Psychedelics and Music

[senorsalvia]

This may be seen as off topic, or only quasi-related; but I was wondering how many peeps have had what they consider a bonafide out of body experience brought on by music???  Back in 'da day, it was fairly common for me to experience such a thing while playing live...  I mean, it was intense peeps!!  There the band would be, locked into some fine groove and then 'it' would happen to me...I'd get the whole ball of wax..  A glance at the lead player from over my high-hats would show me a stranger instead of my buddy Jim..  Everyone in the band would be unrecognizable as who they were, and instead, would appear as some sort of archetypical figure.. Now , I'm tellin ya boys-n-girls, this would occur while not on any drugs or booze either!!  There were times when the room would seem to change into a timeless place, having no beginning or end...  There I'd be, sitting on the set, half wondering if I was really at a gig, or if I was in some hospital overdosing and merely imagining I was at a jam session...  Hell, there were times when it became so intense, that I just more or less assumed and acceppted that I had died, and was off in the "otherworld" doing what I can only describe as jamming the celestial boogie with all the players from time immemmorial...  Yeah well, guess senor better stop expounding or some may consider him "odd" :wink: ---  Would dearly like to hear if other have had similar things occur......

[JRL]

I have had many such experiences, that's what I am goin' for. Playing music is an act of spiritual intention for the guys I love to play with and we talk about that stuff alot. Playing music is psychedelic in the purest meaning and it can take you to amazing realms. Jack Casady said something like: It's not the music we play, it's the realms we visit.

One experience stands out in my mind, and the minds of the other guys and people that were there. Foruneatly this was a night that was recorded, kinda low tek but decent.

I was playing with Jimmy Pailer and the Bad Boys, the original classic line up of me, Jimmy, and Drumbo. This was a telepathic trio and at the time (4 years ago maybe) we were all living out on the edge. We were doing our usual 20 minute version of VooDoo Chile and during the freak out section Jimmy turned way up and was just getting this amazing feedback. He grabbed his Strat by the whammy bar and was just waving it around, I turned away for a second and I felt like someone kicked me, I kinda went out for a second and came back and we were still playing. After the set Jimmy said "did you feel that, on Voodoo Chile when I was yankin the bar I left my body and blanked out for a second". I said "dude I was out there with ya!" Everyone who was there or has heard the disc says it was one of the best out of 1000 times me and Jimmy have played that song together. And even though the band has evolved a lot since then with a new drummer, a great second guitar player and singer and just a lot more skill, that cut still stands up, still sounds as good as the version we will play this week.

[senorsalvia]

" Playing music is an act of spiritual intention"  Damnit JRL that's a really great, great line....   Glad to hear that there are indeed others that have experienced such things....  It's truly a gift from the galaxies eh??  On a side note, I have always related  to that lyric line on Procol Harum's Whiter Shade of Pale, where he goes "the room was hummin' harder, as the ceiling flew away"....  I always figured that was a reference to the band having experienced some sonically produced OBE's........senorsal

[JRL]

yeah man there are a lot of people that have had that. I found though that a lot of the powerful musical shamans I have known focus more on the music and let the magic take care of itself.

Great line from a great song and a great band. I have experienced that space too. Man, night of playing almost always maked me feel reborn, if I feel bad after a show something is dreadfully wrong. I rarely trip on the "success" of the gig, it's all about if the sweet muse gave us that big wet kiss.

[JRL]

Oh yeah Senor. wanted to say that spiritual intent is the most important quality. It's about how committed you are AT THE MOMENT. Playing great music is a difficult real time challenge and it requires everyones full attention. And so many things work against you. It takes self mastery to put away all the issues and distractions of the day and BE THERE. And just like in meditation or on acid those issues will keep demanding attention till you release em.

Friend of mine says "hitting the band stand is like going to war" and the qualities you want in a bandmember are the same as you would want on the frontline. It gets that serious.

[judih]

it's all about if the sweet muse gave us that big wet kiss.

that's the wet i dig
going to a concert wearing a towel

[senorsalvia]

Yep, I can relate to the 'frontline' qualities needed in 'da sonic warrior'  I remember a time when I kept walking past this new employee at the job.  He always seemed to be playing air guitar..  One day, I ask him "hey man, you play for real?"   He did.  We got to talking gigs..  I asked him to offer a set list for our hypothetical first live gig...  He was amazed that I suggested we play The Who's 'I Can See For Miles', as our intro piece....  He asked me why we should do something so 'cooked up, so bombastic as our initial offering to the crowd......   I replied "hell man, ask no mercy take no prisoners"  "If we can't nail that tune, and suck the crowd into the scene, then we got no business on the stage there anyway"      senorsal

[JRL]

Good opener. Takes a pro to jump in at that high an energy level.

Playing great music takes the kind of focus and hyperawarness that you would have if you were facing unknow danger. You got to be THERE!

