Review: Headband By Strain Gang

Smoking session review of the Headband cannabis strain released by Strain Gang.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:21

And we're back with Giglin Highland. Today we are reviewing Headband by String Gang.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

String Gang, a collaboration with the rapper Styles P of the band Locks. Love their music. Um, it looks like he's collaborating with a distributor company called One Off Distributors. They actually work with a few uh companies. They work with Doobie Labs and with Strain Gang, also with Runts.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Headband, a 6040 and Dika dominant hybrid cross between the classics, OG Kush and Sour Diesel. Top Terps Elimin, Linolule, Mersine, and Cariophyline. Top flavors are diesel, earthy, and pungent. Top effects are euphoric, tingly, and uplifted. THC values are as follows: 17 to 24% according to All Bud, 20% according to Leafly, and a hefty 32.5% according to String Gang.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

And the marijuana we're testing today came in a 3.5 ounce glass jar with blue and orange packaging, New York colors, y'all. And this usually retails anywhere between $55 and $70. It could even be more expensive sometimes. This one we got from Seaweed at Rockaway Beach between Beach 73 and 74 streets on Beach Channel Drive. Make sure to pay them a visit, folks. Definitely. I think we're ready to roll it. We're ready. Let's do it. Let's do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

And we're back with the roll. So how did it go, Skip? Well, it broke pretty big, and it was a little difficult to roll because it's very fluffy. Very fluffy. It's kind of like trying to roll a cotton ball there. There was enough left for the show, which is one joint and one blunt. And there's enough left for possibly one round. Very good.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

As far as the look, uh very light greens with golden brown hairs. Turp profile popped right out of the box. Got that earthy in the pungent right away. Golden tricones coated the buds. Looked really nice. It looked like pollen almost.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

Very supple, small to medium-sized nogs. It was soft to the touch. And like Skip said earlier, very fluffy. And I think we're ready to smoke it. We're ready. Let's do it. I had to do it. Pulling before lighting, and I'm getting the little bit of a pungent, getting a little earthy. I didn't get the diesel though. Yeah. I didn't get the chem. Did you get that?

SPEAKER_01 3:01

No, not yet.

SPEAKER_02 3:03

It's like a bit more frankincense, but let's see how it's like. It's actually sweet tasting. Let's see how it is when we smoke it. First pull very smooth. Got a taste of the pungent right away.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:19

Not as smooth as I thought, apparently. The other weird thing is like a sweet pungent. It's like a sweetness to it. Um the earthy kind of receded a little bit. The pungent kind of ascended a little bit. And it has like a sweetness to it, too. I'm not getting the diesel yet. I'm getting a bit of the diesel in the back end there when I exhale.

SPEAKER_01 3:43

It stays at the back of the throat.

SPEAKER_02 3:44

Oh, yeah, I do feel that. Yes. It's a little bit of a chem kind of aftertaste. Yeah. So yeah, Strain Gang is one of a few different brands, New York-based brands, that originate either originate from somewhere else or is a collaboration. And we're finding that a lot of these are connected to this company, one-off distributors, uh, Runts, Doobie Labs. There's a few others.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

Yeah, like three pools in, and I'm I'm feeling an opening already.

SPEAKER_02 4:19

Stream Gang has various offerings. Uh, this one is a hybrid. Another thing that we noticed is a lot of times, uh, especially with this uh this particular one, we always look at the COAs. And I learned something today looking at the COA because when I looked at the COA, looking at the THC count, it looked like a vast majority of the THC was THCA. And of course, that's the it unactivated, you know, psychoactive portion of marijuana. And the THC D9 was only about 2%. Um, so then I found I was saying, okay, well, if it has this much THCA, you know, what is the real ability to get you high here? Right. And apparently, there's a formula that if you can take the percentage of THCA, and this formula, um, it's supposed to give you what's the actual percentage of THC, of psychoactive THC. So, like, for example, this said it's at 32.5, you're supposed to multiply that to 0.877. 0.877. So string gang says this is 32.5% THC. If I multiply 32.5 to 0.877, I get 28.5% THC. So that's the actual T uh psychoactive get you high THC that this strain supposedly has. And then you add the the D9, which was 2%, and it comes out to about 30%. So in reality, this is only about 28 to 30 percent THC, according to that calculation.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

And according to my calculation, at 28 to 30, it's still jet fuel, or at least it should be.

SPEAKER_02 6:16

The other question is usually THCA turns into D9 over time. So the question is, you know, is it better to smoke this string when it's six months old as opposed to two months old? You know, you want to let it age a little bit in the butt in the jar?

