Hendrix, Jimi

It is no coincidence that many of the artists who combine a Poe-like reflection on technologies of communication as worldmaking devices with the presentation of science fictional scenarios frequently make use of mind altering substances as plot devices, and otherwise, as Poe notoriously also did. A drug, hke other of Poe s mechanisms of displacement, is a medium that alters perceptions and shifts the parameters of the user s world. Perhaps because of the reports of alcoholism and opiate dependency that surround Poe, he has been a crypto-reference for various strands of experimental popular music from the 1960s onward. While Byron seems to be the main prototype for Jimi Hendrix s flamboyant persona and Georgian ruffles, his frequent journeys to outer space ( EXP, Third Stone from the Sun ), identification with aliens, and excursions undersea and to the poles ( 1983 A Merman... 

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