Claire Rosinkranz is no stranger to making music, it's something she's been doing since she was 8 years old. From a young age she was conjuring up ideas for her father, who wrote for TV shows and commercials at the time...it felt like she was just born for this.
And so it began. For the next 8 years, Claire honed in on her craft- learning instruments like the piano, jazz guitar, and the ukulele- and along the way picking up a refreshing sense of lyricism and a songwriting ability that is both witty and honest. From there, she took to the likes of TikTok and Instagram to post her music.
It was an exciting, no-frills experience to watch Rosinkranz grow her platform by just playing her original songs. She connected with fans through comments and live videos, and showed a bit of her personal life. Songs like "Backyard Boy" were the soundtrack to 1.5 million videos on the platform, going viral and establishing Rosinkranz as the most exciting up-and-coming artist.
At only 16, she signed to Republic Records and began her journey, releasing two EP's (
Beverly Hills BoYfRiEnd, 6 Of A Billion) in the meantime. Her TikTok now has 1.2 million followers, where you get intimate bits of her everyday life, her music, her family, and her thoughts. She's a joy to see live, doing her own sold-out headline shows, or touring alongside heavy-hitters like DWLLRS and Alec Benjamin, and more recently performed at Lollapalooza 2023.
Claire's songs like "Boy in a Billion" and "Backyard Boy" debuted her clever lyrics and beautiful tone, captivating her audience almost instantly. Hailing from Southern California, her music paints idyllic pictures of summer by the sea, and her debut album,
Just Because, is a blend of surf pop with dreamy, whimsical tones. You can listen to the album here:
With lead tracks like "Wes Anderson", "Pools and Palm Trees", and "Never Goes Away", we've already gotten a glimpse of
Just Because: a promising, valiant debut that checks all the boxes. More notably, fun-loving "Swinging With The Stars" captures the glimmering essence of young love...and rumors of a video starring a very exciting surprise guest are swirling.
It's an exciting time to be a fan of Claire Rosinkranz, and I got to speak with her about this new album and what's next below!
PD: Congratulations on Just Because! For your debut album, did you have an inspiration or vision for it?
I didn’t really have a vision. The whole thing was written as I was experiencing what I was writing about. So all of the songs follow last years timeline very closely
PD: The trailer for the album gives off a vintage/nostalgic surf vibe, which kind of reminds me of your music in general. As a singer/songwriter/instrumentalist, what is your production style like?
I’m not really sure what my production style is considered. I’m constantly growing and experiencing/ doing new things as a human so I think the production, the writing and everything else kind of follows.
PD: Your TikTok bio is “I make music with my dad.” Can you talk a little about how you two started creating music and how you work together?
My family has been playing/ making music around me my whole life. my first conscious memory of writing a song was at 8 years old . my dad would often have me come in and out of his studio growing up to write stuff for the projects he was working on and I loved it. there were some other significant moments that made me realize music was my passion and so at abt 15 years old I decided I would make an EP. Me and my dad worked on the whole thing together & then released it on our own. I’ve started to expand into working with others but he still touches everything I do.
PD: I know it may be hard to choose, but if you could recommend three songs off the album what would they be?
Banksy
Swinging
Mess
PD: What is the main message you want people to take away from your album?
I hope that people can learn to be more present with all of the fleeting experiences of life. I learned so much from everything I went through to make this album but I wouldn’t have grown the way I have if I didn’t allow myself to feel it all so deeply.
PD: What’s next for you this year? Any touring?
Lots of touring ! going all around the US this next year as well as Australia and some AudioEditor dates!
With staggering losses and massive employee layoffs as a result of months of closure, both Universal and Disney were eager for their theme park businesses to get back in gear in California. But the companies don't have the same issues in Florida, where they have been operational since the summer.
In fact, Florida governor Ron DeSantis completely eliminated state-level restrictions on businesses as of September 25th, and even made it impossible for local municipalities to mandate anything beyond the most minimal restrictions on bars and restaurants.
