Are hallucinogens responsible for The Klaxons seeing winged lizards? What turned one member of Pink Floyd into a recluse for 40 years? And was sweet old Louis Armstrong really a massive toker? We track the link between music and drugs from ancient Greek balladry to dubstep.

Circa 2000BC: Tribal gatherings

Siberian shamen stumble upon the fly agaric mushroom and begin warbling bizarre chants thanks to its psychedelic properties. Pre-Colombian tribes in the Americas stage rituals, many involving music, after eating hallucinogenic plants, such as the peyote cactus. Meanwhile, ancient Greeks get wasted on ergot, fungus scraped from wheat and one of the key ingredients in LSD. They incorporate its trippy side-effects into the Eleusinian Mysteries - religious festivals featuring toga-wearing types fooling around with harps and lyres.

The 19th century: Opium of the (musical) masses

While British writers such as Samuel Coleridge and Thomas De Quincey experience all manner of terrifying visions on opium, their musical cousins are also dabbling in drugs. See opium-taking French composer Hector Berlioz whose Symphonie Fantastique (1830) tells the tale of an artist poisoned by the drug. Or Polish counterpart Frédéric Chopin (Muse are big fans) who wolfs down opium-based drug laudanum, apparently to quell health problems.

The 1920s-1950s: Jazz gets muggled (note: nothing to do with Harry Potter)

US jazz musicians use narcotics, in part to keep up with exhausting tour schedules. Even old Satchmo himself, gravelly voiced Louis Armstrong, is a toker - he was arrested in 1930 for drug possession, plus his song Muggles was named after the slang for 'marijuana'. By the 1950s, many jazz artists get into harder stuff, namely heroin. Miles Davis's 1959 album Kind of Blue was made by a man with half of Afghanistan in his bloodstream, while Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker and John Coltrane all succumb to early deaths thanks to drug abuse.

1964: Speed - a real mod con

Get hep to the beat, daddio! London's mod subculture is in full swing, with sharply dressed youths whizzing around on Vespas and indulging in amphetamines, particularly 'uppers'. In the early 1960s, amphetamines are prescribed for weight loss, so mods raid parents' medicine cabinets before shimmying away to The Who all night (and ending up with awful teeth - a common side-effect).

1967: Absolutely tabulous

The 'summer of love' and flower-child psychedelia goes wild. Music gets weirder as the mind-expanding properties of LSD mean rockers experiment with sitars and write nonsensical lyrics about tangerine trees. Psychedelic bands (see The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane) spring up around San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district; while seminal acid-influenced albums released this year include The Jimi Hendrix Experience's Are You Experienced and The Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. There are casualties too: people like Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett, who ends up a recluse for 40 years, doing the gardening in his dressing gown.

1972: Dawn of the dread

Reggae and its accompanying drug, cannabis, also become popular. Within years, every street market will have T-shirts emblazoned with Bob Marley holding a spliff.

1977: Full speed ahead

Punk sweeps Britain and amphetamine sulphate (or speed) rears its ugly head again, with the stimulant's jittery side-effects correlating with the furious two-minute thrash-alongs of The Sex Pistols and The Clash. New York's disco scene is engulfed by a blizzard of cocaine, especially at legendary nightclub Studio 54.

1987-1988: Pills 'n' thrills

At Ibiza's Amnesia club, four British DJs try ecstasy for the first time. They bring the island's Balearic beats back home, playing to euphoric, ecstasy-addled audiences at basement clubs, such as London's Shoom! Acid house is born and within months, young ragamuffins are wearing baggy T-shirts with smiley yellow faces and shrieking "Acieeed!" at warehouse parties. The tabloids aren't happy.

Guitar bands take up the baton, with Manchester's The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays record albums influenced by acid house. Before long, Britain is soundtracked by 'Madchester', with ecstasy being the catalyst for football-loving blokes hitting the dancefloor and hugging each other. In May 1990, The Stone Roses headline a concert at Spike Island described as "Woodstock for the E generation".  

1992: Rave new world

Rave culture reaches its peak when an illegal rave at Castlemorton Common attracts 40,000 bug-eyed party-goers. The Shamen's Ebeneezer Goode hits number one, with its refrain of "Eezer Goode" ("E's are Good"). 

1994-1998: Triumph of the pill

Britpop might be a largely boozy affair ("lager, lager, lager" © Underworld), but drugs are everywhere, with half of all young people saying they've tried them. Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher describes drug-taking as being as normal as "having a cup of tea", Pulp sing about being Sorted For Es and Whizz, while cocaine hits the street, thanks to a drastic fall in price.

Ecstasy floods clubland, while in 1995, Leah Betts dies after taking an ecstasy tablet at her 18^th birthday party, triggering a moral panic in the tabloids. Meanwhile, Bristol's trip-hop genre (Tricky, Massive Attack) owes much to cannabis puffing.

2004: Wild about mushrooms

A brief legal loophole allows magic mushrooms to be sold, resulting in the short-lived 'Shroomadelica' music movement, with bands such as The Zutons and The Coral making a stab at reviving psychedelia.

2007: The noughties get naughty (kind of)

Thanks to Pete Doherty's crack-encrusted grottiness and the trampy stylings of Amy Winehouse (at one point allegedly inserting heroin into her toes), few people associate drugs with glamour.

However, London's new rave hipsters take MDMA, while codeine or 'purple drank' (cough syrup mixed with Sprite and candy) is popular with America's hip-hop community (especially rapper Lil' Wayne).

2008: Through the K-hole

The British Crime Survey reveals ketamine is the fastest-growing 'party drug' among 16- to 24-year-olds. Although the drug (originally manufactured as a horse tranquiliser) had been on the fringes of clubland for a decade, it becomes fashionable with the emerging dubstep scene.

2010: Surreal visions

Seeking inspiration for their Surfing the Void album, The Klaxons take plant extract ayahuasca (normally used by Amazonian tribes) and see visions of winged lizards on staircases.

2011: The drugs don't work?

Mephedrone (also known as 'meow-meow' or 'plant food') is popular with clubbers. A Mixmag survey reveals one in four readers questioned have taken the drug within the last month. However, the NHS releases figures show the number of young people taking drugs has fallen by 30 per cent in 15 years, and is at its lowest since records began in 1996.

Updated: 03/05/2011