On a night no different than any other, we found ourselves a bit bored and sadly out of weed. We were pretty certain we had a pre-roll left, but our shitty roommate probably took it without asking again. Normally we would have just headed over to the dispensary, but it was closed for the weekend. To remedy this, we would have to go to lengths no human should ever have to endure. That’s right. We would have to go to our old dealer Dan’s house and withstand a gauntlet of stoner media before getting the eighth that would hopefully tide us over until the following Monday. Here are twenty albums we were forced to listen to in their entirety before our transaction was complete.
Syd Barrett “The Madcap Laughs”
Pink Floyd just wasn’t the same without Syd, man. At least that’s what Dan told us before playing one of the most disorienting albums we’ve ever heard in our entire lives. It’s said that Barrett left Pink Floyd following a psychedelic-fueled mental breakdown, but our guy suspects it had more to do with being a stifled artist. We were really hoping this would be a segue into Dan telling us he had acid again, but unfortunately his hook-up got arrested again.
The Residents “Commercial Album”
Apparently, this album needs to be played three consecutive times in a row to form a cohesive song, because everyone knows that cohesive songs are over two hours long. At least that’s what Dan said around the middle of the second playthrough while not even thinking about weighing out the Purple Dream we asked for. If you ask us, the record only gets more unintelligible with each listen, and this was supposedly the album where they tried to write real music.
Captain Beefheart “Trout Mask Replica”
Ugh. Like most weed guys, Dan is fucking obsessed with Captain Beefheart. Personally, we don’t understand. We made the mistake of saying we’re not really fans, so we had to sit through a forty-minute lecture about how we just ‘don’t get it.’ Reportedly, one of the songs features each member of the band all playing a different song simultaneously or something. We’re starting to suspect that’s why it sounds bad. He got so worked up about our supposed ‘lack of artistic appreciation’ that he’ll probably never tell us when he gets shrooms in again.
OSEES “Castlemania”
At least this album was more modern and slightly enjoyable. Still, it’s hard to get into John Dwyer’s hellish soundscapes on a set of empty lungs, and the edibles we took just to endure the experience of coming to this guy’s house hadn’t kicked in by this point in the night. Apparently, this record has been long out of print and Dan owns an original pressing. He obtained it for only 150 bucks from a dude on Discogs. Glad to know our money is being well spent, we guess.
Bob Dylan “Bringing It All Back Home”
To be completely fair, he didn’t make us listen to the entire album, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t make us sit in silence while he recited all fifteen verses of ‘It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)’ from memory. We probably would have been impressed if we weren’t so utterly annoyed. One of us coughed during the third refrain, so he had to start over from the top, adding another seven minutes to our ill-fated green run.
Sleep “Sleep’s Holy Mountain”
Most would expect to have ‘Dopesmoker’ thrust upon their ears during a transaction that should have taken ten fucking minutes of their day, but most haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Dan. He may be a lot of things but he’s no pedestrian listener of stoner-metal legends, Sleep. In fact, he doesn’t even think ‘Dopesmoker’ is that good. We know, because he told us fifteen times before the album finally ended along with our faith in getting our weed within the following two hours.
Tame Impala “Lonerism”
Dan has his own ‘recording studio’ in his basement. One of these days he plans on crafting a multi-instrumental solo album like his long-time hero Kevin Parker, but he’ll probably just take a bong rip and fuck with the knobs on his modular synth for three hours instead. Regardless, ‘Lonerism’ is Dan’s favorite album and its lyrical themes make him feel proud of personality aspects that most people would attempt to correct in therapy. Not only did this listening session delay our score by almost a full hour, but now we can’t get ‘Elephant’ out of our heads.
OK Go “Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky”
Did you know all the lines on the cover of this album are more than just pretty colors? Each segment represents a thematic element featured in the album’s lyrics and there’s even a manual to decode it on the back of the record. Dan attempted to explain this to us for over an hour but admitted we probably wouldn’t understand it since we aren’t synesthetes like him. To be fair, though, it was pretty amusing watching Dan attempt to build the Rube Goldberg machine featured in the band’s video for ‘This Too Shall Pass.’
Black Sabbath “Paranoid”
Dan fucking loves this album, and its title is appropriate because as soon as he put it on, we became ‘Paranoid’ that we would never leave his apartment again. Much less with the eighth we asked for over an hour ago. This album is a fine listen any other time. When watching your dealer and the three other people over at his apartment play air guitar over every track while occasionally yelling ‘Duuuuude’ at Bill Ward’s drum fills, it gets very tiring very quickly.
Jenny Lewis “Acid Tongue”
A song from this album actually came up on Dan’s Spotify radio while he was yelling at us for not clearing a hit out of his steamroller. Our bad. Anyway, he stopped scolding us only briefly to ask ‘What band was this chick in?’ We kept yelling ‘Rilo Kiley! She was in Rilo Kiley!’ track after track, which almost got his attention until he remembered we hadn’t cleared his ungodly smoking device yet and continued lecturing us until the album’s end.
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