Karate champ and film star Jim “The Dragon” Kelly has died of cancer at the age of 67.

Six foot two with an explosive Afro, Kelly made an indelible impression in 1973’s Enter The Dragon by holding his own against the film’s massively charismatic star Bruce Lee. Kelly’s character, Williams, was somewhat of a symbol of the Black Power movement in America at the time and Kelly’s look, defiant demeanor and no bullshit attitude fit the role perfectly.

Kelly went on to make a string of films in the 70s, the most popular of which were Black Belt Jones and Three The Hard Way. He also appeared briefly in the wildly twisted The Amazing Mr. No Legs.

Kelly exuded a cool intensity and had a screen presence that should have made him a bigger star than he was. But the scripts he was offered he turned down because they were generally exploitation flicks that he felt didn’t give him an opportunity to project a positive image. His martial arts training had made him very aware of directing his energies toward a higher goal. Playing Black stereotypes in low-rent B-movies wasn’t the kind of karma he wanted to accrue.

In this video shot during the 2012 Albuquerque Comic Expo, Kelly is interviewed by martial arts film historian Ric Meyers. The result is a wonderfully insightful take on one of cinema’s shooting stars and one of martial arts true legends. Kelly’s feelings for Bruce Lee are profound.
 

 
American child actors aren’t expected to turn out well as adults. Tabloids, reality television, and Twitter keep us informed of the latest shenanigans of grown-up former child stars. One member of their ranks has taken a stranger path than most. 

Brandon Cruz played the character of Eddie Corbett in the television show The Courtship of Eddie’s Father opposite Bill Bixby from 1969 to 1972. The show had a long run in syndication in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Cruz appeared in other television shows (The Incredible Hulk, Love, American Style, Gunsmoke) and the 1976 movie The Bad News Bears before leaving acting behind. Cruz took up skateboarding and surfing and became involved in the hardcore punk scene in Ventura County, California around 1980.

Cruz was a part of the scene in the Silver Strand Beach area near Oxnard. He was the vocalist for the band Dr. Know from 1981 to 1983 (later reforming with bassist Ismael Hernandez from 1998 to 2010). The original line-up was vocalist and guitarist Kyle Toucher, bassist Ismael Hernandez, and drummer Robin Cartwright. Dr. Know was one of many hardcore bands around Oxnard that made up the local subgenre of “nardcore,” along with Agression, Ill Repute, Rich Kids on LSD, and Stäläg 13. Cruz later recalled that the Ventura County scene was a diverse one in the early 1980’s, with a mixture of white, Filipino, Mexican, Japanese, and African-American musicians and fans.

Cruz explained the origin of the name “Nardcore” to Ginger Coyote of Punk Globe: 

Agression, Ill Repute, and a bunch of other people were all there at a party one night when Ismael heard the D.O.A. Record, Hardcore ‘81. Ismael remarked that if they were Hardcore, then we were Nardcore. Simple as that. Tony From Ill Repute took that joke and ran with it. It turned up in graffiti all over town, on surfboards and skateboards, and pretty soon, we had a scene.

After leaving Dr. Know, Cruz performed with Flipper, Harmful If Swallowed, Twister Naked, SVDB, The Ugly Truth, MDCN+MN, and the reunited Dead Kennedys, replacing vocalist Jello Biafra from 2001 to 2003. Cruz’s reunited line-up of Dr. Know disbanded in 2010 because of difficulty finding a suitable new guitarist. Founding member Kyle Toucher immediately reformed the band under the name The Real Dr. Know. 

Cruz appeared in Paul Rachman and Steven Blush’s 2006 documentary American Hardcore:The History of American Punk Rock 1980-1986. After achieving sobriety, he began working on a professional level in the drug and alcohol rehabilitation community in southern California, utilizing surfing as a mode of therapy for recovering addicts. Last year he appeared in the Rob Zombie horror film The Lords of Salem.
 

Dr. Know (with Brandon Cruz) performing at the Whisky A Go-Go in Hollywood in 1997

 
Love Lego? Love horror films?

Then you’ll probably love this stop-motion, Lego version of Dario Argento’s Tenebre.

