Cream, Part 2

OK, we're gonna get on to "CREAM", not just Cream..... known for their monster jams on the stage, seen live I will bet this was an thrilling experience, on record, it no question has it's moments, however, it can at times be damn near unbearable, also.....Baker, in particular, but the other two were guilty as well as they went on and on and on and on ins some of the longest free-form jams you'll ever hear. Some people will consider this sacriligious myself, I DO like a lot of the music of Cream, but the nexus of their career was their onstage work, so shouldn't they be evaluated for that as well? So, I have a bunch of this stuff, a lot of overlap here that I'm not going to try to separate, if dates/locales are not spelled out, not much I can do, so you may wind up with identical versions of a tune or two......mea culpa.

The early efforts gave us a preview of what we were in  for, "Live Cream" and "Live Cream 2" have some moments, in particular "NSU" and "Sleepy Time Time" from the first one, and "Tales of Brave Ulysses" on two, their great blues-pop stuff could really come to life sometimes, when they didn't try to slip a 20 minute jam  in the middle of it ("Sweet Wine")......still, these albums are recommended, early-on (1967-8) and are full of good moments that WAY outnumber the bad.

OK, next up, prepare for some doubling up, don't know how else to lay this one out there....this is the four-disc box set "Those Were the Days".......it duplicates most of Fresh, Disraeli, Wheels (studio cuts), and "Goodbye" (studio cuts) on the first two discs.....I am including them for the single-only releases, the alternated takes, the demos, and etc, not wishing to reprogram, that is not my favored way of doing things unless I REALLY have to. The second two discs here are loaded with more Live stuff, explosive and boring both, and, disappointingly, many of the tracks here are ALSO from sources we have already touched upon.....the reason to have this would be there are also some live tracks that are available only here....this could EASILY be pared down to a 1-Disc "Best of Cream" by eliminating all the duplicate material, someone want to do that for me as a project? Just SO MUCH stuff in their career was pressed MANY times......

MUCH, MUCH, MUCH better is the fine BBC sessions, all fresh, new material and also stacked with
interviews from the broadcasts......I will include that one today as well.....a bit more leery, I am, about posting the 2005 Royal Albert Hall reunion set, you know I generally hate this stuff, but I hadn't heard it and I wanted to know if they would try to duplicate their old sound, or try to (gag) modernize it.......feel free to judge for yourself, you can take them as you see fit.

I will wrap this up tomorrow with some fine and rare bootlegs and maybe another rarity or two, we shall see then.....for now, here's the goods, sorry about all the duplications but I don't usually like to reprogram work that is presented as it was intended to be heard, even if it's stupid (remember that idiotic UFO box set? GEEEEZ).......ok, comment away, don't forget that i do LOVE listening to Cream sometimes, I just think the memory of them is a bit clouded, their thin studio catalogue and their tendency to wander and ramble on stage (I know it was their "thing", but in my view it cost them a point or two.  Some little harder to find stuff tomorrow, though, so check those out.

LIVE CREAM-01 NSU/02 Sleepy Time Time/03 Sweet Wine/04 Rollin and Tumblin/05 Hey Lawdy Mama (Studio)

LIVE CREAM VOLUME 2-01 Deserted Cities of the Heart/02 White Room/03 Politician/04 Tales of Brave Ulysses/05 Sunshine of Your Love/06 Steppin Out

THOSE WERE THE DAYS DISC 1-01 Wrapping Paper (non-LP Single) (tracks 2-12 from "Fresh")02 I Feel Free/03 NSU/04 Sleepy Time Time/05 Dreaming/06 Sweet Wine/07 Spoonful/08 Cat's Squirrel/09 Four Until Late/10 Rollin and Tumblin/11 I'm So Glad/12 Toad/13 Lawdy Mama (Previously unreleased studio outtake)/(14-24 taken from Disraeli Gears)-14 Strange Brew/15 Sunshine of Your Love/16 World of pain/17 Dance the Night Away/18 Blue Condition/20 SWLABR/21 We're Going
Wrong/22 Outside Woman Blues/23 Take It Back/14 Mother's Lament

THOSE WERE THE DAYS DISC 2-(Tracks 1-10 taken from Wheels of Fire studio album) 01 White Room/02 Sitting On Top of the World/03 Passing the Time/04 As You Said/05 Pressed Rat and Warthog/06 Politician/07 Those Were the Days/08 Born Under a Bad Sign/09 Deserted Cities of the Heart/10 Anyone For Tennis (unreleased  Single) (Tracks 11-13 Taken from "Goodbye") 11 Badge/12 Doin That Scrapyard Thing/13 What a Bringdown/14 The Coffee Song (single)/15 Lawdy Mama (version 2)/16 You Make Me Feel (demo)/17 We're Going Wrong (demo)/18 Hey Now Princess (demo)/19 Swlabr (demo)/20 Weird of Hermiston (demo)/21 The Clearout-demo/22 Falstaff Beer Commercial 

THOSE WERE THE DAYS DISC 3  (LIVE RECORDINGS) -NSU (previously unrelelased)/02 Sleepy Time Time/03 Rollin and Tumblin/04 Crossroads/05 Spoonful/06 Tales of Brave Ulysses/07 Sunshine of Your Love/08 Sweet Wine

THOSE WERE THE DAYS DISC 4-(Live Recordings)-01 White Room/02 Politician/03 I'm So Glad/04 Sitting On Top of the World/05 Stepping Out/06 Traintime/07 Toad (previously unreleased EXTENDED version)/08 Deserted Cities of the Heart/09 Sunshine of your Love (Recorded for Glen Campbell TV Show)

BBC SESSIONS-01 Sweet Wine/02 Clapton Interview/03 Wrapping paper/04 Rollin and Tumblin/05 Steppin Out/06 Crossroads/07 Cat's Squirrel/08 Traintime/09 I'm So Glad/10 Lawdy Mama/11 Clapton Interview 2/12 I Feel Free/13 NSU/14 Four Until late/15 Strange Brew/16 Clapton Interview 3/17 Tales of Brave Ulysses/18We're Going Wrong/19 Clapton Interview 4/20 Born Under a bad Sign/21 Outside Woman Blues/22Take it Back/23 Sunshine of Your Love/24 Politician/25 SWLABR/26 Steppin Out

ROYAL ALBERT HALL 2005-DISC 1-01 I'm So Glad/02 Spoonful/03 outside Woman Blues/04 Pressed

Rat and Warthog/05 Sleepy Time Time/06 NSU/07 Badge/08 Politician/09 Sweet Wine/10 Rollin andTumblin/11 Stormy Monday/12 Deserted Series of the Heart

ROYAL ALBERT 2005 DISC 2-01 Born Under a Bad Sign/02 We're Going Wrong/03 Crossroads/04 White Room/05 Toad/06 Sunshine of Your Love/07 Sleepy Time Time

The links are many and they are FLAC, so, do the math...  And, joy of joys, I located a special "interviews" disc to go with the Albert Hall set.......see comments section of Part 2......this post has been a pain in my ass, but let's do it up RIGHT!