Arsenal

I’ve covered the Minnesota Vikings, and Flamengo.  Now it’s time for another sports entry, this time the top tier English team, Arsenal.  I started getting into soccer in summer 2000, and began learning about the various teams and leagues around the world, starting with Brazil and going across the ocean to Europe.

 When I lived in Europe (1979-90) I didn’t pay much attention at all.  In fact, what I despised were Americans who slavishly adopted French clothing and culture and pretended to be French, and looked down on the rest of Americans as boorish, provincial redneck dolts.  And the biggest way a 10 year old – especially a boy – would do this is turning into a soccer fan.  With few exceptions, all the American soccer fans I knew were arrogant assholes.  So I was very much disinclined to follow soccer, even if we couldn’t watch NFL in Europe at the time.  The one thing I recall with any clarity is the UEFA cup showdown – I don’t even know if it was a final – between Ipswich (no longer in the Premier League) and St. Etienne (still in French First Division but long past its glory days).  The kids at my school, Marymount – this had to be around 1979-81 – were taking sides, and I didn’t really care. 

 10 years later I finally started paying attention, and chose Arsenal as my favorite English team.  Why?  I don’t think it was their track record.  At that time Manchester United were the pretty boys, especially since Beckham was still playing with them.  Mainly I liked the name, the fact they were from London – the only part of England I’m familiar with and have been to – and the whole cannon thing, perhaps somewhat Freudian.  BIG GUNS!

 They formed in 1886 from the Woolwich Arsenal, eventually changing the name simply to Arsenal in 1914.  The crest features a cannon, and the team’s nickname is the Gunners – not to be confused with a cross-town rival, West Ham (“the Hammers” – featuring marching hammers, tres Pink Floyd the Wall).  As Iron Maiden fans, we learned about Steve Harris’ preference for West Ham.  He still puts the Hammers’ crest on his basses.  The story is that he passed up a chance to play for them, choosing his band instead.  Since West Ham are scarcely known outside England – and I dare say they have very few fans outside east London, their home turf – Harris did much better to achieve World Domination with Iron Maiden over the years than he ever would have no matter how well he did with West Ham.  West Ham has never won the First Division or the Premier League.

 Another fierce rivalry is with the Tottenham Hotspurs (“the Spurs”), located very close by in North London at White Hart Lane.  When I hear “Spurs” I’m not thinking of the basketball team from Texas.

 The team colors are red and white, with alternate colors blue and yellow.  The motto, Victoria Concordia Crescit, means “victory through harmony”.  The uniforms typically featured a cannon, until the crest (with a cannon inside) took over, with a very modern makeover in 2002.  The sponsors started in the 80s: JVC, Sega, O2, and now Emirates.  By now I’m used to seeing soccer jerseys with sponsors, so the absence (rare nowadays but common from the early 80s and earlier) makes them look rather plain and boring.   I’ve accumulated a few Arsenal jerseys over the years, three away (two blue, one yellow) and several home (red with white sleeves).

 Their first run of dominance was in the 1930s under managers Herbert Chapman and George Allison.  In 1971 they won the “double” – League Cup and FA Cup.  It took them until 1989 to win the championship again, this time with yet another famous manager, George Graham.  Since the First Division (now called Premier League) formed in 1919, Arsenal has remained in the top tier, never relegated to the lesser ranks.  Since the late 1990s they have been competitive in the top of Premier League, fighting for dominance against Liverpool, Chelsea, and Manchester United – with Arsene (!) Wenger at the helm.  They have a total of 13 league championships, although they have never won Champions League.  They are the only team in modern Premier League history to have a perfect season (2003).

 Since 1913, they had played at Highbury, an older stadium in the north-east part of London.   As with Maracana, in Rio de Janeiro, Highbury has had its capacity dramatically reduced over the years from 60,000 to 38,000.  The team now plays in Emirates Stadium, a fancy state of the art facility recently built in 2006 with a more reasonable capacity of 60,000 and all the modern bells and whistles.  I haven’t been back to London since 1985, a time at which I had zero interest in soccer and zero awareness of Arsenal.  Given that the team’s home games tend to sell out, even had I known, I might not have been able to see a game there anyway.

 Thierry Henry has been their strongest player in recent years, holding the goal scoring record.  David Seaman was their top goalie.  Fabregas (I keep thinking his name is Fiberglass), Ljungberg, Bergkamp, Ferninand, Campbell, and Walcott are other recent players of note.

