back on topic. Yes, most assuredly, as I will be drinking.

Bobby Peru, that's a classic. Made me laugh all over again. I'm still laughing, actually. I can't believe I forgot the punchline. I just imagine some really dirty long-haired, long-bearded old man standing there all wiped out having an epiphany that he's wasted his entire life.

Even the Dead!

Oh, I love the Dead now. All the bands on this thread I liked at one time or another, but feel kind of "eh, so what" about now days most of the time. Still, when I played Daydream Nation today, I realized it was money well spent because I've certainly played it more over the years than a hell of a lot of other albums.

When I think of a lot of stuff I've bought lately, I realize I listen to it a couple times and put it on the shelf. Then, I buy another album and do it all over again. It's kind of a waste of money. Thank god for live torrents. When I was younger, I just didn't mind listening to the same album over and over, I guess. And I was always too poor to just buy another one. And there were no torrents. Maybe drugs is what made these albums listenable repeatedly.

http://www.joshuatreemusicfestival.com/05performers.htm

Was that h3lltim3 pr0duct0? If so, yeah, wheretf?

(Plz answer my dig abt alleged "fallacy" though BN, genuinely interested, being hard-science kinda person. Not necessarily tonight now, need sleep soon.)

haha HtS outsold all their previous catalog by a factor of about 4:1, genius! And got 'em MTV play besides! For a guy who seems to think of drug taking as some cool-kids secret cult (Thurston's "knowing wink" - ooh is it like when there's 13 trax that's "13" as in "M"? Or could these "references" actually be shit that made sense to you when you were high and, unlike most of us, you didn't have the good sense upon sobering up to say to yourself: "Wow! You sure can have some dumb ideas when you're stoned!") you sure do pick the numbers most popular with the "squares"! But I guess you're "hep" and they're not, eh?

Anyhow Ole: I do think authorial fallacy is asked-and-answered, yeah: it doesn't make a bit of difference how the author meant for his work to be received, or even what the author thought about his work; note that aritsts & the public almost always disagree about The Work. I don't think that "what the artist meant" (as though this could ever be divined - even by talking to the artist, who works in isolation from the work: cf. Blanchot) is even a little important, which is the crux of my objection to our troll's question. (The "wot a quaint, lame hippie idea" part comes later.) This is as true in music as elsewhere I think - the chief trope opposing this in music-thought is the "meaning it" trope, which is what I think the Drugs Dude here is spinning a variant of.

ps -The Noise Guyz do this schtick much better.

You're envisioning some cool-kids secret cult, not I. Thurston, Lee and Kim have all obviously done drugs and have all made references to it lyrically as well as stylistically in their sound. I only called it a "knowing wink" because they don't sing songs about driving a train high on cocaine, although Eric's Trip comes pretty close. But perhaps the choice of words was a bit unsettling for you. I did not mean to come across quite like a "cool-kids secret cult." Not at all, they were quite blatant. But, for someone who didn't experiment and wasn't "hep" to it, they wouldn't have a clue. Good choice of words you used, by the way: "hep." What are the odds 4 art school freaks who did acid and other drugs and are influenced by beat culture and experimental drug music AREN'T "hep" to it? Not likely.

Now, please explain the title of the Spacemen 3 album "Taking Drugs To Make Music to Take Drugs To".

Uh, no they don't. They do their thing, I do mine. Totally different.

otm

note that aritsts & the public almost always disagree about The Work
They do not, surely? Artists speak to void, if lucky they get media (hence name) to divulge intention to public. Public, heretofore baffled, say "ah".

the artist, who works in isolation from the work
Now here I'm tempted to call serious bullshit (or excessive exposure to humanities theory – kick that habit). Less dismissively, since you invoke that person: could you give me some reference to this Blanchot? (This = not a dig, genuinely interested.)

which is the crux of my objection to our troll's question
Threadstarter didn't ask a question, it was a C/D.

the chief trope opposing this in music-thought is the "meaning it" trope, which is what I think the Drugs Dude here is spinning a variant of
Yeah, intention again. As I said a hundred (ie two) times before on this thread, unfortunate wording ("required") has to do with it.

Unless there's some old stuff going on, I've defended the most notorious trolls at ILX on occasion, on grounds of what they've said as opposed to who they are.

Sounds like I want a medal for this. My point was that sometimes I might have understood that the reaction to these posters could have made me aware that it was hopeless etc (Ned's IP comment). I cannot know who falls in this category and who falls in the "immediate outcast" one. I like to think that ILX doesn't really *do* the latter.

