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I catch Lech Wierzynski when he\u2019s \u201cat home.\u201d The concept is vague, and we agree to apply it loosely. The California Honeydrops, the San Francisco Bay Area-based R&B-slash-New Orleans-jazz-slash-soul ensemble that Wierzynski has fronted for the past decade, \u201clive\u201d nowhere in particular. For more than 200 days out of the year, for each of the last past six years, the band has been out on the road touring. Counting solely by number of sleeps, the band\u2019s \u201chome\u201d has four wheels and moves from town to town.<\/p>\n
The place where bills and junk mail with Wierzynski\u2019s name on them show up is an apartment in Oakland, California. This is a city that\u2019s changed so rapidly in recent years that \u2014 for Wierzynski, his bandmates and their former neighbors who have been priced out \u2014 their \u201chome\u201d is a place that now often feels strange and unfamiliar. The hills and the trees and the bay water are the same, but the people are no longer the same.<\/p>\n
This particular week for the\u00a0Honeydrops<\/a>\u00a0is a rare one. The summer festival circuit mostly over and the band has two dates booked at a local venue that\u2019s only a short drive away from the beds that they own, followed by few weeks off. For now, they are at home. Broad and ambiguous and fleeting, \u201chome\u201d is the concept behind the Honeydrops\u2019 seventh and latest record, \u201cCall it Home Vol. 1 & 2.\u201d<\/p>\n And cannabis is absolutely a part of the Honeydrops\u2019 process. A while back, Wierzynski quit drinking alcohol while out on the road. He enjoyed the clarity of mind and body he found without alcohol so much that he\u00a0quit drinking<\/a>\u00a0entirely. Cannabis, however, is absolutely on the bus, and a part of the creative process.<\/p>\n \u201cIt makes touring a lot easier. It makes touring great,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s great for your body, keeping your body healthy and feeling good. Sitting in a van for eight hours can really mess you up. Having a\u00a0CBD salve<\/a>\u00a0is amazing for that.\u201d<\/p>\n The Honeydrops have also performed at many cannabis events around California, including the\u00a0Emerald Cup<\/a>\u00a0in 2016. When it comes to creative inspiration, Wierzynski says \u201ca shift of consciousness is a huge part of what music is for, and cannabis is a way to bring about a subtle to extreme shift in consciousness.\u201d<\/p>\n The Honeydrops play what you could describe as \u201cAmerican roots music.\u201d Just about everything the band creates \u2014 blues, soul, funk, R&B \u2014 stems from the musical traditions of black artists in the American South. In these genres, a common theme is unrequited yearning without hope of fulfillment, a feeling the Portuguese call \u201csaudade,\u201d or \u201cmemory of something with a desire for it.\u201d Processing these feelings, backed by a horn section and an electric organ, is what the Honeydrops are all about.<\/p>\n It\u00a0is<\/i>\u00a0possible to \u201cfeel at home,\u201d whether you\u2019re on a strange road for the first time or under a roof you rent or own.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t have to choose one or the other,\u201d says Wierzynski.<\/p>\n \u201cUltimately, the theme of the album is the fluidity of it all,\u201d he says, before begging my pardon. Someone\u2019s knocking at his door. A few minutes pass. \u201cThat was my landlord, who\u2019s keeping me living in Oakland,\u201d Wierzynski says, as we resume our chat. \u201cI have a nice landlord.\u201d<\/p>\n A secure tenancy is at best a port in a storm. Finding that metaphysical home is not made easier when your physical soundings are under constant direct assault. However, Wierzynski does his best to steer the conversation towards positive vibes. As he says, the Honeydrops are trying to tap into a \u201cpositive ways of looking at a bad situation.\u201d<\/p>\n Because, the thing is, checking out isn\u2019t always an option. There\u2019s serious irony in fleeing in search of another, better home. The forces that are changing cities that we know and love don\u2019t know physical boundaries. You can\u2019t stop gentrification with a wall, a bay, nor a levee.<\/p>\n Photo Courtesy California Honeydrops<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Despite the emphasis on the positive, displacement and the fear of displacement color daily life in the Bay Area in 2018, and the Honeydrops are feeling the strain.<\/p>\n \u201cSome people tell me\/that\u2019s just the way it is. If you can\u2019t beat them join them\/ or find some other place to live,\u201d Wierzynski sings on \u201cSilicon World,\u201d one of the 16 sons on \u201cCall It Home\u201d. \u201cI want to tell you people\/that\u2019s just what I do,\u201d one verse ends. \u201cI\u2019d rather leave my happy home\/than live next door to you.\u201d<\/p>\n Ultimately, Wierzynski says the degree to which the Bay Area has become unaffordable \u201cis affecting peoples\u2019 lives and the way they look at their art,\u201d and has put new pressures on his own creative process.<\/p>\n Of course, the pressure that the Honeydrops \u2014 and a good portion of the other 8 million (and counting) souls who call the Bay Area \u201chome\u201d \u2014 are facing is similar to the pressure facing many longtime cannabis producers in California, now being pushed out by expensive new compliance requirements as the cannabis industry becomes a more entrenched feature of the state\u2019s landscape.<\/p>\n In terms of cannabis, Wierzynski leans more towards the subtle. The only time he\u2019ll smoke before going on stage, for example, is usually at a music festival.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes you just know you need to\u00a0relax<\/a>\u00a0a little bit, and festivals, for me, that\u2019s the best place to go on stage and have a little puff,\u201d he says. \u201cI think everyone\u2019s on that level.\u201d<\/p>\n The Honeydrops don\u2019t really use setlists, and rely on spontaneity and feedback from the crowd to guide a show, so a little cannabis can help, but not too much.<\/p>\n That\u2019s just what works for Wierzynski, what puts him at ease, what makes him feel at home while he sings on a stage, a few thousand miles away from his mailbox.<\/p>\n TELL US,\u00a0<\/b>how do you use cannabis to enhance your creativity at work?<\/p>\n Originally appeared in Issue 33 of Cannabis Now.\u00a0LEARN MORE<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n The post As California Changes, the Honeydrops Find Their Home on the Road<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
I catch Lech Wierzynski when he\u2019s \u201cat home.\u201d The concept is vague, and we agree to apply it loosely. The California Honeydrops, the San Francisco Bay Area-based R&B-slash-New Orleans-jazz-slash-soul ensemble that Wierzynski has fronted for the past decade, \u201clive\u201d nowhere in particular. For more than 200 days out of theContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":31075,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[148,6639,50,5422,6640,453,99,478,85,6071,89,6641],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31074"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31074"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31076,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31074\/revisions\/31076"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/California-Honeydrops-Call-It-Home-Album.jpg\")
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\nRead More: As California Changes, the Honeydrops Find Their Home on the Road<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"