 Fever Pitch.  I’ve mentioned this Colin Firth film before, in my “Pride & Prejudice” blog.  This was the original film, not that idiocy with Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore about the Red Sox.  He plays a humble elementary school teacher in London who supports Arsenal, with a maniacal devotion.  Everything is about the team, even down to his cannon-festooned sleeping boxers and moving into an apartment (sorry, “flat”) just blocks away from Highbury.  The film takes place during the 1989 season, when Arsenal can finally follow up their 1971 victory – but he’s convinced the team will choke at the end expressly to disappoint him.  They need to score two goals against Liverpool – IN Liverpool! – to win the final, an extremely unlikely (but theoretically possible) outcome.  His girlfriend, another teacher, tolerates his passion and madness, absorbing some of it by osmosis – her BFF busts on her for checking the scores in his absence.   It’s a nice story with some Arsenal thrown in.  

Malls

Originally written in 2010, updated 2023.  As a resident of Northern Virginia, USA, most of the malls referenced herein are from the greater DC area, which includes suburban Maryland as well.

After COVID.   Are malls dead?  Certainly more of them have been closing recently.  Landmark Mall in Annandale, Virginia, has been demolished; White Flint Mall in Rockville, Maryland, is mostly gone; and Lakeforest Mall in Gaithersburg, Maryland, is mostly closed and due to be demolished this year.   The rise of online shopping from Amazon had already cut into mall business, and the COVID shutdowns seem to have accelerated the process.  

I consider myself an introvert:  I'm not really outgoing and eager to make friends, and I'm perfectly fine staying at home alone.  Even so, I still get "stir crazy" and enjoy going outside my apartment and seeing what's out there.  And as fun as it is to get the email from Amazon that my package has been delivered, and the email from my front desk at the condo that it's been processed and is ready be picked up, I still enjoy going out to the store and buying something then and there.  For CDs and vinyl that has been CD Cellar in Falls Church for some time now.  But CD Cellar - in fact, no store - can compete with Amazon and eBay for selection.  So I'll try to start off with CD Cellar and go back to online purchases if it can't be procured locally.  

Malls also have movie theaters and food courts.   I still enjoy watching movies in the theater, though I'm more selective these days than I used to be.  I don't care how big your flat screen TV is (mine is 40"), the IMAX screen is bigger than that.  I suppose I should look into more delivery options - even for pizza, I go to Little Caesar's and pick it up for a fraction of what Domino's charges.  The mall food court is a good place to score fast food.  Healthy food?  I'll have to take care of that at home.

“Mallory, you go to the mall so often, the mannequins wave at you.”  Alex Keaton (Michael J. Fox), Family Ties.

 By now we all know what these are.  They’re for shopping, browsing, or simply hanging out.  They’ve been around as long as most of us can remember.  We usually associate them with the suburbs, but a few are downtown or way out in the boondocks.  I’ll comment on the ones I’m familiar with, mostly in the Washington DC metropolitan area (Maryland & Virginia).

 My usual focus is on record stores, but unfortunately most mall record stores, e.g. Sam Goody or FYE, tend to have poor selections and high prices.  High School Musical?  Sure.  Hawkwind?  Don’t bother looking.  Another great store is those Spencer or Hot Topic stores, where you can get black lights, sex toys, and all sorts of twisted, perverted (but cool) things buried in the dull wholesomeness of the mall. 

 Some say that malls are obsolete now that online shopping is around.  It’s certainly easier to do your Christmas shopping online, assisted by Amazon.com wishlists, than to fight the crowds and hellacious parking at the malls after Black Friday.  But just as people still buy compact discs even if, with some imagination and diligence, they could download most of the music they want for free, people still go out and shop, even if 99% of what they’re looking for can be bought online and delivered to their doorstep.  And you can shop online 24/7, naked in front of your computer at 3 a.m., something you can’t do at the mall.  But part of us yearns to GET OUT and GO SOMEWHERE.  The crowds at the mall are a form of human interaction, even if 99.9% of them are strangers.  The Mall is here to stay, though maybe not as many as before.  As more of them go under, the surviving malls will pick up the residual customers those dead malls had.

