Cream: Disraeli Gears/Wheels of Fire
1967
Atco Records
Format I Own it on: Vinyl
Track Listing: 1.Strange Brew 2. Sunshine of Your Love 3. World of Pain 4. Dance the Night Away 5. Blue Condition 6. Tales of Brave Ulysses 7. SWLABR 8. We're Going Wrong 9. Outside Woman Blues 10. Take It Back 11.Mother's Lament
"THAT ALBUM COVER IS BLOWIN' MY FREAKIN' MIND!!! I THINK I SEE THE WINGS FLAPPING!! I DON'T FEEL SO GOOD, MAN! I JUST DRANK A RED BULL AND MY HEART IS BEATING SO FAST!! I THINK A FROG IS SITTING ON TOP OF MY HEAD!! WHY DOES THE RAINBOW HAVE A BEARD?!?!?!?!!"
"Relazzz, Maaaan...Take a hit of this grass and calm down...We'll play some Cream, take it easy and just watch that river floooowww into the ocean, man...It just floooowwwws into the ocean..."
"Yeaaa...Yea...I think I'd like that, man...pfffffft... 'tiny purple fishes run laughing through your fingers'...It all makes sense, now..." (takes a deep pull on the joint)..."Hey...I think your aura is getting brighter, man!"
"Oh yea?"
"YEA!! I THINK IT'S CLAPTON, MAN!!! THE MORE FAR OUT HIS SOLOING, THE BRIGHTER YOUR AURA GETS!!! IT'S KIND OF FREAKIN' ME OUT MAN!!!!"
"OHHH YEEEEAAAA?!?!?!??!?????"
"I...I...think I've finally become...one with the universe...I fell love...but I also feel...cold...so cold...I don't think I was mean to know all of this, man!! I DON'T THINK I WAS MEANT TO KNOW ALL OF THIS!!!"
KAAA-BOOOOOOOMMMM!!!!!!!
"Relax, my son...You are safe...You are now a being of pure light..Your life-seed surges through the cosmos as your mind expands wider and wider, filling the void with Raw Thought...Can you hear the children singing? Can you feel the harlequin's tears? But do not worry, my son, for they are weeping tears of joy..."
Thank you very much for tuning in to Disraeli Gears Theater...We're glad you enjoyed today's presentation...
Look, I'm not going to waste tons of your time extolling the virtues of this album, especially on a Friday...Everybody already knows it inside and out and everyone agrees it's great....You get three virtuosos (Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker), teaming up to produce what everybody expected to be the greatest blues-rock band of all time, but it turned out to be more than that...They psychedelicized it, turned white blues-rock into art and come up with some of the most colossal riffs ever written in the process ("Sunshine of Your Love," "Strange Brew," "Tales of Brave Ulysses.")...They made it so much cooler and deeper than it had to be...I swear I saw the carpet swirl during "We're Going Wrong"...
"Disraeli Gears" is also one of the few overplayed Classic Rock radio albums that I haven't even gotten remotely sick of..Which is more than I can say for my copies of "Led Zeppelin 4," "Back in Black," "Are You Experienced?" or "Paranoid." Hell, I gave away my copy of "Dark Side of the Moon" eons ago, but I've held onto this...So that must say something...Any fan of far-out 60's music has gotta have this...Fans of heavy music should dig it too...
Here's "Tales of Brave Ulysses" by Cream...
Cream:Wheels of Fire
1968
Format I Own it on: Compact Disc
Track Listing: Disc 1: 1.White Room 2. Sitting on Top of the World 3. Passing the Time 4. As You Said 5. Pressed Rat and Warthog 6. Politician 7. Those Were the Days 8. Born Under a Bad Sign 9. Deserted Cities of the Heart
Disc 2: 1. Crossroads 2. Spoonful 3. Traintime 4. Toad
I used to have this one on vinyl in Highs School, but I just can't find a vinyl copy of this now, so in a fit of nostalgia, I caved and picked up a used CD copy...But vinyl is the way to go on this...The big shiny, foil cover is amazing in the 12X12 format...The CD is small and they don't even attempt the foil...The graphics are just printed on a plain, gray piece of paper, sigh...