Despite some worrying trends in the state's coronavirus numbers, the Governor has been determined to return to business as usual, even promising a "full Super Bowl" in Tampa next February. But not everyone is as blindly optimistic as Florida's highest elected official.
Why Go to Disney World During a Pandemic? | The New Yorkerwww.youtube.com
While Universal Orlando and Walt Disney World have been reopened since June and July respectively — when Florida's first wave of COVID cases was at its worst — if travelers are considering a trip to either resort, they may want to have a closer look at the precautions taken by each company to make their parks safe(ish) for visitors.
With that in mind, my wife and I recently went under cover as "tourists" and "nerds" to inspect these theme parks by going on a bunch of rides and getting overly excited about various attractions that may or may not be designed for small children.
Capacity
While both resorts claim to be taking measures recommended by the CDC, only Disney World has explicitly stated that they are operating at 25% capacity. That said, guests should not expect to see 25% of the usual crowds, because Disney World's various parks don't generally fill up to 100% capacity under normal circumstances.
Instead—on days when the parks reach their 25% capacity—the resulting crowds should be around 40-60% of average levels. While this creates a noticeable reduction in the density of visitors, Disney World is far from a ghost town, and both Epcot and Animal Kingdom—the two parks my wife and I enjoyed inspected—were host to a comfortable number of people on the weekdays we spent there.
As for Universal Orlando, it's hard to get a proper comparison, because we found ourselves at Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure on the Sunday before Halloween. While that weekend would probably see the parks packed to the brim under normal circumstances, it was still quite busy, with throngs of people—especially in the "Wizarding World of Harry Potter" sections—frequently making us feel uncomfortable.
While it may not be fair to blame Universal for the way their guests choose to cluster, it's worth noting that the resort has refused to publicly clarify their current operating capacity, referring to it simply as "limited capacity" or "reduced capacity," without providing a specific number.
Perhaps it's a more lax approach to limiting guests that has allowed the resort to maintain long hours with lots of mascots and live performances, while Disney has reduced both their operating hours and the presence of performers in their parks — having laid off around 90% of Disney World's union performers — in order to cut costs.
While this may make for a more fun experience for some visitors to Universal Orlando, if safety is a priority, Disney is clearly taking a firmer approach to minimizing their crowds. And while Disney parks are operating for fewer hours each day, the reduced crowds make it easier to experience a lot in that limited time.
Disney: 4/5
Universal: 3/5
Social Distancing
Disney World and Universal Orlando have adopted the same basic protocol when it comes to social distancing, instructing guests to maintain at least six feet of distance from anyone they weren't traveling with, and providing floor markings in lines for rides and attractions.
However, Disney was a bit more stringent about repeating and enforcing these instructions, which made a clear difference. While a substantial portion of guests at Universal seemed to ignore the floor markings—generally leaving only a few feet between themselves and other parties—nearly all the guests we saw at Disney World seemed to take the six foot rule seriously.
Disney also took the extra step of adding physical barriers between lines wherever necessary, which is a major reassurance when you would otherwise be forced to keep track of dozens of strangers in various directions in order to maintain appropriate distance from everyone around you.
Disney: 4.5/5
Universal: 3.5/5
Face Masks
Again, both Disney and Universal have adopted the same basic protocol advised by the CDC. Guests must keep their mouths and noses covered by a face mask at all times, except when eating or drinking — which is only to be done while stationary and away from other guests.
In announcements reminding guests of the rules, those who do not comply are threatened with removal—though we did not witness any effort to make good on that threat. As with social distancing, the reminders were more frequent at Disney, and employees did occasionally correct people who left their noses exposed. Many of the workers at Disney World also had the added protection of face shields, which was nice to see.
As for the various restaurants in each park, they were still operating. And while there was some effort to space guests out, we did not feel comfortable removing our masks in indoor spaces with uncertain ventilation, so we chose to make use of abundant outdoor seating.
Disney: 4.5/5
Universal: 4/5
Hand Washing
This is the one area where Universal definitely had Disney beat. While both resorts had hand sanitizer stationed all around their parks in automatic dispensers — and Disney Epcot also had a number of outdoor handwashing stations, which was handy with their food and wine festival ongoing — only universal had employees stationed at every ride to make sure each guest sanitized their hands before boarding.
