General Music Chat

I think the culprit has been found.

When the drugs went from LSD and marijuana to cocaine and heroin, things definitely took a turn for the worse. Alcohol was always an unpredictable loose cannon. Amphetamines fueled a lot of early punk rock and speed metal, not to mention lots of coffee

A couple of things happened, some have already touched the surface.

The musicians stopped taking acid, the producers got more greedy and more savvy to how to deal with hippie musicians, a couple of electronics whizzes started whipping out distortion pedals...oops, fuzz boxes...and Leo Fender sold Fender to CBS - CBS made changes the musicians didn't like, Jim Marshall stepped in and built the Bluesbreaker amp for Eric Clapton, basically a modified 1959 Bassman, everybody loved the higher gain Marshall amps and when those were put together with the newfangled fuzz boxes, the music had to get a lot heavier.

Coke and heroin were already very common in the music business, have been since the 30's or earlier. Before that it was opium and Laudanum. The 60's musicians were into coke and heroin too, Janis Joplin had a big problem with it, so did a lot of other people. Clapton, Duane Allman, Keith Richards, and a number of others I never knew about until recently. When Joplin died, Leslie West (Mountain) was into heroin, Randy Hobbs (Johnny Winter's bass player) died from drugs, just about everybody was doing everything they could get their hands on. Including coke and heroin, you just didn't hear much about it.

It wasn't primarily drugs, it was the availability of new amps and effects, a faster and more hectic lifestyle developing, and people experimenting to see how far they could push the equipment's capabilities. Remember the song "American Woman", by the Guess Who? The guitar player (Randy Bachmann I think) had and amp custom built to get that sound. No pedals involved. Distortion from pushing a tube amp to its limits was already pretty common, he just wanted more of it and no pedals were available. It was a matter of pushing the limits. A year or so later on cheap pedals (compared to custom amp prices) would do the same thing plus some, and naturally some people just had to see just what they would do...The only effect Hendrix had was a wah pedal and I think an overdrive later on. Early on it was just the Vox wah he used. (No it wasn't a cry baby, he used the Vox.) Next thing you know there were several outright distortion pedals available, called fuzz boxes, and big amps...the rest is history.

Same thing as cars...When the first Fords were made, how long did it take before someone decided to race them? Same principle. When airplanes were built, how long till someone developed a parachute and jumped out of one? Pushing the limits...it's human nature.

Good points Pete, except Hendrix most certainly was a major user of effects:

While his mainstays were the Arbiter Fuzz Face and a Vox wah-wah pedal, Hendrix experimented with guitar effects as well. He had a fruitful association with engineer Roger Mayer who later went on to make the Axis fuzz unit, the Octavia octave doubler and several other devices based on units Mayer had created or tweaked for Hendrix. The Japanese-made Univibe, designed to simulate the modulation effects of the rotating Leslie speaker, provided a rich phasing sound with a speed control pedal, and is heard on the Band of Gypsys track "Machine Gun," which highlights use of the univibe, octavia and fuzz face pedals.

The Big Muff was one of the favorite Fuzz boxes of the time..

A couple of things happened, some have already touched the surface.

The musicians stopped taking acid, the producers got more greedy and more savvy to how to deal with hippie musicians, a couple of electronics whizzes started whipping out distortion pedals...oops, fuzz boxes...and Leo Fender sold Fender to CBS - CBS made changes the musicians didn't like, Jim Marshall stepped in and built the Bluesbreaker amp for Eric Clapton, basically a modified 1959 Bassman, everybody loved the higher gain Marshall amps and when those were put together with the newfangled fuzz boxes, the music had to get a lot heavier.

Coke and heroin were already very common in the music business, have been since the 30's or earlier. Before that it was opium and Laudanum. The 60's musicians were into coke and heroin too, Janis Joplin had a big problem with it, so did a lot of other people. Clapton, Duane Allman, Keith Richards, and a number of others I never knew about until recently. When Joplin died, Leslie West (Mountain) was into heroin, Randy Hobbs (Johnny Winter's bass player) died from drugs, just about everybody was doing everything they could get their hands on. Including coke and heroin, you just didn't hear much about it.

It wasn't primarily drugs, it was the availability of new amps and effects, a faster and more hectic lifestyle developing, and people experimenting to see how far they could push the equipment's capabilities. Remember the song "American Woman", by the Guess Who? The guitar player (Randy Bachmann I think) had and amp custom built to get that sound. No pedals involved. Distortion from pushing a tube amp to its limits was already pretty common, he just wanted more of it and no pedals were available. It was a matter of pushing the limits. A year or so later on cheap pedals (compared to custom amp prices) would do the same thing plus some, and naturally some people just had to see just what they would do...The only effect Hendrix had was a wah pedal and I think an overdrive later on. Early on it was just the Vox wah he used. (No it wasn't a cry baby, he used the Vox.) Next thing you know there were several outright distortion pedals available, called fuzz boxes, and big amps...the rest is history.

