stephenray

They found me in the lobby after the show. They were laughing at me and did not seem affected at all by the horrid sonic gas that had just been injected into their BRAINS.

ME: Dudes, lets go home. I just wanna go home.
Mike: Wha? Oh come on, we'll be ok. Let's go see the Talking Heads movie down the street.
Tim and Keith: "YEAH COOL WHOOHOO YAY YEAH"
ME: NO! I don't want no more sound! NOOOOOOOO! I DON'T EVEN LIKE THE TALKING HEADS THEY DO THAT SAME AS IT EVER WAS SONG I DONT LIKE THAT AND I WANNA GO HOME AND LISTEN TO BOWIE.

A group of shadowy demons emerge from the walls, "YOU'LL BE FINE MAN COME ON GET HIM A SOOOOOOOOODDDAAAAAAAA WOW MAN YOU'RE SWEATING I THOUGHT THE SHOW WAS PRETTTTTYYYY COOOOOOOOOLLLLL"

mama.

So, they drug me around the corner to the movies. We were standing outside in a long line (it was opening night) and the cool breeze felt good on my BRAINS. I stood there clutching myself like a cold, wet school girl. In the back of my mind, a little voice was quietly saying "Stop Making Sense Stop Making Sense Stop Making Sense Stop Making Sense," in a funny little accent. It was getting louder and louder and I could not make it stop. Holy shit I'm having audio hallucinations. It got louder and louder OH GOD

Just then, a little Pakistani man reached out for my ticket as he had been going down the line and he said to me "Stop Making Sense!" I BUSTED a laugh into his face as it all hit me. BAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. He took my ticket as if I'd just said absolutely nothing.

I started laughing at nothing. A lot. I was feeling a little better now...

Inside, the movie started, if you've seen it and liked it.. well, you know what I mean. They opened up with "Psycho Killer" and the audience stood up and began to dance. The theatre turned that shit up loud. We were bumpin and thumpin and that film KICKED MY ASS and made me a life long heads fan.

Moral of the story: Acid is great! Try it and give it to your children!

So the next night found us at the Warner Theatre for a Phillip Glass concert. It was the tour for Koyaanisqasti, which I had not seen yet, but I had heard the main theme. The song was composed of organ and a choir that chanted "koyaanisqasti" very slowly in a deep, bass tone. I liked it enough to see the show.

Now, I'm a fan of minimalism. I love Steve Reich and his phasing rythms. Phillip Glass on the other hand, is based on the arpeggio. Oh no.

I'm sitting in the lovely, red velvet theatre with the acid tingle trickling down my spine, waiting for the show to start. I could tell that the LSD was going to be really, really... really good. And so it was that the show began right as I started to climb the ladder into my braaaaaiiinnnsss...

Mr. Glass began with the same piece I had heard and it was gorgeous. The sound was warm and awe inspiring. His ensemble was big, 2 synth players, a small woodwinds section, brass and a large choir. I was ready for the goodness.

Only.... uh oh... nothing else he played was in the tone of that one piece. Nope. The REST of his compositions were... oh god... how do I describe it if you haven't heard it before..... hmmmmm. Ok, his compositions are based on scales that move up and down (LIKE GARCIA AND HIS WHEEDLY WEEE) so... he builds arpeggios instrument by instrument at varying speeds. Other instruments run arpeggios in counterpoint, (like Bach with the flu) or in harmony (like a 2 measures of Mozart looped eternally) So.... it might look something like this.... (the DEE or FEE being the high note and the phrase repeats)

synth bass: boodlaDEEdlaboodlaDEEdlaboodlaDEEdlaDEEdlaboodlaDEEdlaboodlaDEEdlaboodlaDEEdlaboodla
sax: fooflaFEEflafooflaFEEflafooflaFEEflafooflaFEEflafooflaFEEflafooflaFEEflafooflaFEEflafooflaFEEfla
synth 2: (half speed) doooooooooooobllllllaaaaaaadeeeeeeeeeeebbblllllllllaaaaaaaaaa
clarinet: (DOUBLE TIME OH CHRIST WTF) dobladDEEbladobladDEEbladobladDEEbladobladDEEbladobladDEEbla
female choir: (varying speed)aaaaaahhh haaaaaaa aaaaaaahhhhaaaa uuuuuuuhhhh huuuuuuuhhh uhhhhhhh huuuuuhhhhhh
male choir: (varying speed)eeeeeeeeeeeehhhhh uhhhhhhhhhhh ooooooooooouuuhhhhhhhhh

I know that looks retarded but you should HEAR it. On DRUGS. NOOOOO NOOOO NO NO NO!!! His pieces would repeat like this for fucking EVER. I love music that looops, but it needs to have some form of subtle shifting and for fucks sake it needs to GROOVE a little bit. This was like robotic wankery... uh... fuck I just don't know. Awful.

