but Mexico has essentially decriminalized the possession of small quantities of drugs.

Marijuana, cocaine, LSD, and heroin will be tolerated for personal and limited use. That means possession of up to four joints, a half a gram of cocaine, or 50 milligrams of heroin will no longer be a criminal offense.

Possession of weight, sales, and public consumption are still strictly forbidden.

The force behind the new laws mark an attempt by Mexican officials to free up resources and jail space in attempt to “go after bigger criminals.”

The new laws will obviously fuel legalization efforts north of the Mexican border, as Mexico joins only Portugal in its wide and liberal decriminalization policy.

Check out the full article on the Christian Science Monitor’s blog.

The set-list was a great mix of old and new, and I really enjoyed it. I guess working on the greatest hits Monuments and Melodies had the guys thinking about the good old days, because it seemed like they played one Morning View or Make Yourself song after another. The crowd was great, and it was an overall amazing time.

My favorites were the acoustic mini-set in the middle with Drive, Make Yourself and Dig. I also really enjoyed Oil and Water… They had these really great yellowish-orange lights that played off the smoke in the crowd really well. It seemed to match the feeling of the song especially well. Other favorites were Wish You Were Here, Megalomaniac, Stellar and Are You In.

Check out these vids I found on youtube. Good job christy71283!

Or this great vid of Circles from the pit.

And my favorite Drive. The crowd was cheering so loud Brandon had to step back and take it all in!

Setlist: (according to setlist.fm)

1. Pardon Me

2. Nice To Know You

3. Anna Molly

4. Stellar

5. Megalomaniac

6. Circles

7. Love Hurts

8. Just a Phase

9. Drive (acoustic)

10. Make Yourself (acoustic)

11. Dig (Lounge Version)

12. Under My Umbrella

13. Are You In?

14. Oil And Water

15. Quicksand

16. A Kiss to Send Us Off

17. Wish You Were Here

18. Aqueous Transmission

Encore:

19. Punch Drunk

20. Light Grenades

21. Let’s Go Crazy (Prince cover)

Great show guys! Still feeling the great vibes.

The magazine has been blowing up since this —

I have an article in it about my infatuation with funk music, and my new funk favorite Orgone. Give them a listen. I interviewed guitarist Sergio Rios, and he was a real cool guy. Hopefully I’ll get around to posting the interview up here eventually.

Check it out if you live in the L.A. area. The Kush Web site dailybuds.com is currently down.. but is supposed to launch on the 1st with a completely new site.  I’ll post a link when it happens.

I have a column/review of several summer albums on page 68, and there’s a lot of great content in the rest of the magazine as well.

Click the pic to check it out.

Also, Kush is looking for artists to design next month’s bud of the month centerfold!

Save the Date!

Eminem – in his first full-scale concert performance in four years — Kiss, Jane’s Addiction, Widespread Panic and the Flaming Lips will be the headliners at the 11th annual Voodoo Experience music festival, taking place Halloween weekend in New Orleans.

Organizers announced more than 150 acts who will play on the  eight stages at this year’s festival.

Other major acts on the Voodoo Experience bill include D12, Justice, Gogol Bordello, Wolfmother, Eagles of Death Metal, the Black Keys, the Pogues, Ween, Silversun Pickups, Ledisi, Janelle Monae, the Cool Kids, Meat Puppets, Mutemath, Q-Tip, Fischerspooner, Brand New, Squirrel Nut Zippers, Black Lips, Mates of State, All Time Low, Robert Randolph & the Family Band, the Knux, George Clinton & Parliament-Funkadelic, JJ Grey & Mofro, Alejandro Escovedo, Shooter Jennings, Down, Drive-By Truckers, Eric Church, Earl Greyhound and American Bang.

Weekend tickets are available for $169.

For more info. check out thevoodooexperience.com.

Dela, C-Money and RyMo talk tour, Snoop Dogg and of course Kush.

Click here to read the article on DailyBuds

Click here to read the June issue of Kush LA.

