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Last updated on July 16th, 2017 at 09:54 am
Malcolm Farr on Eric Clapton’s epic heroin-induced constipation:
Eric wasn’t God, as the graffiti painted on the London Underground insisted. He was clogged.
UPDATE. Saltydog:
I spent several years working the ER during the 70’s. What a treat. Heroin. LSD. The great unknowns and lethal combinations.
Those who lived to tell about it were lucky. Those who died were unlucky. Those who ended up with a slowly killing disease were unlucky. Those who ended up vegetables, and there were very, very many, were oblivious to their luck, but their families, left burdened with a life-time of care for a soulless mass that soon didn’t even look like the person they knew, were the unluckiest of all.
I still see the haunted looks on their faces as the realization came to them of the nature of the rest of their lives, and they knew that it was all because their child didn’t learn the lesson of not putting strange things into their mouth. At least those who lost their child could bury them and try to live. There was an physical end, if not a spiritual one.
Clapton was lucky that constipation was the biggest complaint he remembers. At least he still remembers something.
In college there was a guy in my dorm whom we never saw eating. I asked him one day why he didn’t eat. He said “I don’t eat because it makes me shit.” I don’t remember if he played guitar or not.
Posted by Mystery Meat on 2007 10 02 at 11:32 AM • permalink
Knowing that doing junk turns you into the equivalent of your BM-obsessed grandmother (as in, “Have you done Number Two yet? Oh, we’d better give you a dose of castor oil then”), certainly does cut down on the “romantic” aspect of opium-taking. I don’t know why doctors never emphasized the bowel-stopping aspect of opiates—despite the fact that one of the ingredients of paragoric (an anti-diarrheal my grandmother used to give me now and then when I was a child) is tincture of opium.
On a side note, I never understood why Eric Clapton was considered all that. Sure, some of his songs were good, but then he went and came up with that awful ballad about his dead kid—proving, at least, that great tragedy doesn’t always result in great art. As for his personal appearance, he’s a rather bland-looking fellow to be considered a rock god.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 10 02 at 11:42 AM • permalink
“In fact, one of the few positive routines he had was the regular administration of what he called a “re-bore”. Someone, a contender for the Worst Job in the World title, had to drill out his back passage so that the build-up of crud could be released.
How’s that for far out and cool?
I never had that problem with beer and so decided to stick with it and not go near the silly temptation of heroin.”
Alrighty then, I’ll stick with beer as well.
#4 Andrea
“On a side note, I never understood why Eric Clapton was considered all that.”
I was, you know, actually ALIVE during the Cream era, and…
*Steam issues forth from the ears of Hucbald, and blood squirts from his tear ducts*
I need to back away from the keyboard for just a little while.
*pots and pans crash like cymbals…*
I had no idea constipation was the scourge of the heroin addict. And yet, Jimmy Page was at his stick-figure skinniest during the latter 1970s when he was hooked on smack.
Posted by Ed Driscoll on 2007 10 02 at 01:26 PM • permalink
Eh, I don’t Clapton learned from his heroin addiction, given how he sang “Cocaine” in 1977 after he kicked that heroin addiction around the same time.
(Yes, I know, Wikipedia = saltshaker time.)
Not that I considered him all that great of a musician. Decent enough that I bought a collection of his top songs, but not great enough to do more than that.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 10 02 at 01:37 PM • permalink
Beer keeps everything moving right along, of course, you have to go to the bathroom so much you can’t even sit through Layla.
Andrea, you’re in for it now I suspect!!!
This thread has nowhere to go but down the toilet…….
Posted by Old Tanker on 2007 10 02 at 01:38 PM • permalink
Perhaps Sheryl Crow should thank Eric Clapton; he just pointed out that people use less toilet paper if they shoot smack regularly. This makes her “Use only one square” advice practical.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 10 02 at 01:46 PM • permalink
I’m with you Andrea, I just don’t get why Clapton is considered “all that”
And I’m old enough to remember that era quite well.
But then I was never trying to prove how cool I was by regurgitating lines from Rolling Stone either.
