How do you like your Dead?

These days, you can get Grateful with the Dead any way you like it. Phishified with Trey. Slow and bass-heavy with Phil and his friends. Fucked up and falling over on Ratdog. Nostalgic recreations of entire shows by Dark Star. Even pop-bluesy with Mr. John Mayer. Not to mention the rap mixes for the bling-custy niche that only listens to rap and Jerry. And, even if you missed the Furthur runs in which they incorporated new old man songs about the rain and other elder hippie business, you can still catch the funkity blue mastery of Joe Russo's Almost Dead. And in all likelihood, you will dance harder.

Like I can't stop dancing and have to pee everywhere but will drink everyone in the vicinity's water to keep fucking dancing hard. You don't want to miss a riff.

JRAD has brought the fire back to my mountain since I saw them this summer at the Great North festival. Now the Dead has been alive in me for nearly half my life, but I had never danced so hard at any orientation of the GD as I have at JRAD. Holy jamtastic. It's like Medeski, Martin, & Wood began blaring the jam classics in that creep-along jazz, funksplosive phenomena fantastica. Oh that Terrapin in Portland. The weebly warps of spookily space. The searing splooge of hyper-stimulated folk. The songs that have been a sacred auditory landscape for generations of jammers come to such an energized pinnacle and high point with every note. If you haven't seen Almost Dead, go forth Gratefully and catch them live....the music has still never stopped.

Fare Thee Well Done

Did he do it? How could he not do it?! Trey totally honored Jerry's signature sound of guitar with his high-pitched, searching-through-the-sounds upbeat playfulness with the Grateful Dead. After seeing the July 4^th show streamed at the State Theater in Portland, then streaming the audio free online after too many failed video attempts, I can say he did it. Trey raged Jerry for the “Fare Thee Well” Tour, totally channeling his guitar spirit yet playing with it in his Trey-zy way. With Phish for brains, I was stoked to still hear Trey at the core of the Jerry whittling and winding. Yes, the proof was in my third eye, as Trey even emanated the inner-visual I always get from Jerry's guitar, a green flower garden movin' and groovin and opening and closing blossoms to the slick licks, stems slithering like snakes up and down to the wormy diddlin'. But the Phishy flutter was flowing there too. I heard Trey come out in his rittling strummy build-ups before plunging into the high wails of a Jerry sound. Bridge into "Truckin'"? So Trey-zy!! He projected Jerry. But he kept it Trey. As well as tasteful. What more could a Dead-head ask for?

Well, to at least hear the damn shows that everyone we've ever met flew and caravaned out to in Chicago. I was lucky to have a line on free tickets for the streamed shows in Portland for the 4^th, and passed the Sunday tickets off to my co-parent so he could have a night too. After all, he was the one who hitch-hiked his way through Dead shows selling tie-dyes in the '80s, then helped haul Phish's equipment from $5 shows at the end of the decade, watching them rise as the Dead scene fell to dope and federal infiltration...all of which has transpired the cult-jam scene each band has molded and transformed...and basically this musical culmination happening would mean a whole big wow of a world to the daddyo.

So when I get a link from my boy down in Maryland for streaming the show, I'm stoked! The Couch Tour/Stream Scene has been growing so that people are throwing parties projecting the show on the sides of their houses, having July 4th parties based around streaming the show after bbqing. Some have paid so they can replay the shows all month. So I send this link out to like, ten people as broke as I am with the same warning from PJ: “Do not post, spread the love among family.” Then from PJ, my phone bleeps, “CHINA CAT!” Then from my co-parent, “I called the opening song china cat (smiling-with-sunglasses-on emoji) !!!!!! Love love love,” which is obviously one of my Top 3 Dead songs, so I go downstairs after just laying my daughter down to sleep and click the link. Ugh. Not working, check back later. Kait texts, “It says copyright infringement.” Michael, “Error message, bad link.” Ooops.

