Site hosted by Angelfire.com: Build your free website today!
The Psychedelic Supermarket.

Psychedelic Supermarket

Ken Melville, who was kind enough to forward personal photos, writes; It was a few years back but this I know, it was Cream's first performances in the US.
Eric told me that himself. (That's odd because Cream had just recently finished their stay at the Fillmore and Whisky A Go-Go).
Of course, nobody had ever heard of Cream at the time, and only us hipster blues nuts knew about Clapton's work with Mayall.
At this time, college radio around Boston had just begun to start playing cool music on FM. It was all new then. A few of us had the Beano album.

Cream were using this underground parking garage week long gig as a kind of secret out of town warm up to tighten up and get it together before they
exposed themselves to the real American audience. After this week they were heading down to NY. (The Village Theater, their first New York show).

Ginger in particular was furious they had to play in such a shit venue. He was throwing stuff around and acting all crazy. We assumed he was on speed most of the time, and
would crash from it and get extremely violent. Very methed-out frantic and dyspeptic persona, classic. But incredible stamina and energy on the stand. Almost awe-inspiring.

Cream played Sunshine of Your Love in their sets, which of course, no one had ever heard before since they hadn't recorded yet. I ended up copping the riff for one of my
tunes, long before Clapton jokingly accused J. J. Cale of stealing it for "Cocaine".

Clapton's girlfriend with him at the time was French. She was very nice, and to us horny young guys, totally hot and mysterious. But she'd talk to us like human beings,
something older attractive women would never do in Boston. Being snooty and aloof is an art form there.

I found this whole retinue of folks from across the pond to be utterly charming and mostly chummy and considerate.

Psychedelic Supermarket

The second pic there is me at 17 telling Clapton about my friend Dick Waterman who had Son House living over at his place in Cambridge, about 15 minutes away from our gig.
Eric went nuts. I hooked them up later. Dick casually managed Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, Skip James and some other acts. He'd put them up at his Green St. house since they were
always broke. Of course, Clapton never referred to this gig in his book. I think it was pretty embarassing for him and the boys.

Psychedelic Supermarket

Jack here was incredibly nice, lending me the PA system he used for his harp, since I was a harp player as well. I promptly blew it out, but he was fine with it, not a problem.
Also Eric's good friend Ben Palmer was along as roadie, and he was super nice and helpful to us young guys. We weren't used to that at all growing up in the Boston era in
the 50's and 60's, adults all treated you like shit and with total condescension.
Eric was relatively quiet and withdrawn, though polite. He drew strange skull head drawings and death-oriented images all the time on a sketch pad.
The band played its ass off. They never shortchanged the crowd once.
Eric always on his red Gibson SG, Jack with his red SG bass.

Click the Back Button on your Browser.