Often considered the “finest film that Argento has ever made,” Tenebre (or Tenebrae) was (surprisingly) branded a “Video Nasty” upon its initial release in the U.K. In America the film it had a delayed release and was eventually allowed to escape in a badly cut version as Unsane.

Tenebre/Tenebrae proved to be a highly influential film and contains many of Argento’s signature themes and visual set-pieces. Thankfully, it was restored to its proper g(l)ory in the late-1990s and has since been re-evaluated by Tim Lucas at Video Watchdog, and Ed Gonzalez at Slant, who described Argento’s masterpiece as “a riveting defense of auteur theory, ripe with self-reflexive discourse and various moral conflicts. It’s both a riveting horror film and an architect’s worst nightmare.”
 

 
The transcript of Truman Capote’s interview with Manson murderer Bobby Beausoleil, conducted in the latter’s cell at San Quentin Prison in 1972, is fascinating for a number of reasons, ranging from the two men’s sheer, exotic incongruity, to its exposure of Capote’s flirtatious/confrontational approach to interviewing killers. Most intriguing of all, however, is its revelation that, while Beausoleil may have been quite singularly star-crossed and known many notorious criminals himself, he didn’t have nothin’ on Capote…

Capote begins the conversation by bringing up a mutual acquaintance, Sirhan Sirhan, whom he has just visited at the same prison earlier that day.

Bobby Beausoleil (laughs): Sirhan B. Sirhan. I knew him when they had me up on the Row. He’s a sick guy. He don’t belong here. He ought to be in Atascadero. Want some gum? Yeah, well, you seem to know your way around here pretty good. I was watching you out on the yard. I was surprised the warden lets you walk around the yard by yourself. Somebody might cut you. 

Truman Capote: Why? 

Beausoleil: For the hell of it. But you’ve been here a lot, huh? Some of the guys were telling me. 

Capote: Maybe half a dozen times on different research projects.

The two talk execution chambers for a while, and then Capote mentions that his knowing Sirhan Sirhan must make him the only person alive to have been acquainted with Jack Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy—and their respective assassins!

Beausoleil: Oswald? You knew Oswald? Really? 

Capote: I met him in Moscow just after he defected. One night I was having dinner with a friend, an Italian newspaper respondent, and when he came by to pick me up he asked me if I’d mind going with him first to talk to a young American defector, one Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald was staying at the Metropole, an old Czarist hotel just off Kremlin Square. The Metropole has a big gloomy lobby full of shadows and dead palm trees. And there he was, sitting in the dark under a dead palm tree. Thin and pale, thin-lipped, starved-looking. He was wearing chinos and tennis shoes and a lumberjack shirt. And right away he was angry—he was grinding his teeth, and his eyes were jumping every which way. He was boiling over about everything: the American ambassador; the Russians—he was mad at them because they wouldn’t let him stay in Moscow. We talked to him for about half an hour, and my Italian friend didn’t think the guy was worth filing a story about. Just another paranoid hysteric; the Moscow woods were rampant with those. I never thought about him again, not until many years later. Not until after the assassination when I saw his picture flashed on television. 

Beausoleil: Does that make you the only one that knew both of them, Oswald and Kennedy? 

Capote: No. There was an American girl, Priscilla Johnson. She worked for U.P. in Moscow. She knew Kennedy, and she met Oswald around the same time I did. But I can tell you something else almost as curious. About some of those people your friends murdered. 

Beausoleil: (Silence) 

Capote: I knew them. At least, out of the five people killed in the Tate house that night, I knew four of them. I’d met Sharon Tate at the Cannes Film Festival. Jay Sebring cut my hair a couple of times. I’d had lunch once in San Francisco with Abigail Folger and her boyfriend, Frykowski. In other words, I’d known them independently of each other. And yet one night there they were, all gathered together in the same house waiting for your friends to arrive. Quite a coincidence.

Beausoleil (lights a cigarette; smiles): Know what I’d say? I’d say you’re not such a lucky guy to know.

Consider yourself told, Truman Capote!