This made a big difference when grabbing seatbelts, restraints, and handlebars. We had a reasonable assurance the hundreds of other people who had also touched those surfaces had relatively clean hands at the time. Without that added step at Disney, it felt a little more urgent to track down hand sanitizer after getting off each ride. And while it was generally easy to find, it's easy to imagine what a challenge it could be for parents to keep a small child from touching their eyes, mouth, and nose in the meantime.
Both parks seem to be using hand sanitizer that includes aloe or some other kind of moisturizer, because after three days of near constant application, our hands had not transformed into scaly, irritated claws.
Disney: 4/5
Universal: 5/5
Cleaning
Speaking of strangers touching surfaces, you might wonder what kind of army it takes to keep these massive theme parks clean while thousands of people mill about, touching and breathing on everything. And you can keep on wondering, because while both resorts assure visitors that they have ramped up their cleaning procedures, that was only evident at Disney — and even there it didn't seem sufficient.
While nothing looked particularly dirty at either park, at Disney we saw only a handful of workers moving about with spray bottles and cloths, sanitizing handrails, benches, outdoor tables, and other surfaces. At Universal, the only place we saw that approach to cleaning was at the temporary lockers where guests are required to place their belongings before more intense roller coasters — which is less of an issue at Disney, where there's less emphasis on thrill rides.
This is not to say there weren't workers cleaning surfaces at Universal, but unless they are exceptionally good at doing their job undetected, they are certainly fewer than at Disney World.
Disney: 3.5/5
Universal 2/5
Guests...
Of course there is a confounding factor in all of the efforts theme parks take to keep their guests safe: the guests themselves.
While the new rules and safety measures are positive steps, there's nothing that will stop a stubbornly oblivious or selfish or just plain stupid person from pulling their mask off to talk on the phone or itch their nose or sneeze into their hand and then proceed to touch everything.
As much fun as we had at both Disney and Universal, that fun was regularly disrupted by the horrified rage of watching people comply with public safety rules only as much as they had to to avoid getting in trouble.
At Universal — where there was less effort to drive home the rules — that included way too many people crowding close to strangers, many of them not seeming to realize that their noses are attached to their lungs, i.e. the things that can get infected and then infect others with a deadly virus...
But at both parks it included people — only some of them children — touching everything within reach, ignoring hand sanitizer, then touching their phones, their loved ones, and every part of their faces. And worst of all, the drunk people...
There's a reason why bars have been subject to stricter rules as the country attempts to reopen. Drunk people cannot be tamed. If they remember and understand the rules, do they care?
Does it matter to someone who's just trying to keep a buzz going that they can spread COVID-19 even if they're asymptomatic? That — when they ignore the rules and take off their masks to throw back some some beer — they could be indirectly triggering the deaths of who knows how many innocent people?
At both Disney and Universal we saw people fully remove their masks while surrounded by strangers, indoors, in line for a ride, and leave their masks off for an extended period of time. In both cases they had drinks in their hands and were already drunk.
Maybe that's on the parks for letting them join those lines while they had drinks with them. Either way, it was a healthy reminder of how stubbornly selfish and uncaring people can be.
People: 2/5
Drunk People: 0/5
So if you're considering a trip to Florida, and hoping that the theme parks at Universal Orlando and Disney World will provide a safe place to escape the world for a bit, you should know that, while neither one is doing a perfect job in terms of COVID safety measures, Disney is probably a safer bet.
Disney: 4/5
Universal: 3/5
That said, Hagrid's Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure at Universal might be the most fun you'll ever have on a rollercoaster, so...tough call.
The Compton emcee is considered one of the greatest rappers of his generation. He's covered California gang culture, Black adolescence, and social justice in an almost cinematic fashion. The man known as Kung-Fu Kenny is a favorite amongst his peers, die-hard Hip-Hop fans, and even former presidents.
Lamar's lyrical ability and ever-evolving creativity separates him from the vast majority of rappers. Not only does he continue to be relevant, but he does so without overexposing himself, either musically or personally.
