Documentary - The Drug Years

[enquirewithin]

The Drug Years

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr..._id=1002651415


By Ray Richmond
Bottom line: A vivid, comprehensive and historically accurate overview of the narcotics culture and the times they've shaped that's as grandly entertaining as it is incisive.
9-10 p.m.,
June 12-15
VH1

Recent American pop cultural history continues to be Job 1 at VH1, which has somehow managed to transform nostalgia and the camp framing of its ideals and icons into a growth industry and a hook on which to hang the fortunes of a TV network's entire focus. The net has found great success with such shows as "I Love the '70s" and "I Love the '80s," which were not only labors of love but also authentic historic narratives.

But it is safe to say that "The Drug Years" -- a four-hour documentary airing in hourlong nuggets Monday-Thursday nights at 9 -- exists at a whole other level. The first two hours supplied for review are something like classic television, packed as they are with magnificent archival footage and consistently profound insights about the role that illicit drug use and abuse has had in shaping our nation and its social fabric since the 1950s.

Produced by filmmakers Dana Heinz Perry (who directed) and Hart Perry -- the team responsible for numerous projects for VH1 including the acclaimed 2004 docu "And You Don't Stop: 30 Years of Hip Hop" -- the show has a definitive feel to it. It takes no sides other than to detail the true impact of weed, LSD, uppers, downers, speed, coke and the rest on impressionable youth, on a disapproving and uncomprehending older generation and on how it influenced everything from art to politics to interpersonal relations. It's alternately funny and sad, surreal and enlightening, strange and sobering -- not unlike the drug culture itself.

"The Drug Years" kicks off in Hour 1, "Break on Through" (1950s-67), with a detailed and expertly woven look at how it all began for a country whose narcotics use was essentially nonexistent before the 1960s -- aside from a few beatniks and poets. That would all change, of course, with the '60s and the explosion of the marijuana culture and ultimately psychedelics like LSD via Timothy Leary and Ken Kesey. The clips are superb, framing the way drugs played into a youth rebellion and a counterculture revolution that manifested itself in music, sexual freedom and the ideals of a generation that wanted to be anything but like their parents. The Perrys make effective use of now laughable old educational films about the horrors of grass and LSD and vintage interviews with Paul McCartney, Pete Townshend and many others.

The second installment, "Feed Your Head" (1967-71), details the acid craze and rise of San Francisco as America's hippie capital as well as the reverberations on the antiwar movement, drugs and idealism. The other two hours deal with the way drugs played out through much of the '70s and the coke and crack infiltration of the '80s onward. Based on the book "Can't Find My Way Home: America in the Great Stoned Age" by Martin Torgoff (who is a guiding presence in on-camera interviews as well as writer and consulting producer of the docu), "The Drug Years" serves up a sublime potpourri of impressions and contextual anecdotes.

It's a kick to see film of people stoned and tripping out of their minds swaying in Human Be-ins, of Kesey's magic bus immortalized in Tom Wolfe's classic "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test," and of Jimi Hendrix wigged out on acid while performing at the famed Monterey Pop Festival in '67. Lending their recollections are such eyewitnesses as Ray Manzarek of the Doors, Peter Coyote, Jackson Browne and Tommy Chong. I never knew that it was Bob Dylan who first turned the Beatles on to pot in 1964 and that it was over a lyrical misunderstanding: He thought the line in "I Want to Hold Your Hand" was "It's such a feeling that my love ... I get high" instead of what it really was, "... I can't hide."

From such errors are cultural rebellions born. "The Drug Years," produced as a joint venture between VH1 and the Sundance Channel (where it repeats beginning Friday), documents an earth-shifting movement and its ongoing aftershocks with perceptiveness and candor.

The Drug Years
VH1
Perry Films Inc., VH1 and the Sundance Channel
Credits:
Executive producers: Brad Abramson, Shelly Tatro, Michael Hirschorn, Laura Michalchyshyn, Lynne Kirby
Producers: Dana Heinz Perry, Hart Perry
Supervising producers: Ann Rose, Audrey Costadina, Stephen Mintz
Associate producer: Salimah El-Amin Director: Dana Heinz Perry
Teleplay/consulting producer: Martin Torgoff
Director of photography: Hart Perry
Art director: Guy Walker
Editor: Richard Lowe
Story editor: Pam Widener
Original music: Matt Hauser

[jesusfreak666er]

Hey about 2 weeks ago or so Vh1 put out a 4 (i think 4) part series showcasing (or trying to) drugs progression in culture from the 60s-present. I figured I havent heard anything about it from anyone on this forum and thought it was my obligation to start a discussion on it.

Personally I thought it did a good job of pointing out some propaganda and not making drugs seem more depremental than they actually are (some are). i liked the 1st episode the most, it adressed 60's acid culture and music. Anyone have some opions?