Stranger still is the shadow of another coincidence, seemingly unbeknownst to both interlocutors, that knits these remarkable coincidence clusters together. Who was it that Bobby Kennedy dined with before being driven to his notorious date with Sirhan Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel? Why, none other than Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate.

It’s a small world—smaller still if you’re Truman Capote and Bobby Beausoleil.

Read the full, fascinating transcript here

Below, Truman Capote razzes Johnny Carson on The Dean Martin Roast:
 

 
This is a wondrous age we live in. Films that have languished in obscurity, rotting away in assorted attics and storage units are starting to resurface, all after being tossed off as lost. It’s a weird film lover’s dream and adding to the growing list are not one but three titles, all connected to the Godfather of Gore and cardinal in the holy church of exploitation cinema himself, Herschell Gordon Lewis. Thanks to the hardworking folks at Vinegar Syndrome, not only do we have access to the Ecstasies of Women, Linda & Abilene and Black Love, but we have access to them restored and looking more gorgeous then they have a right to on both DVD and glorious Blu Ray as The Lost Films of Herschell Gordon Lewis.

The high definition sleaze proceedings begin with The Ecstasies of Women, a 1969 light-as-a-feather but stiff-as-a-bourbon-on-the-rocks confection that just oozes late 60’s swank. A bachelor party for Harry (Walter Camp) is in full swing at a topless revue club, complete with a snarky but flirty waitress who greets the groom-to-be and his companions with, “How’s the doomsmen and his executioner?” Instant awesome.

 
Even better is some of the commentary towards the two pulchritudinous lovelies gyrating on stage. “They must have ball bearings for ball joints!” Turns out ole Harry makes his bread by selling lingerie, presumably door-to-door, to ladies across the land. In a gin stooped, horny daze, our hero starts daydreaming about all of the sweet memories that have unfolded in his bachelor pad/houseboat. The first dreamy flashback, complete with little charming and ethereal sound effects accompanying it, involves a semi-downtrodden but lovely brunette Annette (Jeanette Mills). Annette, a permanent tourist, ends up falling for Harry’s come-ons, which are on the Tillamook side of cheese.

After some heavy petting in Harry’s golden gas guzzler of the gods, they head back to the houseboat, where Annette models some of his bread and butter. Ignoring the uncleanliness of it all, the two hit it off biblically, complete with lots of leg and semi-chaste haunch shots, with a soundtrack of lounge music and dubbed over moaning.

It’s not long after that we get Harry’s next flashback, this time napping on the beach, only to be interrupted by a beach bunny, Sandy (Vincene Wallace), whose love of wheat germ & clean living is matched only by her abrasive nymphomania. Such a combo can be scary if we’re talking about the winsome physical charms of Taft but luckily for Harry, Sandy’s blonde, busty and willing. Cue in, you guessed it, more groovy music and dubbed in moaning.

 
Harry’s houseboat, which features such nice decorations as a big sign that proclaims “This is not the Mayflower but many broads have come across in it!” Nothing says class like referring to women as broads. Quick lesson, unless you’re the living reincarnation of James Cagney circa Public Enemy, just say no. His next dreamy flashback starts with him picking up a comely hitchhiker, Philomena (Sharon Matt). Jail bait on a stick, Phil all but tells him that she is fifteen but quickly backtracks when he starts to (understandably) freak out. Fellas, here’s another tip, if you pick up a young looking girl who is dressed in a schoolgirl uniform and you’re NOT in an Aerosmith video, just assume she’s jail bait and get out of dodge.

But Larry’s the kind of guy who likes to live it up Jimmy Page style and brings young Phil to his boat of wood-paneled lust. Before the film turns into a sheer 60’s negligee version of All the Girls I’ve Loved Before, Harry’s loins and heart are soon sorely tempted by one of the girls at the Revue and with a name like Summer Frenzy (Bonnie Clark), who could blame him?

Out of the three films, The Ecstasies of Women is the most fun with the best zingers, lots of great colors, gorgeous ladies and warped, horny logic that lies only in that special realm known as sexploitation. The trailer that accompanies is it equally fun, with Harry being described as a “professional lovemaker.” I hear the pay is bad, but the benefits are quite cherry.

