The first one of you to say "more cowbell" is gonna get it.
(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.)…
"A sinister cabal of superior writers."
Article comments
26 - JR
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.
I sent away for the lyrics. Back in the day they gave an address on the back of the albums; you could send a S.A.S.E. and they'd send you the lyrics printed out on that old computer paper, you know the stuff with the green stripes on it. As I remember each entire song was printed in one paragraph with minimal punctuation.
Those must be somewhere in my storage space now...
27 - Mark Vockroth
It doesn't matter if you agree that BOC influenced anyone or not. Obviously some were influenced but as to what genre they were...who cares??
The first time I saw BOC they used a speaker set-up wherein the speakers in the back of the hall exclusively played Buck's solos on songs like Last Days of May, Cities on Flame, etc. I've never heard any thing like it and since my seats were halfway back on the side, the effect was incredible. It was also during their "laser years"(also incredible). The first 3 albums are classics, but there's always something good about almost everything since then and some things (like Imaginos) are great.
28 - Chris Baker
That was a fun post, bmarkey...well-reasoned even if I don't know if I but it particularly. Myself? I think they were the greatest band ever to have practically no influence whatsoever. Which is fine with me; at least what happened to hard rock/metal in the 80s and beyond can't be laid at their doorstep.
I think they had so little influence because they produced such genuinely odd music that didn't lend itself to providing a template for others to emulate. Want to sound like Skynyrd? Do this (and lots did); Van Halen? ditto; Aerosmith? and on and on. But BOC? The band _itself_ had a tough time figuring out how to sound like BOC as they got into the 80's, which I think is why the stuff that was most clearly designed to sound like "old-school" BOC was often far less interesting than the more experimental stuff, and far less convincing.
They were also the first band I ever saw, in NYC in '73...I'd gone to see Slade (!) but they opened, and with "The Red and the Black"...mother of god...3 months later I saw the best show I've seen yet...oh, bullshit, the best show I'll ever see if I live to be 160: BOC headlining over the Stooges (who were rapidly accelerating towards a brick wall) and the second professional show by the Dictators. Although "professional" does not seem like the apt word :-)
Saw the Ramones open for 'em at Nassau Coliseum in Long Island in '77, Patti Smith was on the bill but had just fallen off a stage in Florida.
So some proto-punk and punk connections there, but I don't know that I make a great deal of it.
Anyway...I've seen about 55 shows by various lineups at this point; just got tix for San Francisco and Modesto next week. The band has been better in the last 5 years, by and large, than they'd been for the previous 20 (since Albert's departure). Getting a couple of albums recorded/released after years of touring seemed to re-energize them. And Buck Dharma--who has never dogged it, but whose playing did not really stretch, IMO, for a lot of those years--has strengthened his chops, kept what was always mind-blowing about his style while broadening his approach. In short: on any given night you're likely to hear him playing better and more creatively than he ever has.
Which is a roundabout way of saying: I don't know how far Seattle is from Tacoma but they're in the latter on March 26th, info at blueoystercult.com...while "On Tour Forever" has been their motto, we're definitely in the home stretch here...this year won't be it, but next year might, and i've come away from some recent shows with my jaw aching from grinning so hard because the worst parts weren't bad and the best parts were so ****ing on-the-money that it snapped my head back.
It's at a casino but I've never found the venue mattered...in fact last show I saw 6 months ago was at a casino, and you know what? The Indians apparently have a LOT of money to spend on sound and lights :-) It rocked.
And as another poster noted, yep Ross the Boss is now with Albert in the Brain Surgeons, new album is being mixed now and Albert has sounded extraordinarily enthusiastic about it and about having Ross on guitar.
Again, thanks for the post...and if you're tracking how people found it: I signed up for Google Alerts on the band so I get some URL or other e-mailed to me periodically.
29 - Caryn Rose
Of course they were cool. Patti Smith + Allan Lanier. That was enough for me.
tacoma is 40 minutes south of Seattle. I assume they're playing the Emerald Queen Casino, where old bands and the mullet-wears who love them go to die. They deserve better than that.
30 - bmarkey
'fraid so, Caryn. Cheap Trick and Joan Jett have both played the Emerald Queen within recent memory, too.
*sigh*
Chris, I'm glad you enjoyed the post.
31 - HW Saxton
BOC: Too "punk" for hardcore metal heads
too metal for hard core "punkers".Major
influence on both sides of the fence.
