Towards a Psychedelic Topography of Goth Music
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Towards a Psychedelic Topography of Goth Music Claire Rebecca BANNISTER Kingston School of Art A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Kingston University London for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. March 2019 This research is generously supported by TECHNE, a Doctoral Training Partnership of the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Abstract It is thought – by musicians, listeners and music theorists alike – that music has the ability to mimic, mirror or reproduce the effects of psychedelic drugs: a concept of immense significance considering the expansive corpus of literature attesting to the therapeutic value of such drugs. This thesis attends to how music can be meaningfully compared to the effects of drugs like mescaline, psilocybin and LSD. The musicological theories explaining the relationship between the effects of such drugs and music are based almost entirely on prototypes: the complexity of a psychedelic pharmacopeia reduced to LSD, LSD’s extraordinary array of effects reduced to three, and the three effects theorised, for the most part, in relation to a particular style of rock that crystallised around San Francisco in the 1960s. This style – acid rock – has been most extensively analysed in relation to the question of how music can be psychedelic, resulting in a list of sounds understood to recreate the effects of such drugs for the listener. In this thesis I demonstrate the prevalence of these same sounds in Goth, a diverse collection of popular music styles associated not with drugs but rather the Gothic. By demonstrating how the various sub-styles of Goth – which have many analogues in the wider popular music repertoire – are rich in precisely the same sounds understood to reproduce the effects of LSD, I suggest two broad conclusions: either Goth(ic) music is psychedelic, or acid rock is not because the theories that explain the ways it reproduces the effects of such drugs cannot be held to account. I propose both conclusions are true. Goth is psychedelic by the current academic model, but this model is problematic; in particular its reliance on prototypes has had the unfortunate side-effect of imposing a culturally biased understanding of psychedelic drug experiences upon the repertoire to which the term might refer. Whilst I demonstrate how music analysts might map out a more stylistically inclusive definition of psychedelia in a manner that is mindful of the prototypes involved, I suggest the highest potential for understanding how music is able to reproduce the effects of such drugs lies in a pharmacological concept known as set and setting. iii Contents Acknowledgements.......................................................................................................................................vii Introduction Enter the Labyrinth..........................................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1 Hex, Drugs and Rock n’ Roll.........................................................................................................................5 Chapter 2 An Acid Approach: Psychedelic Drugs and Popular Music Analysis........................................55 Chapter 3 Altered Perceptions: Time and Space in Acid Rock and Goth.....................................................91 Chapter 4 Set and Setting: Acid and Goth Induced Psychedelic Experiences.........................................133 Chapter 5 The Uncanny: Acid and the Living Dead Sounds of Goth...........................................................181 Conclusion What Lies Beyond.......................................................................................................................................227 References......................................................................................................................................................235 Discography...................................................................................................................................................253 Filmography..................................................................................................................................................259 Acknowledgements I would like to thank Isabella van Elferen, Allan Moore, Tim Hughes, Leah Kardos and Paul Hodkinson for listening, and for their academic wizardry. Special thanks to Jim LeBlanc and Krisztián Hofstädter, who have been relentlessly inspiring and unfailingly generous with their knowledge, to Gemma Farrell for founding the Musedelica research community, and to Nick Braae, Kai Arne Hansen and Steven Gamble, who lent me their ears while I sang versions of this work out of key. Deepest thanks to Vytautas Astromskas for providing encouragement and support, and to Si Massey – whose record collection is unequalled – for the same. I would like to thank all at the international Methods of Popular Music Analysis summer school, and those that made it possible: das Institut für Musikwissenschaft und Musikpädagogik der Universität Osnabrück, die VolkswagenStiftung, die Gesellschaft für Popularmusikforschung. I am grateful for the resources made available by Erowid and the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, and for the support I have received from the University of Surrey, the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, and the Society for Music Analysis. Finally, thanks to all the corvids that kept my spirits high during the writing process (you know who you are). vii To Ann and Alexander Shulgin Introduction: Enter the Labyrinth This thesis concerns the question of what it means to describe music as psychedelic. As an adjective, the term denotes something “of or causing extreme changes in the conscious mind, as hallucinations, [and] intensification of awareness and sensory perception” [Stafford 2003:VIII]. As a noun it refers to a group of chemicals – some naturally occurring, others synthetic – that reliably cause such extreme changes of consciousness in human subjects, thus “of or associated with psychedelic drugs; specif., simulating the auditory or visual effects of the psychedelic state” [ibid.]. Whilst an extensive corpus of literature attests to the therapeutic value of the psychedelics,1 this thesis attends to how music can be meaningfully compared to the effects of such drugs. I address this question in relation to the music of the Goth scene, which is to say in relation to a diverse collection of popular music styles associated not with psychedelics but rather with the Gothic (a term pertaining to literature, film and architecture in addition to music and sub-culture). I select a repertoire not typically associated with psychedelic drugs because it is rich in precisely the same sounds underpinning the musicological theories that explain why acid rock of the 1960s is psychedelic. These theories argue that acid rock is psychedelic not only because of its association with the hippie counter-culture and its liberal attitudes towards drug use, but because the music itself is capable of reflecting or reproducing the effects of such drugs. More specifically, they suggest that acid rock mirrors the effects of LSD. That acid rock and Goth share the same sounds thought to mimic the effects of LSD suggests two broad conclusions: either Goth(ic) music is psychedelic, or acid rock is not because the musicological theories explaining the ways in which it reflects the effects of such drugs cannot be held accountable. This thesis explores the space between these conclusions by examining more closely the philosophy underpinning musicology’s understanding of the relationship between music and psychedelic drugs. 1 Applications include the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive- compulsive disorder, major depressive disorder and end-of-life psychological distress. For a useful summary see Cahart-Harris, Robin L. and Guy M. Goodwin (2017). ‘The Therapeutic Potential of Psychedelic Drugs: Past, Present and Future’. Neuropsychopharmacology (42), pp. 2105–13. 1 The psychedelics assume a curious position within academic research. Alexander Shulgin sums up effectively the complexity of this position in reference to a naturally- occurring psychedelic compound found throughout nature. There is a drug (chemistry) and a plant (botany) that produces an effect (pharmacology) in some people out there (anthropology) that might have some healing use (medicine) or some spiritual impact (theology). Alexander Shulgin [2013:247] The debate in academia begins with how such chemicals should be named, continues with whether or not specific examples belong to the category once properly defined, and expands into territories of political ideology, religious doctrine and metaphysical philosophy. As Lester Grinspoon and James Bakalar point out, such problems have dramatic impact on public attitudes towards psychedelic chemicals, and the legal consequences faced by their users: “an unsatisfactory situation caused partly by our limited scientific understanding and partly by the angry passions that tend to fill an intellectual void when the issue is drugs” [1997:5]. Three general concepts provide context for what is to follow. Firstly, psychedelic chemicals are endogenous to the human body. Whether one chooses to think of DMT – the compound Shulgin references above – as a dangerous drug or the key to spiritual enlightenment, psychedelic chemicals are found throughout nature, and notably within the human brain. Secondly,