Meteoric Rise

Scientists estimate that about 15,000 tons of meteoric debris enter our atmosphere each year. The other night, despite the city's light pollution, I saw a falling star. It brought to mind several human meteors who blazed their path across the musical skies.

A band's or musician's first album usually holds a special place for me. There's something about that fragile not yet validated musical vision. Each of the meteors I am about to discuss showed this fragility, both in their music and in themselves.


August 1967, scouring the record bins at Jerry's Records on Market Street in Philadelphia, I came across The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. I liked the kaleidoscopic cover and recognized the title from The Wind in the Willows. Having not heard a note, I bought the album. To use the parlance of the period, it blew my mind.

Pink Floyd proceeded to make more music, but virtually without any input from Syd Barrett. A preponderance of LSD, combined with what some diagnosed as schizophrenia, drove him out of the music industry and into seclusion.

That same year, Moby Grape released their first, eponymous album. During the recording of their second album in New York City, Skip Spence ingested a large amount of LSD. Convinced something evil was brewing, Spence attempted to chop down a band member's door with a fire axe. His mission was to kill his friend to save him from himself. Thankfully he was unsuccessful.

After some time in The Tombs followed by a stay at Bellevue, Skip drove a motorcycle to Nashville where he recorded Oar. He wrote the entire album during his confinement in NYC. In the studio, he played all the instruments and sang all the vocals. The record is an interesting chronicle of a man on the precipice of sanity. Or insanity - take you pick. Spence spent the remainder of his life in California mired in mental illness, drugs and alcohol.

Many know little of Fleetwood Mac before Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham joined the band in 1975. But the band formed in 1967 (there's that year again) as a blues outfit. One of the founders was Peter Green. Relatively unknown when he took Eric Clapton's place in John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, he quickly became a blues guitar icon.

For several years, Green's guitar playing and songwriting in Fleetwood Mac flourished. One of his songs, Black Magic Woman, became a hit for Santana. Alas, that insidious substance, LSD, combined with mental illness led another astray.

All three of these individuals created beautiful music. Did the chemicals fuel or diminish their creativity? Did their mental instability exacerbate or diminish their productivity? In an interview in the 80s, Ken Kesey discussed LSD. He said the drug triggered ideas and ways of thinking that were latent in us. Once awoken, this "new thinking" opened pathways for human creativity that centurys of civilization had smothered.

Nothing that earth-shattering comes without a cost. Unfortunately the cost for some, especially those with certain preexisting chemical imbalances can be exorbitant. Many of our generation, as well as many who came before and after, battled demons both internal and external.  Some survive and alas, some do not.

Like the fleeting glimpse of a meteor in the night's sky, these three flashed across the musical firmament. Unlike a meteor, their flashes were recorded on vinyl and can still be enjoyed. Res Ipsa Loquitur. As ever - BB

"No mind has ever existed without a touch of madness." - Aristotle