I think they are right up(or down there
depending on ones own perspective)with
the best of the proto punk bands such as
Sir Lord Baltimore,Dust,Flamin Groovies,
Dictators,Kingdom Come,Simply Saucer etc
etc etc etc.
32 - bmarkey
I'm afraid you're right, Caryn. Cheap Trick played there last year and Joan Jett the year before (as I recall).
*sigh*
Chris, I'm glad you dug the piece. And thanks to everybody who's left a comment - even the snarky one.
33 - bmarkey
Good call, HW. There was some debate among my friends at school as to whether BOC were "punk" or not. This would have been about 1977, and we were hopelessly suburban idiots, but still...
34 - HW Saxton
Thanks,bmarkey. I went to high school at
around the same time period(74-78) and I
also had similar arguments. I mean like
Lester dug 'em (remember that he did a
typewriter solo onstage once with them
during I believe: "Cities On Flame"...
LOFL!)and R.Meltzer swung to 'em too and
also wrote some songs with them so I do
really think that they definitely had
some punk rock credibility in my book.
Then on the other hand they were good
musicians,very professional,big label &
all of that. A lot of bands in that time
period could've been considered as proto
punk or metal such as The Dictators or
early Alice Cooper(in spots).Much to the
credit of BOC they do NOT sound at all
dated or archaic as do many of the bands
of that time period both hard rock/metal
and punk. A band you might want to check
out from the early 1970's is this group
called: 'Sir Lord Baltimore' They are a
power trio that calls to mind Blue Cheer
on meth meets or Raw Power era Stooges
slowed down some.Sloppy,crazed and just
insane!!!Totally frenetic & outtacontrol
hard rock/proto punk + ?.They have to be
heard to be believed.Though in all fair-
ness their LP's (they only made two)are
a little uneven but the great shit will
leave ya going "whatinthefuckwazzat ?"
35 - The Barman
"And now that I think of it, wasn't there an Australian band named after the song "ME 262"?"
Spot on! The Aussie scene is/was so incestuous, two of the guys from ME-262 also play with one of the guitarists from Birdman, who's playing drums in their ensemble.
36 - bmarkey
Ah, but were they named after the song or the aircraft? That's the burning question now.
37 - The Barman
I'll ask one of them and get back to you!
38 - bmarkey
Outstanding. This is why I love the intarweb.
39 - The Barman
Here's the answer to the ME-262 question (as in where did the Sydney band derive their name - from the BOC song or the plane), courtesy of their bass player Andy Newman:
"Both! No, at first the BOC song. This was 1979. We played a lot of parties before venturing into the pubs. Now to the funny bit. After we'd been playing a little while I remember being at some party a friend of my parent's was having. He was a German who worked with my father, they met in Brazil when we lived there. Dad was a physicist, worked for the UN in the International Atomic Energy Agency with this guy. I remember being asked about the band so I tell them the name. He smiles. Turns out that my father's friend, who at that time was ended up in charge at the Lucas Heights reactor here in Sydney, was an ex-Luftwaffe scientist/engineer who actually worked on the Me262! (Ignore the fact an ex-Nazi was running our only nuclear reactor okay, nah, he wasn't a Nazi, or maybe he was, Germany, Brazil, ......) Small world."
40 - HW Saxton
Earlier in the previous posts someone
made the Radio Birdman/B.O.C connection.
Good call. I just listened to some Radio
Birdman today at friends house and the
R.B song: "Into The Maelstrom",I think
it was called,sounds like it could have
been a direct lift from the B.O.C canon.
I don't listen to rock much anymore if I
have a say in the matter,but it was sooo
obvious where RB got the inspiration for
this particular tune. The Stooges/MC5/
Rationals/Dee-Troit connection is surely
obvious enough with Radio Birdman but
also the B.O.C influence is a major part
of their sound as well.I would also add
early Alice Cooper & The Doors into the
mix.Just my two cents anyway,rock fans.
41 - Triniman
Tom asked what people thought of "Imaginos." Extraordinary and refreshingly different.
42 - Vern Halen
I'm glad you liked Imaginos, but...explain it to me, please! I'm usually more on the ball, but I really didn't get it and its whole "concept."