Posted by joe bagadonuts on 2007 10 02 at 02:15 PM • permalink
And who can forget Clinton’s clownish Surgeon General, Jocelyn Elders, referring to him as “Eric Clapper”?
I liked a lot of his work, back when I was listening to that kind of thing, but not indiscriminately. Some of the genuine blues stuff (“Key to the Highway”, for example) was good. But I always hated “Leila”: long and monotonous and whiney. And his voice work ranged from marginal to downright bad. I saw him in concert a couple of times (once with Carlos Santana). Amazing how one’s tastes change: I’d trade every rock concert I ever attended (and I saw a lot of the greats – The Who, Led Zeppelin, Zappa, etc.) – for a chance to go back in time and catch Meade Luxe Lewis banging out my favorite boogie woogie piece, “Six Wheel Chaser”, on his piano at the Cafe society in New York in 1941. Must be a Gemini thing.
Behind Jimi Hendrix – Clapton evidently learned more about the dangers of drugs than he – there was no more influential rock guitarist in the 60’s than Eric Clapton.
That is an unassailable fact, and the last I’ll say on the issue, as it will take several days for this welt I have on my forehead from bashing it into my desk to go down.
*shaking of aspirin bottle*
#13 – And they’re full of shit.
Posted by Willmott Fribbish on 2007 10 02 at 03:22 PM • permalink
Hucbald: well, so was I. True, I was just a kid—I did like Cream, though, still do—but I still don’t get the hosannas. So he could play the blues, so what. I always thought Clapton’s blues renditions were sort of bland. Not quite Pat Boone bland, but smoothed out compared to the recorded-in-a-shotgun-shack sound of original blues.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 10 02 at 04:22 PM • permalink
19. Andrea… *deep breaths* LOL!
You and I shall simply have to agree to disagree.
P.S. I hope you didn’t take me overly seriously. I was intentionally trying to be over-the-top funny. I do love early Clapton, but I was always more of a Hendrix fan. ;^)
18. greene
Thanks for the props! My manager and I are currently setting up an independent hosted site for me. I’ll be sure to promote it shamelessly. It’ll have all my early electronic music compositions on it, plus my newer chamber music stuff as well. I really consider myself more of a composer who happens to play guitar than a guitarist, but the gigs pay the bills.
Cheers! (Early start to a short day today, for a change, so I’m relaxing with a beer).
paco, I will regret to my dying day that I didn’t go with friends of mine to the various Zappa concerts I could have gone to.
But I must admit the concert I enjoyed the most was Leon Redbone (who by his looks may be Zappa’s twin-separated-at-birth) in Charllotesville in 1984.
Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2007 10 02 at 05:14 PM • permalink
And Andrea I’ve never much cared for Clapton, either.
Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2007 10 02 at 05:19 PM • permalink
- If you’ve ever known anyone on heroin, it is about the most unglamorous drug you can think of. There’s the ick factor with needles and sharing diseases: we know that plenty of them die of AIDS and Hep, but lesser publicised is the sharing of cold, flu, and just about everything else. There’s the fact that they go through all the money and end up living in filthy hovels (and they never do housework). The pleading for pathetically small amounts of money, followed by pathetic lies (“can you lend me five dollars?”). Stealing handbags from old ladies. The willingness to sell anyone out for their drug.
And, yes, the constipation.
It goes into reverse when they quit.Posted by daddy dave on 2007 10 02 at 05:43 PM • permalink
on Guitar Gods, surely we can agree that Hendrix was the greatest?
Posted by daddy dave on 2007 10 02 at 05:48 PM • permalink
My opinion on Clapton? Hey, thanks for asking! Overrated, slow, lumbering, boring. Here’s SRV doing Hendrix to clear the palate of the dull memory of that dreadful cocaine song.
Posted by dean martin on 2007 10 02 at 06:56 PM • permalink
All you Clapton naysayers, listen to this and hear his genius:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCzUMjCykn8
Posted by Abu Chowdah on 2007 10 02 at 07:16 PM • permalink
now THERE’s some guitar. I was fortunate enough to be stationed at Ft. Hood in the late 80’s. We used to go down and hang out on 5th street in Austin quite frequently. One night while sitting in a bar watching a pretty good blues band Stevie took the stage during one of their breaks unannounced and jammed solo for a little and then with the band a lot!! Quite a surprise and all for a $5.00 cover. Unfortunately that was about 6 months or so before he died 🙁
Posted by Old Tanker on 2007 10 02 at 07:49 PM • permalink
sorry to all the Aussies here, that would be in Texas if you’re not familiar with Austin….