After that, is 1969’s Linda & Abilene, one of the very few hybrids of the western genre with sexploitation. While the titular Linda (Roxanne Jones) romps with a macho cowboy during the opening credits, the film itself begins with a funeral. Young Abilene (Sharon Matt, again) and her brother Todd (Kip Marsh), are left orphaned as they bury their parents. Dealing with their grief, they both press on, as the young adults take care of their family’s land and humble home.

 
Their healing path soon takes a weird turn after Todd catches his sister skinny dipping, unraveling a whole slew of hormones and urges towards her. Fate would have it that Abilene is also having some similar feelings. Faster than you can say “Jesus, no,” the twain do meet and meet again, making one wonder if anyone sitting in the grindhouse audience was actually aroused or too busy being squicked out by the family love gone way the hell too far.

Todd starts to feel guilty, conveniently after canoodling with her around eleventy times, and runs off to town to get a breather at the local bar. (He should have ran to a local church to thank god that she wasn’t pregnant with their two headed love-spawn.) An hour later after her brief appearance in the opening credits, Linda shows up and is instantly smitten with handsome and confused Todd. When she inquires about Abilene, Todd lets it slip that she is all alone on the farm, all within ear shot of the superbly greasy Rawhide (Tom Thorn). Linda gets to know Todd better, giving Rawhide the chance to travel to the family farm. Pretending to be a hungry wanderer, he presses a very scared Abilene into cooking for him, which she does. Praising her cooking skills, he then proceeds to rape her.

Finally coming home, Todd finds out what happened and goes on a rampage. (Though never providing us the desired bon mot of “Nobody gets to have sex with my sister except me!”) While he is out searching for Rawhide, Linda makes her way to their home. Initially looking for Todd, she ends up comforting the traumatized Abilene. In a bizarro world move, Linda ends up seducing Abilene, which is a tactic I don’t think most would recommend when trying to help victims of rape. Todd finally finds Rawhide and the inevitable showdown begins.

Linda & Abilene is more of a fascinating curio than a film. As a movie, the pacing is way too slow with a whole lot of drag. For a film that should have been 70-75 minutes max, the running time is 92 minutes. History wise, it is more interesting. In addition to the genre hybrid, Linda & Abilene was filmed on location at the infamous Spahn Ranch. Even more so, Lewis recalled some of the seemingly harmless hippie kids hanging around, watching and giggling while some of the saucier scenes were filmed. It’s not often one can have a nice Manson family tie-in with their exploitation westerns.

Last but not least is Black Love. To give you an idea of the proceedings, here’s a sample of the opening voice over; “Black Love is not an erotic sex film. It’s rather a study of an important aspect of the black experience-the act of making love.” Never mind the fact that lovemaking is a pretty important experience for all races, there is one very important nugget of truth in that opening statement. Namely, that it is most definitely not an erotic sex film. It’s a sex film alright, sans any glue shots, but it is about as erotic as a mule kicking you in the head.

 
Presented in the loose, faux-documentarian spirit of the old white coaters from the late 60’s/early 70’s, the first example of “black love” is how children first learn about it. The narrator mentions it is often through stories they hear, experimenting when they are older and watching adults…..what??? A bored teenager catches two adults in the backseat of a car in the middle of the day in some industrial looking parking lot. It just gets worse as a little girl walks in on her parents. (Thank god that it is obvious that the kids were not in the same room as the in flagrante delicto action.) Instead of vomiting, running and screaming, which is what 99% of kids of all races would do, she stays looking surprised and giggling. I instantly need therapy.

It goes on from there, examining the ideal black couple and people dancing at a predominantly African-American club. Black Love toes this strange line of trying to sound progressive, yet is interspersed with assorted commentary about the assorted physical differences that skirts up to the county of racist. It would actually be racist except a lot of the traits noted about “black love” (save for the aforementioned creepy watching bit) could be said about all races. At one point, the narrator notes the physical differences of each club goer. Turns out black people can be short, tall, thin, large, some darker skinned and others lighter skinned and some even wear varying fashions…just like every other race.

