Guitarists can't live with em, can't live...

jwr2 · Post by **jwr2** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 6:52 am

and yes drugs and drinking suck ... it makes you play poorly and has bad effects on your health ...

when I play out I have one or two beers ... or a wild night is three ... I drink a lot of bottled water ...

wayang · Post by **wayang** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 8:16 am

I don't disagree with most of what's been said here...and I've had to deal with quite a few fellow players with drug/alcohol problems, and lost a good friend and excellent drummer to the needle (which is a very bad scene, 'BTW'...), so I don't mean to come across like I condone everything that goes on. My own 'spectrum' consists of caffeine, nicotine, alcohol and 'glaucoma remedy', and I take a lot of care to keep them all balanced and my intake of each minimized...and I now play either my Ric or on a set of sacred hand-carved southeast Asian instruments, so I'm not about to be 'plowed' when I'm playing these days.

Having said all that, I'm forced to report that many of the gigs I look back on with the most fondness were wild-*** parties in a big metal quonset hut in Antarctica...the crowd was drunk, the band was drunk, I was definitely drunk...(although the good thing is: playing for four hours keeps you from drinking as much as the crowd)...and we were playing on ****** made-in-Korea guitars and amps we had to check out from Navy 'Special Services'. So we just didn't care about a lot of the things you can't quit caring about at a gig in the 'real world'...("Oh sh*t! The parking meter! I gotta run out there on our next break."..."Jeepers! I hope I don't break a string!"...etc., etc.) Those 'ice' gigs were amazing...Woodstock, Altamont and San Quentin rolled into one. We were 'one with the audience' like the Sex Pistols could only dream about.

In contrast, here in the 'real world', we're so involved with our materialism and our consequently fragile 'lifestyles' that we're prevented from being really 'in the moment', or having a tribal-style, blow-off-some-steam and excorsize-some-demons experience...and we get too neurotic and guarded to be able to 'get down'...

And lookee here...some amazingly creative personalities are so unflinching in the pursuit of examining existence that it takes them toward the edge of madness...maybe it's the drugs that keep them in this world long enough to do the work they are able to do. I'll tell you one darn thing...people of the future who want to understand the mindset of the last half of the twentieth century and rock-n-roll's place in history will be paying a lot more attention to Jimi than to Alex, Neil & Geddy...

rikk · Post by **rikk** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 8:24 am

You DO sound better when you are drunk/drugged up. But ONLY to yourself. I have a rule (My band mates tend to agree) that unless we have a very long wait to get on stage the first drink comes on stage at the first set. It usually lasts me the entire show. Most of the time I bring a sports drink on stage it quenches my thrust better.
The reason some people think that drugs/drink makes you a better musician is that a lot of young people are depressed or have a lot of negative emotion or have a lot of positive energy. That's part of being young. Being a young person they may drink or do drugs. They may also write songs in this state. They incorrectly conclude that the drugs/drink made them better at songwriting etc. But it was the intense emotion that contributed to the songwriting etc. Emotion and soul after all are key elements in songs. When a person gets older and loses the youthful emotion (sometimes because of drugs) they think that drugs/drink will get them back to where they once were. It's not going to happen. Life is a moving stream and a person has to pick from different places along the path to get emotion/motivation etc.
Well, I hope I made sense. That's my rant anyway.

wayang · Post by **wayang** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 8:31 am

Well Rikk...you certainly 'quenched my thrust'...

jwr2 · Post by **jwr2** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 8:34 am

I don't even take asprin any more .. I pursue good health like my life depends on it ... if you have ever seen a hardcore alcoholic in the latter stages of their life it is pretty depressing ...

Drinking and doing drugs is self destructive behavior ...

ken_swearingen · Post by **ken_swearingen** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 8:34 am

"people of the future who want to understand the mindset of the last half of the twentieth century and rock-n-roll's place in history will be paying a lot more attention to Jimi than to Alex, Neil & Geddy..."

I totally agree but think if Jimi, had done things in moderation and was still around today,He died too young.

Drugs and Alcohol have had there place in Rock n roll for sure.

wayang · Post by **wayang** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 8:41 am

Possible, Ken... but it's also possible that if Jimi had done things in moderation and was still around today, he might just be puttering around in the backyard with nothing more profound on his mind than which fertilizer to switch to...