K-Dot is an enigmatic mad genius who rarely misses the mark when pushing the envelope.
You can make the argument that every album in Kendrick's discography is a classic. His concept-driven masterpieces are in a class of their own. Each one possesses a level of cultural relevance and commercial success independent of the rest.
However, some albums outweigh the others. Let's take a look at Kendrick's albums from worst to best.
6.untitled unmastered. (2016)
Kendrick Lamar's meticulous nature is the reason his fans both love and hate him: He is revered for his attention to detail, which justifies the long periods in between albums; but, his level of perfection sends them into a frenzy while waiting.
Kendrick threw his fans a bone withuntitled unmastered, an album of unreleased material in its rawest form. Instead of rough drafts and demo versions of his infamous songs, Kendrick's throwaways played like an album that he scrapped and later released anyway.
It's at the bottom of Kendrick's discography for its misleading title and for being comparably forgettable.
5.Black Panther: The Album (Music from and Inspired by) (2018)
The release of Marvel's Black Panther was a pop culture phenomenon. Anticipation for the film starring the late Chadwick Boseman was at an unprecedented level. Kendrick Lamar became part of the hysteria surrounding the movie when he was named the soundtrack's executive producer.
Although Black Panther: The Album isn't an official Kendrick album, his involvement as executive producer is apparent. He appears repeatedly in some form or fashion throughout the album, and it has subtle recurring themes that are synonymous with a Kendrick project.
4.DAMN. (2017)
By 2017, Kendrick Lamar's stock was at an all-time high. He received endorsements from Hip-Hop royalty, such as Jay-Z , Nas, and Eminem, and proved he could succeed on a mainstream level. Now it was time to prove that he still had the magic touch.
DAMN. is the album that best showcases Kendrick's lyrical brilliance. Unfortunately, it lacked the same cohesive storytelling as previous albums. Kendrick revealed its sequence was the story in reverse. But this excuse seemed to be a ploy to re-release the album in its intended order to earn additional streams.
Every great artist has at least one "experimental" album in their catalog. Often that title is reserved for a project that didn't resonate with their core audience. But Kendrick's eccentric detour is one of rap's most critically acclaimed bodies of work.
While good kid, m.A.A.d city had the direction and presentation of a major label album, Section.80 had the hunger and unbridled vision of an independent artist looking to make his mark. Kendrick's creative bravery produced an album that was unlike a typical West Coast rapper.
Section.80's potency and messages of self-awareness and improvement made many feel like Kendrick was already the finished article. He managed to cultivate his trademark sound, despite being in the beginning stages of his career. (Although, given what he would morph into, there was room for growth after all).
1.good kid, m.A.A.d city (2012)
Kendrick's signing to Aftermath Records produced another bonafide superstar created under the tutelage of Dr. Dre. His major-label debut, good kid, m.A.A.d city was a coming-of-age story reminiscent of movies like Boyz N The Hood andPoetic Justice. A young K.Dot recounts a typical day in the life of a young Black man growing up in Los Angeles.
Hip-Hop got a formal introduction to Kendrick's brand of storytelling. GKMC is Lamar's most cohesive story and the standard for what a major-label debut in Hip-Hop should be.
Both SXSW and Coachella have been canceled, with the latter beung technically postponed until October. Coachella organizers released a statement on March 10:
At the direction of the County of Riverside and local health authorities, we must sadly confirm the rescheduling of Coachella and Stagecoach due to COVID-19 concerns. While this decision comes at a time of universal uncertainty, we take the safety and health of our guests, staff and community very seriously. We urge everyone to follow the guidelines and protocols put forth by public health officials.
Coachella will now take place on October 9, 10 and 11 and October 16, 17 and 18, 2020. Stagecoach will take place on October 23, 24 and 25, 2020. All purchases for the April dates will be honored for the rescheduled October dates. Purchasers will be notified by Friday, March 13 on how to obtain a refund if they are unable to attend.
Thank you for your continued support and we look forward to seeing you in the desert this fall.