Same thing as cars...When the first Fords were made, how long did it take before someone decided to race them? Same principle. When airplanes were built, how long till someone developed a parachute and jumped out of one? Pushing the limits...it's human nature.

After reading this post I feel fulfilled. Great info I'd never be able to attempt to spew in anyone's face. Ill have to read it again after my head deflates from what seems to be excellent information. As for Jimmy, some say he played 2 Vox wah pedals at a time, rocking one foot to the other. May be far fetched, but same sources say Stevie Ray appropriated one of those 2 wahs and used it often.

pete,that was a good way of putting it.

A couple of things happened, some have already touched the surface.

The musicians stopped taking acid, the producers got more greedy and more savvy to how to deal with hippie musicians, a couple of electronics whizzes started whipping out distortion pedals...oops, fuzz boxes...and Leo Fender sold Fender to CBS - CBS made changes the musicians didn't like, Jim Marshall stepped in and built the Bluesbreaker amp for Eric Clapton, basically a modified 1959 Bassman, everybody loved the higher gain Marshall amps and when those were put together with the newfangled fuzz boxes, the music had to get a lot heavier.

Coke and heroin were already very common in the music business, have been since the 30's or earlier. Before that it was opium and Laudanum. The 60's musicians were into coke and heroin too, Janis Joplin had a big problem with it, so did a lot of other people. Clapton, Duane Allman, Keith Richards, and a number of others I never knew about until recently. When Joplin died, Leslie West (Mountain) was into heroin, Randy Hobbs (Johnny Winter's bass player) died from drugs, just about everybody was doing everything they could get their hands on. Including coke and heroin, you just didn't hear much about it.

It wasn't primarily drugs, it was the availability of new amps and effects, a faster and more hectic lifestyle developing, and people experimenting to see how far they could push the equipment's capabilities. Remember the song "American Woman", by the Guess Who? The guitar player (Randy Bachmann I think) had and amp custom built to get that sound. No pedals involved. Distortion from pushing a tube amp to its limits was already pretty common, he just wanted more of it and no pedals were available. It was a matter of pushing the limits. A year or so later on cheap pedals (compared to custom amp prices) would do the same thing plus some, and naturally some people just had to see just what they would do...The only effect Hendrix had was a wah pedal and I think an overdrive later on. Early on it was just the Vox wah he used. (No it wasn't a cry baby, he used the Vox.) Next thing you know there were several outright distortion pedals available, called fuzz boxes, and big amps...the rest is history.

Same thing as cars...When the first Fords were made, how long did it take before someone decided to race them? Same principle. When airplanes were built, how long till someone developed a parachute and jumped out of one? Pushing the limits...it's human nature.

After reading this post I feel fulfilled. Great info I'd never be able to attempt to spew in anyone's face. Ill have to read it again after my head deflates from what seems to be excellent information. As for Jimmy, some say he played 2 Vox wah pedals at a time, rocking one foot to the other. May be far fetched, but same sources say Stevie Ray appropriated one of those 2 wahs and used it often.

Actually I play three wahs at a time. I won't tell you how I do that. Oh you meant Jimi. Nevermind.

did you ever wonder what caused rock to change so drastically in the early 70`s ? i mean in `69 we had woodstock,flower power and all that cool stuff.then just 2 years later we have master of reality (sabbath),black dog (zep),machine head (purple).it`s like a meteor hit the 60`s and wiped them out like the dinosaurs.what do you guys think?

My guess is that the Record labels, A & R peeps and the promoters had to figure out a way to earn a stable living. The 60's musicians revolutionary musicians were but a handful...

So, the industry had to lower its bar or "Barriers to Entry", and get more acts in. You didn't have to be as good as a Sixties musician... all you had to be was prolific with material, focused and committed..and the studio/Label would handle the rest.

The second biggest thing I think, was the declining cohesiveness with many professional bands' members. As mentioned in other post here, drugs/Alcohol were a big culprit. Once, used to relieve the pressures of touring and performance, now they became recreational...and physically taxing. The other big Culprit was this need to stand out individually.
An interesting biography of Fleetwood Mac illustrates how the bands's turnover and replacement of members was getting ridiculous...

If you really examine the music form most of the 70's bands, it morphed from "revolutionary" and cutting edge to "how many variations can we spit out?" Bands like Led Zepplin, though profound as an act, really weren't turning the world inside-out like the way bands did it in the 60's. But to be fair, 70's audiences weren't losing their minds about the music, like they did in the 60s.

In the case of Led Zepplin, the Industry made a point to 'build' mystery around the band's persona. (Plant and Page's brilliant strategy, attested for, by many Industry leaders) ) If it were left strictly and only to the music, they may very well have been passed off as a generic brand...... But, as with so many other 70-'s bands, they were ultimately "made" as a studio product...less about original theme and more about distinct signatures as 'the' selling points by promoters, (in order to accelerate payola for the industry jockeys)

My onion anyhow