...
Basically just a little cold and medium rainy, not the full monte, just a pretty mellow wet winter day, wherein the immortal sleep circus held primacy throughout. I made it my project to scour my memory banks for certain British blues recordings of the 1960s, this one in particular. Sheesh. It was like pulling teeth.
Why? Because it seems to have been retroactively named Eric Clapton and The Powerhouse, instead of plain Powerhouse, doing a quick and dirty arrangement of Crossroads that got slapped into a sort of a catch-all album of blues recordings of the day. Jesus. I have not yet found the video of Winwood doing it with Cream that looked like it was being performed in some church basement, but I know it DID exist online at some point.
Over the last month or so, I've been using the long playlist of Rockonteurs Podcast for coping with my circus. It has everything going for it in terms of my sleep problems. Men's voices. British accents. Interesting content that weaves in and out. This means I can be in bed to catch myself if I nod off, and have optimal ability to keep sleeping if my brain will let me, or pick up the thread when I wake back up again.
I can watch some of them for signs of guilt about the Faul Bullshit when that butts into the middle of my happy youth. I can remember stuff they are talking about from that mystical youth, even though they're from Gen X, because they interview every Boomer left alive. Can't get much better'n that.
So I had a strong midnight nap last night. Woke at the stroke of 5am. My ritual coffees making me sleepier instead of more alert, and so down again with the wayward synapses at about the stroke of 9am. Some sputters, up and down, and great difficulty getting comfortable and the right bodily temperature for real sleep, but FINALLY accomplished it.
Dreaming I'm stuck in London with a bunch of old rock stars and their smug saintly wives. Feeling parched and annoying — because I'm snoring hard in meatspace — while they're blathering away on my computer — and my dream sleep is blending it all into a strange visit across the pond some fifty-odd years ago — waking myself with an epic snort at 1pm.
There. That was helpful.
But not enough. So by 3pm or so, I had a chicken sandwich and went back down until I heard Joe Boyd telling Gary and Guy about "Steve Anglo" doing vocals on an arrangement of Crossroads. I reckon that was at least two hours ago.
And I've been hassling with Duck Duck Go ever since. I've gotten this far. Some kind geezers uploading the sound to YouBube... but I know there is a video out there somewhere. Like I know there exist some transcendental mashup videos to things like Dark Side of the Moon out there, maybe only on broken hard drives in landfills, OR, in fact hidden permanently by the keepers of history from humans.
I can't say for sure which yet.
You'll know the one I'm nearly dead certain is right, but I'm allowing for a possibility there will be a prison break internet.
I mean, it's possible the fucking midwits of popular music who think Clapton is God may have taken over in some basement at Google or Alphabet or whatever is going on with them where the complicated system of pipes drips.
Steve Winwood was both a better guitarist and a better singer. Hands down. There are a couple recordings of Cream performing where Clapton was truly ON it, but, otherwise, he's good, but many better. Period. [Gary Moore] And, since, they couldn't get Winwood at the time, we have to thank the buddhas of the ten directions for Jack Bruce. Also period. Ginger Baker really was God, but he was a total asshole to everyone about everything, and, being God, no one can really hold that against him.
An irrascible God is the only one I can completely believe in. I mean, yes, I'm positive God loves us to bits, but that's why I'm certain his transcendental patience does NOT extend to being kind about our failures. Give me a break. Forgiving, yes, if we atone for them and work to overcome them, but not while we're still laboring with them. So Ginger can have been as impossible a hang as he was and we can still love him.
As I think I mentioned a week or two ago, I have stopped loathing Eric Clapton. I'm grateful that life seems to have slapped him around enough to get through his ego trips, plant some genuine humility and solidarity with humanity in him. I know this because he can talk and my ears don't run around trying close up access to my sensory inputs to escape him anymore.
If I find the video, I'll come back here and link it. Not holding my breath.
pipe up any time....