43 - bmarkey
Thanks for the legwork, Barman! I have to admit to feeling a certain amount of vindication at the moment. It's on the tiny side, but I'll take what I can get. :)
As for Imaginos, I've never heard it myself. I seem to recall that it's tied into the backstory for the song "Astronomy", although I could just as easily be talking out my ass.
44 - copesounds
I like BOC a lot and I was a very latecomer to the party. In high school I considered them a hopelessly cheesy and a worthless artifact from the seventies. Then I bought Agents of Fortune on vinyl about 7 years ago because I liked Reaper and it had a song with Patti Smith on it. I liked it well enough to look further and was very pleasantly surprised.
You may be overplaying the influence on the punk scene but your basic premise seems solid and well supported. What passes for punk today could certainly do with a dose of pure BOC influence.
I think you are missing out on some later stuff, though. Fire of Unknown Origin is a pretty great album. Very different from the early stuff but if you can accept that a band can evolve into something quite different from its beginning AND still be good, it stands with the rest pretty well. It definitely has a hint of cheese, but it's more like a grated topping than an integral ingredient.
45 - Chrome
The best album of all time is B.O.C.'s
"Heaven Forbid". Check it out. It will change your life.
46 - Ralph
I'm trying to get together as many BOC gig fan reviews as possible for posting on the Hot Rails site - includes all the latest on Albert/Brain Surgeons and Joe Bouchard's many groups also.
Please stop by and check out the gig lists and make sure that I'm not missing a show that you've seen - or maybe you can add some info - eg other bands on the bill etc..
URL: http://www.hotrails.co.uk
Albert URL: http://www.hotrails.co.uk/tbs/
Joe URL: http://www.hotrails.co.uk/bds/
Any help you can send would be gratefully received...
47 - Angrod
Blue Oyster Cult is without doubt one of my favorite bands of all time. I saw them once as BOC and twice as Soft White Underbelly. Every concert was awesome.
But I have to disagree with a few people here as to the quality of a few of their albums. Of their first 8 studio albums I would rank Spectres and Mirrors at the bottom. It's all personal taste of course, but I actually liked the Cultosaurus Erectus and Fire of Unknown Origin albums MUCH better.
I just finished burning a 2cd best of collection of BOC's first 8 studio albums (so I don't have to take 8 CD's at a time in my car basically). In the end I put about 3-5 songs from every album on the collection EXCEPT Spectres and Mirrors, with only one song each (Godzilla and Dr. Music).
Again, it's all personal taste. So rock on my fellow BOC fans!
48 - uao
Blue Oyseter Cult was always one of my biggie favorites, still are, when I'm in the mood.
I like their debut the most among their first three; "Then Came The Last Days of May" and "She's as Beautiful as a Foot" are absolutely inspired post-psychedelic Velvet-ey, punky, creepouts.
From the heyday, Agents of Fortune not just for "Reaper" but the Patti Smith songs, and "ETI", and "Debbie Denise" great stuff.
And, although it's the slickest, "Fire of Unknown Origin" is full of great songs. The lesser known favorites I'd vote for are The Revolution by Night and Tyranny and Mutation. Spectres is good...heck, I still love 'em.
Your thesis that punk wouldn't have been what it was without them maybe stretches their influence a little too broadly; New York punk would've been different (which influenced other punk).
Although they made some metal moves all along, "Cities on Flame" and "Godzilla" for example, there was always a punk angle behind it; you got the sense that the metal was a put-on, and that what lurked underneath was more sinister.
I always thought that generic hard rock/heavy metal genre tag didn't tell the whole story, too.
I've always kind of classified them as "biker group", by which I mean they are part of a tradition closer to a continuum of The Seeds to Blue Cheer to Steppenwolf to BOC to Motorhead; other bands could easily qualify.
"Biker group" music is usually punky metal with a raw underbelly; it started as garage rock, went through psychedelia, and came out on the fringes of metal. It wasn't metal, because it also included those Iggy and Velvets influences that kept them becoming riff dependant.
At any rate, I'd agree with you that those guys might deserve a "proto-punk" added to that hard rock/heavy metal tag. Nice piece on one of my favorites.
49 - bmarkey
Your thesis that punk wouldn't have been what it was without them maybe stretches their influence a little too broadly; New York punk would've been different (which influenced other punk).
Uh, you just proved my thesis with the second sentence in that quote.
50 - uao
I wasn't disputing your thesis; I mainly agreed with it.
