Dec 142007
If you’ve got a minute to spare between taking that Billy Idol Challenge, let me know what you think about baseball’s Mitchell Report as it reports to rock ‘ roll. Do you think it’s time we establish performance-enhancing drug testing in rock? I mean, have you compared Alex Chilton‘s voice in the Box Tops with his voice just a couple years later in Big Star? The difference is as great as that in Barry Bonds’ hat sizes. The guy must have been injecting some kind of anti-HGH! Any other rockers you suspect of having used performance-enhancing drugs? What is your rock performance-enhancing drug of choice, anyhow?
It’s hard to beat alcohol as a live performance enhancer. Its inhibition releasing properties can be helpful, the only problems being dosage and frequency. Painkillers, sedatives, and muscle relaxants are contraindicated.
Rock stars, like Bonds, are sometimes susceptible to swelled head syndrome. There is no known cure, though declining record sales can be an effective treatment.
“We in Management are shocked to learn–shocked!–that the members of Led Zeppelin have been trashing their hotel rooms after gigs, perhaps while taking unidentified substances.”
That’s the equivalent of what we’re seeing in this baseball steroid case. What a bunch of bullshit.
My 13 year old asked me last weekend if The Beatles took drugs. I said “yes.” Then he asked if it made their music better.
Heavy parent moment.
A musical Mitchell Report (the Hatch Report? The [Mrs. Sonny] Bono Report?) seems like it would have to be a list of musicians who plagiarized, or a list of people who secretly had someone else playing for them or singing for them on their big records. Maybe Fab from Milli Vanilli or that woman who got screwed over by C+C Music Factory could be the Jose Canseco of the music sweetening era.
I would be in full support of some kind of Senate commission that was charged with forcing people like Clapton and Aerosmith to go back to – safely, with government oversight assistance, of course – utilizing certain substances.
I like Whip-its and vodka onstage.
I hear you, Alexmagic!
A couple of Head members were severely limited in the amount of alcohol we were supposed to drink before a show. It was not conducive to our playing and style of music. However, it was once highly recommended that most of us smoke a lot of pot before hitting the stage. That was highly conducive to our playing and style of music. It’s a myth, for some people, that smoking pot makes you laid back and feel like jahmmin’.
If you are not a regular coffee drinker, do NOT have a cup of coffee before playing a gig. I did this the one time I played at CBGB’s and could barely keep my hand on the fretboard of my guitar.
Not that there was anyone there to notice.
Big Steve posits:
Rock stars, like Bonds, are sometimes susceptible to swelled head syndrome. There is no known cure, though declining record sales can be an effective treatment.
Paradoxically, declining record sales and concert attendance just as frequently result in the head swelling beyond all proportion, as when malnutrition distends the stomach. A has-been can support an enormous head-size for decades.
Baby Flamehead tried to get a little support for our fall of ’90 “Robitussin” tour. Just a banner, and some fine scantily-clad ladies to hawk mini-bottles at shows. I kept a bottle on my amp for a month. Just a nip, and you, too, can sing like Caruso.
‘maudlin, what’d you tell your kid?
Man, did you guys watch that video? Those may be the worst stage moves by a major rock personality I’ve ever seen! Awful!
My stage drug of choice is one, perhaps two, drinks to calm the nerves. I forbid the ingestion of marijuana, particularly by the drummer. It is a nefarious intoxicant that serves no constructive purpose on stage, no matter how gloriously Mr. Mod remembers his stage appearances under its influence. I’ve never faced any other drug issue in any band I’ve been in.
Actually, Chilton has claimed in the past that his lowered voice in the Box Tops days was due to amphetamine usage. I have no idea how exactly that’s supposed to work…but now that I think of it, one of the revelations of that Squeeze song by song book that I’d never heard before was that Chris Difford was addicted to amphetamines through at least, like, ARGYBARGY, and listen to his voice.
The other story Chilton has given about his voice in the Box Tops is that he was doing a conscious imitation of how Dan Penn, their producer and songwriter, sang. Having heard Penn’s solo records, that makes more sense to me.
This is an outrage! We should suspend all these druggies and get rid of their gold records! We need to let the world know that the RIAA (and therefore, all of rock and roll) does not approve of cheating.
Let’s start by reclaiming all those platinum and gold Beatles records and giving them to Van Dyke Parks.
I told him we’d never really know as they did what they did. Also that every experience one has becomes part of who they are and what they do.
And then I threw in a couple of “Jimi, Morrison, Moon, Janice, Cobain” stories for good cautionary measure.
“And then I threw in a couple of “Jimi, Morrison, Moon, Janice, Cobain” stories for good cautionary measure.”
You should throw in Kevin Dubrow as well, so he knows that a lot of drug takers weren’t cool to begin with.
-db