WE DO THE MASHED POTATO AND THE FUNKY CHICKEN
Cody B
Cody B
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Discovering NOLA through Modern English and High Powered Blotter Acid

Posted 11 months ago


While I was growing up pot didn't hold too much cachet with me. After all My Mom smoked pot. How cool could it possibly be? So when I was first passed a joint (Aerosmith show in 8th grade), I laughed and passed it on. I continued passing on pot all through my college years, but that didn't mean I said no to drugs. I skipped the gateway drugs and proceeded directly to hallucinogens. From about 81-90 psychedelics were a major part of my life, probably peaking (so to speak) at a spring concert in 1983 that featured the white hot MTV band, Modern English and their Valley Girl anthem, " Melt With You"

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Comments (13)

  1. Cody B
    Cody B says Spring in Minnesota is a glorious time; the snow melts and the sun peaks out for the first time in 4 or 5 months. So when a college (Carleton, Northfield, MN) puts on an outdoor show in springtime it is well attended (everyone in the school goes). We used to say about the spring fest: The studiers, drink. The weekend drinkers drink way too much. The amateur partiers get high and drunk. The pros (I considered myself one then)..well, we took high powered blotter acid and had the time of our lives watching everybody else reach unfathomable heights of stupidity. We predicted correctly the “lemming effect”, as the drunken mob simmered for hours with warm up bands and Modern English’s non-MTV repertoire, and then rushed the stage with incredible force and glee when “Melt with You” swept over the masses. We felt they were mindless suckers. But then it was over. What does a smug music snob do when his day of mocking the lemmings is over? Take more acid and receive his comeuppance in spades (but with a hidden reward). There was partying outdoors and drinking late into the night. Most of the night I kept gobbling tabs and angling toward stereos trying and finally succeeding in playing my ‘trips tape’(Hendrix, Doors, Meat Puppets, Tom Waits, Apocalypse Now Soundtrack Clips, Velvet Underground, Zappa, Grateful Dead, Funkadelic-I think I still have it) for a large crowd of fellow oblivion seekers. It was only I who went off the deep end though. Sometime around when Hendrix’s Are You Experienced (in retrospect a pretty cliche selection by me, but I was young) came on, a massive wave of paranoia swept over me. I was drowning (though I was actually sitting comfortably in a recliner-Not Underwater), asking people, “is it wet in here.” There were bugs, too and their steps were making punctures in my skin (even though I was underwater-how did they breathe?). I was told later that I said, “why is everyone against me?”, as I ran out of the party and headed for the deep woods. I really thought I was being followed, I found a hollowed out tree and crawled inside. I stayed there for 5 hours (with visions of a lot more than sugarplums dancing in my head), until I finally came down and stumbled back to the party. I found a sleeping bag and drifted off, still paranoid but mostly jealous of the revelers who actually had a good time that night. I heard music through my acid drenched haze, and it really grabbed my attention, focused me. Percussion and chants wafted into my ears and painted a very vivid picture. Things were very green and smoke shrouded the scene with mystery. Colorfully dressed people moved in and out of shadow and I was transported to a swamp, in a Louisiana bayou. I was watching a voodoo ritual, but I wasn’t afraid, I wasn’t intruding, I felt invited. The voices were warm, men, women, and finally one I recognized, Dr. John. I was listening, for the first time, to Dr. John’s, Gris-Gris and though it is kinda campy in it’s portrayal of the mysteries of the bayou and voodoo it drew me in and I wanted more. By the time “I Walk on Guilded Splinters”finished off the album I was hooked. My first trip to New Orleans was only in my mind, but I never left. I have been a fan of the good Dr., the Professor, and all the rest ever since. There were a lot of silver linings to my bad trip that day. Since that incident I’ve always had a soft spot for Modern English, and lemmings, and other folks, who aren’t as crazy about music as I am. I learned a lot about myself and found a life long source of incredible music in New Orleans. Let the good times roll.
    Permalink posted 03/23/2007
  2. ivylander
