Jorma Kaukonen's Online Diary

A moments respite here to unpack and repack and I'm off to Connecticut. There are songbirds by the barn this morning... Spring is coming and I will be back on line when I get to Connecticut.

Onward!

I guess it's been almost four years since we played the Seabury Center here in Wesport. That was right after Blue Country Heart and we had Cindy Cashdollar and Tony Trishka on board for that show. Last night it was just Barry and myself and it was such a pleasure to play duet music in an almost perfect environment. This is definitely where the finger meets the fret board! Here is our set list:

Jorma Kaukonen & Barry Mitterhoff 14, 2005
Seabury Center
Westport, Connecticut
Friday, March 03, 2006

Set One:
1. Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out
2. True Religion
3. I Know You Rider
4. Big River Blues
5. Been So Long
6. Death Don’t Have No Mercy
7. Serpent Of Dreams
8. Heart Temporary
9. Bread Line Blues
10. Preaching On the Old Camp Ground
11. How Long Blues
12. Red River Blues

Set Two:
1. Tom Cat Blues
2. I’ll Let You Know Before I Leave
3. More Than My Old Guitar
4. Parchman Farm
5. Keep Your Lamps Trimmed And Burning
6. Come Back Baby
7. Prohibition Blues
8. Embryonic Journey
9. Good Shepherd
10. 3rd Week In The Chelsea
11. Just Because
12. Encore: Hesitation Blues

We're just getting ready to head on down to Pennsylvania so this will be somewhat brief. I will just say this... I hope it doesn't take four years to come back to the Seabury Center!

Well, the gig at the Colonial Theater (Home of the Blob) Was outstanding. This was our first time there and we really had a great time. Here is our set list:

Jorma Kaukonen & Barry Mitterhoff 15, 2005
Colonial Theater
Phoenixville, Pennsylvania
Saturday, March 04, 2006

Set One:
1. Blue Railroad Train
2. Search My Heart
3. I’ll Let You Know Before I Leave
4. Blues Stay Away From Me
5. Parchman Farm
6. Keep Your Lamps Trimmed & Burning
7. I See The Light
8. Prohibition Blues
9. Preaching Tonight
10. Uncle Sam Blues
11. I Know You Rider

Set Two:
1. I’m Free From The Chain Gang Now
2. 9 Pound Hammer
3. Death Don’t Have No Mercy
4. Serpent Of Dreams
5. Heart Temporary
6. Bread Line Blues
7. Embryonic Journey
8. More Than My Old Guitar
9. Let Us Get Together Right Down Here
10. Come Back Baby
11. 99 Year Blues
12. I Am The Light Of This World
13. A Life Well Lived
14. San Francisco Bay Blues
15. Encore: Water Song

We're just getting ready to load up and head on up to Teaneck for our gig at Mexicali Blues. theswe three dates are the last of a two month tour and it will be great to get back home... to be with Vanessa and get ready for the opening of the Ranch.

As I get ready to head for the parking lot and our dirt encrusted van, I find myself thinking it would be nice to come back to the Colonial next year!

Just another short note... Myron and I are getting ready to head for home... with a stop at Cabela's of course!

Mexicali Blues was a complete blast. Falzarano has been telling me about this place for years and he was right. The food was outstanding... and the audience equally so! Here is our set list:

Jorma Kaukonen & Barry Mitterhoff 16, 2006
Mexicali Blues
Teaneck, New Jersey
Sunday, March 05, 2006

Set One:
1. New Song for The Morning
2. Candy Man
3. I’ll Let You Know Before I Leave
4. How Long Blues
5. Parchman Farm
6. Keep Your Lamps Trimmed And Burning
7. Serpent Of Dreams
8. Prohibition Blues
9. Preaching On The Old Camp Grounds
10. Been So Long
11. I Know You Rider

Set Two:
1. Tom Cat Blues
2. More Than My Old Guitar
3. Hesitation Blues
4. Search My Heart
5. Come Back Baby
6. Bread Line Blues
7. Death Don’t Have No Mercy
8. Trial By Fire
9. Good Shepherd
10. Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out
11. Just Because
12. Encore: Genesis

Yep... we're three for three on this little run. Life is good... and I'm outta here!