SPEAKER_01 6:37

Or is that part of the process where if because this one was sealed as well, it was uh vacuum sealed. So I wonder if when you crack that, does that initiate the conversion?

SPEAKER_02 6:53

It's quite possible. So I'm in my first third. Spider senses are definitely tingling, nothing yet as far as determine what it is, right? Feeling a little emptiness in my frontal lobe. Uh looking at the effects for the first time. Euphoric, Skip? I don't know. Is that like an openness that I feel? Tingly. No, yeah, I'm not feeling anything really body yet. Uplifted. That sounds more accurate than euphoric, right? Yeah, I am feeling a little bit of upliftedness for me personally. I think I always find that it's better when it's mostly THC, like D9 THC, and it's not all THCA. I noticed that when it's THCA, somehow somehow it doesn't work as much for me. I don't know. Right, could just be me.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

No, but that lesson there that you just gave us to find out the actual THC is is great. Look, you just taught me something as well.

SPEAKER_02 7:53

Yeah, and I just looked, I just found that out looking uh looking it up today because I wanted to know too, like, right, if this is all THCA, how much is it you know actually gonna get us right, you know?

SPEAKER_01 8:04

That is something that we all as you know customers of dispensary have to you know tangle with.

SPEAKER_02 8:11

Yeah, we have to like develop this knowledge of the verbiage of what all this stuff means because it can be very confusing, right? And then you know, you don't want to get hit over the head by an unscrupulous seller because they don't they know that you don't know what you know what to look for or what to want, and then they're steering you what to what they want you to buy as opposed to what's the best thing for you. You know, that's why we have this podcast, right guys? So I'm about hitting the halfway mark, and it hasn't grown yet. Right, um, it's still in the same place. I do feel a high coming in, but it's not a strong high. It's kind of like a fogginess in the frontal, right? Starting to get a little numbness around the eyes, but you know, that's it so far. As far as physical, nope, no medicinal feelings for this. I still got all my little aches and pains that I walked in the door with. So yeah, that didn't help with that respect.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

And headband in general is a unique strain, you know. Everybody has their unique experience with it because of the way it it manifests, you know, it feels strange, you know. For me, it's that I mean they call it headband, but it's like uh an awareness, an all-around awareness that kind of is like a bit of overstimulation.

SPEAKER_02 9:42

Interesting, you know, interesting. I um well, I mean, you know, they come from two legacies, legacy uh strains, OG Kush and Sour Diesel, which in New York City Sour Diesel, you know, yeah in the late 90s, early 2000s was probably the most popular strain at that time. Everybody was trying to get their hands on sour diesel. Uh OG Kush, of course, is a classic. And many strains we love today. If you look it up, one of the parents is OG Kush. Right. OG Kush is a parent uh strain for many, many things we love. Um, so you know, you can't go wrong with those two. Uh, I also have experience with headband in the past, and you know, like Skip said, it's been a great experience. Yeah. So hoping that this matches it. You know, I'm starting to feel high. It's kind of an old school high feel, I'm not gonna lie. It's kind of indeterminate. I don't know where it's going, but I do feel it in my uh in my head. Um, I can say this very little uh physical. Like, can you what do you think, Skidder?

SPEAKER_01 10:58

That is true. I don't feel anything.

SPEAKER_02 11:00

No numbness in the face. Like, I'm usually numb in my face right away. You know, none of that. Down in the last third, and it hasn't really changed much. Um still kind of trying to figure out where it's going. Yeah, it's it's kind of uh that high from back in the days where you kind of like a little absent-minded or a little slow-witted, I guess is a better way to put it. Um but not really like anything in particular, one way or another. Can you go out with this?

SPEAKER_01 11:35

Do you think you could go out with this? At this point, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And there's still a lot left. And I can feel the highs, just general, you know.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

Yeah, very that's a great word for a skip. Very general. Yeah, a very general high. And it's um it's kind of heavy on the brain. So, like, it's it got a little bit of that head brushy feeling. Yeah, it's like, you know, like when you have a buzz.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Yeah, that's why I was wondering if that's what they were aiming for. That that buzzy kind of in the head, you know. Well, it's called head man, right?

SPEAKER_02 12:12

Yeah, as far as the smoke itself, definitely has the pungent still, it's losing the sweetness. Um, I didn't really get diesel at all. Like it was very rare. Certain little strikes here and there. Um, but I didn't really get that. Earthy came on in the beginning, but it's let's see.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

I wonder if that peppery thing is maybe the diesel aspect of facet.