I just don't think BOC has anything to do with punk from the UK, and more to do with NY punk than LA punk or Minneapolis punk or San Fran punk.
But I'm with you on the 'punk' thing.
51 - Angrod
I was never a punk fan, so I can't comment on bmarkey's thesis. But I remember when punk first started to become popular, and to me it sounded basically like a bunch of hack bands lacking the ability to be successful in any other genre of music, including rock.
I’m not talking about a lack of creative talent, but a lack of ability to actually play the instruments. And I remember that many punk fans recognized this and were proud of it. I’m sure there are many punk songs with creative and/or meaningful lyrics, but if the music is horrible who wants to listen to it?
I will admit there were some decent punk bands " Sex Pistols & Suicidal Tendencies, for example " but they could actually play the instruments and sounded like metal to me.
With music the way it is now, however, I would almost welcome new punk bands. It seems like most music today, especially rap, is monotonous, repetitive music, revolving around the same few themes " sex, growing up in a bad city neighborhood, and being pissed off. So I’ve pretty much abandoned the radio for my CD collection.
So is there anything good out there these days? And please don't recommend any thrash metal bands. Thrash bores and annoys me almost as much as rap.
52 - illuminati
The best observation is "the music gene pool has gotten mighty small"
It's all been done... music fans with a little ambition eventually come across the originals.
Has anyone else recognized Sebastian Bach's use of "punk-chords"?
53 - lurkinggherkin
I had to laugh as you struggled to make the connection between Radio Birdman and the Blue -yster Cult! It's even more transparent than you think.
The title of Radio Birdman's second studio album - 'Radios Appear' - is lifted straight from the lyrics of Dominance & Submission!
54 - Big Steve
Just seen BOC Mem Day 2007 STL. Dharma can still play the damn guitar at age 60! Fun 90 minute set.
55 - JC Mosquito
Y'know, I'm thinking back to the late 70's and there was a more than casual connection between BOC & the punk thing - in my mind at least, but I'm not from NYC - maybe they all ended up in the same issues of CREEM Magazine for all I know. Maybe if Marty T is hanging around here he could shine some light.
56 - Laughner
Angrod:
I don't know your taste, but there is a band called Comets on Fire that put out two great albums of ridiculously over-the-top Blue Cheer/ Monster Magnet/ early BOC style rock. I guess you could call them a "neo biker band" if that moniker had actually caught on. The best Comets on Fire LP is called "Field Recordings from the Sun". Their last two albums were on sub pop and I was so dissipointed by the first one (Blue Cathedral) I haven't even bothered with their new release.
Also, I'd highly recommend the A-Frames. Their early material is pretty hard to find, but Black Forest isn't and its a damn fine angular rock album. I wouldn't be surprised if they were closet BOC fans but their influence hews a lot closer to the first wave post punks like Gang of Four and Killing Joke so I would only recommend them if you liked those kind of bands.
For more advice I'd recommend aquariusrecord.org. Aquarius is a small record store in San Francisco but they have a huge website. Their signal to noise ratio isn't the greatest (which is to say they also genuinely love death metal and gansta rap, among other generes that'll likely leave you scratching your head) but they are also pretty unabashed admirers of Blue Oyster Cult and other proto punk bands like The Stooges and The Electric Eels. The cool thing about Aquarius is offer free links to listen to what they recommend. Definately takes (some) of the risk out of purchasing.
57 - Oster
Why does everything have to be validated against punk rock? Who cares?
The "more cowbell" people are of a mindset that couldn't possibly grasp the greatness of Blue Oyster Cult. Why seek their validation? They'll be the ones being laughed at someday on SNL.
Punk spawned some good things but much more crap than good. Blue Oyster Cult were neither proto-punk, nor metal but a really good, dark late psychedelia which is far, far better.
58 - Brunelleschi
Things to admire about BOC-
-Lasting appeal.
-Many tunes you like to hear again and again.
-Tireless touring, Who hasn't seen them in concert like 5 times?
-Their concerts are crisp and together. I don't know of too many concert bands that sound better live (or at least as good) than their albums.
59 - Mike Snicer
Very interesting theory on punk and quite plausible although I personally believe they were a much larger influence on rock and metal back in the day but that's just my opinion and no one can deny the Patti Smith connection.
Imaginos was one of my favourite L.P.'s ever, still is.