You can't want the very best work from the geniuses of your generation, demand that they become living conduits for complex information from the infinite beyond, and then expect them to go to bed after some milk and cookies.

jwr2 · Post by **jwr2** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 9:23 am

you don't need drugs to bring out creativity ... drugs and alcohol will destroy creativity ... look at Jim Morrison ... the deeper he got into alcoholism the worse his songwriting and performing got ...

the real deal is that someone with huge talent can produce great work in spite of their substance abuse problems ... not because of their substance abuse problems ...

jayfbv · Post by **jayfbv** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 9:45 am

: But our guitarist insisted on using his 70's gibson 325 the entire set and had to retune for basically every song (done live, by ear through the PA... even though he had a boss chromatic tuning pedal right there). Might I add that he is both slow and usually off when he retunes.

Takes me back...ah, the horror...Boss TU2 and heavier strings. If the 325 still has the trapeze tailpiece, he has to get it replaced with a stop tailpiece or use a stable instrument.

ken_swearingen · Post by **ken_swearingen** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 10:03 am

I have too agree with Dane about having fun the most fun I ever had was playing with a buddy of mine that played guitar in a little two piece quartet at the beach drinking and playing every night all summer long. CCR,van Morrison,Jimmy buffet,beach boys...people singing along...

kcole4001 · Post by **kcole4001** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 11:32 am

Another side effect of too much indulgence is that SOMEONE has to pack up the gear & drive it SAFELY back home! There's no better way to alienate your bandmates than to leave the gear chores to them constantly, or damage their equipment because you're too wasted to care whether you drop or bang it into stuff.
And as far as driving under the influence...don't even go there!

sowhat · Post by **sowhat** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 11:54 am

"You DO sound better when you are drunk/drugged up. But ONLY to yourself."
IMHO, only IMHO...
...and maybe to your mates too - if they're in the same state... "Live fast, die young" - that's what some of my friends say. No thanks. Life is so amazing it should last for as many years as possible... now if some of my friends read it now, ha!.. to be true, when i tried to play after several beers or something else (no drugs i assume), i always was oh so amused noticing that:
a) there's too many strings on a 6-string guitar;
b) hey, where have all the frets gone?
c) hey, is that me singing?! Really?! oh-oh...
d) oh... did i really write it? if so then why i cannot remember a single word?!
And the only song i've written "under influence" up to the end... yeah i felt it's the best one i've ever written... until i woke up next morning, looked at it and threw it in the bin after having read the first lines...

sabbath_of_bass · Post by **sabbath_of_bass** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 12:01 pm

I have depression and all that stuff. Im suppose to be on meds but I wont take them cause I hate any form of drugs all together. At least ones missing with my mental state haha. But I find it to be stupid. Iv listned to these guys... Every like sounds the same and normally isnt even in harmony with the bass. Thats if they have a bassist. Oh im talking about some of my friends btw. I almost smacked a friend of mine the other day. She stated... I wana be able to play like such and such. He can play great even when hes drunk... I was like... yeah because you were drunk too! The sad thing is this is a chic that also likes bands like rush and yes and even Jaco. It kills me it really does.

Yeah yeah... So Hendrix was more popular to the generation. Look people dont like RUSH and such because its more complex. People dont like 15min songs that 9 minutes of the song is only instrumental and such. Your average joe doesnt like it. Hit attention spand is to short. It takes a musician to like it. Normally a good musician. Normal people like a short song with a nice beat. Something they can dance too. Why do you think raps and hip hop is so big? Honestly... theres little music there now days.

sabbath_of_bass · Post by **sabbath_of_bass** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 12:05 pm

Haha Sheena. I know some guitarist that well tell you they only really use the top 3 strings. And then they want to say bass is easier because its only has 4 strings. Oh and I use them all. And Even if the song doesnt call for it I normally play with the octaves because if I dont I may get a tad boring. Thats what was up with the punk band thing haha. As for frets... BLAH who needs them.

sowhat · Post by **sowhat** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 8:31 pm

I normally used top 4 in the state mentioned...

Huh... in fact i did think about switching on the bass, Jacob... but it takes lots of trainin' and i'm a bit too lazy...

And yeah... since it's all punk of course none of my mates cared about notes missed or fingers misplaced.

Guess i have to think about removing the frets from my guitar's neck, too.