But then, this!

And so, a few of us stranded on the east coast were thankfully able to tune into the show. Like, Trey singing "Althea"?!?! My heart burst of the wettest dream alive in my ears!! And even without the video, we still all got madhouse picture messages of everyone we've ever met at the epic music event of the summer. And realize, yeah, this couldn't have happened at a camping venue. That amount of people is a city in itself and would surely sink a mountain. But hell yeah for the heads—Trey synced right up with the band and merged the musical legacies of America's biggest jam bands. So big, not even the internet can stop the rest of us from listening.

Photo by Meggy Schaeffer--Bear's Stadium July 5th

Five Guidelines to Housing a Happy Wook

(Or how to advance the music festival community at home.)

My wook is a good wook. He may be a broke drifter hippie who smokes every other one of my cigarettes, but he rakes the yard. He sweeps. Drums and dances with the baby. Does all the dishes after breakfast, including the sinkful accumulated the day night before. Honestly, welcoming wooks as they pass through may be the counterculture's solution to housekeeping.

So long as we don't get overpowered and reduced to a mooch house.

My wook may be wearing a jacket he picked up off the street after a Biscuits show, but that doesn't mean I haven't offered him freshy clothes and a rainwater shower. He is comfortable with showering four days ago, and I accept this. Because of the  revolving wooks on my couch, I will share how to best care for your drifter hippie as he/she comes and goes.

MY WOOK YIMMY IN HIS SECONDARY NATURAL HABITAT, COUCH

1) PATINA IS IMPLIED.

Don't offer your wook a shower every day. Chances are, after a couch invitation, the wook will feel quite welcome to your available resources. Excessive offers toward grooming and hygiene will appear as if you have some highstrung neuroses. You may be spoken to and treated differently. Wooks go for months on the road with lakes as their cleansing solace. If your wook is like mine, he may offer to wash your car after your first offer for the shower. That doesn't mean he'll feel inclined to take another before the week ends.

2) A FED WOOK IS A HAPPY WOOK.

This could be a square meal or two a day. Many wooks find luxury in dumpster diving, and may be enthusiastic/creative about the contents of your cupboard.

3) BEER, CIGARETTES, UNO MAS, ETC.

"If you got 'em, smoke 'em," right? So long as there is beer, wine, cigarettes, pot, or a nitrous tank in the house, a wook probably won't feel inclined to leave until it's all gone. Your invitation extends to your chemicals. It often repeats itself in the form of, "You don't mind--" or "Is it cool if I grab another?" After all, who has fun hoarding?

Wooks can be the loosest, most outrageously hilarious company you could foster, and they often contribute however they can. I find the proactive and heartfelt contributions more sustenant than monetary offerings. Many wooks don't "work." But when they do in the ways that they do, they hustle their asses off.

4) GIVE YOUR WOOK DIRECTION.

While a wook is between shows or cities or whatever, he or she will best serve you and his or herself with clear direction. Otherwise, they may lose themselves in your books or tv for a delusional accumulation of hours. Simply sharing sentiments you'd like to accomplish that day, whether it be clearing out your garage or writing a folk opera, a wook is sure to jump in, get involved, and offer unique twists and tweaks. Drifters get around. The whole perspective is to see a lot of shit, and live fully to experience more. The rambling outside world can offer a lot to the domesticity of a sheltered one. Sometimes, we all need to pick up the dread-head flagging a sign to a couch. Sometimes we all need some shaking up.

5) TAKE CARE OF YOUR WOOK AND LET YOUR WOOK TAKE CARE OF YOU.

Yes invitation and connection is flowing and fruitful, but with all drifters, always watch your wallet. Of course there are wooks who will run into the street trying to sell your jewelry without a dream of keeping a dime, but blind trust often leads to loss and deception. Situations like a promise for two hundred dollars for those old Oxys you never took is never a safe idea. In most situations, do not lend out your car keys without sitting in the passenger seat. Wheels don't have to run away; they drive. Always keep the safety and interest of your family in mind when working with wooks. The only self you can truly know is your own.

