So it’s been really busy, and believe you me at my age that’s a really good thing. So we got everything replaced after that electrical storm. I hope some time elapses before the next ‘big thing’ happens. We had a killer camp and Richie Furay came to town with his band and played the show Saturday night. By the bye… I got to play For What It’s Worth with Richie and the gang.

Richie with his De Angelico.

Foto by Jorma Kaukonen

We finished that Fur Peace Ranch weekend up and loaded up the bus and headed north to the Capitol Theater in Portchester, New York.

50th Anniversary light show at the Capitol.

Foto by Jorma Kaukonen

Hot Tuna 22, 2019
The Electric Trio
Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady
& Justin Guip
The Capitol Theater
Portchester, New York

1. Been So Long
2. Candy Man
3. I See The Light
4. Can’t Get Satisfied
5. Ode To Billy Dean
6. Living Just For You
7. Sleep Song
8. Day To Day Ourt The Window Blues
9. Bowlegged Woman
10. Come Back Baby
11. Trial By Fire
12. Good Shepherd
13. Hit Single # 1
14. Encore: Water Song

We were sharing this bill with the David Bromberg Band and it was a great musical night for all of us. The next night we were at the Paramount in Asbury Park and I got to sit in with David for the last tune of his set. Thanks David!

The Airplane played here back in the day many times. BTW so did Tuna.

Foto by Jorma Kaukonen

Blues in B flat

Foto by Phil Jacobs

Hot Tuna 23, 2019
The Electric Trio
Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady
& Justin Guip
The Paramount Theater
Asbury Park, New Jersey
Friday, August 16, 2019

1. Death Don’t Have No Mercy
2. Serpent Of Dreams
3. Hesitation Blues
4. Day To Day Out The Window Blues
5. Talkin Bout You
6. Ode To Billy Dean
7. Wolves & Lambs
8. Sea Child
9. Bowlegged Woman
10. Watch The North Wind Rise
11. Come Back Baby
12. Funky # 7
13. Encore: Water Song

I didn’t plan on it, but I started the set off with Death Don’t Have No Mercy in remembrance for Peter Fonda who passed on this day. The walls of time are closing in.

Then it was up to Westbury for a gig with Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams.

Back to the Island!

Foto by Phil Jacobs

Always more than great to see Larry and T… and I got to play Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and burning with them.

Great Times!

Foto by Phil Jacobs

Hot Tuna 24, 2019
The Electric Trio
Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady
& Justin Guip
Theater At Westbury
Westbury, Long Island
Saturday, August 17, 2019

1. Ain’t In No Hurry
2. Been So Long
3. Can’t Get Satisfied
4. Baby What You Want Me To Do?
5. Living Just For You
6. Wolves & Lambs
7. Bowlegged Woman
8. Walkin’ Blues
9. In The Kingdom
10. Trial By Fire
11. Good Shepherd
12. Ode To Billy Dean
13. Funky #7
14. Encore: Water Song

Rockin' In The Round

Foto by Phil Jacobs

Tomorrow is our first show with Dave Mason up here in New Haven at the College Music Hall. So far Big Fun every night.

Notice the Jorma Votive Candle

Foto by Jorma Kaukonen

(Get your Jorma Votive Candle… Today!!!!)

So it’s been a busy week filled with things that were occasionally frustrating, often rewarding and never dull. Last Thursday my pal Smiles and I were working in my barn/shop replacing the ballast in some fluorescent lighting. My phone made that noise that tells me that the Weather Channel was trying to warn us about something. I looked down and there was a warning that a lightning storm was approaching. A lighting event was only four miles away. I looked at the radar. It looked like it was going to just miss us so we kept on working. Looking up, the sky looked like the Mind Flayer from Stranger Things was suddenly hovering over us. I had to rethink my position. A little rain. How bad could it be? The Mind Flayer cloud wrapped itself over the Fur Peace Ranch and in the blink of an eye we were deluged with rain. Hurl was running to his truck to close the sun roof and as we looked out into the rain, the parking lot lit up with the closest lightning strike I’ve ever witnessed.

When we had our first lightning strike in the early 90’s over at Hillside Farm one of my buddies philosophically said, ‘Jorma, lightning goes where it wants to… when it wants to.’ True that. In a millisecond, TV’s were fried… phones were fried… the Ranch internet was fried… and more. The mother board for the Generac fried and the breaker to the pool pump gave up its life to save the pump and the salt generator. Friday we were planning to have a pool party for Izze and twenty of her friends so this was really a potential disaster in the making. Vanessa jumped into Repair Mode as she does and Friday morning Smiles replaced the pool breaker. The party went off as planned and while the kids enjoyed moderate mayhem poolside, Nessa and I sat by the fire.

By the sacred fire pit.

Selfie by us

The fire pit sits on the location where Grandpa Wallace Black Elk built a sweat lodge in 1998 and where I heard the Thunder Beings circle the lodge. Wallace Black Elk passed on ‘04 but sharing his spiritual space in ‘98 will never be forgotten.

The space is still sacred!

Timed Selfie

There were no thunder beings today, but the laughter of kids is a good substitute.

Good times!

Foto by Jorma Kaukonen

We found ourselves in an internet free zone, both a blessing and a curse. I had phone service, but I’m not fond of doing internet work on the phone. In any case, Sunday was a beautiful day and I allocated it’s beauty to a motorcycle ride to Ritter Park in Huntington, West Virginia.

Ritter Park

Foto by Jorma Kaukonen

Back in the 90’s I had a dear friend named Butch, aka Taylor. When he found he had cancer he had me record a six hour oral history to leave to his family. He lost a lung but kept on talking and playing his harmonica into my microphone. The cancer came back. I guess he figured ‘What the heck,’ so he started smoking again. I remember recording him while he smoked and breathed oxygen. ‘Don’t blow me up,’ I said. In any case, Butch was also an artist and spent the last year or so of his life creating the stainless steel sculpture I had come to see again in Ritter Park. He called it his ‘Earth Portal,’ and indeed it was, as I shall explain.

The Portal... Sunday in the park...

Foto by Jorma Kaukonen

As I was walking towards the sculpture from my bike, a father and son stopped to look at the work. They were walking away as I was approaching it and I called to them, ‘My friend built this twenty years ago before he passed. He would be thrilled to know that families are still enjoying it. They regarded me with suspicion, but that’s OK. These are suspicious times, and I said what I had to say. Less than a week after Butch saw the work placed, he walked through his own Earth Portal… and was gone. My friend Jerry was there that day when the statue was placed and he got to spend some time Butch. ‘There are no ripples on my pond,’ he said.

What more could one want.

...and he lives on in a way!

Foto by Jorma Kaukonen

The new week came and each day we worked to fix the burned out items. We have a camp this weekend so it was imperative to get everything back to normal, which we did… an hour ago.

And so it goes, people coming, people going. As my friend Gretchen Peters would say, ‘Good times come, good times go. If it lifts you up, it will lay you low. People leave and they don’t come back. Life is a disappearing act.’

Trials and tribulations notwithstanding, so far so good.