Sussex, England-A team of anthropologists from the Julliard School of Music have good reason to be excited, these days. The expedition, sifting through the rubble of true rock and roll, have found evidence of what they believe to be an ancient, hitherto unknown group that may have featured legendary guitarist Eric Clapton.
"The reel-to-reel demo tape," asserts the expedition's leader, Brad Goodman, "is the main evidence that we've salvaged from rock and roll's burial site. The writing on the reel case is still legible."
The reverent Goodman then lifted an army blanket to reveal a reel-to-reel tape can. It is spotted with dirt, obscuring the writing but legible it is.
"I know this has a Blair Witch feel to it, but that's coincidental. If you look at this can here, it says, and I quote, 'Owlsley's Asses- E. Clapton.' This is the missing link, my friend."
Other music anthropologists and archeologists have speculated for three and a half decades what the missing Clapton group was called, if there was one.
"All things considered," said famed anthropologist Louis Leakey just before his death in 1972, and who started the ball rolling in his controversial paper, Finding Clapton at Olduvai Gorge, "it's absurd to think that between leaving the Yardbirds in '65 and forming Cream in '66 that Clapton could have been in less than the seven groups that we've uncovered thus far."
It would seem that Goodman's group may find themselves on the cover of the Rolling Stone.
"Carbon 14 dating of the reel and its case shows that Owlsley's Asses was extant circa December of 1965, which at least correctly places it post-Yardbirds and pre-Cream, definitely pre-Blind Faith."
The tapes, when played on an equally ancient reel-to-reel TEAC loaned to the team by the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC, reveal more mysteries than surprises.
"Hey, man," drones an unidentified and disembodied voice from the past, possibly Jerry Garcia's, "fucking Clapton's playing his leg!"
"He was playing air guitar, dude! No one had ever played air prior to 1967, yet this tape proves the old school wrong. This predates air guitar technology by another 13, maybe even 14 months," revels Goodman. "Eric Clapton Unplugged? Eat your fucking heart out, MTV!"
Owlsely's Asses, most of the expedition believes, thrived between 12:30 pm, December 15, 1965 and 1:00 am the next day. Their findings will be published in Rolling Stone magazine next month.