This was Cream's 3rd album. and this time they made it a double...With one studio disc and one live disc...I love the studio disc to pieces...It's scattered as hell, and nowhere near as obviously "great" as "Disraeli Gears" but I prefer it because of its quirks...And you can still listen to prime album tracks like "Sitting on Top of the World" and "Politician" without radio and TV spoiling their natural beauty for you...
The whole thing kicks off with "White Room," which I'm sure you've all heard a zillion times, but stop for a second and appreciate how grand this sounds for just three guys...For some reason, it scans in my mind as being as huge and lush as the Moody Blues...But yea, I agree, it's played out... Radio killed it, I have a hard time hearing it anymore...It was probably the highpoint of the album at some point in time, though...
To me this album is all about "Politician." I love that fuzzball riff! I used to just play that track over and over as a teenager...It seemed as heavy as Sabbath at the time, but with a witty, knowing quality that put it over the top...Goddamn, Clapton used to be the fucking man...His tone is killer on this one, and his tangle of dueling leads in the solo is cool as hell...
My other favorites might be odd choices...No, I'm not going to say "Pressed Rat and Warthog," that song is just retarded as hell...But I did spend many a cold, Michigan winter night sitting alone in my bedroom, staring out the window and spinning "Passing the Time." The contented, yet slightly melancholy mood seemed to soundtrack those nights so brilliantly...As much as I'm drawn to the monotonous vocals, I think it's the glockenspiel that sells it..
"As You Said," reminds me of the more mystical, Eastern-influenced side of Led Zeppelin...Fans of "Led Zeppelin III" should check this out, since it sounds like a lost track from that album (although this precedes it by a few years)...
Also be sure to check out "Born Under a Bad Sign," for a glimpse of Clapton playing the blues while he still had a spark of life...Before he decided to use the genre as a form of weaponized boredom...
So yea, "Pressed Rat and Warthog" aside, Disc One is almost all aces...Disc Two however, ugh...
To be honest it's very hard for me to sit through the entirely thing...As a kid, I maybe played disc two in its entirety once, mostly using it to stripmine "Toad" for drum loops...As an adult, I'll put this on at work, when I'm tired of all my other albums...And even then it only really works as background music...I just can't focus all my attention to it...Sure, sure, the playing is technically amazing, but damn...
You first put it on and think it's going to be awesome, because the opening cover of Robert Johnson's "Crossroads" is fantastic...It just barrels ahead at full steam and every second of it is exciting, so when "Spoonful" starts, you crack open a beer and sit back for a nice evening of live music...
"Spoonful" sounds like a pretty decent track...A much more laid-back blues...You start nodding your head, then without knowing it, you nod off and wake up startled 15 minutes later and the song is still playing!!
"BOODLE DA DOODLE DA DOODLE DA DOODLE..." Clapton's still noodling away like there's no tomorrow...I'm sure this was riveting stuff if you were there, but...
Anyway, flip over the vinyl and there's a long harmonica blues called "Traintime," which is okay-ish...At least it only runs 7-some minutes...Although by the end of it, I'm not really in the mood to ever hear a harmonica again anytime soon...
Then we're onto the real endurance test...A 16 minute drum solo entitled "Toad"...Hey! I like drum solos just as much as the next guy, and if anyone can craft a worthwhile drum solo, it's Ginger Baker, but I find my attention seriously going in and out...Every once in awhile something will catch my ear for a minute or so and I'll think, "Man, that's some serious drumming" but eventually 5 or so minutes will pass and I'll forget I'm even listening to it...It kind of becomes a sort of distant, dull, pounding headache...For major drumheads only...Or for kids looking for a plethora of drum fills to load into pro-tools...
If you're a 60-something who likes to smoke joints while staring at their stereo speakers, this is probably mind-blowing...But as a 30-something who likes to drink beer while staring at his stereo-speakers, this is definitely mind-numbing...
So that's it..."Wheels of Fire" is one disc of stunning, moody, playful, psychedlic blues, and one disc of pure abject zone-out...Anyway, here's "As You Said" by Cream...Enjoy...
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