SPEAKER_02 12:39

Oh, because it tastes spicy, it doesn't taste chemicals. Right, that is true. Yeah, it's spicier. So at least I wouldn't think so. Right.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Because knowing the the two parents of this very well, in fact, you know, I think I still have a live stash of OG Kush somewhere, and uh uh good OG Kush is always great. It's good, it's good, and so and so is Sour D. So to have them together, I would expect it to be it. Maybe, I don't know, maybe a bit more chem, a little bit more diesely.

SPEAKER_02 13:15

Yeah, it's not, it just doesn't have that. But I'm high. There's no doubt about it. Am I smacked? No, no, but I'm high, definitely high. Yeah, definitely. So it works, folks. If that's the first, the first criteria, right? Are you high? Yes, I am. Now it's about how high? What kind of high? Right. Do you like the high? How long the last the high lasted. But it hit the first threshold. Are you high? Yes, we're high.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

Yeah, congratulations. It would be interesting to see if more cultivators would take on the task of uh cultivating uh the strains like this. Interesting, headband, all those that have those interesting crosses.

SPEAKER_02 14:01

Well, I mean, what we're slowly learning is that cultivators can pretty much call it whatever they want. Right, right. That's something that has to be reckoned with at some point. I wonder if like uh municipalities that have ha run into these things before us already resolve those issues, or if it's something that's still uh up in the air.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Well, I'm sure a lot of the states are you know a lot further ahead and more sophisticated and have those written in the in the codes.

SPEAKER_02 14:36

And look, I understand that changing the pheno phenotype or the the parentage of a of a of a strain that you but you want to call it that, I get what it is. It's you want the same effect, you want the way it made you feel, but you want it to be stronger than the original, right? Because we're finding out nowadays that a lot of the stuff we liked is you know 20, 18, 70. And when you compare that to the stuff in the market today, that's 30, right? You know, you start getting used to the 20 something percent, 30 stuff, and then you go back and smoke the 17 stuff, it better have its entourage effect like on point, 100%. Right. Because if it doesn't, it's not it's not gonna be as you know enjoyable as it used to be. Yeah. And so I think that that's what they're trying to do. It's like they're trying to make the same feeling, same everything, same experience, but stronger. Right. I think that's why now they're changing, you know, terps and phenotypes and all that stuff. But then the argument comes in is that really that strange? And shouldn't you be calling it super headband or super, you know, like something or headband 2.0 or you know, something like that, so that people can differentiate from the original? Right. Um I don't know. That's something that we will explore in a podcast that's not about reviews. Right. So I'm down in my last third. And as you can see, the high has us being introspective, uh talking, but not, you know, blabbing away. Looks like it's one of those kind of things. It's it feels to me like an old school thing, you know, one of those that you're gonna when you were hanging out in your friend's house all high, you all there now sitting there watching television quietly. Yeah, you know, the mom, your your friend's mom walks in. What's wrong with you guys? You all okay? Everybody's like, everybody's lit. Feels like one of those highs. That's probably what you're gonna want to do. Just hang out, watch some TV, listen to music, just chill. Doesn't sound like you're gonna want to do much more than that.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

But let's just start off like coming from the tree.

SPEAKER_02 17:19

Not really much more to say. I mean, high, feel right, heavy on the head feel. I guess that's why they call a headband, like a little too tight headband, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Yeah, the high is there, general bubble type high. Old school feels nice. You know, it um it's general, so you don't really have the focus to like zero in on something. Nice just to kick back, relax a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 17:50

Feels pretty good. And yeah, hopefully it still feels this way in an hour for me.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

One hour later.

SPEAKER_02 18:07

And we're back. One hour later. How did it go, Skip?

SPEAKER_01 18:11

One hour later. Um, I don't feel high, but the uh after effects definitely, especially like a little physical, the dry eye, or I feel like I have the Snoop Dogg eyes. I don't know, I haven't really seen myself, but I feel a little slow there as well in my speech. So it's there, the high is still there, but I'm not feeling it that way, you know, in the head. Okay. I uh kind of concur with what you're saying.

SPEAKER_02 18:43

Um I the peak was it's past. Yeah, the peak is passed. Um I am in the post. You know, that's how I like to say it. I'm in the post uh peak uh stage, and yeah, it's uh it's a smooth post, but um it's definitely post peak. And uh yeah, that's where I'm at. How did the hour go? Yeah, it was pretty smooth. We uh we we it was a decent high, like I said, general, and we had a good meal, and it was very enjoyable experience. So if you know you're gonna go have a meal, this is a good one for that. I think we're ready for the smack meter.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

We're ready. Let's do it. Let's do it. Definitely feel like this.

