Psychedelics and Music

[JRL]

Right from day one these two things have gone hand in hand for me and I know they do for many people. Music can transport you to realms un-imagined in the right frame of mind. One of my favorite trip guides is the old album by the good ole Grateful Dead, Axomoxoa. Each song takes you to a different head space, takes you to many levels and connects you to different energies. As a musical work it's fairly medium, but it is a shamanic tool par excelence.

Here are some questions I hope we can generate as much action as the "Twisted lyrics" thread did.

1) What did you listen to during your first psychedelic experience?

2) Is there a particular piece that cemented the link of music and psychedelics for you?

3) Is there a piece of music you never "got" until you heard it tripping?

4) How has tripping influenced your appreciation and selection of music?

5) I know a large portion of you are musicians. How has tripping effected your playing? Do you play high? Do you play out high?


Well have fun guys and let the games begin!

[X. Torris]

1) What did you listen to during your first psychedelic experience?

Started out listening to Pink Floyd.  Not my choice, someone with me knew it was my first time and insisted that I listen to "The Wall".  At first, I enjoyed the novel and strange effects of my mind on the music, but as I began to more "actively" listen to the darkness that is The Wall, the music began  started affecting my state of mind.  I was fighting with feelings of sadness and self-loathing.   When I began to catch fleeting glimpses of emaciated African children lurking in the shadows, waiting to pounce on because I starved them, I thankfully sought a change of scenery outside of my dorm room.  :shock:

(I really like Pink Floyd, but for the most part it still isn't in my short list for music to bring on a voyage--- the album "Meddle" being a very notable exception.)

Not much later that same night I ended up listening to some Van Morrison--- which leads me to:

2) Is there a particular piece that cemented the link of music and psychedelics for you?

I ended up peaking that night while lying on a friend's dorm-room bed, listening to "Whenever God Shines His Light".  Definitely not Van Morrison's finest song, but that moment is enshrined in my memory of as one of the most (and I use the term in the religious sense) "ectsatic" in my life.  It may sound overwrought, but it was a moment that seemed a perfect nexus of music and spirituality, and I was lucky enough to be there.  

That experience didn't make that song one of my favorite songs, and while I enjoy his work,  I don't listen to all that much Van Morrison today.  But that moment made me realize the power of music and the power of the molecule to affect each other to affect me in a very profound way.

3) Is there a piece of music you never "got" until you heard it tripping?

The Greatful Dead in general, and "Terrapin Station" specifically.  I had been listening to a little bit of the Dead since high school, and while I liked it, I didn't understand why the people I knew who were into them were waaaaaaaay into them.  I had heard Terrapin Station multiple times before, usually in social situations, but had never really "listened" to it until I went with a group of friends on vacation at the beach.   That week we spent a-- erm--- "colorful" day on a deserted beach, and the only music was a boombox and couple of Dead CDs, one of which was Terrapin Station.  

While my friends splashed about in the surf, I instead sat in my beach chair and dove into the Terrapin Station suite and finally realized the epic beauty and skill that was the Dead.  Later, going back to re-listen (or, really, listen for the first time) to albums I had heard before, such as Workingman's Dead and Anthem of the Sun, was almost like hearing a whole new band.  It sounds really lame, I know, but that's what it was like.

I'm with JRL--- The Grateful Dead is still some of the most reliable entheogenic journey music, especially while coming up.

4) How has tripping influenced your appreciation and selection of music?

It's definitely opened up my tastes and steered me towards new music.  I probably would never gotten into electronic music otherwise, as I used to dismiss it all as annoying, mindless, talentless "thumpa-thumpa-thumpa" techno.  It turned out I was quite wrong.     I've found that some of the most powerfully psychedelic music (in and of itself, sans molecule) is electronica (Boards of Canada, for example, comes to mind, as does Shpongle)  Now, it often annoys me to hear people dismiss electronica the way I used to without having heard what's really there.   :wink:

5) I know a large portion of you are musicians. How has tripping effected your playing? Do you play high? Do you play out high?

I'm not much of a musician, but psychedelic experiences make me want to create music.  I play at making music, electronic or otherwise, but not usually while I'm altered.   My skills are low enough sober.  

[JRL]

X, thanks for jumping in. I hope this thread takes off, I am starved for discourse. My answers are forthcoming

[cenacle]

1) What did you listen to during your first psychedelic experience?

grateful dead...and my acid guru jamming guitar...and i dont know what else...simpsons and xfiles on tv...and the movie 'bliss'...heh...


2) Is there a particular piece that cemented the link of music and psychedelics for you?

phish...beatles...pink floyd...shpongle...jayhawks...wilco...grateful dead...boards of canada...

3) Is there a piece of music you never "got" until you heard it tripping?

most music...a different way of listening...not a got vs not-got...just different...