On one hand, Black Love is kind of horrible, but on the other hand, it’s horrible-ness is something so strong that it could unite all races closer together. It is amazing that this film was even found, since out of the three formerly-lost HG Lewis titles, this is the one that drummed up the most curiosity. Lewis’ own back and forth about even being associated with it has given it, inadvertently, added mystery. It is a relic of a time when both sexual and racial prejudices were being actively challenged. Kind of sad that thirty plus years later, we are still having these same prejudices. It makes anyone with a soul and an IQ over toast frustrated and angry.

The Vinegar Syndrome have done an absolutely luscious job releasing and restoring The Lost Films of Herschell Gordon Lewis. The first two films especially look so gorgeous, with the use of color really popping. Then there’s the great cover art, well researched liner notes courtesy of Casey Scott and a trailer for each title. They might not be the best examples of Lewis’ work, but they are part of a fascinating director’s filmography. This release is another A+ mark in the often underlooked field of film preservation.

“Soul is the ring around your bathtub!”

You are about to have an eargasm…

Try to imagine as you watch this what would have gone through the mind of the average American flipping channels and coming across this by accident in 1969.

Probably just the sort of reaction George Clinton was looking for! I mean, Christ, look at his hair for starters! It predates O.D.B. by decades!

With Fuzzy Haskins, Grady Thomas, Calvin Simon, Ray Davis, and George Clinton on vocals. On guitars, the one and only Eddie Hazel and Tawl Ross. Mickey Atkins on keyboards, Billy Bass Nelson on bass and Tiki Fulwood on drums.

Obviously George Clinton is as high as a fucking kite here. Judging from his beatific expression, he got the good shit! Starts off strong, but really goes supernova with “(I Wanna) Testify,” which will melt your face.
 

 
Thank you kindly, Chris Campion of Los Angeles, California!

 
For fans of The Bonzo Dog Band, it doesn’t get much better than this outlandish performance shot live at the Jazz Bilzen festival in Belgium on August 22, 1969.

Well, actually had the cameras been pointed at the right place at the right times… Eventually, though, the cameramen do figure it out.

It starts off with an extended interview with Neil Innes.

Set list:

Big Shot
You Done My Brain In
Hello Mabel
I’m The Urban Spaceman
Quiet Talks and Summer Walks
I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles
In The Canyons of Your Mind
Trouser Press

I’ve been conducting an interview over email with Neil Innes about his recently released Le Duck’s Box Set collecting his Innes Book of Records-era output that will be published on Dangerous Minds soon.

In the meantime, enjoy this wild video of the Bonzos in all their glory. Imagine someone doing something like this onstage today.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Neil Innes, the ‘Seventh Pytohon’: How Sweet to Be an Idiot

 
A selection of some of the Amazon “review bombs” showing up on the entry for the Mizuno Women’s Wave Rider 16 Running Shoe as worn by future Texas governor Wendy Davis during her 11-hour marathon filibuster in the Texas Senate this week:

Marathon shoe for marathon filibustering
The next time you have to spend 13 hours on your feet without food, water or bathroom breaks, this is the shoe for you. Guaranteed to outrun patriarchy on race day.
Published 2 days ago by M. Black

Men, do not try these on!
I tried on a pair at the local mall and suddenly Texas Republicans started telling me what to do with my genitals. They started explaining reproduction to me like I was a seventh grader. Unfortunately, being male, I had no way to shut the whole thing down. I’m so confused…
Published 1 day ago by Joshua Jones

A father writes:

Every woman deserves a choice of shoe
I would not necessarily want to see my daughters wearing these shoes. But the important thing is that they have the freedom to make that choice for themselves.
Published 2 days ago by Michael Larkin (Rhode Island, USA)

This one’s totally positive:

Superwoman Force Field Powers
These shoes create an invisible force field of power.

The wearer of these shoes becomes more righteous, beautiful, graceful and powerful than any other Senator in the chamber. The ground moves underneath them like an earthquake through all of Texas. They have a kryptonite effect on Republicans who are not accustomed to women speaking without permission, or voting, or being anywhere outside the kitchen or nursery room. They emit rays of hope in a dark State of uncertainty and fear. They have the power to turn a big red state blue again.