But VooDoo saved removed itself from my shitlist today by announcing everyone’s favorite jam band from Athens as the headliner for the off-night… Friday the 3oth I guess?

Voodoo Fest takes place Oct. 30-Nov. 1 this year in City Park.

The choice of Widespread Panic wasn’t random, but rather evolved from the two traditions of VooDoo Fest and a series of special Halloween concerts played by the band in the city from 1997-2002 and again in 2008.

“We have discussed the idea of bringing these two…traditions together for years,” Stephen Rehage, Voodoo Experience’s founder and producer, said in a statement. “It only took us 11 years to get it done…It’s special for us to be working with them.”

This year’s Voodoo Experience will feature more than 160 acts playing on eight stages in three performance areas. The full line-up is expected to be announced in the coming weeks.

The 2008 edition of the festival included performances by R.E.M. Nine Inch Nails, Panic at the Disco, Lil Wayne, Stone Temple Pilots, TV on the Radio and many more.

Photo by Jeff Farsai

This year’s hottest summer ticket is the Blazed and Confused Tour, featuring an all-star line-up of heavyweight tokers from a variety of genres: Slightly Stoopid, Snoop Dogg, Stephen Marley and Mickey Avalon.

The tour spans 20 cities in less than a month, a true summer road trip for the performers and a real treat for fans across the country.

I caught up with three of the members of San Diego based reggae-rockers Slightly Stoopid to talk music, life on the road, and of course the ganja. Drummer Ryan “RyMo” Moran, saxophonist DeLa and trumpeter and keyboardist C-Money may be Slightly Stoopid, but they still have plenty of words of wisdom.

Here’s what they had to say:

*Be  sure to check out my article about S.S. in the June issue of Kush LA, dropping tomorrow at 7-11 stores throughout the Los Angeles area.

Me: I have a lot of respect for bands that put on intense shows, and have dedicated fans. The Stoopidheads definitely are crazy, and you guys have made a name for yourself through touring. For anyone who has listened to your albums but hasn’t seen you live, what are they missing out on?

C-Money:  A lot. The live shows are the essence of what we do. It’s also vice versa because magical things can happen in the studio that can’t happen live. It’s a two way street, so if you haven’t heard the band live, you need to come to a show. If you haven’t heard an album, check a record. It’s a good way of seeing all sides of any bands.

DeLa: Relentless touring is what this band is all about. That’s what we do.

RyMo: We pride ourselves on our shows. We’ve always been a touring band. We want anyone who hasn’t seen us to come out and experience what the energy is like. A live show is meant to be a little different. We aren’t trying to play the CD. There’s more energy. When you do it live, you only have that one chance. You get that vibe where the band is taking chances and the crowd reflects on that. We reflect what the crowd gives to us and give it back. The energy transfer is really where it’s at.

Me: For every stoner, Snoop Dogg and the Marleys are legends. You guys are touring with Snoop and Stephen Marley, what do you think about that?

RyMo:  We toured with Stephen, Damien, Julian and Ky-Mani Marley about five years ago, so we’re looking forward to reconnecting with those guys. I just like being in a different place every day, so I’m really looking forward to the whole tour. We’re going to be covering some serious ground in a short amount of time.

C-Money:  For me, Snoop is a hero and one of the reasons why I play music. I used to get sent home from school for wearing Snoop Dogg T-shirts. My dad threw my Snoop Dogg tape out the window because he put it in the car stereo when the whole family was sitting there. It was like ‘bitches ain’t shit but hoes…” and he just rolled down the window and threw out.

RyMo: Snoop is just like you’d imagine. What you see on TV is an accurate representation of what he is. He is real in his music and on TV. He’s lived a gangsta lifestyle and he can sing about it. For us, we live that smoke, surf, skate, beach lifestyle everyday. So when we sing about it, it seems like it holds more weight.

DeLa: Snoop is an icon in hip hop music. I’m really looking forward to collaborating with him on a musical level, especially to see how he sounds with our band. He’s all about collaborations and the live show.

