Jagged reefs lurked among the sun-surf-smoke-ska synthesists when they arrived on the shores of Lake Travis during the final weeks of the winter of 1996.

Pure serendipity for a band whose lead singer, Bradley Nowell, could produce little photographic evidence of actually owning any shirts. Its attitude was perhaps best defined by a hand-painted “No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem” sign. No more harmonious spot could have existed for the LBC house-party heroes than the compound that the Red Headed Stranger terraformed into a 75-acre outlaw hacienda of breezy creativity and reefer madness. Law enforcement in the Lone Star State was no more friendly, but it’s substantially easier to stash a week’s worth of narcotics in a 33-foot traveling motorcoach than the limited apertures of the human body.Īt the end of the trail lay Willie Nelson’s Pedernales Studios, a hallowed shrine for habitually baked experimentation that had hosted Neil Young and Ray Charles, Carlos Santana and Daniel Johnston.

More importantly, it skirted any potential conflict between the “Smoke Two Joints” trio and the Federal Aviation Administration, an agency traditionally uncharitable to the interstate transport of illicit substances. A road trip allowed them to gig all along the 1,383-mile stretch from Long Beach to Austin. In Sublime’s defense, it seemed like an act of shrewd lunacy.

Fugees spotify code