Slightly Stoopid Everything You Need LP (Orange & Yellow Galaxy Vinyl)

As a musical brotherhood since 1995, Slightly Stoopid, led by the vastly versatile duo of Miles Doughty and Kyle McDonald, has expanded its fusion of rock, reggae, acoustic soul, hip hop, heavy metal, and punk rock, and achieved artistic freedom and commercial success while subscribing to their own DIY ethos. In the process, the talented collective has grown both onstage — from their original trio to a seven-piece ensemble — and as the generational forebearer of an immensely growing subculture and lifestyle movement.

Bound by their devotion to a musical agenda that relies on the spirit of collaboration and improvisation, and a social agenda that advocates for the freedom and legalization of marijuana, Slightly Stoopid's musical melting pot continues to earn the respect of their mentors and peers, inspire countless young musicians, and delight millions of fans.

Doughty and McDonald grew up together in the Ocean Beach neighborhood of San Diego. By age 11 they had their first acoustic guitars, bonding over Metallica, Megadeth, and Mötley Crüe. In the mid-1990s they attended Point Loma High School and formed Slightly Stoopid, playing their first gig — a punky and subversive lunchtime set on the quad — that earned them a trip to the vice-principal's office and a reprimand for the trio's explicit lyrics.

As ambitious high school students, they played house parties and small clubs and met Sublime's Bradley Nowell after attending one of his band's shows. Nowell quickly became a champion of the group's precocious talents, inviting them to play, and signing Slightly Stoopid to his label, Skunk Records. He endorsed them to Michael "Miguel" Happoldt, co-founder of Skunk, who agreed to record the band at Sublime's Fake Nightclub studio in Long Beach. In 1996, they released their debut studio album, the punk-inflected, eponymously titled Slightly Stoopid. Though Nowell had passed away shortly before the record's release, fittingly he appeared, posthumously, on the song, "Prophet."

The ensemble's diversity and repertoire encouraged charmed collaborations in the studio, such as with reggae legend Barrington Levy, G. Love (Garrett Dutton), and onstage, with the Marley family, Snoop Dogg, and Cypress Hill. Between 2003 and 2008, the band released four studio albums including 2003's Everything You Need.

While largely grounded in a reggae-pop vibe (see the anti-authority tune 'Officer' and a breezy cover of John Denver's 'Leaving on a Jet Plane'), the album also acknowledges Stoopid's more revved-up past with the fast-paced three-chord numbers 'Perfect Gentleman' and 'Punk Rock Billy.' Though naturally not a highbrow affair, Everything You Need stands out as one of Slighty Stoopid's more dynamic and immediately accessible albums, and works as a good introduction to the band's pot-centric brand of party music.