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Chemical bonds
Music and drugs have long been linked, with shifts in genres often running alongside trends in narcotic consumption. Kevin Sampson tracks the history, from Miles Davis to Happy Mondays, and wonders if the link is still strong
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• Kevin Sampson
• The Observer, Sunday 16 November 2008
When Jack Kerouac first coined the term 'the Beats ' for his loose-knit group of world-weary bohemians, he meant it in the sense that they were outsiders - a dangerous, free-thinking underclass. But the Beats ' empathy for jazz and, in particular, the free-form bebop of Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk, brought with it a glamorised fancy for heroin. As with so many working musicians, the pioneers of bebop eased their pressures with the needle. And just as the misadventures of Pete Doherty would be news today, Charlie Parker made the front pages in 1946 after a Sunset Strip binge led to his being committed for electro-shock treatment.
The kids loved him for it. Assuming a direct correlation between their jazz heroes ' habits and their inspired musical improvisations, the Beats began experimenting, too. In an era where teenagers were carving their own niche and so to be 'hip ' was everything, a fledgling youth movement was, for the first time, fuelled by narcotics. As Miles Davis noted in his autobiography: 'People were considered hip if they shot smack. '
With their subterranean fusion of radical jazz, their stream-of-consciousness compositions and their acquiescence to the languorous medications of smack, Kerouac redefined Beat 's meaning to embrace the 'beat '-ific vibe of the time, and the drowsy ambivalence of heroin 's afterburn. 'I 'm beat ' in Fifties New York would equate to 'I 'm done in ' today. But the laid-back, live-and-let-live philosophy the term espouses sowed the seeds of Flower Power when the Beats went West.
But before Beat turned to free love, there was an equal and opposite reaction to the
Music and drugs have long been linked, with shifts in genres often running alongside trends in narcotic consumption. Kevin Sampson tracks the history, from Miles Davis to Happy Mondays, and wonders if the link is still strong
• Share46
•
•
• inShare2
• Kevin Sampson
• The Observer, Sunday 16 November 2008
When Jack Kerouac first coined the term 'the Beats ' for his loose-knit group of world-weary bohemians, he meant it in the sense that they were outsiders - a dangerous, free-thinking underclass. But the Beats ' empathy for jazz and, in particular, the free-form bebop of Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk, brought with it a glamorised fancy for heroin. As with so many working musicians, the pioneers of bebop eased their pressures with the needle. And just as the misadventures of Pete Doherty would be news today, Charlie Parker made the front pages in 1946 after a Sunset Strip binge led to his being committed for electro-shock treatment.
The kids loved him for it. Assuming a direct correlation between their jazz heroes ' habits and their inspired musical improvisations, the Beats began experimenting, too. In an era where teenagers were carving their own niche and so to be 'hip ' was everything, a fledgling youth movement was, for the first time, fuelled by narcotics. As Miles Davis noted in his autobiography: 'People were considered hip if they shot smack. '
With their subterranean fusion of radical jazz, their stream-of-consciousness compositions and their acquiescence to the languorous medications of smack, Kerouac redefined Beat 's meaning to embrace the 'beat '-ific vibe of the time, and the drowsy ambivalence of heroin 's afterburn. 'I 'm beat ' in Fifties New York would equate to 'I 'm done in ' today. But the laid-back, live-and-let-live philosophy the term espouses sowed the seeds of Flower Power when the Beats went West.
But before Beat turned to free love, there was an equal and opposite reaction to the
Cited: Anderson, Terry. The Sixties. New York: Longman, 1999. Brewer, Jim. "DRUGS: Cheap Grass And Free Acid." The San Francisco Chronicle 9 Apr. 1987: 25 Brown, G Hall, Tommy. "Roller Coaster." Psychedelic Sounds of The 13th Floor Elevators. International Artists, 1966. Hendrix, Jimi. Are You Experienced. MCA, 1967 Lennon, John, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr Lennon, John, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. Sergeant Pepper 's Lonely Hearts Band. Capitol, 1966 Neary, John Shapiro, Harry. Waiting For the Man: The Story of Drugs and Popular Music. Southampton: Camelot Press Plc, 1988. Whiteley, Sheila. "Progressive Rock and Psychedelic Coding in the Work of Jimi Hendrix." Popular Music 9.1 (1990): 37-64. United States. National Institute on Drug Abuse. Hallucinogens and Dissociative Drugs. 2000. "1967 'Not so much a neighborhood as a state mindlessness. '" Time Magazine 9 Apr. 1987: 25. "Woodstock." Washington Post 15 Aug. 1979: B1.