Can you play guitar inebriated?

[GLiDE-BPM]

Yes... but I don't have anything anymore. Sober.

 

[Jack Luminous]

I played with a hippie band in Wales, very close to good friend Thomas Grimble’s Mountain studios.
We did all the free festivals, and knew Hawkwind, Gong, and most of the rest. Dave Brock wanted me and the drummer in Hawkwind.
It was constant dope-smoking, and I was the instigator of buckets, earth pipes, badges, dope tea, foot-long joints, 21-skin conies, hash cakes and much more.
In rehearsal, myself and the drummer worked great at first, trying out time signatures, and wacky fills and emphasis. But as time went on, and his bad habits surfaced, I withdrew somewhat. I just couldn’t express myself with ongoing clarity and empathy, to politely change the situation. My playing was exactly the same. The expression and freedom had gone, and I was going through the motions, with the odd inspired moment. It couldn’t continue. I lost all desire to knuckle down and work on the constant demand of advancing technique my dreams aspired to. I was now going backwards.
Added to which, we would pack out a pub at £2 a ticket - then they’d donate all the gig money to the fucking CND for a Geiger Counter! Hippie fucks. I was using the cheapest strings I could find - bloody nightmare.
I got to the stage where I would defiantly hit the mushroom tea before a gig, and would be wheeled on and off!
I was doing a good quarter of black most gig days - just to bottle up the resentment.
Our last gig was in Cardiff to 2000 people - our biggest non-festival audience.
A switch went off in me, and I commandeered a side dressing-room, and played myself up for 4 hours before the gig, whilst my mate was constantly rolling joints.
I played out of my skin that night, and gave ‘em the lot - only to constantly find mid-song that the fucking sneaky drummer had been changing arrangements and backing - and I didn’t take kindly to having the rug pulled like that.
I never played with them again. Still lived there in the house for 3 months, but refused to speak to anyone.

A month before I left the house, I quit drugs completely. Within a week I was progressing in all areas.
I played computer chess, read more books, went for country walks, had deep conversations with my wonderful mate, had real interractions with women. Personal hygeine improved. I bought clothes. I now bought good strings!
A month later I was living in London, and was a part-time Caretaker of a prestigious dancing school. Had my days free for auditions, and re-exploring all my old haunts of the 70’s.
I was now drinking with a pre-Whitesnake Cozy Powell a lot, and there were constant talks of going in with him and Neil Murray, and getting Coverdale to consider a 4-piece - I kid you not.

Great story !

I do remember my early days when no playing was happening without constant beer and smoke from the morning to exhaustion and carrying 6-packs to rehearsals etc. Non-stop drugging/drinking for a good ten years of music including high on acid on stage in front of a thousand people, car crash between our own band's cars going to the rehearsal studio followed by 6 hours of frenzied beer-guzzling fueled rehearsal then going to night-club and throwing up from head commotion from the previous car accident then straight to hospital for brain MRI etc. LOL

 

[Solarflares]

Great story !

I do remember my early days when no playing was happening without constant beer and smoke from the morning to exhaustion and carrying 6-packs to rehearsals etc. Non-stop drugging/drinking for a good ten years of music including high on acid on stage in front of a thousand people, car crash between our own band's cars going to the rehearsal studio followed by 6 hours of frenzied beer-guzzling fueled rehearsal then going to night-club and throwing up from head commotion from the previous car accident then straight to hospital for brain MRI etc. LOL

I remember one gig in a barn. There were fires all round the barn, in the walls. Weird fucking joint. Trestle tables with huge hospital-size urns full of mushroom tea at 30p a cup. Trestle tables filled with hash cakes, brownies, flapjacks, and more - and 200 of the weirdest fuckers you ever saw in your life.
I arrived wrecked. It was the windiest wet night, and needed a strong man to hold that lethal swinging barn-door open. Roof was corrugated iron, and fuck it howled. Not a good start. I was scared out my wits. I set up the gear, and hit the mushroom tea big-time. I do remember going onstage, and telling the sound-guy to turn the fucking echo off. I had my own thanks. Ended up throwing the amp’s mic and stand across the barn towards his soft hippie head!
I don’t remember the rest of the gig at all. But I do remember sitting backstage in this storeroom tripping my head off. Trying to roll a joint, and at the same time keep warm from the cylindrical turbo propane gas-heater - which I was convinced would explode at any second. It was the only light in the room. Then I was flying in a jet, or in the depths of fiery hell - with monstrous shadows and weird faces coming out of the gloom.
One of the faces had horns, and slowly crept closer and closer, and I thought this is it, it’s the Devil, I’m gonna die. I lit my lighter and raised it up, and at that point I realised I’d been sharing the space with the farmer’s goat!