They are the most powerful shoes in the Universe!
Published 1 day ago by William Wise

Here’s the best one:

Worked fine for about 20 weeks
These shoes were great for standing around in. However, after I had the shoes for about 20 weeks, one of them got stuck in my closet. It was very difficult to get out. The only way I could get it out was by inserting a set of pliers into the closet and pulling parts of the shoe out piece by piece. After, I was able to reassemble the shoe from the torn-up parts (just to make sure I wasn’t missing any pieces), but that was pretty much the end of that shoe’s life. Unfortunately, I sprained my wrist trying to get all the parts out, and I couldn’t get seen at the local hospital because my doctor doesn’t have privileges there.

Some people have criticized my getting the shoe out this way, but they have never lived through getting a shoe stuck in the closet. So they can’t judge me. And besides, it’s my choice to do what I want with my shoe.
Published 1 day ago by PW

Not to be a buzzkill, but before you buy a pair of these shoes to support Wendy Davis, a search on the FEC’s political donations database revealed that the owner of Mizuno, Robert Puccini, donates to the Republican National Committee. If you really want to support Wendy Davis, donate to her campaign fund here.

Responding to Texas Governor Rick Perry’s incredibly asinine “backhanded compliment” that he made about Davis (without mentioning her by name) yesterday, the future governor of Texas told MSNBC’s Morning Joe:

“I would say to him, that I had the privilege of making a choice about the path I chose for my life. I’m so proud of my daughters but I could never for a moment put myself in the shoes of another woman confronting a difficult personal choice and it really isn’t for him to make statements like that.”

Below, the Morning Joe segment:
 

 
In 1984, Morrissey was invited by the editor of glossy pop mag Smash Hits to review the week’s singles. As was no doubt expected, Morrissey flashed his natural flair for writing pithy, caustic and highly amusing reviews: he dismissed Cyndi Lauper’s single as “grossly unmusical”; Status Quo as “unreviewable impertinence”; Tracey Ullman “hopeless”; and of Lionel Richie he wrote, “that people care for such things suggests an unholy amount of human misery.”

It’s a pity Morrissey didn’t continue with his career as a pithy pop reviewer.
 

 
More reviews from Morrissey after the jump…
 
Via Us vs th3m
 

Jorma Kaukonen, bottom right

This is a guest post from Michael Simmons

Ah yes—I remember it as if it was yesterday! ‘Twas way back in the aughts, kids – the first decade of the 21st Century. Maybe four, five annums back. I was at a medical facility for a procedure related to what remains of my back. The cute young receptionist asked that I fill out an interminable form – the filling out of interminable forms being a hallmark of The Twenty-Worst Century. Name, address, next-of-kin, zabba-da-doo-bee-waba-da-booty – and ethnicity.

Ethnicity?

“What goes here?” I asked the receptionist, tossing back what remains of my longhair with a twinkle in my good eye, the one I can still see through. She assured me that it was an optional question for a study the facility was conducting and not for nefarious purposes or denying me my constitutional rights. I thought about it. What am I? I’m Caucasian, an agnostic Jew, an American, a human being (most days, some nights), but none of these rang right. And then the twinkle in my eye broke into fractals and I put pen to paper.

I answered Hippie-American.

“Hippie” is an inexact term that has many definitions depending on the perspective – and bias – of the definer. Many think of floral children with stupid grins and pinned eyes or The Eagles or people who subsist solely on brown food. Not I. My Hall Of Hippie Fame short list includes The Beatles, The Fugs, Allen Ginsberg (also a Beat), Abbie Hoffman (who held his flower in a clenched fist), a friend of mine who once punched a cop and who shall be nameless here, and Grace Slick—The Queen Of Sarcasm.