Posted by Old Tanker on 2007 10 02 at 07:50 PM • permalink
I spent several years working the ER during the 70’s. What a treat. Heroin. LSD. The great unknowns and lethal combinations. Those who lived to tell about it were lucky. Those who died were unlucky. Those who ended up with a slowly killing disease were unlucky. Those who ended up vegetables, and there were very, very many, were oblivious to their luck, but their families, left burdened with a life-time of care for a soulless mass that soon didn’t even look like the person they knew, were the unluckiest of all. I still see the haunted looks on their faces as the realization came to them of the nature of the rest of their lives, and they knew that it was all because their child didn’t learn the lesson of not putting strange things into their mouth. At least those who lost their child could bury them and try to live. There was an physical end, if not a spiritual one.
Clapton was lucky that constipation was the biggest complaint he remembers. At least he still remembers something.
Like you, Rebecca, I saw enough that I was never tempted. Frankly, I was never tempted before I knew the worst.
It’s not just heroin. Last year I had major surgery and was on morphine for only 48 hours afterwards but it turned my insides into concrete – took nearly two weeks to get the tubes working normally. Beats me how anybody gets addicted, under those circumstances.
Posted by Sonetka’s Mom on 2007 10 02 at 07:56 PM • permalink
Old Tanker: was the club Antone’s? There’s a great doco on DVD about Clifford Antone’s blues club, with lots of footage of folks you may have seen at the club.
Posted by Abu Chowdah on 2007 10 02 at 07:57 PM • permalink
Considering how much time he must have spent on the crapper, it’s amazing he didn’t write The White Room.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 10 02 at 08:14 PM • permalink
To be honest I don’t recall the name of the club, it was almost 20 years ago. 5th street is lined with clubs for a good 3 or 4 blocks on both sides. On the weekends they would block off the street to traffic so you could walk everywhere. EVERY club had at least 1 live band playing. My favorite was the Lizard Lounge and they would have up to 4 live bands at once. I’ll have to check out the documentary and see what I can remember!!!
Posted by Old Tanker on 2007 10 02 at 08:22 PM • permalink
when I saw the Edge from U2 on that list ahead of Bo Didley it told me all I needed to know….
Posted by Old Tanker on 2007 10 02 at 08:28 PM • permalink
#4 I never understood why he was singing a song about Angina.
Later, I learnt the lyrics was hand-jive. I still can’t listen to that song; but now I understand his Freudian paen to angina, given his addiction.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 10 02 at 08:29 PM • permalink
#28 Abu, obviously the great man is playing music in his m ind that no-one else can hear.
Cream was good at the time, loved it but a little too young for the drug parties (I had to wait for Pink Floyd). Now, it sounds a bit plodding. Arnold Lane, however, still plays his strange hobby. Not the later stuff.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 10 02 at 08:39 PM • permalink
#29 I’d put BB King above Duane Allmond, but this is a quibble.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 10 02 at 08:41 PM • permalink
“In fact, one of the few positive routines he had was the regular administration of what he called a “re-bore”. Someone, a contender for the Worst Job in the World title, had to drill out his back passage so that the build-up of crud could be released.”
“Hello Im Kevin, Im from Queensland and Im here to help…..”
Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 10 02 at 08:41 PM • permalink
#32 Saltydog, there we have it; hippydome in a nutshell. I escaped; but more due to force of personality than intelligence.
I never have understood how someone’s mind could disappear forever on LSD, even though I am familiar with the substance.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 10 02 at 08:46 PM • permalink
Wimpy Canadian: it’s a parody. Someone overdubbed some truly awful geetar. Quite clever, actually.
Posted by Abu Chowdah on 2007 10 02 at 10:14 PM • permalink
The ‘worst toilet in Scotland’ scene from Trainspotting sums it all up. Contains all you’ve read above.