Oh, and Banana is not? I call bullshit on his/her Butthole Surfers claim to fame and nary a peep out of Banana about the blatantly wrong (lies?) statements s/he made about their recording practices. Every obvious point I make is met with more bizarrely irrelevant nonsense. I got Banana to concede that musicians take drugs (will wonders never cease?), but not without the accusation that now I've changed premises, which is (also?) a lie. Banana's manipulated the simple premise of the thread from the beginning in the most obviously missing-the-point no brainer bloopers and practical jokes I've seen in a while.

To quote Banana: "just to note, you changed premises: naturally... musicians get high, do so while recording, etc. The thing under dispute is: do the half-assed musings of people who are high... carry any weight, even if the argument is being made years later ("because the music sounded so good to me when I was high, I will argue that people who aren't high are in no position to 'judge' it")? The answer, for reasons I outlined pretty clearly, is no. Recording is a rather more complicated process than that. Except for maybe Klaus Schulze, him I'll give you."

This is just nonsense. Of course, you can judge any music you like. The initial question is stupid, the name I've chosen makes my intentions pretty clear, also. And yet, here I am, defending the right to judge an album by its own particular and peculiar merits and standards. If you've listened to a drug album on drugs and didn't like it, THEN you know you've at least experienced it the way it was intended. THEN, you can say the production truly sucks and the music is truly boring. But, until you do, you might be missing out on something because drug music sounds completely different sober. I've made some amazing shit that sound phenomenal after you combine certain drugs but sober it absolutely sucks balls.

Tim Ellison, yep. I just remade the point, I guess.

And here's the really funny part: why? Because some uppity over-(pseudo)intellectualized asshole is arguing that an album shouldn't be judged by it's own particular and peculiar merits and standards.

Banana is actually saying there's no reason to listen to a drug album as it was intended. If you don't like it, that's all there is to it. This opinion of yours, Banana, has been proven wrong again and again. This is even evident in the hippy joke told up above:

What did the dead head say when the acid wore off?
A: This band sucks!

Ouch this boldface thing was mine yeah. Thing is, the OMG I JUST GOT IT ALL, YOU WERE *BOTH* IN THE BUTTHOLE SURFERS AND THENCE YR BOTH TOTALLY RIGHT!

No. I've met Paul and Gibby, spoken to Paul on the phone, communicated with Paul online, traded albums with Paul, I know Paul's home address, I've hung out with the new band backstage a couple times, I did some artwork for them and I have spoken at great length with Paul about his recording techniques. He records, to this day, with a combination of lofi and high end stuff to get a shitty sound with a clear signal. He records stoned, always stoned. He listens to music stoned in his living room and then he listens to it in the car to check the sound quality. "If it sounds good in a car stereo, it's a good mix," he says. He also said he spliced together some of the older albums in his Kitchen and that they've recorded numerous times completely fucked up. Gibby and John Paul Jones had little a little whiskey problem during the recording of Independent Worm Saloon and when it was all over with, they kind of realized they paid JPJ a shitload of money and he probably wasn't all that necessary. What did he do? He got fucked up with them, mostly. Paul has told me funny stories about people coming to check up on him as a producer and he just turns everything off and lights a joint. He basically refuses to work with someone watching over his shoulder. Instead, he gets high right in front of their faces!

Well, I'd still like to know how Banana knows them and "knows" they don't record under the influence of drugs. Still no word about that little bit of "knowledge."

Like you'd believe it even if the band themselves told you.

Ned, what I believe is that Banana might have had a totally superficial/professional affiliation with a few of them at some point, unless s/he's just completely lying about the whole thing. And I believe s/he thought, "Well, they seem pretty professional to me. They don't appear to be tripping balls."

And, Ned, what was it that drew you to this conversation? The My Bloody Valentine or the Gravitar?

See, but you're still saying that someone has to take some particular drug (or class of drug - psychoactive drugs, for example) to be able to have this experience with a piece of drug music. My feeling, though, is that the drug experience really isn't all that special. People experience a lot through their lives - extreme hardships, illness, nightmares. And people have their own senses of spirituality. I'm sure there are plenty of people who have never used psychoactive drugs recreationally and yet have a pretty good idea of what the experience is and could give a shit about listening to a Butthole Surfers album on acid. Doesn't mean they ought to universally label the experience as a boring one, though.

You can't imagine emotions until you experience them.