 Strip Malls.  These are outdoor malls with no interior.  The Village Mall in Montgomery Village, Maryland, started out with an indoor mall, then was converted into this type, supposedly to prevent the low-life juvenile delinquents from loitering inside.  It’s a shame, because this one had a very groovy “That 70s” vibe to it we really liked: cobblestones, inside fountains, and vertical woodblock lettering for the stores.  From what I understand, the equivalent mall in Columbia, Maryland is still around.

Maryland

 Westfield Montgomery Mall.  (Est 1968). One of the older ones in our neighborhood, off Democracy Blvd. and the 270 Spur.  It’s a big middle class place, vaguely cross-shaped layout.  We used to go there with my parents as kids, but far less often as adults.

 White Flint Mall. (1977-2020). On 355 north of Bethesda, southern end of Rockville.   Another cross-layout place.  We remember the Eatery, and it had a Dave & Busters and movie theater, where we saw “Young Doctors In Love” and “E.T.” in summer of 1982.  By 2023 all but Lord & Taylor were gone, i.e. the other three anchor stores and the cross-mall complex itself.

 Lakeforest Mall. (1978-2023).  This is at the corner of 355 and 124 (Montgomery Village Ave.) very close off 270.  It opened in the late 70s – we remember when it was just a lake and a forest.  In layout it is identical to Fair Oaks Mall (in Fairfax).  This has a Macy’s, a Sears, and other modestly upscale (upper middle class) stores.

** by 2023 this mall had fallen on hard times and is due to be demolished.  We went there when it opened in 1978, and took one last look before it was gone forever.  

 Frederick Towne Mall. (Est. 1972).  This is one we used to go to as kids with our parents.  It had a Long John Silver’s (fast food seafood) and a Time Out (video arcade).  Years later, when my parents moved up to Frederick, I checked it out again, and found it is surprisingly small, with a simple cross layout.  Lots of dollar stores, NASCAR stores, and similar low-demographic places.  No Neiman Marcus here.

As of 2023 it's in flux:  possibly to survive.   Francis Scott Key Mall is still up and running.  

 Mazza Gallerie. (1977-2022). This is an upscale mall in Bethesda, Maryland, right on Wisconsin Ave.  The Disc Shop was a record store in the basement (long gone) which had the best poster selection I’ve seen of any mall, anywhere.  When I was in college at UMCP, determined to decorate my dorm room with posters – covering every square inch possible – the Disc Shop probably contributed to 60% of the coverage.  Here is where you’ll find Neiman Marcus – the anti-Frederick Mall.

Oops!  Closed in 2022.  RIP.

 The Mall in Columbia Mall. (Est 1971) We went here once as kids, but its main attraction to us as adults is a convenient parking lot across 175 from Merriweather Post Pavilion.   It’s about halfway between DC and Baltimore.  For me, Columbia reminds me a lot of Montgomery Village.

 Arundel Mills. (Est 2000).  Much larger, much newer, with a huge movie theather (Muvico Egyptian).  I saw “All the Kings’ Men” and “The Departed” back here in late 2006.  It has a Medieval Times, which I've been to once.  The Maryland Live! Casino is across the street.

Virginia

 Fair Oaks.  (Est. 1980). Moving now to Virginia, this is in Fairfax, and has almost exactly the same layout as Lakeforest Mall.  It’s symmetrical from one end to the other, so sometimes it gets confusing.  One time my friend and I “lost” his car, when in fact it was parked in the garage on the exact opposite side of the mall.  Like Lakeforest Mall, this has a “kiddie court” in the middle.

 Tyson’s Corner.  (Est. 1962). Also in Fairfax County, next to the Beltway.  Now there’s Tysons and Tyson’s II (aka Galleria).  Tyson’s I is fairly old (60s vintage).  I remember it used to be much darker, until they renovated it with skylights.  In fact, it was so dark I had a nightmare about the organ place (Kitt’s).  It has a roughly L shape to it with Hecht’s (now Macy’s) at the corner.  Now it has a sizeable food court and large AMC Theater.

 Ballston Quarter.  (Est. 1951). The Northern Virginia area is terrible for the Metro – its stations are few and far between and nowhere near anything substantial, with a few exceptions, such as this one.  Whenever I need to take the Metro somewhere, I park here.  It also has a Regal Cinema, a Chipotle, and a Macy’s (formerly Hecht’s).  It started out as Parkington Shopping Center, became Ballston Common in 1986, and more recently morphed into Ballston Quarter in 2019.  

