four twenty

i was never a huge pot smoker, or a huge grateful dead fan. although i checked out a fair number of shows, and smoked at most all of them. (amongst other things. shit, i lived in berkeley in the late eighties, when the dead were all resurgent). the internet archive has a fairly large catalog of shows. to get into the spirit of the intra- and extragalactic weed smokers harmonic convergence, 4:20 on 4/20, (without busting any of my bongs out of storage), i am listening to one of my favorite burner songs of all time,
fire on the mountain. from the henry j. kaiser auditorium 1985, jerry garcia’s favorite sounding venue acoustically. it takes jerry about three hours to warm into the song, but once he does it shows his guitar in all its textural glory. this song is the reason i bought an envelope pedal.
i’m enjoying a sweet mellow contact buzz from this tune. ahhhh, and no b.o. from all the hell’s angels and whirling dervishes cross-pollinated with patchoulli. no cal sorority chicks with spray bottles filled with pharmacologically suspect liquids “cooling off” my eyeballs….this song also inexplicably reminds me of playing dungeons and dragons with lane and dave weiner and bret in tarzana, complete with pewter figurines…wait dudes, the walls just started breathing…..but seriously, the clouds drifting by are starting to pulse a little….mmmm toadstools in tilden…..the whale at lawrence hall of science at 2 a.m. with a head full of….well, if you’ve been there you know what i mean.
who can forget scarlet begonias? tasty soundboards, bro. “the sky was yellow and the sun was blue”. check this photo from last summer while you rock out. stony.
[disclaimer for the kids: ahhh the rock and roll lifestyle…while i have smoked, swallowed, or shot nearly every substance known to mankind, for the most part enjoyed it, and lived to tell about it, i got sober in the very same facility that the guitarist you are listening to died in. in other words — your mileage may vary].