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Cream - Goodbye Tour 1968


felser

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4CD set coming in January.  Discussed in a more arcane corner of the site.  Here are details.  Don't think I need six live versions of "White Room" from the same tour, etc, at a $70  price tag, never found them that compelling live (Clapton is not all that high on my guitar heroes list).  Felix Pappalardi added a lot to their studio recordings.  Anyways, here is more info:

https://www.superdeluxeedition.com/news/cream-goodbye-tour-1968-4cd-set/#more-154871

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“Arcane” :wacko:

More info from the arcane section, e.g., listening to Non jazz, non classical section:

Article in RS about the Cream set.

Cream Collect Four Complete Concerts for ‘Goodbye Tour Live 1968’ Box Set

“The four-CD set, out February 7th, 2020 and available to preorder now, features the three of band’s October 1968 California concerts – Oakland, Los Angeles and San Diego – as well as Cream’s November 26th, 1968 farewell gig from London’s Royal Albert Hall. Of the box set’s 36 tracks, 29 were previously available on CD, with 19 of those unreleased entirely.

....

Goodbye Tour Live 1968 marks the first authorized release of the four concerts – all freshly mastered from the original tapes – as well as the first CD release of the Royal Albert Hall gig, which was previously only available on DVD. The set also features liner notes penned by David Fricke.”

You can never have too many live versions of Sunshine of Your Love!

By the way, import CDs has this for $50 and Bullmoose a little higher at $53. 

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1 hour ago, Brad said:

“Arcane” :wacko:

More info from the arcane section, e.g., listening to Non jazz, non classical section:

 

I think "arcane" is a very good description for that section of the site, very few of us dare hang out there on a regular basis!

ar·cane
/ärˈkān/
adjective
 
  1. understood by few; mysterious or secret.
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I think that "silly" is a better adjective than "arcane", but that's just me.

It's bad enough that we segregate our "classical" listening from our "other" listening and our analog from our digital, but now we're trying to segregate even further. To what end, I have no idea.

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8 minutes ago, JSngry said:

I think that "silly" is a better adjective than "arcane", but that's just me.

It's bad enough that we segregate our "classical" listening from our "other" listening and our analog from our digital, but now we're trying to segregate even further. To what end, I have no idea.

Well, it does spare you and others from having to wade through lengthy discussions about, say, the relative merits of individual Jefferson Airplane albums (which a few of us enjoy).  Think of it as an efficiency courtesy :).    

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I have no problem with seeing that - and skipping over it as needed (which will be most of the time, for sure). But why do you want to hide what you're listening to from others? I mean, a thread is a thread, you can't block anybody from looking at a thread. Is this like sneaking out back for a cigarette? I mean, you'll still smell like smoke when you come back!

Speaking of the Airplaners, I tried to listen to Surrealistic Pillow again a few months ago and found it mostly gargantuanly pompous and damn near unlistenable. But then I heard "Someone To Love" on the radio and immediately got pulled into it. Go figure.

As for Cream, I'd think their relevancy has passed? I'll still pull out the Best Of LP (talk about calling any vegetable!) on occasion and play a side and be done with it.

But...my ideal what are you listening to thread would be like my ideal record store - all of everything, and what you don't like but have heard is still better than not even knowing it exists.

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I've always liked studio-Cream a LOT better than live-Cream, though admittedly I haven't listened to much of their live stuff in years.

Maybe it was the quality of the recordings? - I seem to always remember them sounding very loud, and very boomy - like they were all recorded in a basketball arena or something.  The only live Cream I have now is from that year 2005 2CD "Gold" compilation (Universal/Polydor), which collects up live tracks from Live Cream, Wheels of Fire, Live Cream Vol. 2, and Goodbye Cream.  (And 30-35 years ago, I think I had both volumes of Live Cream too, but got rid of them 25 years ago.)

Maybe it's just what the band sounded like live, no matter where they played.  I recall that CD compilation live CD (the second disc is all live, which I haven't spun in years) being pretty universally "bloated" sounding.  I do spin the first disc of studio recordings, to hear Jack Bruce's voice as much anything else, which I quite like.

I've been meaning to pick up a copy of Bruce's Songs For A Tailor for years, and maybe I'll finally get around to it one of these days.

Speaking of Jack's voice, here's a dandy early 90's remake of "Rawalpindi Blues" (from Escalator over the Hill)...

Bass, Voice – Jack BruceDrums [Trap Drums] – Marvin "Smitty" Smith, Robbie Ameen*Engineer – Mike KrowiakGuitar – Leo NocentelliMusic By – Carla BleyPiano – Don Pullen

This YouTube upload of it starts really quietly, but it jumps up in volume around 0:40.  (Disc 1, track 7 on this multi-artist tribute to Paul Haines.)

https://www.discogs.com/Paul-Haines-Darn-It/release/2944643

 

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11 minutes ago, Rooster_Ties said:

Maybe it's just what the band sounded like live, no matter where they played. 

I think it was probably as basic as that it was the early days of bands playing really loud (remember, Hendrix's Marshall stacks were radical as fuck at the time) and engineers/techs trying to figure it out as they went along. Today, hell, piece of cake. Back then, not at all.