 Fashion Center at Pentagon City. (Est. 1989) A modest mall, but it does have a Macy’s, Victoria’s Secret, and a few other places, and it sits right on top of the Metro; it's actually the largest mall in Arlington.  There is a little adjunct mall next door with a Borders and Best Buy.  Pentagon City is actually within sight of the Pentagon itself, between it and Crystal City. 

 Potomac Mills.  (Est. 1985). This is a huge outlet mall in Woodbridge, which is due southwest of DC, about 30 minutes south of the Beltway.  All the offprice and outlet stores are here.  Ages ago I worked at a law firm in Woodbridge, which gave us staffers and attorneys $250 gift certificates for Christmas, which I used to buy dress shoes and a watch.

Elsewhere

 Garden State Plaza. (Est. 1954). I got used to this mall in Paramus, New Jersey, at the intersection of Route 4 and Route 17, and very close to the Garden State Parkway.  It has a JC Penney, Macy’s, and some other stuff.  The best jewelry store is gone. 

 Mall of America.  (Est. 1992). The biggest mall in the world, located in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  I have never been in Minnesota so I can’t claim to know more than what the rumors are.  The place has an indoor rollercoaster and all sorts of other amazing things – hospital, college, city hall, zip code, private security army, etc.  It even has its own football team, the Vikings.

 Arizona malls.  The ones I’ve seen are all one level, with no escalators.  As with so many other things in Phoenix, to offset the ubiquitous air conditioning – hell, even the Cardinals’ stadium is air conditioned! – the property is reduced to one level and spread out horizontally. 

 (Westfields) Les Quatre Temps.  This was a mall at La Defense, just outside Paris, France.  Unlike the usual Parisian arcades, this had the standard US format and design.  This was the closest to the US we could get in Paris, so it was like home to us.  I remember the toy store, two record stores, and a supermarket.  Fortunnately it's still open, and has a FNAC and Chipotle, among other things.

 Plaza Romania and Bucuresti Mall.  The two major modern malls in Bucharest, Romania.  Each of them has movie theaters and food courts.   For some reason, Romanian malls tend to be square with a huge dome on the top, with a circular layout inside.  There is a smaller one, Unirii Square (in Piata Unirii) which is more compact and rectangular.   

Mallrats & Paul Blart: Mall Cop.  Both are supposed to take place in New Jersey malls, but each takes place in malls well outside New Jersey – Minnesota and Massachusetts.  I guess they figured, “if you’ve seen one mall, you’ve seen them all, what’s the big deal?”  I guess so. “Mallrats” is an early Ben Affleck film, and it also features Jason Lee, Shannon Doherty, and Jay & Silent Bob. 

 Arcades.  These are primitive malls, which I’ve seen in various European cities and Rio de Janeiro.  Typically it’s a hallway/passageway which leads from one end of a block to another, usually bisected by another one at 90 degree angle.  It may have one level or two.  The stores have glass fronts and are usually fancy.  I recall one in Paris, the Passage du Havre, which mainly had train stores (my dad’s particular interest) and military models (my own).

Iron Mike and Uncle Joe

I’ve been reading another book about Josef Stalin (“In the Court of the Red Tsar”, by Simon Sebag Montefiore, but the title sounds like “Crimson King” to me) and he bears an uncanny resemblance to the former coach of the Chicago Bears, Mike Ditka.  They both have abundant heads of hair (much to George Contanza’s envy) and full mustaches – and are the men of Iron and Steel.  And the “national animal”, the mascot of Russia is…the Bear!  Coincidence?

 Mike Ditka.  Born October 18, 1939 in Pennsylvania.  He played in the NFL from 1961 to 1972 with the Bears (’61-66), Eagles (’67-68) and Cowboys (‘69-72) – and was on the Cowboys team that won the Super Bowl in 1971.  More recently he was the coach of the Saints from 1997-1999, well before Sean Peyton brought them glory this season.  He was sacked as the Saints coach, then appeared in an “early retirement” Super Bowl commercial immediately thereafter.  Nice.