I melted into my chair as if the music were a hurricane and I was North Carolina. I was beaten about the head and chest with a post modern rubber hose. I lasted about 25 minutes until I let out a feeble "GOTTA GO BE BACK OK BYE" to my friends and RAN for the lobby where I sat with my legs to my chest in a little ball humming John Denver tunes for the duration of the show.

in part 3... my friends force me to come to terms with my bad acid experience by taking me to see the Talking Heads movie "Stop Making Sense" DIRECTLY AFTER this show....

In honor of the passing of Albert Hoffman (father of LSD) I will tell an LSD story.

Back in 1991(ish) I think it was...

Somehow, one of my friends got a bunch of free tickets to see the Grateful Dead in Hampton, Va. Ok, I'm not a fan but I thought it would be fun to go and at least witness what all the fuss was about. So we went.

The crowd was an entertaining mix of rich kid drop outs, old school hippies, bikers and frat boys. Youngster hippies were dancing in a daisy chain that wrapped almost the entire circle of the huge venue. To say that the air smelled of Patchouli would be redundant. Our little group wasn't on any drugs harder than a little bit o weed, but the rest of the crowd looked pretty juiced. So we took our seats and awaited the sonic bliss of a cultural phenomenon! Annnnnnnnd heeeere they are.... THE GRATEFUL DEAD!!! YAAAAAYYYY!!

About 3 seconds into the first song I realized that man, they absolutely SUCK. I mean... just.... horrible. They would all jam their hippie fingers into their ears and attempt to chime in with CSN&Y type harmonies that were spine crackingly bad. Then Jerry would go off on these 20 minute "explorations" of the Gmajor scale and would just noodle eighth note runs up and down up and down ... weedly weedly weeeeee weee weedly twee twee dooobeee weeedly. OH GOD. THEN THEY WOULD SING SOME MORE. Kill me. Please..... kill me.

And the deadheads were always going on about this futuristic sound system that the Dead used, like... all surround soundy and stuff. Without exaggerating one bit, I will say that it sounded like someone had run the band through 400 transistor radios and stuffed them into mud pies and then stuck radio shack mics in front of those. There was no bass. NONE. ZERO. HOW CAN THAT EVEN HAPPEN? THERE SHOULD AT LEAST BE SOME LOW END MUNG!

Then there was the big freak out near the middle of the show which the deadheads usually call "Drums and Space," man. Basically, it's 15 or so minutes of the band making "ooooeeeeewwwwoooo" spacy noises while the drummers whack on these big tom toms with metric assloads of oversaturated reverb on EVERYTHING. All the little deadheads were flailing and staring at the ceiling as if Jimi Hendrix were going to descend. (OH GOD HOW I WISH! SAVE ME JIMI, JANIS, LIZARD KING SOMBODY HAAAALP MEEEHHHH)

It was during this time that the cute cute hippy chic behind us got our attention and said, "Heeeeeyyyy mannn... you guys wanna buy sum Zippy fer President Acid, weee madde it ourrrrseelllvesss.." Judging from her glinting acid burned out eyeballs, we all nodded and spoke in agreement. "SURE."

We got the goods and got the hell out. On our way, we stopped at the MickyD's right next to the place. We walked in the door, and there we witnessed 15 or so McD's employees standing at attention behind the registers. "Are you guys ready?" I said. "CUZ DIS PLACE GWANNA BE TEAMING WITH HIPPIE STANK IN 20 MINUTES!!"

We did not take our LSD at the show. Instead we saved it for the next night, which was Phillp Glass in DC. For me, that was a big, big, mistake which we'll get to hear about in PART 2 of this EXCITING SAGA....