That, and Clapton & Baker were both plodders. Fluent plodders, but plodders nonetheless. Only Bruce played with any real sense of swing.

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Not sure what "lost" means if people who are interested are seeing it.

Felser seems to think the thread is "arcane"...I think the same people are seeing and responding there as they would anywhere else (yes, I check it regularly, because I like all kinds of music, although not all music...I'm promiscuous, not slutty).

Maybe it seems less lost because it's segregated out. But "arcane" seems to me to be just another word for "hey, no bothersome other in my way".

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I pre-ordered the Cream set. Not usually a 'completist' as far as reissues go, but I'll make a few exceptions (e.g. the new Jimi box), but I'm really curious to hear how well it's remastered. If there are some gems in there, it'll be worth it. I have the previous "compete" 4-CD Cream box (Those Were The Days) and the live stuff sounds pretty much like the original versions, IIRC.

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2 hours ago, JSngry said:

...the early days of bands playing really loud (remember, Hendrix's Marshall stacks were radical as fuck at the time) and engineers/techs trying to figure it out as they went along. Today, hell, piece of cake. Back then, not at all.

That, and Clapton & Baker were both plodders. Fluent plodders, but plodders nonetheless. Only Bruce played with any real sense of swing.

I rather strongly suspect the "Clapton & Baker were both plodders" is mostly the reason for my reaction to Cream live.

I very, VERY specifically remember in high school my senior year, and in college listening to those two Live Cream LP's I had, and thinking "why the hell isn't this clicking for me? - after all, I've got a metric-ton of live Jimi Hendrix (my very first deep musical love), and ostensibly Cream isn't really that much different, are they?".

Jimi couldn't have been any less loud and insane to record live (from an engineering/tech standpoint), and I've never heard a Hendrix recording - even the lesser ones - that left me feeling as 'ho, hum" as those live Cream albums.  Even Jimi's Woodstock performance -- sonically pretty bleh, and maybe musically one of the 'least together' documents of any Jimi ever played live (that got released commercially, anyway) -- even Woodstock is a little better, for me, than the live Cream I've heard (IMHO, FWIW, YMMV).

Sorry, I'm really threadcrapping here, I realize -- and no offense intended to those all stoked for this new live set.

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2 hours ago, JSngry said:

Not sure what "lost" means if people who are interested are seeing it.

Felser seems to think the thread is "arcane"...I think the same people are seeing and responding there as they would anywhere else (yes, I check it regularly, because I like all kinds of music, although not all music...I'm promiscuous, not slutty).

Maybe it seems less lost because it's segregated out. But "arcane" seems to me to be just another word for "hey, no bothersome other in my way".

Well, remember that I am one of the handful who actively participate in that thread.  Brad also and a half dozen or so others.

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I think there are quite a few participants in the thread as John noted. What I mean by “lost” is that because the number of participants is not as many as in the main jazz thread — which is how it should be since this is a jazz forum — people might miss the rock posts.  If you miss a day looking at what people listening to, you’re likely to have catch up on several pages. 

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3 hours ago, Rooster_Ties said:

I rather strongly suspect the "Clapton & Baker were both plodders" is mostly the reason for my reaction to Cream live.

I very, VERY specifically remember in high school my senior year, and in college listening to those two Live Cream LP's I had, and thinking "why the hell isn't this clicking for me? - after all, I've got a metric-ton of live Jimi Hendrix (my very first deep musical love), and ostensibly Cream isn't really that much different, are they?".

Jimi couldn't have been any less loud and insane to record live (from an engineering/tech standpoint), and I've never heard a Hendrix recording - even the lesser ones - that left me feeling as 'ho, hum" as those live Cream albums.  Even Jimi's Woodstock performance -- sonically pretty bleh, and maybe musically one of the 'least together' documents of any Jimi ever played live (that got released commercially, anyway) -- even Woodstock is a little better, for me, than the live Cream I've heard (IMHO, FWIW, YMMV).

Sorry, I'm really threadcrapping here, I realize -- and no offense intended to those all stoked for this new live set.

Jimi toured with the Isley Brothers. Clapton played with John Mayall. Those were two totally different worlds in so many ways, not the least one of which it what "time" means, how you move it it and to what end.

I liked Cream well enough today through the lens of them being a 60s pop band, and no denying their role as an archetypical transitional band, but as far as anything of continuing musical relevancy, Hendrix FTW not even the same game, much less the same ballpark.

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57 minutes ago, sgcim said:

I just read in the book 'Blue' that Eric Clapton quit Cream, because their extended improvisations were "too close to jazz". 

Baker thought they were playing jazz and I seem to recall — but could be wrong — that he tried to hide that from Clapton. 

3 hours ago, JSngry said:

You guys read threads differently than I do, but ok, I get it, I guess.

Still, I like all my records in the same store, and I like anarchy on the store's turntables.

But when you go to the record store, everything has their own section. 

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1 hour ago, JSngry said:

But those aren't really "sections", not like you have to leave one place to get to another. You just stay in the same place and walk a few steps over, you can walk anywhere and back again.

Walking is healthy, especially for old people!

 

Almost always, but the Tower Records at 610 South Street in Philly did it differently.  They had a separate floor for jazz (three floors total), and a whole separate store, across the street, for classical (and yet another store for movies, books, and magazines).

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