Last Tour Ever To Follow Up With Another "And Company": "Not that bad"

To be fair, I am totally one of those haters who can't get over "Your Body is a Wonderland" to view John Mayer as a serious guitarist, but admit Furthur tour got very repetitive. Heard mostly nothing but positive feedback about the Last Ever Dead tour, now spanked with a pop guitarist and billed as "And Company." 

Okay, okay, okay, I've never given his version of the blues a chance, and some muscians I respect defend it. And I did even groove to him doing a song with Buddy Guy on some jam montage movie thing once. I believe though, that working in a health food store that played that corny whispery Wonderland song multiple times a day on the satellite radio, that I am tainted forever. Much like all the country pop songs of summers 2009-10 when I worked for a tobacco farm heiress. I regress. I resent that I know all the lyrics to songs that now make me cringe. I've had to mentally strive to get the redundant looping out of my head. So thank the real Dead for jam.

None of my friends in Maine who intended to see the latest Dead congregations actually made it to Worchester, as ticket prices lept to 5"" bucks. My dearest Venutian sister from the south shore went, and chiller than the crispest cucumber ever--when I asked her how the show was--her eyes lit right up, she pursed her lips and nodded, like her pupils were expanding again. Still nodding, she said, "Not that bad."

Of course Show Magic Meggy on the Jersey shore flounced her way into the city, happened upon a miracle ticket into MSG, and had the band's setlist snuck to her from a security guard. But those stupendously how-great connections were the biggest aspects of the show she expounded upon, and when I asked about the music, it was an echo of her whole gooeyly stoked vibe: "IT WAS SO GREAT!"

Granted, not every jammer is gonna say, "The style was this!" or "the danceabilify was that!" And to be fair, my amazing coparent companion who's been touring since the '80s can hardly ever tell you what anyone plays, 'cus if it's the Phish or a Dead spinoff, he'll always gleam, "This is my Favorite Song!" and skip away like a dancing Pan in the forest having his heart fluted to, and if you ask him what they played afterwards, all he can ever say is, "ALL MY FAVORITES!"

He didn't make the pre-$500 Worchester tickets, but he saw David Grisman last night in Portland, and Dark Star Orchestra the night before. Of course when I asked him what DSO played, he started giggling and shimmying, through laughter at my irritation, he got it together enough to explain--at first the whole set sounded really familiar, then he realized he was AT that show they were covering, perhaps September 24th though wait a minute he forgot the year - and all of the songs.

"Ya know, I was IN it," he said, shrugging and sinking into another knee-bending spoodle of laughter, show vibes tickling his aura, which tickled me in return. Even though I can't phathom simply "forgetting" songs, and can probably name at least one or two songs from the +/-30 Phish shows I've seen, i mean at least the openers and encores and THEY PLAYED WHAAAAT moments. But he really vibes the show, Til the next day. So that's a damn good show. And I am epically curious with wonder whether he would have been so enthusiastic about John Mayer, who he knows nothing about.

But I do know we raged the electric jammin funk out of Joe Russo's Almost Dead. Are you serious? Their show at Great North this September was THEE hardest I've danced at any love Dead anything. And really, who wouldn't take that amped up, charismatic raging of the whole freerange Dead spirit over that (sorry) throaty floaty song Furthur wrote about the Rain? I mean, that dimly sparked subtle swaying at best.

The potential with every new Dead arrangement is where that culminating energy is tapped into within the show as a whole. The vibration of the band with their current city, the energy of the crowd receiving the sacred musical communion. I love the Dead. And glad that I've only heard of good experiences, I am grateful for Joe Russo as my winter prelude Dead experience, vs Mr. Mayer taking Trey's place. Trey totally channeled Jerry but maintained his own guitar "voice," like if you closed your eyes, you'd know it was Trey. Ahhhh.....yeah. Let Trey Sing.

Thank The Past We Liked Good Music That's Still Good Right Now

Who can resist the rabid punky edge of Interpol?! I couldn't ten years ago as a high school freshman, and seeing them again in Portland the other day, I raged my whole body to the music still. The lights followed the cutting riffs as the smooth bass rippled beneath; the jumping and headbanging was hardly enough outlet for the energetic excitement. Killer show.