Perhaps adopting traveling wooks is something your family is considering. Perhaps you are seeking traveling hippies and artists and don't know where to look. If you'd like a couch population narrower than couchsurfer can offer, there are countless forums and threads for different shows, tours, and festivals, and loving drifters. Or just hit up the nearest Shakedown and hold up a sign: "OPEN COUCH."

If you're open to it, bring the connection into your homelife. We are all here to learn from each other, to share our love and light so we can play with that in others. You may even grow a default wook as my family has, a constant companion leaving the question of when he will return, along with the exciting anticipation that he always will. Offering a sanctuary amidst a string of far-flung adventures is an invaluable commodity for new age festival hoppers. Contact me to put yourself on the map of my wooks today.

Rising Appalachia Bringin' the Heat this Spring

Rising Appalachia hits the road this spring, from the south to the west to the northeast and all over in between! After -22 temperatures and 60 mph winds this winter, I am stoked as a fiddle to catch the soul-spirit, razzity folk-hearted jam in Portland, Maine again. Sisters Lea and Chloe throw down and flow a lulling warmth in their music with a smooth kind of friction, like elegant but tribal, spiritual but dirty, vocals both haunting and enchanting, music both Southern but global, old world but new. It all grooves and grinds together in an entrancing melodic haze punctured by rolling rhythms, soul-dripping voices, and “LISTEN THE FUCK UP” lyrics.

Rays of Sandstone drummer Ben Rayborne introduced me to Rising Appalachia and Nahko Bear on Southeastern travels last winter, and I've been hooked since. My alienation to modern music dissolved; the music so spoke to what I was feeling in sound and intention, after YEARS of not hearing any new music that sparked me up. Truly I'm picky and have no patience for radio indie-pop or the soberest kid's Macbook dubstep. But I have seen both Rising Appalachia and Nahko Bear and Medicine for the People this past year, and totally have my show calendar marked to see both bands again.

Rambling bongos and bouncy banjos, the three friends I brought to the July 2014 show in Portland actually danced as hard as I did (which usually only occurs with a drug-induced endeavor.) But there were no drugs—can't even remember drinking, and we were skip-dip-hoppin' with the high swing-around energy of a hoedown, then wiggle-wham wormed into the deep, low bass notes that follow you creeping “Downtown” through a dark alley to swerve your limbs like snakes. These ladies and their high energy band raised my auric plane into a sunrise over the Blue Ridge parkway and sent it falling fast but featherly all at once. That alpine mountain soul-jam is gonna rage Wakarusa this year, hot damn. And it's a lot of things, but mostly magic when artists hook you somewhere no other music can take you. I'm sure as hell not gonna miss what's next. Check the dates and make sure y'all don't either!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOsEvYBLo7I&list=UURmxz4fw_LzwQF19LKXgRVg&index=1

"Fare Thee Well" Shows July 2015: Listen to the river sing sweet songs to rock your pockets

Some Phish vs Dead stuff is just true. Like with my ex-boyfriend. He could hear any Dead track and tell you what members were playing, what early to late decade, or even what year it was, and anecdotes about that tour. But get him on Phish tour 2011 right my ACL surgery, and I literally danced the fuck out of my wheelchair more than he did in his healthy two feet. He danced to one song. ONE SONG. Okay, I get that it doesn't exactly blither and flow so smooth-ecstatically through everyone as it does through me, but like, can't you open up a bit? Really, spanning 14 shows, six states, and the only song to stimulate you to shimmy and snake around is “It's Ice”?!

Bethel, NY 2011

I know what you're thinking. There's got to be something else going on there.