 But he is mainly known as the hard-charging, balls-of-steel, no-nonsense coach of the Chicago Bears from 1982-1992, including their famous Super Bowl victory against the New England Patriots in 1985.  This was the team that featured Jim McMahon (always wearing his sunglasses – well, almost always…see above right) and “Refridgerator” Perry (who got all the publicity) as well as Walter Payton and Mike Singletary.  The funny thing was, back in 1986 we could not watch Super Bowls in Paris, where we were living.  But the Chicago Pizza Pie Factory had recently opened on the Champs Elysees, and to say they were proud of the Bears would be a massive understatement.  So 99% of our awareness of Ditka and the ’85-86 Bears comes from that restaurant.  Later on, Ditka was constantly named in the George Wendt & Chris Farley SNL sketches.  “Bears in a bus in the Indy 500.”  “Who’s driving?”  “Ditka.”  “Da BEARS!”

 Josef Stalin.  Born Josef Vissarionovich Djugashvili December 18, 1878, in Gori, Georgia, died March 5, 1953.  Supposedly he got his famous name – itself an homage to his hero, Vladimir Ulyanov “Lenin” – from a former girlfriend, Ludmilla Stal.  After a brief spell in a seminary in Georgia, where he picked up atheism and Marxism (the priesthood was considered a better deal than shoemaker, which was his father’s profession) he joined the Bolshevik movement which he supported robbing banks, writing poetry, and chasing skirts.  He was sent to prison and exile several times, though “exile” simply meant “taken out to some remote village with only a single cop looking after him”.  After a few times in which he simply got back on a train west, Okhrana (the Tsar’s secret police) finally got a clue and shipped him so far north of the Arctic Circle that he couldn’t get back, until 1916 when they brought him back to draft him into service in WWI – and even then he was exempted due to poor health.  D’oh!

            “Country Joe”, of Country Joe and the Fish, the 60s band which featured at Woodstock in 1969 with their “Fixin’ To Die Rag” (“one-two-three-what are we fighting for? Don’t ask me I don’t give a damn, next stop is Vietnam!”) is named after Stalin; his parents were Berkeley leftists. 

            During the Russian Civil War he had some role in the fighting in Tsaritsyn (better known as Stalingrad).  After Lenin died in 1924, Stalin spent ’24-29 consolidating power, winning the power struggle against his major rival, Leon Trotsky, who was forced into exile and later murdered in Mexico City in 1940 by Stalin’s assassins.  By 1929 he was considered the USSR’s ruler.  In the late 20s and early 30s he industrialized Russia by means of brutal 5 Year Plans, which starved peasants by the millions and forced the kulaks (rich peasants) who survived onto collective farms.  In 1937 he murdered thousands of his own party members, NKVD agents, and Red Army officers in brutal purges; better kill innocents, they thought, than let a single traitor go free.  He successfully led the Soviet Union through its “Great Patriotic War” in WWII, and eventually died in 1953.   His full body count is extensively chronicled in The Black Book of Communism.

 I can hardly imagine that Mike Ditka is capable of murdering millions of innocent civilians, or even fellow Bolsheviks, not to mention Vikings or Packers, but I do like his gruff manner and straightforward style; very much the “Stalin” of the NFL.  Another major deal is that Stalin was fairly short and never particularly healthy or robust, which kept him out of the Tsar’s Army, although he did like fishing and hunting.  Ditka, of course, was a tall, imposing figure and a successful NFL player.  Stalin enjoyed the arts, particularly poetry, and even wrote his own poetry.  I can’t imagine Ditka having any use for such things.  While he’s described as an arch-conservative, very Republican, Ditka passed on running for the Senate slot which ended up becoming Obama’s; our current President might be McCain if Ditka had successfully challenged Obama for the Illinois US Senate position.  The irony, then is that Stalin was more powerful and ruthless in terms of his impact on the world around him and his own country, whereas Ditka was physically and personally a much more substantial and powerful person. 

Supergroups

These are groups comprised of members who are already well-known from other bands.  I’ll start with the most recent and work backwards.

 Them Crooked Vultures.  Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age) (guitar, vocals), Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters, and briefly in QOTSA), and John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin) (bass/keyboards).  To be honest, I can’t tell JPJ’s bass playing from anyone else’s.  To my ears – and I’m a big QOTSA fan – this sounds 80% like QOTSA and not at all like Led Zeppelin.  To me, though, that’s a good thing, although I do like Led Zeppelin as much as I like QOTSA.