My first Interpol show, I was 15 in 2005; they played in between Tegan & Sarah and The New York Dolls at Yankee Stadium in Staten Island (minor league). The balladic Canadian sisters were cute, and my little girlfriends and I got their signatures on our tickets, with crappy flip-phone pictures. Interpol was incredible; playing all the favorites and never toning it down. Banks had a cigarette hanging from his mouth for half the day-lit show, sitting on a stool and not looking at anyone, like he was playing on his back porch. It was so enamoring we left two songs into The NY Dolls, mutually agreeing going back to Jersey to toke up would be a more fitting close to the music high day than staying for the headlining band The Killers.

I loathed Mr. Brightside.

I must say, in ten years Banks does not look or sound like he's aged five minutes. This show at portland's State Theater was a powerful performance for alll the band members, who each surged that gust of "AH!!!" into the constant climaxes of the music.

Admittedly I've barely heard their latest album, but from what I have randomly on Pandora. "It still sounds like Interpol," was the best I could surmise before the show. 

"That's...GOOD!" my girl said, and i outwardly agreed, and my impression held true. Every song carried as much energy and raw edginess as the last. "Slow Hands" jammed as hard as where that song has always taken me and higher. The builds ups and bridges had everyone in the pit dancing their asses off. The new songs fit well within the classics. And like my girl said, "There wasn't a song I didn't dance my fuckin' ass off to."

And yes, they played "Evil."

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

Blood Sugar Weed Baby

Coffee and bananas all day and beer and cigarettes all night may seem like the ideal diet to prep your body for life in the Amazon. But if you're not there yet, you could probably really fuck up your blood sugar.

So hypoglycemia/adrenal fatigue happened like this. My daughter and I took a bus then train to my parents, and after about eight hours of traveling, are fed very well with salmon, salad, and a sweet potato.

Then came the morning. Typically I get my caffeine fix from the organic coffee bar that employs me, and I drink it like water through the day. But not at my parent's house. There, we have the dreaded..Keurig..thing. And I remember last time, every cup giving me a headache.

I go for the Hazelnut and dip a dark chocolate almond biscotti and mmm...SO good. I drink the rest of the coffee and oo, don't stop at the headache, but a full-fledged migraine. This persists all week. On the trek home, I go for an iced Dunkin Donuts and nope, still get an earsplitting headache which I can barely think through, every sip is torture. And yet, waking up at 6 AM every morning with an almost 2-year old is so draining after her babble-kick-flailing fights before sleep, that I. Need. Caffeine.

 Or energy somehow.

And it was there in the car with my stepmom halfway through the car ride back north that I realize, I've had a crashing point every day, napping nearly every day with my daughter during our trip. And when I didn't, I fell asleep with her. I was wiped. Fatigued. Drained and...incaffeinatable?

But dear daughter only got a half an hour of sleep on that lovely ride. So I did something I hadn't done in years. I drank a Pepsi. As something I never do, I felt great. Awake. Sparkles! But an hour later, I crashed. I could barely keep my sinking-on eyes open during the baby screams that stopped reading/singing/tickling my restless car-ridden baby. I had to take a rejuvenation period of head-against-window, shutting out all the outside noise. It was as if I had reverted to a child, helpless to my body, brain, and discomfort, and had to go inside. And whew do I hope my incredibly intelligent and astutely alert child can learn this one day.

The days settling back into home only get worse. One of my favorite meals of bananas, nuts, blueberries, and maple syrup gives me the same splitting headache. And it doesn't go away anymore. It pierces my brain until I fall asleep. When I return to the cafe, I don't get coffee, but figure a soy chai will offer protein and a tea high rather than a coffee one. Wrong. Horrible, deafening, dizzying headache. Holding my head up becomes a challenge.

What was different? Why all of a sudden, was I intolerant to sugar and caffeine? I avoid it and even do completely uncharacteristic things like eat meat to try and balance my blood sugar. I do great and even though feel weak, drink two 9.8% Founders beers before a Wailers concert and try to reawaken my lively self.

Oh god. What a mistake. In my weakened state and a few normally alcohol-levelled beers after the show, I completely black out. I drank wine basically every night over the winter without reaching that level. My body and mind were completely out of control of each other. That was Friday. Today is Sunday.

Yesterday was Saturday. I actually woke up without a hangover, and generally happy about the good experience of the show (as I did not black out until after, and chain-smoked almost a whole pack of cigarettes with my equally-as-giddy coparent). So la la la, we recover the last of the cash from the show, peeking in the diaper bag, digging for my wallet, finding some beneath the driver's seat, and other dollars in his wallet. Eventually, we have enough for breakfast and stroll off into town. I get this big, beautiful sandwich at the Country Store called the Jake's Garden, and it is an art piece. Jam-packed with veggies, sprouts, and avocados, I was in breakfast heaven.

