(I wrote this about a year ago, but seeing Sandy Pearlman’s name here last week made me think of posting it here. The original version still resides at my place.)
I was listening to Radio Birdman while out walking the dog yesterday. For those of you unfamiliar with the band, they were around from 1974 to sometime in 1978. Australian, they were, except for the hot-shit guitarist imported from Detroit. Real proto-punks, they (along with The Saints) set the stage for the likes of Celibate Rifles, The Hoodoo Gurus, etc. What struck me on this listen, though, was how much they had assimilated various riffs from Blue Oyster Cult.
OK, you can put away your snide “needs more cowbell” remarks right now, junior. I’m here to tell you that BOC was precursor to much that is good and right and decent about rock & roll in these latter days of degradation. Sure, just about everything they did after, say, Spectres sucked the big one, but riddle me this, Batman: how many bands that began in the seventies came out of the eighties with their chops intact, much less their hides? If you said not very many, you are correct. Look at The Tubes, for the love of cake – hot-rod theatrical art-rock incipient punks in the seventies, middle-of-the-freeway crap artists by the mid-eighties. Ditto, sorta, for the J. Geils Band, except substitute hard-driving R&B/blooze boogie-meisters for that art stuff. I’m not even gonna dignify Jefferson Starship other than to mention that they got even suckier in the eighties. You wouldn’t think it possible, but I heard it with my own ears. The list goes on & on, so forget that the eighties even happened to Blue Oyster Cult (I’m sure they’d like to, aside from the cash) and cast your mind back to a day long gone by.
Submitted for you approval: without Blue Oyster Cult, punk rock (as we know it) would quite possibly be a different critter indeed, or perhaps even non-existent. A bold assertion, I admit, but stay with me here as I dissect it.
As I’ve already mentioned, Radio Birdman was obviously giving them a listen. No Radio Birdman, no Australian punk/garage movement, or at least not the one that actually happened. Also: Mike Watt, late of The Minutemen, plank-spanker extraordinaire since then with such stellar units as fIREHOSE, Porno for Pyros, Dos, J. Mascis + The Fog, the 21st century edition of Iggy and the goddamn Stooges, no less, has made it a point to have virtually every band he’s worked in cover “The Red and The Black” from BOC’s second album, Tyranny and Mutation. OK? How’s that for an endorsement? Not enough? You want more? How about this: providing lyrics for various BOC tunes over the years have been none other than Richard Meltzer and, I shit you not, Patti Smith. So we’ve got progenitors of punk from both coasts AND one the more influential rock crits who ever tapped a Smith-Corona, or at least one of the first. As Science Girl put it, imagine the parties. And what is more: Sandy Pearlman co-wrote with the band and produced them as well. The producer of the second album by The Clash? Why look, it’s the very same Sandy Pearlman. Coincidence? You tell me.
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Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - SFC Ski
There is no finer song about giant radioactive reptiles than BOC's "Godzilla"!
THey were a damn good band.
2 - Dave Nalle
And don't forget they are the most successful band that let the amazing genius loon Michael Moorcock write songs for them. Anyone for some Hawkwind tunes?
Dave
3 - alienboy
that's funny, without some minor american rock band, that 99& of the planet's population couldn't name more than one song by, punk rock wouldn't have happened?
i don't know what you're smoking but pass it over here quick, the time dilation effect is amazing...
and punk sadly died many years ago. somebody please tell green day it's time to go back to mummy...
4 - bmarkey
Oooh, nice try, alienboy. Turn off the snark-o-meter for a moment and take another gander at the piece: "without Blue Oyster Cult, punk rock (as we know it) would quite possibly be a different critter indeed, or perhaps even non-existent."
It's speculation. You guess at how events might have shaken out had one or two variables been changed. It isn't definitive, and it doesn't change anything, but it's kinda fun.
You sound like you could use a little fun.
Also, for the record, I'm smoking lox. No "time dilation", but very tasty with a little schmear and some red onion. Ask nicely and I may share.
As for Green Day: where did that come from? Say, what are you smoking?
5 - Tim Hall
Did you know that the current lineup of The Brain Surgeons features both Albert Bouchard (ex BOC), and Ross the Boss (ex Dictators and Manowar)
I'm kicking myself for not travelling south to London for their UK appearance.
6 - JR
Well, despite all those ties to punk rock, I still think BOC were great.
7 - wally bangs
I love the BOC - true mind melting space rock done for bikers. Radio Birdman also rate pretty high on the awesome Aussie band meter. I don't necassarily agree with your thesis, but intriguing nevertheless.
8 - Mark Saleski
they're still great.
just the other day i was listening to The Curse of the Hidden Mirror. great stuff.
9 - bmarkey
Tim: No, I hadn't heard that. I thought Ross had signed on to the Dictators reunion. Any idea what Joe Bouchard is up to these days?