C-Money: I’m so excited or maybe even nervous. It’s weird. I’m about to work with one of my idols. Snoop has done it all, there and back and there and back again. Through his commercial success he’s always kept it very real. Now he’s just trying to be like a godfather and pass the knowledge down to the young people. It’s an honor, straight up.

Me: Which shows are you looking forward to the most?

C-Money: All of them. Being at home and on the road are both awesome in different ways. I just want to keep my eyes and ears open and learn as much as I can.

DeLa: I’ve never played at the Gorge in Washington State. It’s one of the most beautiful places in the country, never mind to play music at, so I’m really looking forward to that. I’m also looking forward to finishing up in the Northeast in Mansfield, Mass. I used to go there a lot to see shows, so finishing there is exciting.

Me: Slightly Stoopid incorporates so many different styles of music from across the world into its music, but it still sounds unique to Southern Cali. How does that happen?

RyMo:  The music definitely reflects who we are. We all live close to the beach. We’re just kids who grew up surfing and skating and smoking. It’s just kind of our way. We enjoy going to work. Playing shows is not like a job, it’s fun. We try our best to keep it light.

C-Money:  When I moved out here, I realized there is way less of that “cliquiness” that I know from the east coast. In the skateboard/surfing culture out here, there is a blurry line between a kid who looks like a rapper and kid who can ollie on a skateboard. Those two styles are really combing and becoming one. West Coast rappers roll around on skateboards. Back on the east coast, everyone had their own little role. Now take that into music. We are really close to Tijuana, so we have all of this Spanish/Mexican culture that incorporates all this brass. We just blend so many styles, so there’s something there for everyone.

DeLa: We all live in the neighborhood where Miles and Kyle are from and where all this music originated. We play music together all the time, surf, chill. It’s a family vibe and we’re all very much involved in each others lives. I’m still East Coast, but I feel like the California sun has blessed me with some great opportunities to share music with some great people. A huge piece of my heart lives here.

Me: How do you guys fit into the history of this Rasta, feel-good, Reggae tradition?

RyMo: It’s spiritual music. Rastafarianism is the beginning and it has been twisted every which way since then. We all grew up listening to all different styles of reggae and now we put our own twist on it adding our other ska and punk influences.

C-Money: What we know of about this Caribbean music made its way to Brooklyn through DJ Kool Herc, and then got transferred into what hip hop is, and what we know, and that bounced back through Brad Knowells and the LBC. They regurgitated this Rasta reggae back out, and it was then sucked up by these white dreadlock kids who eat natural foods. It’s almost like now the modern hippie is more like the modern Rasta. It’s about the interweaving of all that.

Me: The song that’s given you guys the most notoriety as of late is  “2am,” which tells the story of a dreaded late night knock at the door by the cops sniffing for weed. Is it based on a true story? Have you guys every gotten busted?

DeLa: It is inevitable that the law comes down on all of us at some time or the other. For the most part, we’ve been pretty fortunate.

RyMo: We got raided a couple of years ago in Florida. There was a car wreck outside our bus, and we were blazing in there just chilling. The next thing you know, the cops came knocking on our door and stormed right on the bus. Things got pretty weird. They broke our piece, confiscated the herb. No one went to jail or anything though.

C- Money:  My dad was arrested just like that back in Florida. The cops pulled up for a noise violation. They smelled it. Probable cause gave those policemen the right to go in our backyard, walk into our porch, and arrest my dad for having an ounce of weed and rolling some joints of some shitty Florida weed that wasn’t worth going to jail for in the first place.

DeLa: We’re not hurting anybody. Not only are we getting eerie, we’re bring that eerie vibe to everyone. How can you deny that? When hear that music and light that bowl, it just brings you up. Especially in these bad economic times, with the wars, and all the bullshit going on, it’s that one little moment of happiness.

Me: So, in a few sentences, what do you guys think about herb, legalization, and medical marijuana?

