Emil of the House Whites has been compiling a list of performance-enhancing drugs. But just the musical performance-enhancing kinds. Emil’s an amateur pharmacologist, and has been examining both medical texts at the college on the hill and and live shows at the Bullfinch to further his studies.
He’s got subsets so far for:
• drugs which, in the short term, arguably could make you physically sing or play instruments better. (Example: a still-experimental pill which claims to strengthen the vocal cords.)
• drugs which, in the long term, might alter your body in which which suggest that you might play better. (Example: a little-known fluid which helps build callouses on your fingers.)
• Drugs which aid you psychologically into playing better. This is by far the longest list.
Drugs which focus you. Drugs which unfocus you. Drugs which relax you. Drugs which stimulate you. Drugs which, if you’re in any music scene anywhere, you know all about.
We have no desire to swipe Emil’s research here. That’s because we don’t really believe in it. We’ve been collecting our own evidence from the other side of the stage. The only list we stand by is the one of drugs which musicians THINK will make them play better. From our perch in the audience, we haven’t seen any that reliably work.
These are the same drugs which make writers think they can write better, streetfighters think they can streetfight better, and accountants think they can account better.
Go ahead. Drink and puff. But don’t fool yourself into thinking that you’re doing it for someone else’s benefit.
No Nutty, The Story Needs and Dame Rumor all at the Bullfinch. Not only that, we hear Beloved Infidel is making a guest appearance on TSN’s epic “Big Envelope Marked Scott.” Who says solo singer-songwriters are lonely?… The Disenchanted and College of One, conjuring up memories of fun times that never really happened, via contrived cover tunes at Hamilton’s… Latest all-star line-up of supposed punk all-stars France By Big Shots, invading D’ollaire’s: Don the Red, Ted the Fink, Bud the Untalented, Pat Hobby and Stahr. Where’s Philippe, Count of Darkness, when you need him?…