And yes, it's called “NOT BEING THERE FOR THE MUSIC.” This boyfriend made thousands of dollars off phans, and that was his sole reason for following a band he resented with a trunkful of crystals and wire-wraps. But it's not the Dead, right? So how could it ever be good enough? So goes the logic of the Dead elitist (at least this one), so set with the Dead on the top of the pyramid that nothing else could possibly reach those heavens and therefore really matter at all. And man, those elite show-goer heavens are higher than my high-interest student loans could dream of surmounting to. Like hundreds of thousands of dollars high. EVEN with a splash of Phish.

Because here we are, facing our last ensemble of the Grateful Dead this July, with three 50^th anniversary “Fare Thee Well” shows in Chicago, Trey billed as lead guitarist. Come on, hyping up the mail-in ticket-order tradition and giving heads three days to gather hundreds of dollars for the threat of the last-ever Dead shows is not all that bad. Because after selling out 210,000 mail-order tickets, the band's heavily rumored to be announcing more shows. Really, why have one last show when you can have lots of lasts shows?

Right, so Trey is playing with the remaining original members of the Grateful Dead. Those stuck in the Dead vs. Phish complex are forced to accept the culmination of energy. My best friend growing up/tour wingman says, “It's pretty much my wet dream,” despite the fact that she among millions of others did not get tickets after coloring an elaborately beautiful Steal Your Face envelope in a potentially expensive effort to see that wet dream fulfilled. Instead, the Bears season ticket-holders got precedence in their Chicago playground, but at least they've been willing to sell tickets back to heads and custies for 1000% mark-up value. 

Truly, the music of these bands are food for my soul, and every head I've ever met is going/trying to go to Chicago this summer. But $200 for parking is not my wet dream. It's exploitative. The more I hear about it, the more I cower in the "REALLY JAM GODS?!" corner. This is a horrific jam scene rape.

“Oh it's totally about the money. If it were about the heads, the community, they would have done it where people could camp!” laments Ophelia, the space-cat spinning a magic wand center-forward of every lawn. As a Libra who loves both bands, Ophelia is positive about the musical potential. “I think it will be interesting! I've never felt the Dead and Phish were at all the same, except for the fact that they both jam. Obviously Trey is not Jerry, but I don't expect him to be. It will be a totally new musical thing...Basically, I imagine it as Phish playing Dead covers. For both bands, the lead guitarist is the one with the inimitable sound.”

Live artist Kait Buckley, actually an electronica-hooked hooper who's grown up on the Dead, speaks to the inevitable Trey-zy nature of Anastasio, explaining, “I've seen [Trey] play with Furthur before and at first, he was a little all over the place 'cus he's used to his own thing, but he got in the groove as the set went on. I'm sure they will be practicing a lot together for those shows and he will have a lot to live up to, so I assume he is taking it seriously.” Stoner Bob Pirrone is optimistic, saying, “He basically took over the jam band scene after Jerry passed. It feels right to give him the honor to play some Jerry. I mean, he plays well with Phil and Friends.”

Pirrone has a point about the scene takeover. The jam-world lost Jerry as Phish's following swarmed and swelled to a cult level. Trey has been quoted as saying that he used to avoid listening to the Grateful Dead to prevent being overly influenced by Jerry while coming into his own sound. These days, he details to the Rolling Stone, “I've made a conscious effort to learn everything I could about Jerry's incredible style.” From tripping on acid at his first Grateful Dead show and being trance-formed by the music to learning it inside and out twenty years later, “Fare Thee Well” is sure to be a collectively epic-beyond-jamtabulous-fathomability phenomenon of the decade. If of course, you can afford it.

Jerry's daughter Trixie announced the 4^th of July shows online as a celebration of American culture and history (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR3LaG4vcBk). With Scorsese filming the shows in the city of the Dead's last concert with Jerry, the event seethes the high profile status that hotel hippies like my ex cream over, a circus for glampers. 