Less than a week prior, for the first time in 34 years, SXSW was canceled by the city of Austin, citing public safety concerns over the coronavirus.
— (@)
There's something so special about seeing music live.
The energy from the crowd all around you. Thousands of bodies pressed together—moving in rhythm, sharing one voice, one breath, and one expanding cloud of viral pathogens…
Is it even really a concert or a music festival if you aren't making forced physical contact with two to five strangers at all times? With fears around the nascent coronavirus pandemic already disrupting tourism—Disney is forecasting tens of millions in losses from drops in park attendance—and leading to the cancellation and closure of various large, public events and venues, the thought of a music festival is starting to seem like a relic of a simpler time.
In the US, the first real test of the new state of things will be taking place in Austin from March 13-22. South By Southwest—the annual amalgam of music, tech, and media events—is slated to begin next Friday, and it would normally be expected to draw attendance of more than 150,000. But events are already being canceled. Apple confirmed on Wednesday that it will be joining Netflix, Amazon, Twitter, and Facebook in pulling back from scheduled events amid calls to cancel altogether. Meanwhile Austin's Public Health offices released a statement posted on the SXSW website saying that "no health departments in the state have requested the cancellation of any gatherings as the current risk of person-to-person spread in their jurisdictions remains low."
If that statement turns out to be correct—and attendance is not substantially affected by mounting fear and the slew of cancellations—then perhaps Coachella will proceed as normal from April 10-19 in Indo, California. With an impressive lineup including Rage Against the Machine, Frank Ocean, Travis Scott, Run the Jewels, and Lana Del Rey, that's certainly what a lot of people are hoping. But if attendance tanks, or if even one new case of COVID-19 ends up being traced to Austin during SXSW, it seems unlikely that Coachella will take place without some major adjustments.
Inside China, the rate of new infections is rapidly dropping. If that trend extends to the rest of the world, then perhaps there won't be a need for concern much longer. But if new cases continue to crop up as they have in California, Washington, New York and elsewhere, will bands even be willing to perform in mass venues? What if conditions worsen? Already, some live performances have been converted to livestreams from empty venues. Will that be the model for live performances in 2020?
There is an outside chance that as the seasons change the threat of the coronavirus may recede (or migrate to the southern hemisphere), in which case current concerns about the death of live music may be overblown. If the incidence rate drops in time for the Bonnaroo, Governors Ball, and Lollapalooza, then maybe live music can survive this brush with modern pestilence. On the other hand, if vaccine research doesn't proceed at a rapid pace, outbreaks could recur just in time for the fall and Austin City Limits from October 2-11. Tough year for Austin...
For anyone who's already committed to a crowded public event, the best advice is just to be aware of your vulnerabilities, to keep your hands clean, and to cough into the crook of your elbow. Also, use a condom. Good luck.
The story of psychedelics is intertwined with the story of music, and tracing their relationship can feel like going in circles.
For thousands of years, artists have been using naturally-grown herbs to open their minds and enhance their creative processes. Since LSD was synthesized by Albert Hoffman in 1938, psychedelics have experienced a reemergence, blooming into a revolution in the 1960s, launching dozens of genres and sounds that focused on acid, shrooms, and all of the portals they opened. Around the 1960s, scientists also began studying the relationship between psychedelics and music, and even back then, researchers found that, when combined, music and psychedelics could have therapeutic effects on patients.
More modern studies have discovered that LSD, specifically, links a portion of the brain called the parahippocampal—which specializes in personal memory—to the visual cortex, which means that memories take on more autobiographical and visual dimensions. Other studies have found that LSD can make the timbres and sounds of music feel more meaningful and emotionally powerful. Today, psychedelic music still thrives, and you can hear flickers of those early trip-inspired experiences all across today's modern musical landscape.
"There is a message intrinsically carried in music, and under the effects of psychedelics, people seem to become more responsive to this," said the psychedelic researcher Mendel Kaelen. "Emotion can be processed more deeply. It's a beautiful narrative. It's like a snake biting itself in the tail."
