On the Effects of Damn Good Drugs

On the way to Montreal a couple of weekends ago, I was fiddling with the radio trying to find a station that played decent music, so I could stay awake (was on the road until 1 a.m.) Finally found one (don't know what it was or where it was coming from) but it played some great tunes from the seventies and eighties. Good quality classic rock like Led Zep, Pink Floyd, Queen, The Eagles, April Wine, etc. God those groups were awesome. They just managed to find that musical groove together, that came from some really great jam sessions.

I had to stop and ponder whether or not we have any kind of music currently that has the same kind of staying power that the old stuff has. I mean, sure, there are some great tunes around that I like to dance to or listen to, but will they have any relevance and appeal ten, twenty or thirty years hence?

When I was bemoaning this fact to a friend, it was suggested that I was becoming an old fart and sounding like the previous generation did. You know, complaining about how "music today is such crap. Back in myyyyyyy day ..." But I really don't think this is necessarily true. Take my step-daughter for instance. Born in 1987 and on the verge of her eighteenth birthday. She discovered her step-dad's old albums (he was a rocker pretty much into the same stuff as I was/am) and she claims that music today isn't of the same calibre and quality as it was back when we were teenagers. She also says that the lyrics written during our era were way deeper and more intelligent. Think about it ... who doesn't know Twist and Shout? It's played at parties and weddings galore. What's the contemporary equivalent for that? I can't think of one.

It occurred to me that there was some connection between the types of drugs used and music that ensued. During the sixties and seventies, musicians were into drugs like good old marijuana, hash, LSD, coke, 'shrooms and the like. They'd toke or coke up and then get together and jam. I personally think that bands like Led Zep probably alternated between weed/hash and LSD. Their music is so wonderfully laidback and relaxed in a way, and not coke hopped up like some of the great energetic tunes by The Stones.

Nowadays, the music is all computer generated and very techno sounding. Jam sessions include computer engineers who goof around with various files to find the right sound. To me, a lot of the music sounds the same -- somewhat hollow and tinny, although catchy. Any connection to the designer drugs that are circulating among the beautiful? Stuff like Ecstasy?

I'm thinking that we need to take a bunch of musicians and get them to smoke a really big spliff of some great weed that might have been dusted every so slightly. Then put them in a room and see what they come up with. I'm counting on something a little more relevant, intelligent and lasting than what we are currently churning out.