[ntcrawler]

I watched every one and it was a really good watch. And since it was VH1 there is good bits of music playing all the time.

[Bajeda]

And since alot of people on other forums asked about the music quite a bit, here's a list of all the music that appeared in the series organized by episode.

Episode 1 – “Break On Through”

The Doors/ Break On Through
Thrivin’ From a Riff/ Charlie Parker
Wabash Cannonball/ Jean Ritchie Traditional
East-West/ The Paul Butterfield Blues Band
Let It All Hang Out/ Los Hombres
Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks)/The Grateful Dead
Eastern Jam/ Country Joe
I’m Free/ The Who
Like A Rolling Stone/ Bob Dylan
Untitled (Acid Test Jam)/ The Grateful Dead
Who Do You Love?/ Quicksilver Messenger Service
Piece of My Heart/ Janis Joplin
Lucy In the Sky with Diamonds/The Beatles
Section 43/ Country Joe & the Fish
Killing Floor/ Jimi Hendrix
East-West/ The Paul Butterfield Blues Band

Episode 2 – “Feed Your Head”

Steppenwolf/ Magic Carpet Ride
Jefferson Airplane/ White Rabbit
McKensie, Scott/ San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)
Chocolate Watchband/ Are You Gonna Be There (At the Love In)?
Jefferson Airplane/ Somebody to Love
Shankar, Ravi/ Sindhi- Bahairavi
Donovan/ Season of the Witch
The Doors/ Light My Fire
Schumann, Walter/ Danger Ahead (Theme to Dragnet)
The Chambers Brothers/ Time Has Come Today
The Youngbloods/ Get Together
The Temptations/ Cloud Nine
MC5/ Kick Out the Jams
Electric Flag/ Fine Jung Things
Electric Flag/ M-23
Steppenwolf/ The Pusher Man
Sly and the Family Stone/ Soul-Clappin’
Big Brother & the Holding Co./ Bye Bye Baby
The Rolling Stones/ Two Thousand Light Years from Home

Episode 3 “Teenage Wasteland”

Who, The/ Baba O’Riley
Rolling Stones/ Monkey Man
Rolling Stones/ Gimme Shelter
Haggard, Merle/ Okie from Muskogee
Guthrie, Arlo/ Coming into Los Angeles
New Riders of the Purple Sage/ Panama Red
Tosh, Peter/ Legalize It
Brewer & Shipley/ One Toke Over the Line
Brownsville Station/ Smokin’ In the Boys Room
Pink Floyd/ Time
Dr. John/ Right Place, Wrong Time
Shore, Howard/ SNL Theme Song
Belushi, John/ What’d I Say
JJ Cale/ Cocaine
KC and the Sunshine Band/That’s the Way I Like It
Summer, Donna/ I Feel Love
Lynyrd Skynrd/ That Smell
Who, The/ Won’t Get Fooled Again

Episode 4: “Just Say No”

New Order/ Blue Monday
Information Society/What’s On Your Mind
Grandmaster Flash & Melle Mel/ White Lines
Eurythmics/ Sweet Dreams Are Made of These
Erik B. & Rakim/ Paid in Full
Public Enemy/ Rebel without a Pause
Public Enemy/ Night of the Living Baseheads
Various artists/ “Stop the Madness”
Queen and David Bowie/ Under Pressure
DJ Spooky/ B Side Wins Again
Club Nouveau/ Lean on Me
Stewart, Amii/ Knock on Wood
Moby/ Go
Humanoid/ Stakker Humanoid
Primal Scream/ Loaded
Who, The/ Baba O’Riley

I thought the mini series was excellent. It was great in showing the history of drugs as they are related to society and popular culture, not to mention music.

The review in the original post covers everthing pretty well. The series has interviews with some people with interesting things to say about the culture from different viewpoints, it unearths random little tidbits you may not know about, and has an excellent soundtrack.

I downloaded the first episode just so I could watch Jimi Hendrix's acid influenced performance at Monterey over and over again.

[~lostgurl~]

All 4 parts of "The Drug Years" can now be found in the archive:

The Drug Years - Part 1 - Break on Through

The Drug Years - Part 2 - Feed Your Head

The Drug Years - Part 3 - Teenage Wasteland

The Drug Years - Part 4 - Just Say No!

[Bajeda]

Links are down....

[~lostgurl~]

Links work fine with Internet Explorer. If using Firefox you may need to disable the cache utitility or set Firefox for FTP.

[Bluntman156]

These links work but the upload speed is wayyy to slow and for some reason it will say buffering and go up to like 9% and then start dropping back down..

Is there any other place to find these videos..

[~lostgurl~]

Not that I know of, we are very lucky to have a member holding these on his server.