Well, here I am back home really for the first time in two months. There's lot's to catch up on but I'm looking forward to doing. OK, so I missed taking out the trash this morning... there's lot's more to do and Tuesday will come again next week as well.

Just wanted te say 'Hey' from the home base. V

Back to work!

Wow... I even got a little motorcycle ride in as I got Nessa's bike and mine ready for riding. This morning it was raining and cold as I drove my truck into tow, but Spring is coming... of that there is no doubt. I heard peepers and birds this morning...

Onward..

We're all getting ready for the opening of the Ranch next week. Yes, it's the beginnning of our ninth year. Where do those decades go? Jack, Marjorie and Happy Traum will be arriving next week. We're really excited about being back in the saddle again.

Today a while bunch of friends got together out on SR 681 and cleaned up the two mile strectch of highway the FPR adopted. We just got the job done before the weather from come in and socked us with the heavy rain we're getting right now.

I feel good about being there... I'm the the road so often. It's amazing the things peapole throw out of their car windows.

Hmmm....

Vanessa and I had a peaceful weekend at home. It poured rain... the road flooded... it's still pouring, but that's OK. We really needed it after the dry winter.

We're in the throws of getting ready for the opening of our ninth year at the Fur Peace Ranch. Exciting stuff... Tonight we're going to see The World's Fastest Indian. I'm fired up.

I wish I had cleaned the gutters before the rain started. Oh well...

Unseasonable yesterday... 78 degrees and then the rains came back. Vanessa and I hopped into the old truck and went into Athens to Catch The Worlds Fastest Indian. What a great movie. anyone who knows me knows of my love for internal combustion powered two wheeled vehicles but this was so much more than a motorcycle movie. Burt Munro... what a guy. His land speed record for bikes under 1000 cc's set in 1967 on a 1920 Indian still stands today... over 200 miles per hour. The old gentleman sure knew how to follow his dreams. It's a good lead to take.

Anthony Hopkins sure nailed this role! Kudos to all involve... I'm going to town.

Yesterday Myron and I went to Parkersburg, West Virginia to get a cap put on my truck... we stopped by the RC Model shop too. Myron's ate up with RC cars.

Jack came in last night and today we're putting some finishing touches on the Ranch for tomorrow's opening. It's the ninth year... we are truly excited. There will be more about this over to weekend. I've got to go to the hardware store.

Onward!

We have a great group of students this weekend to kick off the ninth year of the Fur Peace Ranch. It's a full house and although the temperatures are low, it's sunny and spirits are high.

Happy Traum shared with us yesterday that it is Homespun's 40th birthday. Happy and Jane gave me my second start in the teaching business. they are the best and we wish them many, many more years!

Tonight, Jack, Happy and myaself are going to have a little hoot at the Fur Peace Station since there is no concert tonight. A format free evening of music is a thing of beauty. And me... time to warm up trhe car and get on over to the Beatrice Love Kitchen for breakfast.

Last night after a full day of teaching, Happy Traum, Jack Casady and myself sat on the stage at the Station together and shared songs with the campers for a couple of hours. It was such a pleaseure to get out of our 'performance' mode and just play with friends. Happy is such a wealth of great music, tales and information.

All in all... a great day!

The opening weekend of our ninth season at the Ranch certainly went well. It was a full house with lots of pickers who just couldn't stop pickin'. Jack has an early flight home this morning and I have another class to give so I dragged my butt out of bed a little early to have coffee with him. Ness has already gone over to the Ranch to fix breakfast so the day has already begun.

Let's go!

Happy first day of Spring. We got an inch of snow today and I can still hear birds chirping. The good news is that even if it was cold, it was sunny and beautiful over the weekend... a great opening for the Ninth Season of the FPR. We had some Father/Daughter, Father/Son teams at the Ranch this weekend. Mark and Allie, Howard and Zack, Randy and Jane... y'all sure helped it all to happen for us!

