THE ADAMS AVENUE UNPLUGGED MUSIC FESTIVAL 2023

By Vince Meehan

Steve Kader has been a music fan since he was a young kid. In the 80s, he made his debut into the local music scene by playing in a band called Gangbusters who he describes as semi-ska. Later in life, he transferred that music knowledge and passion into becoming a talent buyer for local music venues. He started by booking acts for the now-defunct 4th & B club Downtown which at the time was the “it” place to play in San Diego. As time went on, his experience allowed him to branch out to more and more venues. Now, Kader is very well known in the local music scene as the “go-to” guy for anyone who’d like to perform at the annual Adams Avenue Unplugged music festival.

The festival takes place on Saturday April 29 along a two-mile stretch of Adams Avenue from University Heights on the west, through Normal Heights, and into parts of Kensington to the east. The free event starts at noon and continues until 10pm. Kader has been a member of the Adams Avenue Business Association (AABA) for almost 20 years, and is now the music talent buyer for the group. The AABA is a nonprofit corporation whose mission statement is to revitalize and market the Adams Avenue business corridor. This group produces the Unplugged festival along with several other events throughout the year as a way to support the businesses along Adams Avenue.

Scott Kessler is the Executive Director at AABA and is a big music fan as well. “Our Adams Avenue Street Fair is 40 years old and our Unplugged Festival is going on 30 years so were really proud of branding Adams Avenue as a musical destination,” Kessler noted. “The unique thing about Unplugged is that unlike our Street Fair – where we have musical presentations on outdoor stages – we’ve moved the music inside the restaurants, bars, bakeries, and coffee houses so it’s a totally different setting. And the businesses are packed to capacity so it’s great for them.”

Kader describes the upcoming acoustic festival as a “musical walkabout”, a chance for people to stroll along Adams Avenue and enjoy the restaurants, bars, coffee houses and galleries while enjoying live music. “We don’t shut down the street for this event,” noted Kadar. “We have the musicians play inside the shops as a way to encourage people to enter and enjoy the businesses.”

Kader says the unplugged music format creates a more subdued musical footprint – or earprint maybe – that fosters a more intimate experience for both guests and business owners. The result is a very organic music event where the shops share the spotlight with the artists. Being able to pair Adams Avenue’s unique dining and drinking establishments – each with their own special ambiances and selections – with free musical performances, makes the Adams Avenue Unplugged festival a one-of-a-kind event in San Diego and one of the most anticipated shows of the year.

Unplugged will kick off at noon and will feature more than 50 performances on 16 stages inside the businesses along Adams Avenue. Some of the artists for this year’s event include: The Sleepwalkers, Sara Petite, The Cedar Shakers, Chickenbone Slim & The Biscuits, and Finnegan Blue. These local bands will perform sets at some of Adams Avenue’s classic locales such as The Ould Sod, Rosie O’Grady’s, Rabbit Hole, Sycamore Den, Twiggs Cof - feehouse and Ponce’s Mexican Restaurant. Kader also noted that the Normal Heights United Church will serve as ground zero for the festival with a main stage and beer garden. Dave Alvin will perform as the festival headliner in the only paid show of the event at the end of the festival. David Alvin is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist and producer and also a founding member of the roots rock band the Blasters. Kader’s experience in the San Diego music scene has given him the insight needed to book bands for the Unplugged Festival. And he has been so successful, that he now also serves as the talent buyer for the Adams Avenue Street Fair, Rolando Street Fair, Carlsbad Music Festival, Oceanside Culture Festival, and The San Diego Latino Film Festival.

Parking is typically very limited on the day of the event, so ridesharing is highly, highly recommended. Conveniently, the 11 route of the MTS bus takes you directly down Adams Avenue from Downtown and features stops about every three blocks or so along the way. Plus it hooks up with the trolley station at SDSU, and that makes accessibility from the La Mesa, El Cajon and Santee extremely doable. The 2 route starts in Downtown as well and takes you up 30th street through both South Park and North Park to Adams Avenue. Both bus routes run in half hour intervals, and the event is also short Uber ride from both the University Avenue and El Cajon Boulevard corridors. Comfortable shoes and weather appropriate clothes are highly recommended to ensure a pleasant experience.

For more info, go to: www.AdamsAvenueBusiness.com

By Bob Morey

The origin of 420 (pronounced four-twenty) is the subject of a fun debate among legacy cannabis users, the stuff of legends and speculation. Today with the legalization of cannabis on the rise, 420 Day has become a cultural phenomenon. The day on the calendar, April 20th, has become a day of festivals and celebrations in the regions where cannabis use is legal. People worldwide have adopted April 20th as “420 Weed Day” to celebrate all that is cannabis culture.

In California, where the world’s finest quality cannabis is grown and produced, the origin of 420 has been a hot topic for years. The number of a California State Senate bill that established the State’s medical marijuana program was titled “The 420 State Senate Bill of 2003 – Compassionate Use Act”. California became the second State in America to legalize marijuana for full recreational use in November 2016. The end of cannabis prohibition opened a rich world of long-suppressed cannabis use and culture, allowing people to “normalize” cannabis use in their daily lives and popular culture.

It may surprise you to know that cannabis was first discovered in Ancient Egypt, where people used hemp rope and clothing made from hemp fibers around 1500 BC. And Ancient Hebrews consumed cannabis as part of their ceremonial religious practices, a practice that continues today in the Kabbalistic sects of the Hebrews.

