Cream knickers on the floor...

May 22nd – I picked up my copy on the day it was released. I was working in a record shop…you know what one of those is, don’t you? You know, a shop that sells gramophone records; LP’s and 45’s? No…? Oh, OK, I’ll try and keep it simple. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin. Well…erm, once upon a time, back in the long dark ages when plastic was new and the recorded cylinder had just been superseded by the flat pancake called a disc recording youth emerged from their black-painted bedrooms where they’d suffered from dreams of death and angst, go to their local record store and exchange up thirty shillings (£1.50) for the latest recording of their favourite musician then return to their mausoleum in order to continue their naval-gazing. Sometimes there would be queues at these Ye Olde Recorde Shoppes and peasants would gather to be anointed with the latest three-minute epistle released by their chosen ones for the emancipation of youth. All clear now? Good. Amongst these chosen ones was a band called Cream.

Ginger Baker (drums) Eric Clapton (lead guitar) and Jack Bruce (bass guitar) were the heralds of the power trio and over the coming years this would become the 60’s/70’s rock band standard format. Apart from the Jimi Hendrix Experience who were far superior to Cream IMHO, there were many emulators but few matched up to them, Taste, Budgie, Blue Cheer, possibly Skid Row as a leftfield entrant (have a look at their YouTube footage of An Awful Lot of Woman then tell me 1 – that aint leftfield and 2 – just what the timing sequence is to the opening 42 seconds) oh, and us, the band I was in at the time, Tendency Jones, but apart from that, Cream were the mould.

I've mentioned before, a couple of years ago, about their live recording of Spoonful off’f the ‘Wheels of Fire’ double album and where it ranks in my musical sensibility, but before all that, in 1968 their album, ‘Disraeli Gears’, was released and, on this day, was certified gold. Not surprising really. Full of original work and musical ideas it was a seminal piece that changed the face of popular music, creating a split between hippies and popsters, marking out the territory that would be fought over throughout the next ten years until the cash-cow of progressive rock was slaughtered on the alter of punk...which reminds me...

A later release, ‘The Very Best of Cream’ supplied the band I was in with a track we covered and used to open up our second set; N.S.U. 

As a complete aside to everything and just so’s you have something to talk about at your next cocktail party, N.S.U. is an acronym for non-specific urethritis, a 60’s version of a modern-day STD. 

So, back to the band. It was The Pear Tree in Dudley, I believe, that was the setting for a memorable performance. Ten seconds into our N.S.U. cover a girl in a very short crochet dress got up on stage and began to dance wildly to it; so wildly in fact that her drawers slipped down to end up as a tourniquet to her ankles severely restricting her foot movement and the blood flow to most of my body…I believe she stayed on after the gig…it’s all a blur…not a boast; not proud of it, just a 60’s flashback.