SPEAKER_02 19:27

This is alright. This is actually alright. I'm definitely feeling this. This is alright, this is actually alright.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

And we're back with Giglin Highland. Smack a meter. How does it go, bro? All right, well, let's do the rundown.

SPEAKER_02 19:42

Headband by String Gang. All right, so we got the package. We opened it very pretty, uh, like medium, small to medium-sized nugs. They were light greens with gold and brown hairs, and it was really nice looking. The turp profile was like pow right out the package, which was really nice. It was earthy and pungent. Um, you know, it had like a pollen-looking tricone thing going on. So they were like this golden amber tricone covering, and it looked like pollen, which was really funny. Um, it was very supple, it was fresh, it was very fluffy. I mean, you know, to the point where it was even hard to roll. Uh, as far as the smoke itself, it was a great smoke. Um, the smoke, you got the pungent. It was like a sweet pungent. Sometimes you get the earthy. Very rarely for me, a little more for Skip, if I recall correctly, you got the diesel. I got it maybe once or twice. Um, as far as the effects, it did give me a kind of euphoric kind of thing. I got tingly a little bit, like in kind of the back of my neck, but nothing to like write home about. And uplifted, yeah. I could say uplifted. Uh it was a good smoke. I enjoyed it. Um, it although not for the faint of heart. It was very um, it had an acridity, uh, which is something that's not usual with the string gangs we've tried. Usually they have um very smooth, very um uh uh pleasant smoke, you know, something that a casual fan would like, which uh for this, yeah, that might this might be difficult for a casual smoker. Uh as far as the high, it was a good high. Uh very generalized, very old school feel. Um we actually had a little bit of time to just hang out, and we found that that it was pretty cool. Not something you want a big group for a big group, something that you might prefer to just hang out with a small group of friends. Uh and then we sat down for a meal, you know, because that's one of the experiences you will do when you smoke. And it was a great experience. Fantastic experience eating. Uh enhanced the the food. So that was pretty good. As far as the come down, the come down was pretty good. Um it it tapered off very smoothly. Like I didn't feel a huge drop. However, I can say that from the moment I finished smoking the J till the one hour later skit, I did feel a difference. It's just that I didn't really feel when it happened. And that's really good. That's a good thing. That's very smooth, strain gang. Very smooth. You don't want to, you know, make that transition jarring. Uh so that part was nice. Uh, but there was a transition, and you know, I was at post after. The post is good, and yeah, that pretty much calls it. So gonna say, um, one of the things that we always have to put in mind when it comes to these ratings is price point. And strain gang is one of the higher ends, it's one of the ones that you can pay $70 and upwards for.

unknown 23:01

Right.

SPEAKER_02 23:02

So that has to be taken into account when making our ratings. Um, and yeah, it if I bought this, would I be upset after smoking it? Probably not. Um, and because of that, I will give it a 7.6. Okay. However, I didn't get smacked, and it didn't, you know, even though the pulse is, you know, still going on right now, the peak didn't last long enough to, you know, sustain a higher, higher score.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

So that's where my skip. Okay, well, like mind. Um, I'll start off by saying headband, you know, like anyone that has had experience with it, you know, would jump at the chance to just try anything that has that name. And uh, it looks like, you know, they uh attempted to recreate those that feeling that headband gives. And uh they got it right in certain aspects, you know, especially, especially the the post-high, the after effects or the remnants, which kind of adds to the totality of the high is sustained throughout the hour. It just changed into some different, uh more low-key, and you can kind of hear it in my voice, but that high is still there. So for that, you know, that's pretty impressive. But everything else uh as a package was decent as it came as we opened it, as we got through it, it was a decent ride. Uh, not as strong as one would like or I would like, you know, and that's just me. But yeah, this is this is the thing. And also considering the amount of money that one has to shell out just to get an eighth of this thing, that is really a big price point. And for that, I'm gonna give it a 7.4. It hits, but it also hits the wallet a little hard as to what you know.

SPEAKER_02 25:02

Good way to put it, Skip. Good way to put it. And good friends, that is our review. Don't forget, if you have any comments, opinions, concerns, or just want to drop us a lifeline, visit our comment section or our YouTube page. And don't forget to hit that follow button and the subscribe button too.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

And with that, thanks again for visiting Giglin Highland. See you on the next trip.