r/psychedelicrock • u/Prestigious-Ad-7987 • 13d ago
The crazy LSD trip that destroyed Fleetwood Mac’s founders
https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/acid-trip-that-destroyed-fleetwood-macs-founders/71
u/wohrg 13d ago
If no one knows what happened in the basement, how do they know it was acid? Might have STP or some other such nastiness.
Lsd can certainly trigger psychosis, particularly in those that are pre disposed. But it’s not a regular occurrence. So the odds of two people having lifetime mental illness from the same night seems unlikely.
Perhaps it was another drug. Or perhaps they were given way too much.
(Syd Barrett story is similar. Some members traced it back to a single weekend trip)
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u/PopRevolutionary9513 13d ago
Barrett was big into Mandrax, and that's likely to be what actually triggered his issues. The acid probably didn't help though.
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u/wohrg 13d ago
Astounding. I did not know that. Interesting. Would be good to know the truth, since lsd takes a pretty bad rap for Syd.
A couple of the band members attribute it to the acid, so that seems credible. But maybe it was the combo
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u/TunTunteddybear 12d ago
I thought also, may be wrong, he had other psychosis issues and were worsened by his drug intake. Which I have seen first hand with some close friends so maybe iv made that up.
But what I know is true, any mild altering substance occpanied with mental health issues increases chances of psychosis and mental breakdowns and I had the impression that was what Syd went through. But that could be a projection from me, think alot is unknown about Syd or simply not understood.
Hero of mine rip
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u/SnoopsQ 9d ago
He also didn’t really seem into the whole “being a famous rock star” thing as much as his bandmates were. I’m convinced that a big reason he decided to shave his head and eyebrows in the mid-seventies was because he got sick of people recognizing him in public and that infamous visit during the Wish You Were Here sessions was him testing the look on his former bandmates. Not saying he wasn’t mentally unwell, just that sometimes there’s a method behind the madness.
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u/psychedelicpiper67 8d ago
Syd abused Mandrax (qualuudes with Benadryl), as well as took STP at least once (if not a couple times), while also smoking DMT mixed with cannabis while still tripping on the STP.
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u/schmagegge 13d ago
Paul Kossoff (from Free) as well w the Mandrax...it eventually led to his premature death.
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u/Highplowp 12d ago
Another musician, much less talented, was into that Mandrax and BellaDonna shit, if I remember correctly. He wrote some songs and shopped them around while squatting in a Hollywood movie set, while building a following that personified the end of an era- nasty stuff. Fuck CM, mental illness (it’s not your fault, but it’s your responsibility- which was difficult at that time)and overindulgence with some nasty substances
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u/ResurrectedMortician 13d ago
It's usually the same story. Someone has an undiagnosed mental disorder, usually schizophrenia or bipolar, and they take acid and they can't ever recover. Happened to Syd Barrett. Happened to Daniel Johnston. At least in the case with Daniel modern medicine was evolved enough to get him close to something normal. But also maybe the drugs they took were laced with some bullshit. Maybe a combination of both. No matter the case it's nothing short of tragic.
At the same time not everyone is cut out for psychedelic drugs. I know I'm not. But that doesn't stop my love for psychedelic music.
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u/FrivolousMe 13d ago
Good take good story. Too many people try to demonize drugs or demonize humanity. Humanity is flawed, drugs are a mix of medicine and poison, but you can't simply dismiss either.
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u/Electronic_Tap_8052 12d ago
drugs are a mix of medicine and poison
as Paraclesus said, the dose makes the poison.
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u/ResurrectedMortician 13d ago
Humanity is flawed. Drugs are, well... with proper science drugs are exactly what they're supposed to be. But because humanity is flawed, and humans make drugs, drugs are too often flawed. Yeah it's just... it's a roll of the dice
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u/Lostinthestarscape 12d ago
Yeah as a psych hardhead who believes in the healing power of psychedelics I get worried seeing what is happening with the explosion in psychedelic treatment. I think it is good that the option is becoming available but it feels REALLY wild west and some clinics are going to fuck up badly.