4) How has tripping influenced your appreciation and selection of music?

dunno...funny question...

5) I know a large portion of you are musicians. How has tripping effected your playing? Do you play high? Do you play out high?

my music is writing, that's my angle on it...i learned how after a year of trying...it's a challenge but jumping on the multi-dimension flow and sliding a pen along paper...it works well sometimes...especially with music on walkman going...to bands like those mentioned above...

eh...

[byrooon]

1) What did you listen to during your first psychedelic experience?
 Don't remember. My first experiences were on the whole not a lot of fun but not bad, nothing spiritual. My favorite music to listen to tripping is Joe Ely's first two albums. Excellent production, excellent band, the fiddle and accordion and steel guitar tweaked my acid-soaked nerve endings sending frissons of jagged razor-sharp icelike currents to my brain

2) Is there a particular piece that cemented the link of music and psychedelics for you?
 
No.

3) Is there a piece of music you never "got" until you heard it tripping?

Yes, very definitely. "Indian War Whoop" by the Holy Modal Rounders. Excellent when listened to tripping. They were the inventors of "acid-folk"
Have never listened to the greatful dead while tripping... Was never into them... I did go see them with a friend who liked them alot... I bought acid from everyone I could... spent about $100 buying acid from nine people. I took it all. It was all bogus. I listened to the greatful dead extremely drunk.

4) How has tripping influenced your appreciation and selection of music?

Don't think it has...
5) I know a large portion of you are musicians. How has tripping effected your playing? Do you play high? Do you play out high?

I'm not too good of a musician. Drugs makes my playing worse. DXM increases my appreciation of music but makes my fingers clumsy. I play only by sight reading. The best I have done at this, however, is when I played piano under the influence of the combination of dxm and 2ct-7.

-bp

[fuzz]

ouh fun fun..questions!!
lets see...

1) What did you listen to during your first psychedelic experience?
i cant recall if we played any music on my first trip. first trip was acid, we were with a group of freinds, for whom it was also first trip. i remember loving the carpet and playing in the sink, being fascinated by water. by the end of the night, as we were coming "down", in the morning, we watched an episode of Pee Wee Herman and the Fun House. i had never seen the show yet..sure was a trip

2) Is there a particular piece that cemented the link of music and psychedelics for you?
not for me. as  a kid i was always very much into music, even before psychedelics. i simply loved it, got high on Beethoven and thought it was really cool.

3) Is there a piece of music you never "got" until you heard it tripping?
nopes. then again, in my early psychedelic days, i was still doing my punker thing. the punk music being a bit "simplistic" as far as chords go, perhaps there was really nothing to cement.

4) How has tripping influenced your appreciation and selection of music?
it really hasent for me. as said, i just love music. to me with or without psychedelics its always a magical experience.

5) I know a large portion of you are musicians. How has tripping effected your playing? Do you play high? Do you play out high?
i dont play music, but have always been around musicians and music lovers. my music is visual arts moslty. when i work on computer, i love electronica music, it fits well with the machine, and i dont like hearing words that much when i do comp work.
when i write, i also do not want words in my music usually.

when i paint, i like various styles..but always, when doing work, music is a big part of picking the mood i want to create for specific works.

fun questions JRL its great to hear people's experiences..
wwweeezzzzzz!!!!

[Bushpig]

1> Hmmm  Honestly cant remember, although I do remember some of the experience and it may have been non musical!

2>The Doors

3>  I would say Sphongles 'tales of the inexpressible' ---that is awesome to hear whilst tripping, truley a neo shamanic catalyst of epic proportions!!  Had me in foetal position for hours!

4>I've found that psychedelics brings out a totally different dimension in music, i hear and feel every note in a much more involved manner.

5>I'm a fair weather guitarist, well i tinkle occasionally.  I love to play whilst im tripping, on my own.  I really start to feel the Love for it, and just let myself go with whatever im playing.  I definatly feel the notes come to me more readily !!  I am more creative.

[Satori]

1) What did you listen to during your first psychedelic experience?

My first trip was on LSD, and i went to a rave with Kluster and Grapes of Wrath playing. It was intence. I went home before it all ended, and listened to the entire Shpongle - Are You Shpongled? while lying in my bed seeing and feeling it all by myself... amazing stuff.

2) Is there a particular piece that cemented the link of music and psychedelics for you?

I dont think so. Alot of pieces sort of have, Miles Davis - Bitches Brew, Dub trees  - Nature never did betray that heart that loved her, Mantaray - Numinous Island, Grateful Dead - Dicks Picks 4 and lots more in all those genres blew my mind every time.
I have tried listening to something like Dead Kennedys and Britney Spears, that didnt do anything to me. Britney Spears and that type of pop felt empty cold and plastic, Dead Kennedys I more like when im drunk

3) Is there a piece of music you never "got" until you heard it tripping?

