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Smoking pot while being in a band
- Thread starter Bright Midnight
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I've been smoking weed for the last 4 years now, and I'm still the same when I'm playing, with my friends/band mates.
the thing is... your friend is a looser.
pot does cure, and help in many cases... but it makes you more of a looser, if you were one before you smoked.
BlueWine, if you haven't been stoned, or drunk... I pity you. it's not like I'm getting drunk on daily basis, but I do smoke everyday, even at work, for medical reasons, and for my own.
I'm much better with my drunk/stoned experiences, than no experiences at all.
the thing is... your friend is a looser.
pot does cure, and help in many cases... but it makes you more of a looser, if you were one before you smoked.
BlueWine, if you haven't been stoned, or drunk... I pity you. it's not like I'm getting drunk on daily basis, but I do smoke everyday, even at work, for medical reasons, and for my own.
I'm much better with my drunk/stoned experiences, than no experiences at all.
New names, yes. But names don't get you high. And it doesn't matter where it was grown. People in holland can grow no better than people anywhere else.
Try growing organic. Now THAT does make a difference. I can tell you first hand.
Yeah not to mention that drug/alcohol abusers have higher workers comp claims due to accidents also more lost time,theft, performance issues,attendance issues than non users and so on...
Mind posting the research to back this claim up? More specifically, the research that separates marijuana usage from alcohol and narcotics use?
I don't mean to single you out or be a jerk, but you sound like the kind of guy who knows very little about marijuana and only thinks of pot-smokers as the most easily recognizable "burnouts" you've met. It's like judging all alcohol drinkers as if they're the guy in the gutter lying in his own puke with his pants around his ankles simply because you've never seen the guy next to you drink a glass of wine and call it good for the evening.
Over 40% of Americans have smoked pot in their lives, and over 25 MILLION Americans smoke at least once a year... that's over 10% of the adult population. You might argue that 10% is the dredges of society, but Florida helped us out quite a bit with their mandatory drug testing for welfare recipients experiment they've recently tried that found only 4% of welfare recipients ineligible for failing the test (and that includes ALL drug use, including narcotics). To top it off, the government sited percentage of drug users in florida hovers around 7.5%... so the poor folks who don't contribute to society are actually proving to do LESS drugs than the people with jobs. Using normal Government style logic that means ILLICIT DRUG USE LEADS TO GETTING A JOB AND OFF OF WELFARE.
So where are all of those millions of pot smokers? They're working right next to you, you just don't know it... just like you don't know if they had a glass of wine or a tallboy with their dinner last night.
ANNUAL AMERICAN DEATHS CAUSED BY DRUGS
TOBACCO 400,000
ALCOHOL 100,000
ALL LEGAL DRUGS .20,000
ALL ILLEGAL DRUGS .15,000
CAFFEINE .2,000
ASPIRIN 500
MARIJUANA . 0
I dont know where it came from a corp thing. The meeting was mind numbing enough and all I could think was I wish had a drink to help me get thru it
Great sides to the argument here...I think just about everything has possibly been said...except...
How come you guys don't go jam out in the middle of the woods at your buddy's place!?!?!? Maybe ALL you guys need a new setting to generate some inspiration and write some new stuff.
I dream of a day (week...month...year) where my bandmates and I can hunker down in a cabin in the woods (preferably next to a river where we can fish), smoke some herb, crack some cold ones, and write three albums worth of music. Crap man, that's what dreams are made of and it's sitting in front of your face!
Seriously though, he might not be that into the music anymore...ever considered that to be the case? Heck, I get tired of rehearsing my band's old songs - there's nothing wrong with that. Maybe you guys need brand new ideas.
How come you guys don't go jam out in the middle of the woods at your buddy's place!?!?!? Maybe ALL you guys need a new setting to generate some inspiration and write some new stuff.
I dream of a day (week...month...year) where my bandmates and I can hunker down in a cabin in the woods (preferably next to a river where we can fish), smoke some herb, crack some cold ones, and write three albums worth of music. Crap man, that's what dreams are made of and it's sitting in front of your face!
Seriously though, he might not be that into the music anymore...ever considered that to be the case? Heck, I get tired of rehearsing my band's old songs - there's nothing wrong with that. Maybe you guys need brand new ideas.
Spinal Tapper said:
haha, I had that thought as well. I have friends that have recorded albums that way.
Yeah, another +whatever from me as well.
The "drug war" has been an absolute and monumental flop. A person can still buy basically any drug they want with relative ease at any time, and marijuana is still considerably cheaper than alcohol even in the most anti-drug states (a $20 gram will last most modest users at least 10 sittings, imagine trying to get drunk on $2).
We did a show in the woods where he lives kind of next to, and the countless times he and I jammed for hours at his house 'till sun up will never be forgotten. It's a great place with a large forest and swamps.
We're actually full of ideas and aren't shy to try stuff we'd normally never do, we take in whatever we come across, and whatever works and feels great will gets its place one way or another. So no problem there.
We're taking it back to three, and if he feels he wants to jam along or even write some riffs he'll be welcome to, just like any old friend always is. But the band is numero uno, and you all gotta be looking in the same direction if you want to get where you're going - so back to three, back to basics.
Good points. I do remember getting the odd bit of weed back then that was killer, and I smoked a lot more back then -a day's smoking then would last me a month now. Also, the big differences I remember are probably more like 30 yrs ago now that i think of it, and probably had more to do with what was available around here at the time. Whatever the case - I'm a hash man!
Pointless to argue with those who speak from propaganda rather than experience, although I do remember winning the argument once. A group of us went hunting for a week. Everyone smoked except this one guy, and he was pretty dead set against it - snarky comments everytime we lit up (which was pretty frequent!). Anyway, after the third day he pulled his horns in. We were getting up just as early as him, working just as hard, and weren't causing any problems. He pointed all that out himself and said we had crushed his preconceived notions.