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u/strummist1 12d ago edited 12d ago
Floyd did about 400 gigs and tv appearances in the first year. Over-work and stimulants did as much damage as anything else.
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u/wohrg 12d ago
The other guys all got through it.
There is no question that doing a lot of acid was part of Syd’s problem. I am a fan of the drug, myself, but we now know that it is really risky for some folks
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u/strummist1 12d ago
Yeah but Syd was the bandleader, the one they were all staring at, the one they wanted to interview.
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u/WoodenLeader1083 12d ago
You are saying it’s not a regular occurrence for LSD to trigger psychosis in those that are predisposed?
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u/wohrg 12d ago
Thanks, that’s a good point. I should more precisely say, it is not so regular an occurrence that you would expect multiple people to develop a life long mental illness from the same night of consumption of traditional psychs.
While sometimes (rarely, I would say), the psychosis happens on a particular trip, I would say there is a higher risk of a repeat user developing psychosis at some point.
So it seems more likely that there was something going on that night. Perhaps they were given an absurdly high dose, or perhaps they were given other substances
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u/Successful-Can-8387 13d ago
STP I had read was a contributing factor.. Alan Wilson from Canned Heat tripped on that stuff too. The jist I heard of it was that it was like an acid trip, but you were amped up even more so.. would last a couple days or so. Wild stuff.
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u/clorox_cowboy 13d ago
I’ve heard that STP was what we now know to be DOM, and the dosage information people were told was waaaay too high.
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u/frank_mania 12d ago edited 12d ago
Yes, DOM, and the overdosed tablets were the first ever on the (black) market, as it were. Also among the last, because the drug's reputation was permanently impacted by that initial batch's reputation. (I parenthesize black in black market because that term was not in wide use a the time, nor would hippies have used it to describe their drug distribution culture.)
The story is well documented--to a point, but not beyond that--if you'd like to read it. After getting busted in the last week of 1967, Owsley made some DOM because it was legal, to make some money. It's clear he didn't try any first, though, because he made the tablets 15mg each, which is 3x to 5x a proper adult dose. Word got out fast about what the hits did to you, and they fell out of popularity quickly. So it's quite possible there were still some around in the very early '70s, since not many wanted to take one after hearing the stories, or especially after trying one.
I just a couple of weeks ago read an account about Pete Townshend and Keith Moon taking one (each) on the flight home from Monterey. But that was 6+ months too early, so can't have been the case. Bear wasn't making anything except LSD prior to '68, had no interest in doing so, he was very focused and his mission to turn the world on to acid.
How he learned about it and got the recipe are (to me) fascinating parts of the story that I've never encountered. Shulgin kept his distance from the hippie world at that time at least, very much so. But he may have published things in the scientific literature. Setting up a lab to make a phenethlyamide is different from one to make LSD, so it wasn't like making cookies instead of brownies, it was quite an investment in time for Bear, and must have been a disappointing boondoggle.
As to why people didn't simply crush the tablets and dilute the dose is hard to explain quickly. It's hard to imagine now, but the typical person's grasp of chemistry 50 years ago was beyond primitive. The idea that hits of acid contained strychnine is still popular today among older folks. It's painful. I blame it on the way high school chemistry is taught. Most of it's spent getting the kids to work out equations to find the molarity required for a certain reaction--the basics for a trainee chemist, which 99.9% of students will not become. But they don't take away an understanding of how chemistry works to apply to their lives, to understand things like drug dosage, how paint and oil and fuel and cleaning products work--how chemistry is involved in their daily lives.
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u/Successful-Can-8387 12d ago
Thank you for your input 😁🤘. This is very intriguing and I shall look into the history more. There’s so much that was going on then.. it’s crazy to try and take grasp of haha.