10 - Tim Hall
I have a feeling Joe has a band called The X Brothers, but I haven't heard any of their music.
B-C definitely lost something when Albert left; he was one of their two main songwriters, and there's a dimension missing from their later albums, even though those albums still have their moments.
11 - bmarkey
Agreed. BOC sorta lost me with, as I recall, but when I'd heard that the Bouchard brothers were no longer involved I gave up entirely.
12 - Tim Hall
What does anyone make of "Imaginos"? It's not really a proper BOC album, because the band didn't actually record large parts of it, but as an album I really like it.
13 - The Barman
Very perceptive observation about the impact of BOC on Radio Birdman. Everyone usually misses the BOC connection, going for the lazy Stooges/MC5 lines. Two minor corrections - one of the band members (other than the shit hot guitarist from Detroit) was an expat Canuck. And the band is still a going concern, reforming sporadically since 1996 and weeks away from recording a new studio album.
14 - bmarkey
Thanks, Barman. I'd forgotten that Radio Birdman had reunited.
It was "Descent into the Maelstrom" that caught my attention. That riff has BOC all over it.
And now that I think of it, wasn't there an Australian band named after the song "ME 262"?
15 - Vern Halen
I saw them play in town back when Reaper broke big in...well, a long time ago. Decent show, but there was a commotion upfront and Eric Bloom ended up making some remark about certain a**holes at the front of the stage. After the show closer, Born to be Wild, a couple of roadies came out onto the stage and got into a shouting match with the troublemakers, and suddenly the house lights as well as the stage lights went out. In the dark, I felt a couple of bodies brush past me. Eventually, the roadie cought up to the guy & gave him a lickin'. "I didn't do it, man!" was all he kept saying.
And that's what you get for taking on a New Yaaawk roadie.
16 - Mark Saleski
i've seen 'em twice, in very, very different contexts.
the first was back on the Spectres tour (which i wrote a little bit about here), at a big arena with the gigantic laser show and all of that stuff.
the second was several years ago at a little club in cambridge, mass.
very weird to see the former rock gods playing in such a small venue (good though).
17 - JR
And now that I think of it, wasn't there an Australian band named after the song "ME 262"?
How do you know they weren't named after the plane the song was named after?
18 - Eric Olsen
they had moments of awesome greatness on every album through, as the BMer says, Spectres, which was in some ways their most consistent album, although by then the genuine strangeness had mutated into a cartoon. I saw them several tims in the '70s in various venues and they were a freaking guitar army every time.
Name me a song stranger than "She's As Beautiful As a Foot"
19 - Vern Halen
Well, if it's stranger than "Foot," it would probably be a BOC song. I could never make out their lyrics, and when the first few albums got reissued on CD a couple of years ago I got to read them as printed. "'It's past midnight,' said Charles the grinning boy..." Yeah, that's what I thought he said first time 'round.
I think their realtionship to punk is much like that of the Dictators, New York Dolls, Stooges, or MC5 - not punk rock as it came to be defined by the Pistols, Ramones et.al., but protopunk perhaps - playing loud rock/metal without taking the nature of rock 'n' roll too seriously. Although there are those who would say they were too technically adept and were more a mtel/progressive band. But who could take seriously their umlautt (sp?), pseudo swastika emblem & leather duds? Everybody likes to dress up, whether it be Buck Dharma or Johnny Rotten.
Or maybe what it really comes down to is that there's no category into which they fit easily.
20 - bmarkey
JR- Well, that's a good point. I just assumed... and we all know what happens then.
Vern - Yeah, exactly. They helped pave the way for what was to come.
And, as long as we're talking about BOC shows, they were my very first concert. It was the Spectres tour, and they played the Cow Palace in South San Francisco. Opening were Black Oak Arkansas and Piper (featurung a very young Billy Squier).
My god I'm old.
21 - Eric Olsen
they don't really fit anywhere: ultimately more a "weird hard rock" band than anything else. They were considered proto-metal at the time, but they don't sound much like metal as we think of it now. I would say "Cities Aflame" is pretty much a proto-punk song, though
22 - copygodd
wow, that certainly brought back some memories. boc were my favorite group growing up; i even got in trouble once in algebra class for drawing their symbol on my desk.
for me, their first three albums are still their best. "agents" and "spectres" had their moments, but nothing they did ever came close to those first three classics.
23 - Vern Halen
Yep, the first three albums - BOC's "Black and White" phase - beautiful (as a foot, as it were).
I never liked Agents as much 'til I got the CD reissue - my vinyl copy had really weak sound, but the CD is big & full & sonically clean. Very nice.
24 - Eric Olsen
you can really hear that cowbell
25 - Eric Berlin
Just hearing Chris Walken say the word "cowbell" is enough to throw me into stiches...