            I’ve read several interviews with Jimmy Page, and to hear him talk, I get the impression that Page and Plant were not really good friends with Jones, although they liked Bonham.  Also reading Hammer of the Gods, Jones seems like the odd one out.  There seems to be a disconnect, like Jones’ competence and skill were beyond dispute, but he was simply “that guy” who played bass and keyboards for them, punching a clock.  Yet Homme and Grohl seem to have genuine affection for him, like they realize “this guy is very underrated and gets a raw deal.”  Given that Plant nixed a Zep reunion to tour with Alison Krause – Page and Jones were willing – I’d say Plant is very full of himself.  Anyhow, good to see that Jones’ skills are not going to waste simply due to Plant’s misguided ego.

 Chickenfoot.  Sammy Hagar (solo, Montrose and Van Halen) (vocals), Joe Satriani (solo)(guitar), Michael Anthony (Van Halen)(bass), and Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers)(drums).  I was surprised, this wasn’t an AOR wuss-out effort, but is actually pretty damn hard, even sounding somewhat like AC/DC.  The name is a takeoff on the logo, which is the peace symbol, a rare departure from the usual sexual innuendo names.

 The Company Band.  Neil Fallon (Clutch)(vocals), James Rota (Fireball Ministry)(vocals), Dave Bone (guitar), Brad Davis (Fu Manchu)(bass), and Jess Margera (CKY)(drums).  They have an EP, Sign Here, Here and Here, and a self-titled full-length album.  The cover of the EP looks like a corporate report, while the album cover looks like an old-fashioned stock certificate.  It mostly sounds like Clutch but a bit weirder and funkier.

 Down.  Phil Anselmo (Pantera)(vocals), Pepper Keenan (Corrosion of Conformity)(guitar), Kirk Windstein (Crowbar)(guitar), originally Todd Strange (Crowbar)(bass), now Rex Brown (Pantera)(bass), and Jimmy Bower (Eyehategod)(drums).  They have several albums, NOLA (as in, New Orleans & L.A.), Down II: A Bustle in Your Hedgerow, and Down III: Over the Under.  I think of them as a merger of Pantera and COC, and in this case Anselmo tones down his vocals to something closer to James Hetfield than Tom Araya.  It’s like nasty, gritty, rusty, swampy rock, like Lynyrd Skynyrd on bad acid.   

 Damn Yankees.  Ted Nugent (solo), Jack Blades (Night Ranger)(bass), Tommy Shaw (Styx)(vocals, rhythm guitar), and Michael Cartellone.  This was fairly AOR commercial rock, not too bad.  Some of the material on Nugent’s Craveman album had credits to Blades & Shaw, as it came from the never-released second DY album.  Nugent joked that it had been produced by a “gay bandito, and I promised to kill him and his whole family if that turd saw the light of day.” 

 Mr. Big.  Eric Martin (vocals), Paul Gilbert (guitar), Billy Sheehan (bass), and Pat Torpey (drums).  To me, Sheehan’s major contribution was to David Lee Roth’s solo album Eat ‘Em and Smile (remember “Yankee Rose”?), and Paul Gilbert was another popular shredder (Racer X).  I have no idea where Martin and Torpey came from.  This was very much like Damn Yankees, fairly light and fluffy AOR material.  I got this album at the same time as King’s X, Gretchen Goes To Nebraska, expecting to feel blah about King’s X and love Mr. Big, but it was the other way around.

 Asia.  John Wetton (King Crimson, Wishbone Ash, Family)(bass), Steve Howe (Yes)(guitar), Geoff Dowenes (Keyboard), and Carl Palmer (ELP)(drummer).  They were big when I was in high school (80s) but I never cared for them.  By this point I think of Wetton as part of King Crimson’s best lineup, which recorded Larks Tongues in Aspic, Starless and Red.  Bill Bruford, as equally part of Yes as Crimson, recently retired, and remarked that if he really wanted to make some cash, he’d call up Robert Fripp to do a tour playing Larks Tongues and Red in their entirety.

 Blind Faith.  Steve Winwood (Traffic, Spencer Davis Group)(vocals, keyboards), Eric Clapton (Yardbirds, Cream, solo)(guitar), Rich Graech (Family)(bass) and Ginger Baker (Cream, drums).  They have one album, with two major songs, “Can’t Find My Way Home” and “In the Presence of the Lord”.  I’m not a big fan of Clapton or Winwood, so this combo hardly lights my fire.  Nor does the famous album cover with the naked underage chick and the toy plane.  I prefer Roxy Music…

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (+ CSN).  Each member was already famous from previous bands when they joined forces, so this qualifies, but I never liked them very much.