DOPE'S RECORD AS THE TRUE MOTHER OF INVENTION

There is something extremely curious about Sir George Martin's call, in a
magazine aimed at police officers, for record companies to enforce
abstinence from drugs on the stars contracted to them. This, after all, is
a man whose knighthood is almost entirely dependent on his involvement with
a bunch of serious dopeheads called The Beatles, a band whose drug-taking
career is reflected in the records Martin helped them make. You can hear
the amphetamines which had fuelled their early career in Hamburg give way
to a dalliance with the wicked weed on 'Rubber Soul', and the LSD which
gave the world 'Sergeant Pepper' and 'The White Album' fading into the
discord and disillusion brought by heroin to 'Let It Be'.

Sir Paul McCartney was jailed in Japan for drug smuggling and has given no
inkling of his opposition to the odd toke since. Sir George's opposition to
rock musicians' intake of banned substances may or may not have something
to do with his son's involvement in the devil's industry, as a member of
the signally unsuccessful band Velvet Jones. A name which nods knowingly to
the ultimate narco-band, The Velvet Underground.

But can there be rock'n'roll without drugs? Can there, indeed, be artistic
endeavor? Former leader of the Blockheads, lecturer in fine art and
painter, Ian Dury had his tongue firmly in his cheek when he growled the
lines: "Sex and drugs and rock'n'roll/ Are all my brain and body need/ Sex
and drugs and rock'n'roll/ Are very good indeed." But Dury knew the truth
of the matter. That creative artists have always been ruled by two central
motivating forces: boredom and curiosity. And drugs help with both.

The artist needs inspiration, and while for some, alcohol's essentially
simple shutting down of conscious thought allows hungover brilliance to
emerge, others seek the opening of perception's doors in a more picturesque
way, vomiting up bits of cactus like Castaneda, or following Timothy Leary
and countless rock stars down the road paved with tabs of lysergic acid,
and dotted with psilocybin mushrooms. Then, when awake and full of ideas,
something is needed to facilitate the actual setting down on paper, or keep
you going for the performance. Step forward, amphetamine sulphate, friend
of soldiers and airmen since the Second World War, and reputedly the cause
of Jack Kerouac churning out 'On The Road' in a week. Brilliance having
been achieved, how do you calm down? Cannabis and alcohol, sir? That'll do
nicely. Bored? Can't sleep? Hit those opiates. Insecure? Need some
reassurance? Too nice for your own good? Burn the septum out of your nasal
passages with cocaine, why don't you?

Artists tend to use hard drugs on their talent like sledgehammers on ice
lollies, and the results can be just as destructive. Acid turned the
Jefferson Airplane from experimental pop space cadets into fat, grim
heavyrock blobs called Jefferson Starship. Poor old Mike Scott, ex-Waterboy
and possessor of the greatest ever Scottish rock voice, blew his potential
on a mixture of cocaine and Guinness, and is now trapped in new age
religion and irrelevance. Opiates, prescribed or illegal, with or without
alcohol, have killed the likes of Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Dennis Wilson,
Gram Parsons, Janis Joplin and others. Heroin inspired Alexander Trocchi, a
malevolent pusher to vulnerable disciples, before it caused him to expire,
creatively long before physically. Only the very strong or cussed survive,
or even flourish, as the astonishing contemporary vibrancy of people such
as Lou Reed and John Martyn shows.

Demanding that young rock musicians eschew the chemical and herbal elements
of the music industry shows an almost incredible naivety. Cocaine, heroin
and cannabis were once virtually legal tender among certain record
comapnies, and a magazine such as Q - the biggest-selling rock magazine in
the world - makes frequent, sometimes arch references to the drug habits of
its interviewees, as in this excerpt from a May 1997 feature on the
up-and-coming rockers Reef: "The drug-takers stayed together and formed the
core of the music course... I made a bit of money on the side. I could have
been a drug dealer somewhere else, but I was deeply into music..."

Where Reef's Kenwyn House has been, a million would-be stars yearn to
follow. Unable to enunciate, perhaps, the need for artificial
enlightenment, they know all about boredom and, like the musicians who
invented the term "jazz cigarettes", doodle and jam and busk and mess about
in bedrooms or squats with guitars and tape recorders, hour after hour,
week after week, year after year, until suddenly something emerges which
might, just might, make three minutes of moneyspinning magic. Rock is about
the moment, it is about chance. Trying to regiment it is like, as Dave
Stewart once said of recording Bob Dylan, "trying to trap lightning".

It is this process which the idiotic "rock'n'dole" scheme completely fails
to recognise. What gives rise to great pop is indolence, self-indulgence,
frustration, time, an absolute lack of interference from adults who like
Phil Collins, and a chance to experiment with everything from genital
piercing to illicit substances. The idea that, in order to claim their dole
money, would-be musicians are going to have to submit planned work
schedules and daily diaries of their practice sessions is just laughable.
One or two highly motivated lyricists might manage it. No drummer ever will.

What of the most common drug of all, and perhaps the most damaging? Legal
old alcohol has taken down the biggest and the best - Hemingway, Dylan
Thomas, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Jim Morrison, the sorry wreck which was once
Shane McGowan, so disgustingly indulged by fans, friends and dependent
colleagues?

It remains the slow crusher of creativity, and yet the most accessible and
commonly used means of breaking blocks which so often come between a writer
and the written, the singer and the song. It is multi-purpose, lifting the
spirits, kicking over stumbling blocks, blurring boredom and easing,
sometimes, the arduous task of actually doing the business, be it painting,
prattling orpirouetting. Yet, pound for hit, it is arguably less
cost-effective than smokable herbal alternatives, and probably more harmful.

As Sir George sips his champagne, he might ponder that. And he might ask
himself what 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' would have been like had John
Lennon not taken LSD: Karen in the Gutter with Brandy, perhaps? Sharon in
the Back Seat with Superlager?

Wherever artists play, strive and struggle, there will be narcotics, and
many of them will be illegal. The music industry's often baleful
exploitation of its young stars is about cash, and the availability of
money makes drugs more accessible, while the pressures of the rock
lifestyle - the boredom versus brilliance problem - makes their use more
attractive, and possible unavoidable. Everybody needs a little something.
As the great Charlie Parker, a hopeless heroin addict, once said, when
asked about his habit: "Sometimes... I have a sherry before dinner."

Checked-by: Richard Lake