All that said, psychedelics can be as dangerous as the archetypal live-fast-die-young rock and roller's average lifestyle. They can destabilize already fragile minds and can encourage further drug abuse and reckless behavior. Often, psychedelic revolutions have coincided with colonialist fetishizations, apocalyptic visions, and appropriations of Eastern culture.
However, sometimes psychedelics and musical talent can come together in a synergy so perfect that it can literally create transcendent and healing experiences. Hallucinogens affected each of these following musicians in a unique way, but their experiences with hallucinogens produced some of the greatest music of all time.
Harry Styles — She
In his revelatory Rolling Stone profile, Harry Styles spoke out about how magic mushrooms inspired his most recent album, Fine Line. Inspired by Fleetwood Mac, the 25-year-old apparently spent a lot of time at Shangri-La Studios in Los Angeles tripping and listening to the old psychedelic greats.
"Ah, yes. Did a lot of mushrooms here," he said in the interview during a tour of the studio. "We'd do mushrooms, lie down on the grass, and listen to Paul McCartney's Ram in the sunshine."
Things even got a little violent, as they often can when dealing with hallucinogens. "This is where I was standing when we were doing mushrooms and I bit off the tip of my tongue. So I was trying to sing with all this blood gushing out of my mouth. So many fond memories, this place," he reminisced affectionately.
Kacey Musgraves' dreamy song "Slow Burn" was apparently inspired by an acid trip. Listening to the lyrics, you can hear the influence of psychedelics twining with country and singer-songwriter tropes. "I was sitting on the porch, you know, having a good, easy, zen time," she said of the songwriting experience, which she said happened out on her porch one evening. "I wrote it down on my phone, and then wrote the songs the next day with a sober mind."
LSD, she said, "opens your mind in a lot of ways. It doesn't have to be scary. People in the professional worlds are using it, and it's starting to become an option for therapy. Isn't that crazy?" Her affection for the drug also appears in her song "Oh What A World," which contains the lyric, "Plants that grow and open your mind."
A$AP Rocky — L$D
While A$AP Rocky's affection for LSD isn't a surprise given his propensity for writing about the drug, apparently the rapper has an intellectual approach to his psychedelic experimentation.
"We was all in London at my spot, Skeppy came through," he told Hot New Hip Hop about his experience writing LSD. "I have this psychedelic professor, he studies in LSD. I had him come through and kinda record and monitor us to actually test the product while being tested on. We did the rhymes all tripping balls."
Apparently his first acid trip happened in 2012. "Okay, without getting anyone in trouble, I was with my homeboy and some trippy celebrity chicks and…" he said in an interview with Time Out. When asked how long it lasted, he said, "Too long, man. Twenty-three hours. I was trippin' till the next day. When I woke up, I was like, Damn! I did that shit! That shit was dope. It was so amazing. It was a-ma-zing. Nothing was like that first time."
Acid changed his entire approach to music and success. "I never really gave a f*ck, man, but this time, I really don't give a f*ck," he said. "I don't care about making no f*cking hits." Instead, he focuses on creating. "It's so hard to be progressive when you're trippin' b*lls," he said. "You make some far-out shit!"
The Beatles' later music is essentially synonymous with LSD, and the band members often spoke out about their unique experiences with the drug. According to Rolling Stone, the first time that Lennon and Harrison took it was actually a complete accident. A friend put LSD in their coffee without their knowledge, and initially Lennon was furious. But after the horror and panic faded, things changed. "I had such an overwhelming feeling of well-being, that there was a God, and I could see him in every blade of grass. It was like gaining hundreds of years of experience in 12 hours," said Harrison.
Paul McCartney had similar revelations. LSD "opened my eyes to the fact that there is a God," he said in 1967. "It is obvious that God isn't in a pill, but it explained the mystery of life. It was truly a religious experience." Of LSD's effect, he also said, "It started to find its way into everything we did, really. It colored our perceptions. I think we started to realize there wasn't as many frontiers as we'd thought there were. And we realized we could break barriers."