I’ve got a copy of a 1994 Will Self magazine piece called Ten reasons not to take heroin which includes:
1. It can give you fairly bad constipation. Actually dreadful constipation, constipation the like of which has not been seen since the Paris Commune…
4. Although it makes it possible for men to sustain erections for aeons, it prevents both men and women from achieving orgasm…
7. Sooner or later you will find yourself in Amsterdam listening with real enthusiasm to a man called Stiggi from Dortmund playing Stairway to Heaven on the bongos.
Posted by David Morgan on 2007 10 02 at 10:56 PM • permalink
Clapton spent a decade trying to find the Brown Note.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 10 03 at 12:35 AM • permalink
#11 TRJS, it also makes people much more willing to believe things such as “Global Warming is all the fault of humans; there has never been a change in the weather before humans were here”. But in the defence of smack, it has caused a dramatic increase in the sales of Personally Attuned Conspiracy Originator. Which is a good thing. For Paco.
Jesus. Sorry, but you people are clueless. It would be pointless to explain why Clapton is great to people who obviously know nothing about music, so I’ll just say that the only reason Clapton isn’t God is because Phil already has that covered.
The White Room?? I also loved that all-time Cream classic The Sunshine of Your Love. Or was that Stevie Wonder?
Let me guess, you can’t take laxatives with horse. That’s shitty.
BTW, with SSRIs you get constipated and have sexual disfunction. Though you’re supposed to get an elevated mood.
Though walks help me when things get hung up.
Posted by mythusmage on 2007 10 03 at 02:32 AM • permalink
Here clueless me spent all these years thinking that the people who liked Clapton were full of shit, and now I find it was him all along.
Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2007 10 03 at 06:52 AM • permalink
This list of the Top 100 Guitarists is highly subjective. Ask 10 people and you’ll get 10 different lists. Personally I always thought Jimmi Hendrix was overrated. He’s basically benefited from dying at the peak of his fame, being an African-American rock guitarist, and a few other things. If he had survived until today, he’d have the same degree of fame and admiration as Herman’s Hermits.
Personally I can’t believe they left out the guitarists of The Eagles.
Posted by wronwright on 2007 10 03 at 08:38 AM • permalink
Couldn’t agree more, I like Hendrix but he was definitely overrated.
Posted by Old Tanker on 2007 10 03 at 09:42 AM • permalink
Missing from list: Phil Manzanera -Roxy Music
Walter Becker -Steely Dan
Posted by Son of a Pig and a Monkey on 2007 10 03 at 10:15 AM • permalink
Personally I always thought Jimmi Hendrix was overrated. He’s basically benefited from dying at the peak of his fame, being an African-American rock guitarist, and a few other things. If he had survived until today, he’d have the same degree of fame and admiration as Herman’s Hermits.
Ah, now I understand. Satire, right? Right? Please tell me you’re not serious.
You placed your finger on it. In the Fifties and Sixties, rock and roll was fun. Prior to the acid drop days of 1967, you could see 4 young men in shaggy mops and JC Penney wardrobes, singing, smiling, and having fun. And the audience responded in kind.
What the hell happened to the fun?
(Does anyone remember that post Tim made one or two years back where he showed two photos of an Australian rock group, one from 1966 showing the band members smiling and having fun, and the second from 1970 showing them looking cool, detached, and unconcerned?)
Posted by wronwright on 2007 10 03 at 11:28 AM • permalink
yeah…yeah…but can he climb a coconut tree?
Posted by buttondickbuttons on 2007 10 03 at 01:30 PM • permalink
Sorry kids. Hendrix is not overrated. I’ll entertain certain contrarian positions from time to time and I love to get everybody riled up as much as the next guy, but please lay off the tree bark.
With Jimi, it’s about the whole package. Not only the most fluid and skilled rock soloist EVER, but his back-up work is BEYOND COMPARE. Hell of a song writer as well.
The next four decades would have been something to behold with Jimi still running around, although it was never to be as he would have killed himself five times over with the amount of contraband floating around in his system.
Maybe that’s when he wrote “Blow Wind Blow”!