Little music festival tonight.

We did this last year too.

The plan's to keep it going. Next year. The year after. And forever.

I think Jane's Addiction originally recorded Ripple for a tribute album called Deadicated . You can also find it on a four disc set called A Cabinet of Curiosities.

Jon just asked me to put together a dance mix featuring Bruce Springsteen and The Grateful Dead.

Half the people at the party are going to be screaming for R Kelly the whole time.

Maybe I start with Al Green and see where he takes me?

"If you took everyone that's even been to a Grateful Dead show and stacked them head to toe, they'd travel all the way to the moon and back. And never once complain."

Wish I'd been there for those shows.

I guess I wish I'd been everywhere else ever in the history of everything, too. To wander around a bit and listen.

Cassady is track 10 on Reckoning.

I wonder about Felina.

Where does this leave her?

She never loved the singer.  But, by the end of the story, she saw his love for her.  Saw how big it was, how overwhelming, how scary.

I wonder if she wants something like it for herself someday.

Joe de Grazia, my dad, makes his internet debut...

And, Paul Hughes, since I know you're reading this, I mean it 100% lovingly when I call you a mad raver.

Note the Grateful Dead logo on the cabinet between our heads.  Parker drew that baby when he was like 11.  I love it.  We feature Led Zeppelin and Phish art in this kitchen too.

And note Pops's last comment about thinning our own herds.  Yikes.  He's not really that crazy.  Just a rookie video blogger looking to make a name for himself.

Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.

Really, Janis?

Or were The Dead on to something when they adjusted it?

Freedom's just another word for nothing left to do.

Great song, regardless of who's singing and how.

But.

There is one line that worries me:

But I'd trade all my tomorrows
For one single yesterday
To be holding Bobby's body next to mine

That's a scary state of mind.

Janis Joplin originally published Me and Bobby McGee as track 7 on Pearl.  The Grateful Dead version posted here is track 7 on the second disc of a four CD live album recorded in New York City in April 1971.

Thought about The Grateful Dead and the song Looks Like Rain today.

Though about...

But I'll still sing you love songs
Written in the letters of your name

I looked it up to make sure I'd had it right, and I bumped into this.  Not a pretty website, sadly, but full of fun little theories.

I'd post the song, but neither I not any Hype Machine blogs have it.

So we'll go with the first Dead song I ever loved.

Jack-A-Roe is track 9 on Reckoning.

Know the period in your relationship with a song when you've focused in on it, and you're playing it over and over, but you're still just learning the words?  With every listen, you discover new poetry, and you inch closer and closer to a first serious interpretation of the song's meaning or message or purpose?

I'm there with Franklin's Tower.  I've known it for a long time.  I've heard a handful of live recordings.  And I've always liked it.  But I never really paid attention.  A few days ago, however, I borrowed Blues For Allah from my uncle Zach, and I've been rolling away the dew ever since.  And loving every second of it.

If you plant ice, you're gonna harvest wind.

Franklin's Tower is track 2 on Blues For Allah.

I had a little flashback tonight to the moment I first really listened to Sublime's 40 Oz. to Freedom. 

Tom and I were on the most intense of our many road trips together. 

We drove 41 hours straight between Oakland, CA and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  The longest we stopped was for one hour.  In Custer, SD.  In search of an all you can eat salad bar.  We found one, but it was terrible.  Wet lettuce.  Pickled beans that had been there for months.  Black olives that stopped me, spoke to me, and told me it'd be smart not to eat them.

There were a few moments during the trip that we craved water.  Not to drink.  But showers or swims.  And, when one of those momentary cravings struck, we were in Wyoming, and we'd been seeing signs for miles and miles for Little America, which, apparently, is THE place to stay if you're long driving through Wyoming.  We hadn't the slightest plans to stay anywhere, but we realized, as we drew closer and closer, that, in the dead of summer, anywhere that's THE place to stay is damn well going to have a pool. 

So we took the exit, parked, put on our suits, grabbed towels, wandered through the parking lot and among the sections of the motel (Little America is enormous; I remember it feeling like 25 housing units all strung together into a motel metropolis), found the pool, opened the gate, put our towels down, jumped in, rinsed, felt reborn, walked back to the car, put on 40 Oz. to Freedom, and drove on.

I had heard the album before, but it was over that next hour that I realized that I LOVED Sublime.

And now I'm having a hard time choosing a song.  Waiting for My Ruca is the one most tightly connected to my memory from that day.  40 Oz. to Freedom is the one I find myself singing most often.  And 54-46 That's My Number / Ball And Chain is the one I've used to push people over the Sublime edge, from What I Got-level fans to Boss DJ-level fans.

Man.  Tough call.

How about we mix it up and go with the Grateful Dead cover? 

She had rings on her fingers and bells on her shoes
And I knew without asking she was into the blues

Scarlet Begonias is track 10 on 40 Oz. to Freedom.