Sure at first, even I was set on heading to the lot and the slim chance of a miracle, but the fact that three day passes are going for over $100,000 on StubHub turns me off from the whole jam porn wet dream thing. Maybe Meg, it is too good to be true! Go follow Phish for a whole Tour for the same cost!

This was the basis of my ex taking me on Phish tour: money. After too many months on the road driven by the hustle, I refuse to go anywhere where the spirit of money is heavier than the music. Monetary flow is so much more tainted than the organic/gasmic potential of jam. You can always tell a custy fest from a grassroots one. I'd rather pay twenty bucks to a family farm who hired their friends to rage bluegrass in their cow-field all weekend. But of course, I say that as someone with 20 grand in student debt and no degree...Are you an affluent grower/capitalist stoner like my ex? Have a blast! Maybe you can tell me about it at 3DL! (Check it out)

Welcome to Jam Sauce

Jam Sauce is your ultimate tour guide for the ins and outs of festivals, shows, and other manifestations of the collective consciousness. Much of Jam Sauce will come from my experiences. I've done the lush tour life vending every show with Orbitz discounting pet friendly hotels all across the country, and I've followed Phish seven months pregnant selling organic iced coffee out of a cooler on wheels, renegade camping in fields and up mountains (so long as you get there before sunset, depending on the mountain.) But, my expertise are limited to my own experiences, and this project is largely about the collective momentum that generates the jam love flow. For example, I have not toured in a camper yet, but perhaps you have; maybe you're the four season glamping guru who has all the rooftop gardening wisdom and bathroom systems down, and you want to write about your invaluably unique experiences. Email me at wordsthatwander@live.com and help stir the sauce. 

Any given jam is a melting pot of everything within its vortex vicinity--sights, smells, thought, desire, action, intentions and outcomes, energy and vibes, colors and filters--so what has your vortex encompassed? For lively glimpses into each other's vortexes, tune into Jam Sauce for lot life, live art, miracle tickets, hustlin', swingin', and the warbling gaps in between.

Bear Creek, FL

The Festy Forensic: How to Spot Fake Tickets, Bum Drugs, and Cops Disguised as Hippies

We'd all like to think of music festivals as free-loving escapes from the mainstream world where we can let our whole freak fly without inhibition or looking over our shoulder. But, flouncing around like there are only daisies and no aphids will catch us in compromising positions. Like when Meggy spent two hundred bucks outside MSG for a New Years Eve Phish ticket.

1. Does the scalper look like a head? Hemp, crystals, smiles, dreadlocks, moccasins, festy bracelets?
2. Look at the ticket. No, really. Is it a printed out Ticketmaster ticket? An old roommate of mine saved our friend fifty bucks at the Charleston with the simple observation that the page said VOID behind the event information.
3. Is the scalper going to the show as well? If not, did his/her girl/boyfriend get stranded hitchhiking or what? In Meggy's case, why is he or she not going to the sold-out, most coveted show of the year and instead, selling a ticket for five hundred less than they are selling for on Stubhub? And is this person alone, or surrounded by flowery, trustworthy hippies around to reassure good intentions and vibes in general?
4. Why is this person selling a ticket? Did a friend bail? Did he have extras and all his friends were already going? Or did she decide to go to the Biscuits show across the city instead? And most importantly concerning all of these points: do you believe this person?

Generally, your vibe-o-meter should be able to tell whether someone genuinely has an extra to sell or is trying to take advantage of go-lucky jammers. Unfortunately in Meggy's obsessive desperation to get into the New Year's Eve show, she overlooked her scalper's telltale sketchiness. Yes the majority of Phish-heads are white college kids (or graduates/drop-outs), but if the scalper is not and he's a middle-aged bald-head trying to sell you a ticket in Manhattan, he should be gregariously jolly and explain how he's come to sell such a cheap ticket for such a high profile show over a joint or coat-sleeve beer. The scalper should definitely not take your money and leave the scene without joyous tidings for a helluva show.