Was.

Until the last bite. Holy shit. The headache split my head like my skull was pinching my brain, and would not stop until hours and hours later that evening. The good news is, I quit smoking that day yesterday (this time, I really have to stay quitting to keep my brain operating at a near-decent, socially acceptable level.) I took a nap and woke up at 3:30 with my hands and feet tingling. Oh shit. I call my stepmom who has seen my symptoms and agree I should get my vitals checked at the hospital.

Here's one thing that probably would have saved me the trip. After a head-wrenching hour of failing to put dear daughter down for a nap, her dad comes back from a grass run to take her for a ride in the car. And to allow me to rest as well. He finally got some green that was not the scuzzy trim that burnt my throat. And in too much pain to even lift my head to smoke it, and did not want to further inhibit oxygen flow to my brain.

Well the next day after working from 8-430 with no caffeine, no sugar, no bread, and small squirrelly meals every two hours, I had no headache. And I finally, for the first time since the trip to my parents, toked up. HALLELUJAH. I felt more connected and clear-headed since I could remember. The blood in my brain wasn't burning, but flowing. I do a little research. Ah ha. So marijuana is rising as "The Diabetic Drug." It regulates blood sugar, of which mine was continuously getting too low.

So PLEASE friends. Do not take a week off. It could be the worst detriment to your head you've ever known. But I am almost grateful. If I hadn't taken a break, I wouldn't have been able to identify the food triggers that are hindering my body. So I have to revamp my diet and lifestyle completely. But I know one thing that will not stay very far. Yesterday, I literally felt like an infant unable to move or take care of myself. Today, I almost felt coherent enough to read a book. And at the least, felt inspired enough to think about writing one.

(YES! I AM THINKING AGAIN!)

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.

Six Hippie Parallels: Pizza and Sex

How is pizza as tantalizing and habit-forming as sex? Just ask a hippie. These six insights come from the wook on my couch, Yimmy III.

1) Even when it's bad, it's still pretty good. 

2) You can't really truly get enough. 

3) Even when you think you have had enough, you're always down for a little more in 10-15 minutes.

4) You can always find a new style if you know how to look.

5) It's good anytime, anywhere. Breakfast, lunch and dinner.

6) Sometimes the sloppy kind is the best kind.

The sexy pizza chronicles ☺

Wobble Culture: The Rise and Plausible Takeover of the Bass Heads

The wobble is sweeping the nation. Still. Sure techno and electronica have amassed clusters of rave culture throughout the decades, but much of the dubstep is something totally else, a blurby womp attack on the brain cells. And I hear these computer mastication beeps and beats in cafes and gas stations now. They even ripple through the car radio in wah-wah-wobble waves, contorting a rap or pop song with robot genocide glitches and dubby speaker splurbs. Like, is that someone bumping Macbook beats in the car next door at a show? ...Justin Bieber? Dubstep has wobbled its way into the mainstream?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DSx8_ucSK9A

I've been resisting the EOTO and Skrillex rave fests for years now, and cringed with a groan when my little brother asked if I listened to dubstep in 2009. And six years later, people still constantly ask, trying to determine: are you a jam hippie or a wobbly wook? So all right, last week I did it, I went to an art opening in Portland, ME that was heavily dub-rave-centric, featuring local djs and button-pushers with color blaring strobe lights. I'd rather swing sweaty hippies around on a mountain to some bumpin' bluegrass, but I was out for a rare time in busy motherhood and super set on having fun.

I totally found tripped-out solace in the narrow gallery hall with big open, windows and bright starving-eyed geometric art, but, determined not to be a bitch in the mud, I let go of stubborn opinions and into the dance high of the crowd. So I got out there, I danced, I jumped, laughed, skipped, spinned, laughed more, spilled beer, made friends, laughed and laughed and laughed my head off. I admit it—I wobbled, and I had fun.

Still, immersion in that glitchy gravelly womp totally spins my head like a film stuck skipping the same bleep of a scene over and over and over. My chakras fizzle into television vortexes staticky on snow. I calculate that the half drooling, half dancing crowd has got to be smacked on ketamine to have such an entranced at-homeness in their glazey-bright eyes. Music is my home when it lights me up and charms my chi into an ecstatic dance, but dubstep distorts and blitches it, so I tried not to listen too intently at the show.