Using the drug not only helped the band create some of the most legendary music of all time—it also brought them closer together. "After taking acid together, John and I had a very interesting relationship," said George Harrison. "That I was younger or I was smaller was no longer any kind of embarrassment with John. Paul still says, 'I suppose we looked down on George because he was younger.' That is an illusion people are under. It's nothing to do with how many years old you are, or how big your body is. It's down to what your greater consciousness is and if you can live in harmony with what's going on in creation. John and I spent a lot of time together from then on and I felt closer to him than all the others, right through until his death."
Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (Remastered 2009)www.youtube.com
Ray Charles — My World
The soul music pioneer allegedly once described acid as his "eyes." Charles was blind, but LSD is said to have allowed him some version of sight. Though he struggled with addiction, Charles eventually got clean, though his music always bore some markers of his experiences with the subconscious mind.
Actually, blind people on LSD and hallucinogens can experience hallucinations of different kinds, though it's somewhat rare. According to a study in the journal Consciousness and Cognition, this happens because during a trip, "the plasticity of the nervous system allows the recognition and translation of auditory or tactile patterns into visual experiences."
Clapton struggled with drug abuse throughout his life, and LSD certainly had an influence on him. While he was a part of Cream, he frequently played shows while tripping, and according to outontrip.com, he became "convinced that he could turn the audience into angels or devils according to the notes he played."
Before he was creating the ultimate dad rap, Chance the Rapper was an acidhead.
"None of the songs are really declarative statements; a lot of them are just things that make you wonder...a lot like LSD," said Chance the Rapper of his hallucinogen-inspired album, the aptly named Acid Rap. "[There] was a lot of acid involved in Acid Rap," he told MTV in 2013. "I mean, it wasn't too much — I'd say it was about 30 to 40 percent acid ... more so 30 percent acid."
But the album wasn't merely about acid; like much of the best psychedelic music, it was more about the imagery and symbolism associated with the drug than the actual drug itself. "It wasn't the biggest component at all. It was something that I was really interested in for a long time during the making of the tape, but it's not necessarily a huge faction at all. It was more so just a booster, a bit of fuel. It's an allegory to acid, more so than just a tape about acid," he said.
Jazz great John Coltrane was a regular LSD user who used the drug to create music and to have spiritual experiences. Though he struggled with addiction throughout his life, LSD was one drug that had a major artistic influence on him. While it's not known for sure if the album Om—which includes chanted verses of the Bhagavad Gita—was recorded while Coltrane was on LSD, many rumors theorize that it was.
"Coltrane's LSD experiences confirmed spiritual insights he had already discovered rather than radically changing his perspective," wrote Eric Nisenson in Ascension: John Coltrane and His Quest. "After one early acid trip he said, 'I perceived the interrelationship of all life forms,' an idea he had found repeated in many of the books on Eastern theology that he had been reading for years. For Coltrane, who for years had been trying to relate mystical systems such as numerology and astrology, theories of modern physics and mathematics, the teachings of the great spiritual leaders, and advanced musical theory, and trying somehow to pull these threads into something he could play on his horn. The LSD experience gave him visceral evidence that his quest was on the right track."
Jenny Lewis — Acid Tongue
Rilo Kiley frontwoman Jenny Lewis wrote the song "Acid Tongue" about her first and only experience on LSD, which happened when she was fourteen. She told Rolling Stone, "It culminated in a scene not unlike something from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas—the scene where Hunter S. Thompson has to lock the lawyer in the bathroom. I sort of assumed the Hunter S. Thompson character and my friend – she had taken far too much – decided to pull a butcher knife out of the kitchen drawer and chase me around the house… At the end of that experience, my mom was out of town on a trip of her own and she returned to find me about 5 lbs lighter and I had—I was so desperate to get back to normal I decided to drink an entire gallon of orange juice. I saw that it was in the fridge and decided that this would sort of flush the LSD out of my system, but I didn't realize that it did exactly the opposite."