Graced with a thrilling set of pipes–pun intentional–Slick was in a rock band called the Jefferson Airplane that I dearly loved–and still do. I’ve been a frothing fan ever since I heard “Somebody To Love” and “White Rabbit” on the radio in ’67. I first saw them live on Friday, November 28, 1969 at the Fillmore East in New York City. They were a ragtag gang of freaks who eschewed any semblance of show biz, but whose advanced respect for—and pursuit of—musicality was on par with jazz cats and kitties. Their guitarist was Jorma Kaukonen, a singular slinger who invented an electric style too personal to be recreated by others. Jorma can wah and fuzz with the best and is also a primo exponent of fingerpicking blues, gospel and folk from the Reverend Gary Davis school of intricate hand gymnastics. He and fellow Airplaner–bassist Jack Casady (another absolute axe master)–also formed Hot Tuna, a kickass band that’s played everything from ragtime to heavy metal for 45-sumpin’ years now.

As he told me a few days ago, Jorma sobered up “16 years, 5 months, and 23 days ago – but who’s counting?” At the same approximate time, he and wife Vanessa Kaukonen founded the Fur Peace Ranch–a guitar camp in Darwin, Ohio. (O come all ye free associative evolution riffs!) Young and old alike attend Fur Peace to learn and play—it’s one of America’s coolest music schools. Jorma also gigs 150 to 200 nights a year under his own handle and with variations of acoustic and electric Hot Tuna. (Casady and mandolinist Barry Mitterhoff are regular partners–the latter being part of the “Jewgrass” Scene in Noo Yawk in the ‘70s–as was I.)

Given that the Airplane and Tuna are two of the mightiest hippie bands to emerge from the ‘60s, one day Vanessa suggested–nay urged—Jorma that they create something to keep the spirit truckin’, as it were, and make the artistry of that era available for education and inspiration. “I’m not a particularly nostalgic person,” he points out.  “I recognize the significance of a lot of this stuff, but since I was there I take a lot of it for granted and it’s kinda like ‘who gives a shit?’ Fortunately my wife is not like that. She’s younger than me and she does give a shit and she pointed out this stuff and I got it.”

They built a two-story silo next to Fur Peace in Darwin and dubbed it the Psylodelic Gallery. Being an American with a unique twistory of history, Jorma had his own take on the project. “The Psylodelic Gallery is a lot more interesting than The World’s Largest Ball Of Twine,” he explains. “I’m a huge fan of roadside America and I go see all that shit. The World’s Largest Prairie Dog in Oakley, Kansas – whatever. We have a little sign on the road, so we’re part of roadside America too.”

This Saturday, June 29 is the Grand Opening of the Psylodelic Gallery. Pioneer psychedelic rockers Big Brother & The Holding Company will perform and there’s an exhibit of photographs from the first day Jorma met Janis Joplin in 1962, plus the actual typewriter that can be heard in the legendary “Typewriter Tapes” of him and Janis playing together all those years ago. Also featured is Jorma’s original Fillmore Auditorium poster collection and his 1958 Gibson J-50 acoustic guitar that he picked with the Airplane and Tuna. (If you’re familiar with Jorma’s solo instrumental classic “Embryonic Journey” from Surrealistic Pillow, then you know the J-50.) Ephemera from Jack Casady and Wavy Gravy are displayed, quotes from Martin Luther King, Timothy Leary, Jerry Garcia and others line the walls, and a film and liquid lightshow by Chris Samardizch of The Brotherhood Of Light will be screened. 

New exhibits will go up every three months–four a year total. Vanessa’s already working on visits from local students. She’s intent on promoting “Art through activism, art through action, art through conversation.” As for definitions, Jorma says his “vision of the hippie is productive, honest intensity. There were a lot of people back then who followed that creative path simply for the love of it. They couldn’t be bothered getting involved in the incredibly complex fine arts world or the business aspect. They did it cause they loved it and they did a lot of it.”

Makes one damn proud to be a Hippie-American.

For more information, check out the Psylodelic Gallery on their website or via Facebook. The first eight Hot Tuna albums have been reissued on CD and can be ordered from Culture Factory USA.

Below, Jorma Kaukonen and The Jefferson Airplane rip through “Eskimo Blue Day” live at The Family Dog in 1970: