issue 15 // volume 43 Rocking on the straight edge > Drug-free, drink-free musicians Caroline Ho Arts Editor N:, all artists turn to drugs and alcohol to fuel their creativity. The rock world has a huge reputation of combining hard music with hard drugs, and the idea of a partying rock star lifestyle springs to mind all too easily. But the entertainment industry’s fixation on drugs and sex has also spawned a pretty prominent reactionary counterculture. “Straight edge” is a lifestyle abstaining from alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs, and many people also link it with vegetarianism and veganism. Straight edge was originally a subculture of hardcore punk explicitly rejecting the self-indulgent habits of sex and substance abuse that had become associated with punk music, though a lot of musicians and artists across the entertainment spectrum have adopted straight edge beliefs and practices. There isn't one strict dogma of straight edge— plenty of people who define themselves with the term practice it to various degrees of abstention and sobriety. Chicago-based punk band Rise Against is probably one of the most notable and active straight edge groups out there. All of its members are vegetarians and vocal supporters of PETA, and three of the four members don't use alcohol or drugs. Rise Against has also been pretty vocal about a lot of other social and political issues—they’ve written songs against bullying, songs criticizing the US government, and their most recent album, 2014’s The Black Market, contains a track called “The Eco-Terrorist in Me.” Rise Against’s members have adhered to this lifestyle pretty much their entire lives, but plenty of artists have had a considerably more winding path. James Hetfield, lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of Metallica, isa notable example. Hetfield’s battle with substance abuse was made very public in the 2004 documentary about the band, Some Kind of Monster, where he entered rehab for his alcoholism. Hetfield has since described himself as “reborn straight edge.” In honour of this, he has tattooed on the back of his wrist a version of the straight edge symbol, which is a black X on the back of the hand—Hetfield’s is a pair of crossed razors instead. Canadian punk star Bif Naked has also left behind a life of alcohol and cigarettes, and she labels herself as straight edge, as well as being a raw food vegan, for health reasons as well as ethical ones. Some advocates of the straight edge lifestyle oppose the hedonistic promiscuity that often goes along with the glamorous rock star life, but Bif has written plenty of songs about sex and infidelity, both her own and others’. She’s also openly bisexual, and she’s a proud advocate for lesbian and bisexual women’s rights, in her music and outside. Other artists have plenty of different motivations for staying clean. Christian band Skillet, for example, rocks as hard as anyone, but they’re unashamed to decry the debaucherous habits that characterize most rock bands and the A note on history: Mind-altering music of the ‘60s > The history of psychedelic rock Caroline Ho Arts Editor Pocnedcic rock is a genre that tries to imitate and enhance the feeling of being on psychedelic drugs. It was a huge part of artistic culture in the late 60s, and even though our societal perceptions of drug use have changed a lot in 50 years, the influence of psychedelic rock and the imagery of psychedelia is still quite noticeable. The most notable psychedelic drug is lysergic acid diethylamide, commonly known as LSD or acid. It was first synthesized by a Swedish chemist in 1938, although he didn’t realize that it caused intense hallucinations until five years later. LSD started being used as a psychiatric drug in 1947, and thanks to widespread testing, it became quite popular, especially when several notable figures like novelist Aldous Huxley and psychologist Timothy Leary started advocating for its use in the ’6os. A huge counterculture around LSD arose, especially in the US and the UK, and in this environment psychedelic rock blossomed. Musically, a lot of artists and groups drew their inspiration from blues, jazz, and folk—all of which had their own traditions of drug use, but which coalesced into the more deliberately pro-drug style of psychedelic rock. New Image via www.stereogum.com York-based folk group The Holy Modal Rounders are credited with being the first to use the word “psychedelic” in their music, in 1964, and the first group to describe themselves as psychedelic rock was the 13th Floor Elevators, in 1965. However, the real heartland of LSD counterculture in the US was the San Francisco Bay area, where author Ken Kensey, beginning in 1965, held parties called “Acid Tests,” which celebrated and advocated the drug’s use. Many of the bashes featured musical performances by the Grateful Dead, and the parties, with their colourful flashing lights and crazy image projections, played a large part in shaping the imagery of the counterculture. Along with the Grateful Dead, the San Francisco area produced a lot of other notable psychedelic rock bands, including Jefferson Airplane, The Charlatans, and Country Joe and the Fish. In the rest of the US, established bands blended psychedelia into their music, like The Byrds with 1966's “Eight Miles High.” Britain’s own psychedelic rock scene was flourishing at around the same time. This is probably most notable in the music of the Beatles. Already hugely popular at this point, their music took a trippier turn with albums Revolver (1966) and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), the latter of which contained the song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” (although John Lennon and Paul McCartney have both claimed the song wasn't actually about LSD). Also in Britain were the Rolling Stones, who released the psychedelic record Their Satanic Majesties Request in 1967, Pink Floyd with The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967), and many other groups following suit. From Britain and the US, the psychedelic craze soon spread to Australia and New Zealand, continental Europe, South America, and the rest of the world. Psychedelic rock was characterized by its use of distortionary sounds through electronic effects like reverb and time delays, fuzzbox effects, and complex time signatures, all meant to give the music arts // no. 7 Image via wikimedia.org 1 rock industry. In a 2016 interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, frontman John Cooper said, “Rock and roll is not about sex and drugs. Rock and roll is about writing about what you're passionate about.” For Skillet, their faith keeps them on the straight edge. See, you don't have to be drunk or stoned to make—or enjoy—good music. an otherworldly quality. Combined with lyrics that often made direct or indirect reference to drug use—like Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit,” which had lines like “You've just had some kind of mushroom, and your mind is moving low”—the music attempted to evoke the experience of being in an altered state of mind. Some music historians distinguish between the harder “acid rock” of American West Coast bands, with the softer and more whimsical style of British psychedelic rock, but others use the two terms interchangeably. Psychedelic rock peaked from 1966 to 1969, culminating in the Woodstock Festival in August 1969, a four-day music festival that drew crowds of over 400,000 and featured huge artists like The Grateful Dead, The Who, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and Jimi Hendrix. Woodstock was a pivotal moment in music history, but psychedelic rock declined soon after. LSD was made illegal in 1968, and as the stigma around drug use became increasingly negative, a lot of artists and groups shifted away from psychedelic sounds into other genres, taking the style into progressive rock and funk. Psychedelic rock had a profound impact on basically every musical genre that proceeded it, from heavy metal to electronica. It was a relatively short-lived musical era, but in terms of musical development, it was one hell of a trip.