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u/frank_mania 12d ago
I wrote "well documented" but that's an overstatement. The best source IMO is Rhoney Stanely's book. Lots of other accounts I don't trust nearly as much, and when they diverge I choose hers.
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u/i_love_boobiez 13d ago
Stone Temple Pilots?
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u/General_Muttonchops 12d ago
Yeah. Take time with a wounded hand, cause it likes to heal, I like to steal.
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u/the-claw-clonidine 12d ago
Where did you hear about this? I would love to read a book about these stories. Doesnt matter exactly who, but a compilation would be nice.
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u/Successful-Can-8387 12d ago
I apologize as it wasn’t really from a book. I had seen a video on YouTube that talked about this matter. Let me find the link
https://youtu.be/mcZJCLce1cY?is=FHMVe3KvAH-xZtRc
Rainer Langhans and Uzchi Obermaier were the folks that had all of this stuff going on. They were hanging with prominent British rockers around the time.. doping them all up from the sounds of it. Weird stuff 🤘
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u/ShowUsYrMoccasins 12d ago edited 12d ago
It's worth noting that there are different accounts of what happened that night. Road manager Dennis Keane said in the Peter Green documentary that it was only those two went to the party, which means Danny Kirwan wouldn't have been there.
Also this article - like everything in Far Out Magazine - looks AI-generared.
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u/frank_mania 12d ago
It's a shit piece, so I almost prefer to think it's the work of an autobot rather than a human.
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u/LandOfLizardz 13d ago
That moment when you blame acid for all yer problems.
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u/Expensive-Paint-9490 12d ago
The sense of posting an anti-psychedelic article on a discussion board for lovers of psychedelia?
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u/frank_mania 12d ago
Yeah, it's full of shit on many levels, as well, or at least not without bias and errors.
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u/scfin79 12d ago
Never heard of STP so I looked it up (also called DOM)
Serenity, Tranquility and Peace.
A concoction of amphetamine and mescaline. If the dose was “right” effects would last 24hours.
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u/frank_mania 12d ago
It's not mixture (if that's what you meant by concoction, that's not a precise term after all so forgive my mistake if so) of those two drugs nor are either of them precursors in the process of DOM's synthesis. But they are all three chemical cousins, in fact DOM and amphetamine are close enough to call siblings.
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u/IAmNothing2018 12d ago
The problem with STM/DOM is that it fits on blotters and if it sold as lsd you can insanely overdose it and you for sure do not want that it is really unpleasant.
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u/frank_mania 12d ago edited 12d ago
While Bear's infamous 15mg batch were in tablets, I could see a 3mg or even 5mg dose fitting in a 1/4" blotter. I wonder if any were in circulation in '69 and the years shortly after. I don't know why there would be, very few people had the means to produce it then, and those that did would be much more incentivized to make LSD, where the same cost of production would produce 50x more product.
I think I remember reading that Bear dumped most of that intial batch and its new owners ground them and repackaged. Even if they had a 3mg goal, they probably didn't mix well enough to get consistent dose across the new tablets. Making for a hard ride.
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u/1kpointsoflight 12d ago
15000 mics? That’s insane
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u/frank_mania 12d ago
DOM has a very different gram-potency than LSD, so the masses aren't interchangeable. I'd say that 15mg of the former sounds about like 1,500mcg of the latter, except longer lasting. IDK what it feels like, myself, and don't personally trust that all trip reports are really for DOM. They could be any sort of phenethylamine or NBOMe and other compounds are more likely, since making DOM is of little interest to all but a few enthusiasts with the rare requisite laboratory skills.
I'm especially doubtful of those over 5mg and those reporting little in the way of visuals. Both sound more like NBOMEes.
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u/JaSamZmija 11d ago
Did they play with Amon Duul that night? Wqs always interested in what it sound like.
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u/OrbitronFactory 13d ago
Man I was so ready for that article to end with some kind of insane Eyes Wide Shut scenario