EPISODE · Jun 21, 2017 · 28 MIN

RockNRoll Drugs

from Ongoing History of New Music · host Curiouscast

There are many ways to clear or expand your mind to allow creativity to flow, stress to dissipate and peace to descend on the mind and body…exercise, meditation, prayer…but that takes exertion, practice and devotion…what if there was a simpler way? Well, there is…drugs…it’s not the smartest way to solve your problems, but for centuries and centuries, drugs have worked for artists… We can go all the way back to cave paintings made in France, Spain, Italy, southern Africa and the Americas 50,000 years ago that some anthropologists claim were made after these ancient artists took drugs, probably some kind of hallucinogenic mushrooms or plant extract…  Why do scientists think that? because many of these paintings feature specific geometric shapes and images that scientists say are common visions resulting from the ingestion of certain types of chemicals…in other words, some of humankinds first artists were junkies… Art and genius drugs have gone together ever since—not always, but more than you might realize… Vincent van Gogh?...he took digitalis for his epilepsy, which caused him to see everything with a slightly yellowish hue…think about that the next time you look at one of his paintings …Picasso liked hash…some say his cubist period was all about smoking hash… Would Friedrich Nietzsche have become a famous philosopher without his opium?...Thomas Edison enjoyed cocaine elixirs…how would World War II have turned out if Winston Churchill wasn’t wired on amphetamines? Andy Warhol liked obetrol (an early form of Adderall) so he could stay awake all night…both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were fans of LSD… See what I mean?...and we haven’t even touched music… rock stars often use drugs for both inspiration and escape, just like those cavemen 50,000 years ago... Which drugs, which rock stars and why?...that’s what we’re going to investigate in a show that’s part chemistry, part psychiatry and part warning…welcome to a primer on rock’n’roll drugs… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices