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.

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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"

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.

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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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x-post

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!

2x-post

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.