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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
God Save The King/BBQ Uber Alles, April 20, 2003
JORMA'S PUNK ALBUM? When Hot Tuna broke up, in 1978, it was a strange world indeed. This amazing guitar player, troubador of tunes and craftsman of original music always gave a tip of his hat to tradition, while he dutifully carried the torch of the reigning free spirit of the Volunteers of Amerikkka and the Woodstock generation. Jorma always had an open mind, encouraged creativity in everyone around him, and was an amazingly humble person. Jorma was not a punk-rocker, nor did he try to be. What he did try to be, if anything, was true to himself. To be forced into anyone's preconceived notion or expectation of what he should be would contradict everything he beleived in and stood for. It must have seemed odd I imagine, that the very audience that enthusiastically embraced this ideology in the sixties, were the very ones who seemed to not want to let Jorma change, grow or experiment at this time. Jorma could have easily found a Jack Cassady replacement, there were tons of fans that worshiped him, and knew every song backward and forwards. Fans that had access to him. There may not be anyone who could truly replace Jack, for he was truly a great and unique bass player in his own right, but he could have found someone who knew the songs and someone who could at least emulate Jack's approach. To Jorma, I think, it was about more than that. It was about the spirit. I was there, that's how I know. I heard people shout disappointedly, "Let your freak flag fly Jorma!!!" after he had cut his hair and died it PURPLE. His hair was short and PURPLE!!!! What more of a Phreak Phlag do you want!!!...This reaction seemed about as open minded in '79/'80 as a redneck hollering get a haircut a decade earlier.
Would his audience of been happier if he put together a mellow cover band of his greatest hits? It certainly would seem so. Would Jorma have been? Obviously not. When Jorma first asked me to play with him it was after he saw Bob Steeler and I play a show in our band "The Offs". When I met him I didn't know a single one of his songs. I had a couple of Jefferson Airplane albums as a kid, and I called him JOR-MA (With a "hard" J as in "Jump"). I asked him how Maurice was.(That strange character on the back of the Volunteers Album-he was never in the band-he was just a character on the cover is all) We met up a couple of days after that if I recall, the three of us. We got together and just jammed for hours. The next time I saw him was at a gig in New York. We hadn't even practiced, not in any disciplined sense. I think it was booked as a Hot Tuna show, as I recall. As we continued to play together, we got a little better. There were alot of things lacking, and the band was never as good as a band with Jorma should have been. This was for a variety of reasons, including my relative inexperience. We also had our moments, and I always thought in retrospect we could have been so much better, especially with the right support. The audience apparently hated me. For better or worse this album chronicles that time. I keep a copy like one might keep a yearbook or a picture album. It reminds me of a younger innocent time for me. It reminds me of fun times, wild times, free times. It also brings back some bad memories. You can say what you will about this album, but if you listen maybe you can sense a little bit of that spirit, I can even hear it through the over-production.
I give this Album three stars, and each one of those stars go completely to Jorma. His guitar playing is impecable. I honestly think that although Quah is a must have, this album rounds out any true collection representative of the man. His audience hated this album, for the most part - it sold less than any of the Albums that preceded it. The radio stations barely played it. They scapegoated me for some reason so it seemed. They seemed to view Jorma as being a "traiter" for joining the "punks" (playing with me in other words). Thus far I had only played in punk bands so I was used to people throwing stuff at me. I guess you could say Jorma didn't especially "strike a chord" with his audience at this time, and he was soon dropped from the record company immediately following this album (RCA) .-We parted ways not long after that, though to this day we keep in touch. Although Jorma's audience might not have been all that open minded, they were eager to forgive him and take him back. It was soon forgotten, as if it were just a prank, and he continues to forge ahead to this day. In retrospect, I admire Jorma now, and think it took a lot of courage to do what he's done. He is a brave man, and he taught me the life long lesson that it takes true courage to be yourself, sometimes even when you are unsure of what that is. Like any true artist, he is a complicated man, and this album is part of a complete picture. If you are a Jorma fan, you should buy it. If you are one of the old fans that used to throw things at me, you should buy me a beer -hehe -though I guess I can't really blame you- but in case you wondered.... I was never such a bad guy!
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~ Jorma Kaukonen
~ Jorma Kaukonen
~ Jorma Kaukonen
~ Hot Tuna
~ Jorma Kaukonen
by Jorma Kaukonen 