I have, as most people in here, always appreciated music alot, and felt it deep everytime, Grateful Deads - Ripple gave me goosebumps before i started tripping, and it still does (to take an example)... brrrr... But as Bushpig says. When on a psychedelic, one experiences a whole new dimension of music, it is inexpressible, the way it is experienced sometimes on a good trip.

4) How has tripping influenced your appreciation and selection of music?

I think it might have increased it some. The music i loved so deeply before, i love even more after having had a good trip with the music playing. And i think i hear more refined details and feels the mood better now. But that might also just be me getting older.
And i do select music with more soundimages now than usually, i rarely listen to 3 chord punk, or stuff like that anymore... it gets trivial and boring, and it doesnt do anything to me anymore.

5) I know a large portion of you are musicians. How has tripping effected your playing? Do you play high? Do you play out high?

I am unfortunately not a musician, but i did try out playing guitar, bass and violin for a period of time, would have loved being able to do that while tripping

I would like to add, that the appreciation of certain type of music etc. might come hand in hand with the appreciation and deep (mystical) insights i have sometimes had on trips. Which has opened up availability to appreciate many facets of the process and experiment of life, that i might not have had without psychedelics. I dont trip that often anymore. Right now, life is a trip, and the music is still playing... And i do love it

[senorsalvia]

Great thread:  Thanx fer 'da memories JRL...  First time I experienced misic whilst triping...Live concert Quicksilver Messenger service.  The energy was just such a sonic marvel...   Used to play while affected...  Sometimes it seemed to add a good dimension to the sound..  At other times, it seemed to decrease my precision and affect the subtlelty of nuance and interplay between other band members and myself...   Uriah Heaps Demons and Wizards album had always seemed sort of mediocre to me until I munched 10 hits of some good windowpane..."Me and the magic man, kinda feelin fine".... Led Zeps' first album had always struck me as deeply bluesy, but with a sense of timing and expression that seemed to obviously be aimed at those 'unwashed psychedelisized masses'...If anyone still has the album, give a listen to Blues Magoos Psychedelic Lollipop...Seemed like a rather mundane work until 'under the influence'...........  senorsal

[JRL]

My turn:

1) My first musical psychedelic experience was with two joints of "good" weed and Light My Fire which was quite new at the time. It was maybe the third tme I had smoked and I had never been close to this stoned before. Ray Manzaraks organ solo and even more important, the GROOVE the band was playing flat out put me into a trance.

During my first acid trip, the music that that I listened to in a dark closet on headphones was "Their Satanic Majestys Request" by the Rolling
Stones and Little Games by the Page-Beck version of the Yardbirds.

2. I think the tune that got me the most that night was "Glimpses", that bit of Beckian arabian weirdness on the Yardbirds record.

3. "What's Become of the Baby" on Aoxomoxoa by the GD

4. Tripping has shown me how to get below the surface of music, to feel the humans that create it. It's hard to lie to someone on acid and that's also true musically. Anything insincere, contrived or crassly commercial doesn't stand up under Hoffman's microscope.

Tripping has shown me the power that music has to effect our minds.

5. At this time I probably don't need to say that I have played under the influence of a variety of substances ranging from smart drugs to not so smart drugs to down right stupid drugs. I have found that if I know the music to be played well or if it a wide open free form situation psychedelics can be great to play on. I have been known to take the stage under the influence. Best to wait till after the peak, but in a good frame of mind and with a modicum of intact ego in can be amazing. The times I have been with a whole band of people tripping have been magic.

[JRL]

Guy's I am hoping this will prompt some discussion. One thing I have learned is that many psychedelic therapists use various music as there main tool.

[byrooon]

are there psydelic therapists left? I thought they got put out off business as LSD and MDMA was made illegal... must be underground... but I have heard of ayahuasca therapists doing business... if i had the money I'd go to
one :wink: don't think insurance will cover it... lol


bp

[JRL]

There is still a network. People like the Shulgins keep it alive. and of course there are the amatures.......

Also an Ibogaine clinic in Holland runs ads in the local arts paper here.

[byrooon]

there's an ibogaine clinic in th carribeans run by top US ibogaine researcher Dr. Debra Marsh of the University of FL. Makes ya wish you're an addict... hell, I'd qualify :wink: I remember reading on there site if you got no money or insurance give them a call... but would they pay transportation? doubt it... I'll give 'em a call after I get off of probation... unless i can score some ibogaine or seeds... think I once had seeds... one sprouted... don't remember what happened to it (too many plants)... always been wanting to try ibogaine for like 20 years...


byron

[JRL]

Anyone care to elaborate, I was hoping for some spirited discussion, I want this thread to at least as many views as the Black Metal Picture thread.