OFF: More (was HW: Various)

[Doug Pearson]

On Thu, 1 Jul 2004 10:06:35 +0200, Henderson Keith
<keith.henderson at PSI.CH> wrote:

>A couple more things to add... [snip]
>
>P.S.  Last night, I saw the movie "More" on TV (1969), which of course
>has a Pink Floyd soundtrack.  So I heard the original "Cymbaline" for
>the first time, which was kinda haphazardly done IMHO, so I prefer the
>Brock version.
>Actually, Floyd's music only shows up here and there and not really very
>powerful stuff to be honest, compared to other material from the same
>period.

It does have "The Nile Song", which may be my favorite post-Barrett Floyd
song.  Of course, just because it's on the soundtrack album doesn't mean
that it's in the actual movie ...

>Pretty simple affair really...just two young kids travelling around Europe
>and experimenting with various drugs. It seemed to glamorize marijuana and
>LSD while demonizing heroin, which I suppose is not an unfair treatment
>(though I'm not really one to know),

I know people who died from heroin.  I don't know anyone who died as a
direct result of any other drug (even alcohol), although I've known people
who fucked themselves up BADLY from hard drugs (speed, coke, alcohol).

Of course, the ultimate irony was 'Superfly', which portrayed heroin in a
very negative light, but cocaine in a completely positive one (this being
years before the 80s crack epidemic).

>but I suppose the irony is what
>happened to Syd Barrett stemmed mainly from LSD.  (Unless that's myth.)

As others have mentioned, LSD can be very bad for people who have some
sort of pre-disposition towards schizophrenia or other brain disorders ...
in the recent Neil Young biography, 'Shakey', the author recounts how
Young (who was subject to seizures during his early 20s ... interestingly,
they seem to have mostly stopped at around the same time he became a heavy
marijuana user) was told by doctors not to ever try LSD (although he never
fucked himself up from his 70s cocaine use, unlike at least one [probably
two] of his CSNY bandmates, the book also contains a great anecdote about
how his coke use cost the makers of 'The Last Waltz' movie a small fortune
in film touch-up costs ["what the hell is that golf ball doing in his
nostril?"]).

This might be a good time to mention the genius of Skip Spence and Roky
Erickson, also both guitarists ...

    -Doug
     jasret at mindspring.com