The Five Worst Things to Listen to When You’re Really, Really High

February 15, 2019

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Scene: It’s 4:10PM and you’re starting to sweat, as you seem to remember using the last of the product in your weed tin (with Decrepit Birth sticker) last night. You dig through the dirty laundry and find your dugout (with Vektor sticker) in a pair of filthy jeans, and it’s also dry. Check for any kief in the grinder (with High on Fire sticker) and the disappointment continues. “Wait a second, I planned for this months ago!” can be heard by passersby as you head outside: unlock the trunk of your car, pull out the toolbox (with vintage Carcass sticker), and at the bottom lies a single dank nug bundled up like a precious newborn in swaddling. You’ve survived one of the closest calls of your life…

Now before I delve into the worst things to listen to when you’re high it’s important to disclose that THC affects everyone differently. Please don’t ever ever judge people who use THC by the portrayal of “stoners” in pop culture, because that’s only one small sample of the population; nor should you judge them by how your unemployed buddy Darrell down the street lives. One individual might have slower response time behind the wheel of a vehicle, another might have faster. It’s very possible that the way I am affected is different than most, in that I’m more likely to go out and experience all the crazy stuff that the world has to offer, than I am to stay in and take it easy. I want to be thrilled, to experience extreme ups and downs, to navigate gigantic crowds, even to stand on stage in front of thousands of people. So here is MY list of things to avoid listening to when really high:

5. Black Fast

Now I would hate for you to misunderstand me here: listening to Black Fast is a great idea 42.0% of the time you’re alive, but I do not recommend it after a few rambo-bangin’ bong hits. This blackened-thrashy quartet of incredible musicians is best enjoyed in the live setting, and nothing makes me crave seeing live music more than being on drugs. (Alcohol is a drug too, so if that’s your thing please enjoy responsibly.) A Black Fast show is some of the most fun a St. Louis resident can possibly have, considering most touring bands skip our dear city for some crime-less shithole like Kansas City or Cleveland.

What it’s like to see Black Fast live:

I just can’t sit still when jamming on some Black Fast. I’d much rather be seeing them perform the material live, hanging with other local metalheads, smoking a cigarette outside the venue (and meeting other people who are enjoying the same vice), and hopefully chit-chatting with the fellas from the band after the gig is over. Vinyl is great and all but it does not take the place of this experience!

4. Anything From Finland

Please excuse me for not listing every tremendous musical act coming out of Finland, for it would exceed the allowable word count on a TovH article… because for some strange reason every Finnish person who decides to pursue a career in music is going to create some of the best stuff to ever grace our ears! Is there something in the water over there? Does the Finnish government pump psylocybin into the water supply in order to promote creativity? Does having constant shitty weather cause the brain to just secrete pure brilliance 24/7?

Is this damn country even real? I don’t know. There’s such an insane reputation for Finland to have that I cannot tell if it’s just some elaborate ruse told in storybooks to scare small children. How do they produce such skilled snipers? Why does every household have a sauna? These are the questions I ask myself after indulging in the devil’s lettuce and listening to Finnish music. Which when I do, it’s more than likely going to be a vinyl from Siinai or Kairon; IRSE! – both artists from a talented roster over at Svart Records (often featured by the Bear). The music is impeccable but my mind can’t stop racing about this magical wonderland.

3. Thrash Merol

I don’t know what it is about thrash that makes it so enjoyable whilst drinking beer — wrong! Yes I do: it satisfies anyone’s thirst for FUN. Turn your damn brain off, ya dingus, and enjoy some party music! (That’s not an insult, by the way.) And the proof is in the pudding, here check out a couple of Google Image results I obtained from searching “thrash metal drinking beer”:

A. Overkill

B. Scott Ian of Anthrax

C. Accept

D. Municipal Assault

Thrash goes with beer, not THC. QED.

2. Any Band Whomever Has Fucked Me In the Ass

I can’t deal with bands who have fucked me in the ass, or Those Whom Have Given Up On Their Craft In Exchange for The Almighty Dollar. Once you, a musician, try to earn any money at all, you and I are finished: I’ll donate the shirts to Goodwill, trade the CD’s in $0.50 off a Mr. Mister vinyl, and laser off my tattoos. Especially when I’m high, because then I tend to think things like, what great things could we have accomplished together, if only you’d have kept along that path and continued pushing boundaries? I can’t even begin to imagine why you chose to simplify your music and compose only radio biscuits. What’s the fun in having tens of thousands of fans when you’re disappointing your initial 100?

A partial list of Bands Whom Have Fucked Me In the Ass (and the album in which they did it):

Queen – A Night At the Opera
Limp Bizkit – Significant Other
Metallica – 75% of Ride the Lightning
Megadeth – Whatever They Put Out After Rust In Peace
Gojira – Live From the St. Louis Rib Festival
Journey – Sophomore Album
Smash Mouth – Astro Lounge
Skeletonwitch – The One With Serious Boi (Not-Chance)

Answer me the following: which individuals possess time fo’ that?

1. Stoner Metal

Who in the heck came up with the label “Stoner Metal” anyway? Surely not a stoner. It is some of the most boring music I’ve ever heard, this side of modern country. Right now you might be throwing your hands up to the sky and yelling, But Kirk Windstein is a riff machine! Sure, if your machine is broken and produces only one riff per minute. But the two-hour ‘Mirror Reaper’ flies by in no time at all! I know a good neurologist, here’s her card. Man, just… man you don’t get it! You’re probably correct here. Smoking weed is like taking a potion that gives my brain a huge boost of curiosity, it makes me want to hear music that pushes boundaries and breaks down walls. Whether it’s doom, sludge, or any subgenre of metal that begins with the word “stoner”, my mind tends to wander faster than the riffs are being played, and so I move onto something else.

What are the musics that YOU do not enjoy whilst being on the devil’s lettuce?