The Beach Boys' mastermind Brian Wilson was famously inspired by psychedelics, which both expanded and endangered his fragile and brilliant mind. After his first acid trip in 1965, an experience that he said "expanded his mind," Wilson wrote "California Gurls." After the trip, however, Wilson began suffering from auditory hallucinations and symptoms of schizophrenia, and though he discontinued use of the drug, he continued to hear voices; doctors eventually diagnosed him with the disease. Wilson later lamented his tragic experiences with LSD, stating that he wished he'd never done the drug.
Though it led Wilson on a downward spiral, LSD inspired some of his band's greatest work—namely the iconic Pet Sounds, which launched half a century of "acid-pop copycats."
The Flaming Lips — Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
The Flaming Lips' "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" is widely believed to be the product of lead singer Wayne Coyne's LSD experimentation. This theory is corroborated by the fact that the album's cover features the number 25 (and LSD is also known as LSD-25). They also frequently reference LSD in their music, which includes an album called Finally, the Punk Rockers Are Taking Acid.
the flaming lips yoshimi battles the pink robots part 1www.youtube.com
Jimi Hendrix — Voodoo Child
While there is still some general contention on whether Jimi Hendrix hallucinated frequently, nobody really doubts that he did. According to rumors, the legendary musician even used to soak his bandanas in acid before going onstage so the drug would seep through his pores.
According to one source, Hendrix did more than just play music while tripping. He was also an expert at (of all things) the game of Risk.
"Jimi would play Risk on acid, and I never — and me personally — ever beat him at all," said Graham Nash in an interview. "He was unbelievable at it. He was a military man, you know, he's a paratrooper, and I don't know whether you know that about Jimi, but no one ever beat him at Risk."
The Doors — The End
Jim Morrison was a documented LSD user, and it eventually led him out of his mind. "The psychedelic Jim I knew just a year earlier, the one who was constantly coming up with colorful answers to universal questions, was being slowly tortured by something we didn't understand. But you don't question the universe before breakfast for years and not pay a price," said John Desmore in Riders on the Storm: My Life With the Doors.
Morrison used many different drugs during his lifetime, but apparently LSD had a special place and he avoided using it while working. "LSD was a sacred sacrament that was to be taken on the beach at Venice, under the warmth of the sun, with our father the sun and our mother the ocean close by, and you realised how divine you were," said Ray Manzarek. "It wasn't a drug for entertainment. You could smoke a joint and play your music, as most musicians did at the time. But as far as taking LSD, that had to be done in a natural setting."
Morrison himself—a visionary who was also a drug-addled narcissist—was kind of the prototypical 1960s LSD-addled rock star. Alive with visions about poetry and sex but lost in his own self-destruction, he perhaps touched on something of the sublime with his art, but in the end he went down a very human path towards misery and decay.
Like many of these artists' stories, Morrison's life reveals that perhaps instead of using hallucinogens and psychedelics as shortcuts to a spiritual experience, one should exercise extreme caution when exploring the outer reaches of the psyche. When it comes to actually engaging with potent hallucinogens, that might be best left to the shamans, or forgotten with the excesses of the 1960s.
On the other hand, we might do well to learn from the lessons that people have gleaned from hallucinogens over the years—lessons that reveal just how interconnected everything is, that shows us that music and memory and nature may just all stem from the same place.
SoCal alt-rock outfit The Mowgli's recently released the music video for "Fighting with Yourself," featuring Katie Jayne Earl on lead vocals.
"Fighting with Yourself" resonates with '90s pop-punk savors, riding a tight surging rhythm gilded with shimmering guitars and Earl's evocative voice. The Mowgli's garnered immediate success with their first major-label LP, Waiting for the Dawn, leading to performances at Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Bottlerock, and other festivals, as well as appearances on The Tonight Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and Conan.
Following 2015's Kids in Love and 2016's Where'd Your Weekend Go?, the band split with their label and released a pair of EPs, I Was Starting to Wonder and American Feelings. The Mowgli's comprise Joshua Hogan (vocals, guitar), Katie Jayne Earl (vocals), Matthew Di Panni (bass), David Appelbaum (keyboards), and Andy Warren (drums).
Right now, The Mowgli's are preparing to take-off on a nationwide tour with Plain White T's and New Politics. Catch The Mowgli's on tour.