In 1619, King James I of England declared that growing hemp was illegal due to new trade agreements with countries who felt threatened by the competition hemp posed to the resources they produced, like cotton wool. Many farmers who relied on their cotton or wool trade protested those who were growing what they called hemp “weed” crops for income which competed with and threatened their livelihoods.

Those who are superstitious in America claim “420” was part of a police criminal code used to alert police forces working together of the presence of people in possession of marijuana. Others in America who are fans of popular musician Bob Dylan claim the reference is from his song titled “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” and its lyric, “Everybody must get stoned.” When 12 is multiplied by 35 you get 420.

Whether you know a lot or a little about marijuana, you’ve probably heard that the numerals 420 have a special meaning in pot culture. But what exactly does it mean? And why are April 20th and 4:20 p.m. so sacred to cannabis aficionados?

There are, of course, a lot of apocryphal stories and urban legends about where 420 comes from. Let’s get those out of the way first:

“420 is a police code for marijuana smoking”, as in “We have a 420 in progress” – No such police code exists.

“There are 420 chemicals in weed” – Cannabis has hundreds of chemicals, cannabinoids, terpenes, etc., but there aren’t specifically 420 chemicals in the plant. So far, researchers have discovered over 500 chemicals in pot.

“4/20 is the anniversary of Bob Marley’s/Jimi Hendrix’s death” – Neither Bob Marley nor Jimi Hendrix died on April 20th.

“4/20 is the ideal day to plant pot” – That would be too early. Weed farmers in Northern California growing full-term plants outdoors tend to plant in late May or even early June for an October harvest, as dictated by the natural life cycle of this annual plant.

The most popular urban legend and perhaps the most believable tale is the term “420” was coined in 1971 by a group of five students at San Rafael High School in Marin County, California, who met at 4:20 p.m. beside the campus’s monument of scientist Louis Pasteur and then moved off behind a wall. They met at 4:20 p.m. as they were all athletes and had sports practice to attend before that time. Because they met at a wall, Steve Capper, Dave Reddix, Jeffrey Noel, Larry Schwartz, and Mark Gravich were known as the “Waldos.” 420 became their code for marijuana. The antics went past 4:20 p.m., as well. Under the influence, the group challenged each other to discover ever-more-interesting things to do, referring to their outings as “safaris.”

One day one of The Waldos got word of an abandoned secret marijuana grow in the Marin Headlands, a national wilderness area just north of The Golden Gate Bridge, started by some Coast Guard cadets who supposedly left behind because he could no longer tend to the crop. He had a treasure map of sorts drawn up by one of the cadets, showing the general area of the grow, and The Waldos were determined to find it.

“We’d meet at 4:20 and get in my old ‘66 Chevy Impala and, of course, we’d smoke instantly and smoke all the way out to Pt. Reyes and smoke the entire time we were out there. We did it week after week,” Capper said, adding, “We never actually found the patch.” While they never found the mythical grow, the Waldos managed to introduce a new lasting code word for weed smokers. 4:20 became their sort of “teatime” for smoking pot.

Capper told the Huffington Post: “I could say to one of my friends, I’d go, ‘420’, and it was telepathic. He would know if I was saying, ‘Hey, do you wanna go smoke some?’ Or, ‘Do you have any?’ Or ‘Are you stoned right now?’ It was telepathic, just from the way you said it. Our teachers didn’t know what we were talking about, and our parents didn’t know what we were talking about either.”

The use of the term spread further thanks to the group’s connection to The Grateful Dead. The legendary rock band was based in the Marin County hills at the time, just blocks from the high school the Waldos attended. One of The Waldos got a gig working as a roadie for Phil Lesh of The Grateful Dead, who also lived in Marin County. The Dead soon picked up the habit of smoking weed every day at 4:20, and before long, Deadheads also started picking up the habit.

420 celebrations were going on for years on a smaller level in Marin County. On December 28th, 1990, a group of Deadheads from Oakland, California, decided to make April 20th a Tokers’ holiday. They printed up flyers inviting people to ‘Meet us to celebrate 420 on April 20th on the top of Mount Tamalpais on Bolinas Ridge’, thus creating the special holiday dedicated to imbibing herb. Steve Bloom, a reporter for High Times Magazine, got a hold of one of the fliers at a Dead show and printed the flier in the magazine in 1991. Since then, 420 has become universal shorthand for pot, and April 20th has become the official stoners’ holiday.

Cannabis has been and will continue to be a more significant part of our entire worldwide culture as we all recognize its many values: from agriculture to counter-culture, art, food, film, music, hemp, medicine, recreation, and more. 420 can now be seen on t-shirts and throughout pop culture, and of course, on the calendar every April.

Today, 420 Day is being celebrated in America in the States where cannabis has been legalized and is even growing into a popular month-long Spring celebration during April, much like Octoberfest in the Fall. 420 aligns with many festivals and popular gatherings like Earth Day and outdoor music festivals like the Coachella Festival.

420 is a number that is simultaneously meaningless and incredibly meaningful. It has no real significance outside of the world of marijuana enthusiasts, but within that world, it is a symbol of freedom, rebellion, and good times. Whether you’re one of The Waldos or just someone who enjoys a good stoner movie, there’s no denying that 420 has become a part of our collective consciousness. So next time you see a clock that reads 4:20, take a moment to appreciate the history and the humor behind this iconic number. And maybe light up a joint while you’re at it.