I'm now in the process of cleaning my office. It's finally gotten to the point where even I find it unacceptable. Time to take another load to the trash.

It's still chilly and there is some snow on the north side of the hills, but the sky is bright and spring like and a mama bluejay is making a nest in one of our bird houses. Yep... in spite of the temperature... spring is coming.

Last night, Vanessa and I went to the Casa Lopez for some Mexican food. I ordered Tamales... one of my favorites... and when they came they tasted just like the first Mexican food I ever had. Check this out. My Dad was stationed in Pakistan and it was about 1954. He invited me along on one of our rare father and son trips... duck hunting it was. We were in an area about a day's drive from Karachi. It was desert like, but it was filled with marshes and small inter-connecting lakes. I had a Stevens double barrel 16 gauge and a Mossberg bolt action .22 rifle. I remember I was wearing waist waders as I walked through the reeds. All of a sudden i fell into a crevass in the lake bottom... the waders filled with water and the shotgun barrel went into the mud. After I extricated myself, retrieved the soggy waders and cleaned the mud out of the barrel, i found that somehow the firing pin mechanism of the gun had been compromised. You don't hunt ducks with a .22, so that took me out of the hunt. This did not diminish tha excitement of the trip!

Later that night we made camp on a mosaic floor that was the last vestige of a temple ruin... way out there in the middle of nowhere. We had a little Primus stove and Dad fired it up. Out came the cooking utensils and several cans of... tamales! Dad grew up in East L.A. Mexican food was nothing new to him, but is was to me. Here I am, out with my Dad and some of his friends, in the middle of a Pakistani wilderness area, camping in the ruin of an ancient mosque and eating canned tamales. Does it get much better than this for a 14 year old kid in the fifties?

When our tour of duty was over and we returned to D.C. I sold the Stevens 16 gauge, but I still have the Mossberg... and the memories.

Last night Vanessa and I ventured up to the Stewart Opera House in Nelsonville to see Be Here To Love Me... a movie about the life of Townes Van Zandt. It was powerful stuff. I knew the man only through his songs... the wonderful gifts he left behind. He was able to sculpt such beauty with his words and music but he seemed to surround the rest of his life with chaos. Is chaos and suffering a prerequisite for creation? I have to admit that sometimes tears are more comfortable to share than smiles. I certainly am not the prolific or intensely perfect songwriter that Townes was but I do find that Ifeel that I am more comfortable dealing with longing than fulfillment. Maybe I need to work on this.

I loved this movie... and it certainly made me feel greatful that at 65 I am able to start living a life that I never could have achieved or even dreamed of in my 20's. I was so consumed with playing the guitar. Marriage, relationships, everything took a back seat to that. I thought it was necessary to thrust myself unbidden onto that lost highway... and indeed I stayed there for many years. Someone once told me a very long time ago, 'You don't have to get hit by a car to know that it is going to hurt.' I did... and more than once too.

Well the good news for me is that somehow by the grace of G_d I managed to get through it and there I was going to see a movie about one who didn't. Why me or not me or anyone for that matter? It's just the way it is I guess. I can tell you that today each day is filled with adventure for me, even if I don't leave the house. Vanessa just gave me a diaper bag yesterday in expectation of the arrival of our little girl. Excited about a diaper bag? You bet!

How did this happen? It's unbelievable! I can hardly wait to start chiseling oatmeal from the cracks in the dining room table and emptying the diaper bag. Who knew? Not I, that's for sure.

Well, next week we have our second camp coming up and or first concert of the year with Mary Gauthier and John Cephas. Good stuff... Onward!

A low key day for me today spent working around the house... oiling the wood on my canoe... getting the roof rack fitted.. thinking about Spring.

Tomorrow is Vanessa's birtheay so I'm also rushing around getting some things together before she gets home... gotta get back to it.

It's rainy, but warm today... good stuff.. gotta go!