[JRL]

See also://http://www.spiritplants.yage.net/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=409

[cenacle]

i've been following this thread waiting for a good moment to jump in...my relation to music is superficially different from JRL's, as i write, i don't play guitar...but over time i've come to see that jacking into the stream matters not how, by guitar, pen, paintbrust, carnality, communion, deep body movement, tripping...the stream is there and one even as the paths to it are numerous...

i had an experience the other night worth telling...i was with KD at my favorite punk dive coffeehouse in seattle, up in the mezzanine, hidden from street view but with lots of windows to see the city, space needle, highway lights, and so on...the day had been a long journey, seeing a movie, some parks, some walking grooving around, best kind you can have with a lover or buddy...so we settled in, KD had some books and magazines so she was in her own space, open to mine but not needing my input awhile...she knows when my notebooks open up and walkman goes on that i am not very aware in a mundane sense of what's around me...heh...anyway, i put on wilco's double-album 'being there,' one of my very favorite records, i call it trippy alt.country or something like that...and i wrote my way through it...not about it, and not exactly inspired by it, at least literally, but i jumped on its path to the stream and went along...part of what i wrote was this love poem for KD:

******

Maul

Fingers vibrate toward dusking night,
eyes less glaring, melodies cherry up again,
the long scar of years gentles to a pocked scroll,
my beloved turns to me in the crimson air
between us, hand to my face, heart to my yearn,
moon to my inner tide, roots to my day's new high.

******

JRL talks of the focus and concentration in music making...i don't know where my words come from when they are the best i have...i did not invent language yet it is within me, yet it does not feel completely within me...i have always felt like my conscious writing activity was the conduit between infinity within and infinity without...like a dance between the two and i just write down what i perceive of it...i wanted to be a musician years ago, and a painter too, and write, but i figured i didn't have time nor discipline to do all three best i could...so i decided i'd make my words speak, sing, and color/shape...i'd write like my pen is pen/guitar/paintbrush...blow it up with visual fireworks and out with cascades of noisy and quiet notes...when it works, it works inexplicably...

by way of furthe example, and to encourage others to join in JRL's great thread here, i offer some of my work from last night...KD has class on tuesday nights and i spend those hours waiting her by writing at a local mcdonald's...the food is eh, but i dig the free refill soda, being a soda junkie like some are into coffee...so i sat there doing my thing, on my walkman was album after album by Creedence Clearwater Revival, a favorite band to write to, and at the end as i was leaving i saw an older man by himself eating a cup of ice cream...his spoon was shaking, he was palsied i think...and i noticed his shiny brown shoes...the image moved me...the shaking spoon, the sweet dessert, the rich brown shoes...that's where this poem starts...how it gets to where it goes, i cannot say (thanks for this thread, JRL, i hope it goes on and on):

******

World

Hand's shaking spoon raises the sweet,
his brown shoes gleam, his memories
warm with a secret day's kiss, the oils
smooth along her crevasses, flesh turns
to dust & feeds the world anew, spirit
pocks & breaks it a little more, whatever
god does creation's work smoothly between them.

******

[JRL]

Brother Ray, thanks for the inflight refueling. I, as you, made a concious decision to focus on one mode of creation. Figure if it goes deep enough it will include everything.

[senorsalvia]

Had a friend ask me yesterday if I had ever been brought to tears by a piece of music...  Jeez, I was incredulous, flabbergasted!!!  Now , mind you, this guy has an above average intellect, at that..   I was amazed...  My answer came instantly..  I nodded affirmatively and smirked.. "hell yes; I've damn sure been deeply, deeply affected, cried like an awe filled child and been held within the bosom of the eternal moment;  I've been moved so that I have literally altered my life course on numerous occasions, due to an insight gained whilst being 'part' of the music"....  I concluded my little rambling with a story...  "hey bud, ya remember the song Lucky Man by Emerson Lake & Palmer?  He nodded..  "Well, one night I was lying on the carpet, deeply into the song.  All of the sudden, several of my friends began asking me if I was allright...  "Sure", I replied "why do you ask"   The group all pointed out I had tears coursing down my face (I was unaware )...   I turned to them and smiled...  Hey guys, I said....  I was "There" when the bullet found him!!!!....  Yep, music, sweet music, can indeed put one into the "eternal now", the jump into the navel/nirvana moment!!!!...............  Put another dime in tha juke box baby -------------  senorsal

[cenacle]

i'll give you another twist...this morning i had to go to an orientation toward my new job and, afterward, found myself with some free time, and a record store nearby...i mean RECORDS as in used AND NEW vinyl LPs...good golly dang...i was holding new LPs by Wilco, Arcade Fire, Low, Bright Eyes...it made me crazy with happiness because back east in storage i have like 1000 LPs and a big stereo system awaiting me at 90 bucks a month...and now i know i can get new ones again...tears, senor, because while i have 60 gigs of MP3 albums on my mac, it aint Vinyl LPs...so even the physical container of music can move a soul to tears...

crazy, eh?

[JRL]

A good question for me would be: "Have you been moved to tears by a piece of music today?"

Today, my answer would be "Yes!"  Riding home after two glorious days in San Francisco, spent at the Fillmore seeing the great Toots Hibbard, hanging out in the Haight, looking for parrots on Telegraph Hill, riding to the top of Coit Tower ect. and reading from Phil Lesh's great book, we put on American Beauty.............

[senorsalvia]

Spending 2 days at the Fillmore, and hanging 'round the Haight...... ---  Sounds like JR could always land a job as a tour director for the psychedelized ----------    Hey Cen, I know well how you treasure vinyl..  I have a friend that has such a large collection of vinyl, that he once had a rock radio DJ come over (prior to c.d. times) and inspect his cache....  The DJ nodded his head slowly and grinned.  He told us that his radio station didn't have such a library.........  senorsal----------  BTW:  John Prine has a new album out if'n anybody cares.........