I suppose in the digi-world where getting off is only a click or sext away, the soundtrack of laptops short-circuiting totally fits the disconnected libido of young adults. Watching everyone grind and gear their bodies into the hyperspeed beeps and blooping bass whirls, I could not avoid the perception that everyone was playing out sexual frustrations to the ritualistic spooking and splitching of the speakers. We aren't tribal anymore. Flashing lights, glazed eyes, bumping bodies mechanical as pistons, we are technologick.

My first Bassnectar show was neon hell. It was All Good 2010 when the festival was still in West Virginia, and Bassnectar was scheduled right after Furthur, on the stages immediately next to each other. Everyone was there that weekend for either Bassnectar or Furthur. The musicians with the biggest followings crowded twenty thousand hippies and wooks on the mountain of an oversold, sold out festival—and the crowds clashed like day and night, like Jerry and Schpongle, whiskey and water, coke and dope. Bassnectar started setting up as Furthur's encoring with “Ripple,” pushing glo-stick fanged rave fairies and freak-shows sweaty and marble-eyed into the softly swaying Dead-heads. Of course, half my friends wanted to stay for the last ten minutes of “Ripple” and the others were ready to weave to the front of the Bassnectar stage. The half-naked bass heads started spattering all over the flowy family Dead-head crowd like glow-sticks on the trampled earth.

Yes I love the Dead and loathe the womp, but I was also 20 with raging hormones and high hopes of finding the Phish-head I was infatuated with in the crowd, so I followed my younger friends up to the very very front. Furthur literally played “Ripple” for what felt like a sweaty, shoulder-to-shoulder, belly-to-butt-to-belly eternity. Someone actually shouted, “SHUT UP OLD HIPPIES” before Bassnectar dropped that glurgy, lasery bass that blew our skin back and made Dave's pupils swallow his entire eyes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qsb1Xt9B3HM

Wedged into the jigsawing-hip proximity of thousands of people, we recycled each other's breath rapidly in a sea of revved-up, tongue-rolling, screaming, yelling, and insatiable LED toy spinning and swirling festykins. As soon as the music began skweeching, the somewhat anime galactic gangster rave-bots collectively hooked onto the same waist-up scissory dance groove that spiked the energy and glow-stick war beyond anything my journey-jam-dancing-on-the-moutain-for-ten-hours self could handle. I didn't see that lusted-after Phish-head before the digital chainsaw strobe show started, and no one was moving anywhere for a while. It was not my flow.

When I asked Dave if he wanted to find the others and he nodded fast and nervous like a deer, I knew he was human too. We wiggled and wove back into the shuffling trickle of bearded men lugging sleeping children in red wagons alongside long-skirted henna goddesses.Coming out of the day-glo painted, half-naked, wompily humping crowd, it was literally like humans and humanoids. I left feeling antennae on the beeboppler heads from their spines transmitting dubstep signals, that the heads of the Furthur crowd were light-bulb brains, though some were brighter than others. I felt like a light-bulb.

Many heads were flickering and sputtering in the wake the wobble fest takeover, but Furthur did play “Estimated Prophet” AND “Roses” AND “Terrapin” into “Scarlet” into “Fire” AND an encore of “Cumberland Blues” AND the never-ending “Ripple.” While the 30 year-olds grumbled and sighed about what the festival scene had become, patchwork pitbull mama Janelle said, “Doesn't matter. They played the hippie anthem.” The never-ending “Ripple.” Everyone rejoiced. Thankfully, no one mentioned the “SHUT UP OLD HIPPIES” interruption. At least in that moment.

Obviously, this is not a black and white divide in people, though the shows are in vibes. Plenty of bass heads play the Dead and go to shows where the performing acts feature instruments, not computers. In 2012, Phish headlined Bonnaroo with Skrillex, though they played completely different time slots and days. But with the last of the Dead members playing their last show this summer, what will become of the festival scene? 

Said wobble-fest takeover at All Good happened five years ago. If Bobby and Phil don't step on a stage together again after this summer, what will a music festival be five years from now? People are already bringing less guitars and drums in favor of music and mixing apps on smartphones and bluetooth speakers. Weeblin' with the wobblers yes can be fun, but how is anyone supposed to flow music without instruments truly? Where is the synergy? The human connection from soul through art, through an instrument, through music? Let's try to preserve the fuck out of that please. I push enough buttons a day to watch someone else on a computer blaring a light show be the outlet for my sacral chakra. Fun is fun. Music is sacred.