    ivylander says Great post, man. Sadly (or maybe not), virtually all of my drug-enabled epiphanies about music are either forgotten or remembered with a deep sense of embarrassment. Hashish was, for some reason, the only thing available when I was first getting high - no pot for at least two years. As anyone who spent significant time with this drug knows, it's a much more cerebral, trippier high than pot - or so it struck me then. Anyway, one night, with significant amounts of kif coursing through the synapses and Martha and the Vandellas' greatest hits on the turntable, I came to the realization that those Motown tunes I had always thought of as pop fodder, cherishable but not serious, were in fact being played by jazz players who really knew their shit. All you had to do was listen to what was happening in the background rather than focusing (as one was wont to do) on the voices and the lyrics. To this day, whenever a Marvelettes or Tempts song comes on the radio, I am focused entirely on what's going on underneath the song. It is always rewarding, and occasionally revelatory.
    Permalink posted 03/23/2007
  3. Cody B
    Cody B says I heard that about Motown. I am definitely a newcomer to Motown love. The singers were good, but the music was, and is still, killing. I had the same disdain, but I'm a changed man, sitting by my computer waiting for the next Complete Singles box to drop. 6 down (and $600,too) and maybe 15 to go. And all this in my post drug era. If I was still using i couldn't afford the music!
    Permalink posted 03/23/2007
  4. ivylander
    ivylander says Cody, that seems to be the dilemma when you;re both getting high and into music: You can generally afford one or the other, but not both. Maybe things are different now, though. If illegal downloading had been an option when I was a young druggie, I might have succumbed,,,,,
    Permalink posted 03/23/2007
  5. Spike
    Spike says Cody, it's a good post. I'm glad you survived acid. From what I've read, John Lennon came close to not surviving it. ivylander, I'm going to start listening to Motown differently now. New r&b hip hop songs are often most interesting underneath, as well. In 1968 so much new culture was surfacing, and Dr. John surfaced with _GRIS-gris_ as a major figure quite different from others. Quite a feat.
    Permalink posted 03/23/2007
  6. Mike the Knife
    Mike the Knife says Quite a yarn, Cody. Brought back a few memory shards - and that's all I'll say about that. Meanwhile, it's pretty remarkable how the experience fueled an affection for New Orleans - something I share with you to the nth degree. But I got there the old fashioned way - a visit during Mardi Gras, which (I believe) that everybody should do at least once.
    Permalink posted 03/24/2007
  7. Cody B
    Cody B says Thanks Mike and Spike! @Mike-Still haven't been to Mardi Gras, but I've been to Jazz Fest. I hereby pledge to return for the big party. @Spike-I used to go to the 12" shops here in NYC in the early days of hip hop. The House Music DJ's hated hip-hop, but they would play the instrumentals for you. I've said it before, but if the music in a piece doesn't grab me I won't listen to the lyric. Once I followed my own rule..I liked Motown. So silly for so long was I, with my preconceived notions
    Permalink posted 03/24/2007
  8. steve simon
    steve simon says great post. i have never had a classic bad trip before, though i inadvertantly ate way too much over soaked, spilled on from a vial paper years ago at a Widespread show and couldn't speak for 2 hours, JB sounded like a cross between the devil and mickey mouse, but the low spark of high heeled boys that percolated out of ride me high was the catalyst that brought me back from the dead. truly epic. and boy do i love the Dr. too
    Permalink posted 03/24/2007
  9. Cody B
    Cody B says @Steve-The Devil and Mickey Mouse, frightening, but somehow appropriate. Glad you made it to the other side.
    Permalink posted 03/24/2007
  10. steve simon
    steve simon says thanks cody b
    Permalink posted 03/25/2007
  11. chucky
    chucky says Ha....great story! Like you I mostly bypassed the pot as a teenager and went to acid and ecstasy instead. The only music I remember playing into my drug experience was tripping once and listening very intently to Pretty Hate Machine (acid) and being a rave and watching a near orgy writhing in time to the music along a wall that was sweating (e) (and the wall, I'm sure, really was sweating because of the humidity in the room.)
    Permalink posted 03/25/2007
  12. Cody B
    Cody B says @chucky..it has been a number of years since I did anything like that. But, suprisingly some of the memories are so vivid. Although as the 90's approached I was getting a little jaded. Like for instance..dropping acid at midnight so i could just be coming down for a saturday, when i was working at a furniture rental store. i prayed no customers would come in a spoil my Pee Wee's Playhouse viewing. I realized then it was time to move on..
    Permalink posted 03/25/2007
  13. chucky
    chucky says Haha...I don't remember exactly when I decided it was time to move on. But, I do think the hassle of timing drugs in between growing adult responsibilities is what did it.
    Permalink posted 03/25/2007

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