C-Money: I just don’t see how you can get arrested for smoking a dried plant, when, at the same Xanax, Zofolt and Ritalin are prescribed to our children without any knowledge of the long term effects. That shit just really boils my blood. I’ve been on this trip right now after reading a book about Al Capone. He was created by the prohibition of alcohol. For ten years, we outlawed alcohol. Plenty of people were still making it, and after about six years, all the crime started. There was a lot of untaxed cash amounting, and the economy crashed and we went into a major depression. The government then realized the money they were losing. It’s just like now, everyone is still smoking. All we need to do is make the government capitalize on the money. If we can learn from history, we’re going to be in a situation where smoking herb is not a criminal thing.

RyMo: For people that need it, herb should be legal. We want people to enjoy the herb. It’s a natural thing. You hear about people doing crazy things on alcohol or other drugs, but you don’t hear that about bud. When you smoke, you don’t loose your head.

DeLa: Let me put it to you this way, a close friend of mine that I went to high school with came down with came down with Hodgkins Lynthphmo. I flew up to chill with him for a little bit. They were talking about chemo and had him on five or six different kinds of pills. I swear, he put all those pills away after we smoked a couple of bowls. He was eating. He was happy, thinking about the times back in the day. If that’s any indication of how it should be. If you need marijuana in your life, it should be readily available to you. It’s a plant that grows out of the ground. There are a lot of other plants that do a lot worse things to you. It sucks that it’s such a taboo thing in so much of the country. It’s not socially acceptable. If we socialize this medicine, this herb, then I think we’ll see a lot more positive results.

Me: What about California makes it unique, and why do you think it has been the first to really challenge the status quo on the marijuana industry? What can the rest of the country learn from Cali?

C-Money:  It’s all about the willingness to try something new and to put the power back into the hands of the people. That fear of cops goes against the grain of what Ben Franklin and George Washington and those cats were all about–the right to do what you need to do as long as you aren’t harming anyone. That’s what great about law. It’s a changing growth, not a changeless code. We have to learn to grow and adapt. If we stick to some ancient rule, we are totally stupid.

Me: You guys have enjoyed some radio success recently for the first time. How do you balance that radio success with your underground roots? How does a band keep from getting the reputation as a sell out but still make money? How has Stoopid Records helped you guys do this?

C-Money:  All that really did thus far is to propel the live shows. It seems like it has drawn in some younger fans. It’s just putting gas on the fire. For a band to be corrupted after they’ve made it means they were never true in the first place. If you come from something real, then you put back in where you’re from. A band that came from nothing with hard work is more likely to produce other bands in the neighborhood. Because we’re so independent, the commercial and radio success is just icing on the cake.

DeLa: Bands that go and work hard and tour for ten years are people that should be getting rewarded with careers and success. Having your own record label allows you to enable hardworking bands to take themselves to the next level. Our commercial success, no matter how big or small, is just the cherry on top of this big musical sundae.

And I’m still not really sure what I think about it.

It tires, probably more so than any other, to blend a variety of styles, from hip-hop to reggae to nu-metal. It succeeds in emulating these styles, but it still seems a little flat. I couldn’t help but think that Nick’s vocals just weren’t what they needed to be… but that’s never stopped this band before, right?

The lyrical content, also seems pretty weak, with the first single “Hey You” reminiscent of everyone’s least favorite 311 album, Don’t Tread on Me. I mean, what kind of chorus is “hey you?” I guess it could be worse, but it could be a lot better.

But don’t get me wrong, it’s not all bad. “I Like the Way” seamlessly merges a funky rhythm section with an electro-blast rap chorus and sounds pretty freaking cool.  Also, the sexy ska groove going on within “My Heart Sings” makes me smile every time I hear it. I think it’s my favorite. If you like “Champagne,” it’s in the same vibe. Really chill and groovy.

“India Ink”, most likely the band’s next single, is  memorable, and reminds me of some of their earlier work on From Chaos.

In all, I think the album will grow on me, but it’s really just not the resurgance I was hoping for following the dismal Don’t Tread on Me. It’s no Transistor, but at least it’s something worth listening to.

So, check it out. If you’re a 311 fan, it will be a little disheartening, but atleast its better than 99% of the other albums that will come out this year.