Drugs and Music - what up with it these days?

[Dubquixote]

I think e is still there with grime as are a lot of other drugs but there is no one set thing everyone takes. Its more take whatever makes you have a good time.

I'd agree that its the first time e on its own is not fueling things for a while.

Despite the growing chasm between the present and everyone's honeymoon with E, and even if people aren't rolling at parties anymore, I feel like E permanently re-wired everyone's brains in a way that is still strongly felt in all post-rave music today, including grime, but probably more obviously in dubstep. Maybe it's just the optimism about reconnecting with the bliss that is disappearing in grime.

 

[Diaz]

lots to think about: i guess the phenom that i'm seeing here isn't really limited to here, which is in some sense good news. I have no sense of perspective when it comes to LA

that meth is spreading again doesn't totally catch me by surprise, but egah that drug has wickedness in it and if that's the case things are only going to get messier and messier. OTOH, there's very little point to trafficking it...


I wonder if (no, seriously) security post-9/11 has anything to do with it. Coke was certainly spiking for a while and still is but lots of other drugs are very,very difficult to acquire, and people certainly aren't offering them to strangers like they were in high school. I know about the busted acid labs in kansas 5 years ago that certainly impacted LSD avail. for lots of peeps.


and in ref to poly/dark's suggestions about new drugs, vrrry much agreed. almost wish i'd taken chemistry instead of philosophy. i wonder if we're going to have to wait for some kind of goofy nanotech thing for our next drug wave. the designer drug phenom kind of washed, although now and then some college campuses experience sudden waves of nudity and shouting from someone's DMT-analogue and not just alcohol poisoning.



[are these posts too long? i am a terrible writer! hah]

 

[DJL]

Despite the growing chasm between the present and everyone's honeymoon with E, and even if people aren't rolling at parties anymore, I feel like E permanently re-wired everyone's brains in a way that is still strongly felt in all post-rave music today, including grime, but probably more obviously in dubstep. Maybe it's just the optimism about reconnecting with the bliss that is disappearing in grime.

Yeah I agree has had a big effect. No other drug proves that love definitely exists. I find I can experience the same sort of feeling at a party without taking it now without looking like a retard and spilling my guts to everyone. I find I can usually tell within a few minutes of speaking to somebody wether they have taken pills before also. Lets hope it has some kind of evolutionary effect.

 

[bassnation]

i was a bit young to be raving at the time but would have thought e disappeared from the scene in about 94 with jungle.

you are joking aren't you? its never gone away to be honest, in london anyway. its just not the main thing anymore though, more a subset of a larger pallet of drugs that people use for a night out.

 

[dominic]

yeah my impression of england on my last visit (last summer) was the e was cheap and plentiful

in the early 90s when e was at the height of its popularity in england, it was if anything more expensive in england than in america

but now they practically give the stuff away in england -- 2 to 5 pounds? -- whereas in america it's like $15 to $25

presumably for e to be that cheap in england, rates of consumption must still be high to sustain the necessary economies of scale

also in america the dance/ecstasy culture was more a matter of fashion than popular uproar -- so once dance music went out of fashion, so too did ecstasy ------- that is, obviously it's not the kind of drug you can take every weekend for years on end (cocaine & weed are), but seems to me that ecstasy's fall from favor in the states is more a question of style (and shift to rock retro-ism) than sustainability of use

it's a complicated question w/ many variables

 

[dominic]

[are these posts too long? i am a terrible writer! hah]

i don't think there's any set limit on how much you can write

if it bores people, they'll simply skip over it

certainly i'm guilty of writing several really long & ponderous & tangled posts -- which i think deservedly got ignored!

 

[luka]

i meant as far as that crowd goes, hardore continuum whatever. obviously e is still around.

 

[mms]

i'm suprised the trade in mushrooms hasn't affected music at all, maybe this is because they're a bit shit, well the batch i had anyway.

 

[simon silverdollar]

i'm suprised the trade in mushrooms hasn't affected music at all, maybe this is because they're a bit shit, well the batch i had anyway.

and just about all music sounds horrific on mushrooms. bird song is about the only sound i can deal with when i do them.

 

[mms]

and just about all music sounds horrific on mushrooms. bird song is about the only sound i can deal with when i do them.

i disagree there.
it can sound a bit trebly but it sounds good, i listened to remarc alot when i took the last batch (at home on my own) and it sounded lovely. actually lovely.