Blackwater Festival, FL

And ah, the drugs. The bum-drugs are trickier to identify because 1.) they are more common, and 2.) because what hippie doesn't look like a head shuffling through the campsites and dance-crowds, sputtering, “Moon rocks, mushies, oil, dabs...” And really, there's only one direct way to know if a chemical is what is said to be—try it! But indirectly, the best way to make sure your “mescaline” isn't 2CE or that your molly isn't meth is to only buy what trusted friends and heads have tried and recommend. There are (or always should be) those heads you trust through and through, to the point of saying, “If she did it, I'll do it.” The more acclimated you are to the scene, the less likely you are to be sold Shitake mushrooms on Shakedown Street. No, but really. It sounds preposterous, but there are real-life gutter-skunks who actually try to get away with overcharging 14 year-old rave bunnies household herbs and bicarbonate soda. My ex Mikey would always close his eyes and go on “antenna mode,” where he could read energy in rainbows and even dance without knocking into anyone this way. Sure he went schizophrenic, but he was an excellent judge of character. You don't need a spirit-antenna, but always be aware of your vibe-o-meter.

Plus the cops. There are the venues like Suwanee in Live Oak, FL where cops are allowed to assume duty so long as they buy tickets along with everyone else. So if you are you are tucked into a tick nest in the very back of the 300+ acre music park in Florida and a cheerful dude with a shaved head and crisp new tie-dye stumbles in looking for his cell phone, you can rest assured he is not there by accident. His shoes should also be a dead giveaway. Wooks don't wear stiff, brand new Nikes.

If you are on the lookout for under-covers, it should be fairly easy to pick up on scripted dialogue. “Cold night. Rad show!/Do you go to festivals often?/Do you have anything to smoke?”) These guys are like Porky Pigs in a field full of Roadrunners, but there are, however, the very schooled “dready feddies.” In 2011, I watched one standing in a line of busted wooks with his hands behind his back like the others. When the others were taken away however, he dropped his hands unbound and walked away, this dirty blond six foot something dready guy in Charlotte. An older, raspy guy with blue eyes and shaggy hair under a mad-hatter of a chapeau had come to my vending table on Shakedown and narrated this whole literal shakedown scene to me. When he called that the alleged dready feddie would walk away untouched, I was amazed, though not surprised when that exact action transpired. Unkempt teeth and parking lot hygiene should never be a ground for who to trust on tour—the older, crustier spunions have made it this far along for reasons.

Also, be it known that there is no magic “If I ask if you're a cop, you have to tell me” rule. Take it from undercover turned activist and legal consultant Barry Cooper, who explains, “I'm not sure how this rumor started but it is not true and actually helps law enforcement. Many times as an undercover, suspects would ask if I were. I would respond, 'No. I'm not a cop and you are correct. I would have to tell you if I were.'” To really tell if someone is a cop, Cooper suggests offering him or her a bong rip, as cops can be trained to fake a joint rip through their noses, and undercovers are often drug-tested following a bust.

Also, listen for the Rainbow children and other helping friends on scene. If you hear funny numbers and encoded words being thrown around, be on your guard. But in general, although it's super omni-chingadaza-blisstastico to lose yourself in every moment and be fully immersed in the groove-adelic magic of jam, always holding onto at least a kite-string of a clue is paramount. When any spunshine sprites of the festival-love-flow get taken away or even advantage of, the whole festival gets tainted; it's the manipulation of purity. Taking personal responsibility with even a toe-hold in reality can keep us out of jails, hospitals, even rude awakenings in the wrong states. (Been there...and other places too.) Because even though the smooth roll of ecstatic dance-shine moments can feel perfect and infinite, we have to wake up somewhere, and we can totally prevent unnecessary loss of money, rights, and control. Just remember your bag, your phone, your stash, and your Shakedown Street smarts.

For more on Barry Cooper, check out www.nevergetbusted.com for an inside look on preventing nonviolent drug crimes.