Words can't explain, obviously. It's as if something incredible has actually happened in your life (and it has). Whether it's incredibly bad or good or mesmerizing depends on set and setting. But you are not likely to have such extreme emotions otherwise. To this day, regular life for me is rather flat; I do not get too sad, mad or happy about much of anything and generally have the "I've seen it all" kind of emotional plateau. It's not great. It's like seeing God. Or the devil.

Funny but stupid and missing the point.

(kidding)

Yes! Open your mind, man! You'll see colors you never knew existed! Here, take this pill! It opens the pathway to a universe where we all surf buttholes as big as the Ritz!

Seriously, sometimes our threadstarter comes across like a playground bogeyman out of a public service announcement.

You've just answered your own question. Do you have any idea what intensity these emotions can reach? There is a difference between funny and hysterical, sad and suicidal. There is a difference between acid and normalcy that can't be described or appreciated without the drug.

That was never my point. If you trip out to a Butthole Surfers record and find it boring, then you've at least experienced it properly and your opinion is wholly satisfactory. If you play it sober with no comprehension of it and say, "This is just noise," then you are missing the point. To completely "get it," you'd have to trip out to it, but if you're not willing to risk your sanity to LSD, I understand... however, I don't think you are justified in critiquing it.

Not really. Even if you like it and get it's psychological and artistic and reactionary nuances, you're still missing the point if you don't hear it fucked up. You can't fake that. There is a difference between being schizophrenic and recognizing the signs of schizophrenia, for instance.

Have you actually seen a butthole surfers record? Everything about them is about drugs from the ground up: artwork, titles, lyrics and sounds. Funny, strange and scary: just like drugs. There is an intention with every single aspect of every single detail, actually, that refers to drugs.

You're welcome to judge it anyway you want, but you won't be judging it by its own standards unless you do drugs and check it out that way.

Hell yeah, sometimes. Paul intentionally made shitty guitar sounds because it sounds GREAT on acid. Yes, absolutely. It actually surprises me that this is a question. Check out Sonic Youth's "Sonic Death"-- sounds like shit. Early Butthole Surfers: practically unbearable and incomprehensible sober.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00000IL1Y.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg
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Listen to Pioughd. They ruin some great songs with terrible noise (notable "PSY").

It has this cover:

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Yeah, I dunno, pretty much. The only thing to criticize is that you need to do drugs to appreciate it. Which is a really easy putdown, along the lines of what they do to the Dead and Phish.

The other side of the coin is that they lost their drug-ness, of course. So now, without that, they play pretty "normal" pop music (not really that normal, actually) and since it's not earth shatteringly weird, it's a fair criticism to say they "sold out."

Ha!... No, not really for acid music. That's pretty annoying to even think about. It's like someone trying to tell you how to trip... which would cause a bad trip!

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http://buttholesurfers.com/img/hairwayfront.jpg

Do you appreciate this?

otm

i mean, the shift from hardcore through darkness through jungle, if that isnt a textbook example of a genreshift influenced by changing drug usage, what is?

so, while i dont really agree that use of specific substances is somehow necessary to understand a music, i do think that drugs play an important part in the direction of certain music, and i do think that certain sounds do work very well and complement certain drugs, and even that hearing stuff with certain drugs alters perception of it (obv) even after the fact, and on subsequent sober listens.

no, my argument is with "as intended" and whether that category is a) of any interest, or b) even remotely valid. How an artist "intended" his work to be received isn't important. At all. Not to invoke the r-word except that yeah, the core of rockism is authorial intention. It's plenty fun to listen to music while high, no question, and some music sounds really amazing that way. I remember listening to the Sisters of Mercy while tripping in high school and feeling convinced they must have meant for people on acid to listen. Later, when no longer high, I realized that that's a lame drug-addled notion; herein lies our chief disagreement.

I'm kind of above getting into a pissing contest about "Who knows the Butthole Surfers better omg lollrz!1!" and only mentioned them as a sort of reflexive flame-impulse, though I would suggest that a call to any of them with the question "do you think people can understand your music without tripping?" would yield an answer you woudln't like. You did change premises; your initial post and first third of the thread argues that the music can't be "appreciated" without first experiencing it in the state the musicians (not the producers, not the mic guys, not the record execs, etc) who made it may have been in at the time of recording. Later, you want only to argue about whether musicians get high or not, a question nobody was arguging in the first place. You do this, I think, because once the complexities of making a record were pointed out, you realized that for your sad little theory to work, everybody making the record would have to drop L at some point in the process to "appreciate" the sounds. Most musicians have a rather broader view of their own music than this "there's only one way to really appreciate it" view, and that includes those musicians with whom you feel a quasi-mystical kinship because you used to listen to their records while tripping.