 

[simon silverdollar]

i disagree there.
it can sound a bit trebly but it sounds good, i listened to remarc alot when i took the last batch (at home on my own) and it sounded lovely. actually lovely.

really? may be i have a weird reaction to them. i just can't handle music at all on mushrooms- the slightest trace of distortion on a track and it sounds absolutely mental to the point where often i can't even recognise what the song is.

i shudder to think what i'd make of remarc on mushrooms.

 

[mms]

really? may be i have a weird reaction to them. i just can't handle music at all on mushrooms- the slightest trace of distortion on a track and it sounds absolutely mental to the point where often i can't even recognise what the song is.

i shudder to think what i'd make of remarc on mushrooms.

ahh not a westcountry boy then?
alot of musical ephiphanies down around there seem to be partly based on mushrooms.

 

[bassnation]

how about your benzodiapenes, xanax and such? those go well with a social atmosphere - make you kind of punchy and chatty - except they'll kill your short-term memory.

christ, i wouldn't recommend those to anyone. the most fucked up drug users i've ever met are people who take tranquilisers for fun. i knew one guy who was into valium who smashed up his flat over some dispute with the landlord that he couldn't even remember the next day. ripped all the fixtures like sinks off the walls, smashed every piece of furniture into splinters. walking through his flat you could hear glass crunching under foot it looked like a bomb blast. and off he'd go in his car after not sleeping for two days and after munching a handful of vallies. he was a disaster waiting to happen.

 

[Diaz]

oh man, remarc + mushrooms sounds interesting. i wonder if it would help me through the (physical and psychological) wobblies i always get.

i think there are two classes of tranq users...the nice, fun, kind of loud but usually sweet, red wine + benzo people (often found listening to mum or dudes with guitars laying about) and the dangerous slippery folks like bassnation recalls. i think i'm in love with the one of the formers so i'm biased, but aren't those latter type pretty much bombs waiting for fuses anyhaps?

anyways, this topic kind of depresses me now because i listened to (dons flame-retardant suit) some newer psytrance stuff today (new x-dream, and some stuff of boshke beats) and i've realized who to scapegoat for psy/goa's totally boring and whimpery death: cocaine.

 

[jack]

Diaz, what in psy-trance music suggests increased cocaine? I'm no expert but music that is expressive in a very OTT way (like trance) would exaggerate and distill the drug's influence

 

[Mika]

Hm

That's an interesting comment about Remarc and mushrooms - I'm not sure if I'm disturbed by music like silverdollar, I just don't really feel like listening to anything in particular when I'm on them. It's not an urge that I feel, like on E or smoking pot, or even getting drunk (so much money wasted on the jukeboxes!)...

 

[Diaz]

Diaz, what in psy-trance music suggests increased cocaine? I'm no expert but music that is expressive in a very OTT way (like trance) would exaggerate and distill the drug's influence

well, take this with a grain of salt*, but a lot of the producers who were doing interesting things (or about to) have turned from what was really exciting and full of potential (wizzy noise, koxbox, midi miliz, x-dream, all those weird frenchies...even infected mushroom's bp empire was kind of neat) have turned to producing house music or something sound like bad ebm, or have jumped back to really frilly and light progressive...

* take with a grain of salt because i stopped paying attention to new releases after I was really put off by a bunch of bad releases in early 2004. i just realized this and felt ashamed. maybe i'm totally off!

 

[jack]

(i think remarc would good for mushrooms; use it as external chaos to distract from internal chaos)

 

[bassnation]

(i think remarc would good for mushrooms; use it as external chaos to distract from internal chaos)

i had a weird synthenasia experience with mushrooms listening to reggae. synthenasia, if you don't know already, is crossing over of audio and visual stimuli, "seeing music".

my mate was playing loads of roots reggae, the vocal spiritual stuff and i could see loads of orangey red warm looking colours streaming from the decks. it sounded like the most incredible thing i've ever heard, not exaggerating when i say it touched my soul. almost sounded like that cliche beloved of crap nme journos, "sonic catherdrals of sound"

 

[Dubquixote]

i had a weird synthenasia experience with mushrooms listening to reggae. synthenasia, if you don't know already, is crossing over of audio and visual stimuli, "seeing music". my mate was playing loads of roots reggae, the vocal spiritual stuff and i could see loads of orangey red warm looking colours streaming from the decks.

I had a similar experience seeing Sonny Rollins play after taking mushrooms. He had a shiny red shirt on and the glow of his shirt started to spread outward like a hazy glow over the whole stage when he really started to cook. Heavy show.