Wow, a drug discussion thread that hasn't been shut down yet? And a pretty fair discourse, at that.
I don't know any legitimate numbers, or even if they exist, but baalroo's post is right on the money for any argument i'd bring up about smoking herb. The simple fact is millions of Americans smoke pot regularly. And that is just our country. If you want to make sweeping negative generalizations about marijuana and everybody who is involved with it, then so be it. You are casting out a lot of very good people.
As for the drug/creativity thing; that is sort of the same issue. I wish I could document effectively the immense effect that substances have had on music in the past fifty years (controlled or otherwise). I'm talking writing, recording, performing, and especially listening. But if you don't believe it, well, okay. I am not going to try to provide scientific facts for anyone on the matter, but I would bet every penny I have that our recorded music history would be greatly altered if you took away the drugs from the story. I won't spend too much time pushing this point, because if you don't see it and don't believe it, I don't really care. Personally I consider it a very important thing to understand about pop culture and music, and the ways that these things interact.
As for the OP, well, so many have said it already. Your buddy's problem is not limited to his bad relationship with the herb, and you should address the musical situation with him first. I hope you talk with him and move forward with your music.
I don't know any legitimate numbers, or even if they exist, but baalroo's post is right on the money for any argument i'd bring up about smoking herb. The simple fact is millions of Americans smoke pot regularly. And that is just our country. If you want to make sweeping negative generalizations about marijuana and everybody who is involved with it, then so be it. You are casting out a lot of very good people.
As for the drug/creativity thing; that is sort of the same issue. I wish I could document effectively the immense effect that substances have had on music in the past fifty years (controlled or otherwise). I'm talking writing, recording, performing, and especially listening. But if you don't believe it, well, okay. I am not going to try to provide scientific facts for anyone on the matter, but I would bet every penny I have that our recorded music history would be greatly altered if you took away the drugs from the story. I won't spend too much time pushing this point, because if you don't see it and don't believe it, I don't really care. Personally I consider it a very important thing to understand about pop culture and music, and the ways that these things interact.
As for the OP, well, so many have said it already. Your buddy's problem is not limited to his bad relationship with the herb, and you should address the musical situation with him first. I hope you talk with him and move forward with your music.
I have a similar story. Went to a fishing town for the 4th of July one year and we were all lighting up. Well, 3 out of 4 of us were...our one friend was being the naysayer, "pot makes you guys dumb and lazy, you never wanna do anything, etc". I wont deny that to be true in some cases, but we were on vacation! We decided as a group to toke up and walk out to the lighthouse out off the pier. When we asked our non-smoker friend if he was ready to venture out with us, he said, nah, I'm going to stay in the hotel room and watch the baseball game...
Yes and no. I smoked for years and then quit, and for the last ten years I have smoked the occasional joint without having this kind of effect, and not from pot grown in your backyard. I'd get stoned, but I'd have smoked it halfway through. With this stuff there's a difference, I even thought it aggressive and I smoked enough different weeds and amounts with different times in between for a long enough time to know what to expect and what not.
But this isn't a discussion leading to something, it's just personal experience, nothing more.
Good to hear! That's an excellent approach to take. That takes all the pressure off him, gives him an out without telling the band he quits, and keeps the door open for him to come back if/when he gets his sh*t together.
i live in so-cal and i play in a reggae band, it would be weird to have band practice and not smoke a few bowls. However i will say i do not like to mix hash or keif into the music equation, too stoney duuudde....
I do.
I also know lots of horrible music written under the influence.
Same with other art...
Kubla Khan and Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge.
Alice In Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carrol.
Odelay by Beck (he says he was high when he wrote the songs)
Claude Debussy wrote on opium a lot.
Mezz Mezzrow, Louis Armstrong....
The entirety of the late 1960's scene in San Francisco (Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, QMS, etc.)
Never mind all the myriad of things written under the influence of alcohol.
You might read up on confrontations. They were popular awhile back. Some people have had good results. I havent read the whole thread but sometime people need help even if they do not ask for it. Do you really think he is happy living like he is? Of course not. Like I say, read up on confrontations, find a counselor or three to talk with and see if you can find some guidance to help him. His family may get on board also if you think it would be good bringing them in. Honestly, if it was my best friend I could not look at myself if I let him keep going that way. Best of luck.
- Jun 3, 2009
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- Bassgearu, Music Industry Consulting and Sales. Tech 21, NBE Corp, Sonosphere.
And there is certainly something to be said for that. Drugs don't make people better musicians. Drugs and creativity do often go hand in hand, but that begs the question of whether drugs open the mind and help the creative juices flow or if creative people happen to be more naturally drawn towards drugs. I dont know the answer to that question and won't assume one way or the other.
Do I think smoking pot makes me a better musician? No, but I know that it doesnt make me any worse either. Have a written some of my better material under the influence of drugs, you bet your ass.
As Hunter S Thompson once said "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."
I forget, which great hit did you write or play on?
Look, I really don't care what people personally do, but my opinion is based both on experience and living with those who have gone down the slope, band mates and musicians.
Drugs and alcohol do not make you any more aware or conscious. They just make you feel, in most cases, "better."
Two of the most blessed musicians and songwriter's I've known were Pete Farndon and James Honeymoon Scott. Both dead. Both were much better before getting high all the time. I can't find much good material around the time both of them checked out.
Bill Wyman has written and spoken about how crappy everything was during the recording of Exile on Mainstreet and a few other albums, because the boys were too into the drugs. And honestly, I don't find that album all that great, no matter what the critics think.
Brian Wilson nearly self destructed with drug use, and his music during the drug years is spotty at best.
Either way, to each his own.
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