Blue Öyster CultTyranny and MutationSecret TreatiesAgents of FortuneSpectresMirrorsCultösaurus ErectusFire of Unknown OriginThe Revölution by NightClub NinjaImaginosHeaven ForbidCurse of the Hidden MirrorThe Symbol Remains------------------------
Introduction
I’m going to start out with a little different method than the other discography threads. To appreciate where BÖC was coming from, I feel it is crucial to understand the importance of their manager/producer first. In 1967, Sandy Pearlman was a philosophy grad who was also a New School Fellow in sociology and was part of the progressive scene around Greenwich Village. He’d also been writing articles for Crawdaddy! magazine, the pioneers of rock criticism.
His immersion into the New York rock scene gave him access to musicians as well as the connections to help bands get signed. He began to develop ideas for a band based on what he was writing about. During his college days he’d written a series of poems called
The Soft Doctrines of Imaginos or just
Imaginos. These poems detailed a fictional history of a secret alien society behind two world wars. They were thick with Lovecraftian flavored themes of paranoia and the occult. He also imagined rock n’ roll as a vehicle for right-wing propaganda to control the unwashed masses (or conversely, as a defense against control) so, it was in his mind to find musicians with the talent to put his artistic vision to music.
When a good friend of his, Richard Meltzer (another rock critic), started hanging out with and writing lyrics for a band in Long Island, Pearlman was introduced to the core members of what would become BÖC. Pearlman sold his vision to the group and over the next several years they worked on refining the idea while playing clubs in and around N.Y. They struggled to get a record deal and had multiple false starts all with Pearlman at the helm as manager. With the success of Black Sabbath’s debut album and follow-up
Paranoid, Pearlman and Murray Krugman saw a market for Sandy’s ideas and pushed the band to become the U.S. answer to Black Sabbath.
In 1971 the band got a record deal with Columbia, largely through Krugman’s efforts, and a brand new name; Blue Oyster Cult (the umlaut was suggested later by Allen Lanier). The name comes from Pearlman’s earlier mentioned
Imaginos poetry.
Another interesting thing about Pearlman, and the band itself, is they largely saw the enterprise as a collaboration effort. People outside the band, that happened to be in their collective orbit, were involved in writing lyrics, music and even playing in the studio at times. From my point of view as a fan, this implies that egos were in short supply. Expect this topic to pop up as we go through the discography.
This brings us to:
Blue Öyster Cult (1972)Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser - lead guitar, vocals
Eric Bloom - lead vocals, stun guitar, keyboards
Albert Bouchard - drums, vocals
Joe Bouchard - bass, vocals
Allen Lanier - rhythm guitar, keyboards
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Transmaniacon MC 3:21
I'm on the Lamb But I Ain't No Sheep 3:10
Then Came the Last Days of May 3:31
Stairway to the Stars 3:43
Before the Kiss, a Redcap 4:59
Screams 3:10
She's As Beautiful as a Foot 2:58
Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll 4:03
Workshop of the Telescopes 4:01
Redeemed 3:51
Total length: 36:48
While the band was being promoted as heavy metal it’s probably more appropriate, in retrospect, to characterize the sound as hard rock. Buck Dharma has been quoted as jokingly describing the sound as light metal. The presence of distorted guitars is certainly prominent but more with nod to Steppenwolf and MC5 rather than the angular, doom heavy riffing of Black Sabbath. The compositions are firmly rooted in blues-based rock and at times Haight-Ashbury brand of psychedelica--genres that the band members cut their teeth on while touring around New York.
Right out of the gate, “Transmaniacon MC” sets the tone perfectly for BÖC ‘s signature sound and atmosphere. The guitars and organ explode with a sunny, almost welcoming, intro that declares the show has begun. Then almost immediately, it steps back into a restrained groove for the verses. Bloom snarls out Pearlman’s creepy lyrics, sung from the point of view of a secret cabal of bikers who deliberately brought about the horror of Altamont for their own obscure purposes: A beer-soaked, anthem for alien-illuminati in sleeveless leather jackets. The Bouchard brothers, jointly keep the rhythm on the back end of the beat, while Buck Dharma adds his fire-breathing lead in the middle section. A funky piece of trivia about this song is, it inspired 26 year old science fiction writer John Shirley to pen his first novel in 1979. Years later, he would write lyrics for BÖC on their Heaven Forbid album.
With tongue firmly in cheek, “I’m on the Lamb, but I Ain’t No Sheep” is an Al Bouchard written song that was popular with fans when the band toured as Soft White Underbelly. The original lyrics were reworked by Sandy, along with Al, to provide a pseudo-sadomasochistic sexual overtone. Buck’s soloing throughout the middle refrain of “ride, mush you huskies” is a highlight for me.
Next up is a haunting, soulful ballad penned by Buck. He also sings the lead vocal and his voice is so much softer than Bloom's that it really provides a nice contrast to the previous rockers. “Then Came the Last Days of May” details the tragic shooting death of two young men after a drug deal goes wrong in an Arizona desert. This song is a nice showcase for Buck’s softer, bluesy, lead sound and has always been a favorite with me.
“Stairway to the Stars” seems to be a dismissive swipe at autograph seekers. This is strange, because I’m sure no one in the band was being swamped by groupies or anything.
Richard Meltzer wrote the lyrics and I can only assume he was
imagining the annoyance...and the resulting dreams of violence. My favorite line is, “You can drive my motorcar, it’s insured to thirty-thou, kill them all if you wish.” Anyway, it’s a poppy tune, played to distorted guitars, with a nice hook chorus. Albert and Buck wrote the music, and it once again features some great leads by Buck.
Finishing out side 1, of the original album, is the bizarre and completely awesome “Before the Kiss, a Redcap.” Allen, and presumably Eric, chug out some pretty gritty guitar work, while Buck sprinkles accent leads at the end of each line of the plodding verses that bookend this song. Buck takes the lead vocals on this one, and frantically spits out the completely strange lyrics during the sinister, cartoonish, boogie of the middle section. I can’t be sure what’s going here, but there seems to be some organized effort, in a bar, to distribute “redcaps”, via tongue, between the fascist owners and their patrons?! The song ends with a big climax that allows Lanier the opportunity to exchange short lead runs with Buck.
I distinctly remember sitting there stunned the first time I listened to this record. I was eager, yet a little scared, to find out what was on the other side.
“Screams”, that’s what’s on the other side! A rare writing contribution by Joe, this song is a spacey, psychedelic, drug-addled nightmare, in the tradition of the Doors or Jefferson Airplane. The song slowly builds through some tasty keyboards and wailing guitar, to end with a frantic drum roll that tumbles down the basement stairs, into one of the great moments of the record…
…a haunting guitar slowly cries the disturbing hook for “She’s as Beautiful as a Foot”. Another lyrical contribution by Meltzer with music by Albert and Allen, this is a voyeuristic love song for a cannibal with a foot fetish. I kid you not!
Do you think this is relevant? I’ve always had a difficult time deciding if the band, and by extension Meltzer, intended this song to be funny. On the surface it would seem so, but Eric’s vocal delivery is disturbing enough that the comedy gets drowned by the horror.
Now we come to the BÖC’s signature song from this record. The record’s only single “Cities on Flame With Rock and Roll” was played frequently on FM radio in my town and thus this was the only song I was familiar with prior to getting the album. Buck and Albert are credited with writing this song, but while researching this album, I found out that, to a man, the entire band admits that the riff was directly lifted from “The Wizard” by Black Sabbath, since that’s who they were being pressured to sound like. It’s obvious now, and I’m amazed that it never occurred to me before. Anyway, it’s certainly the heaviest song on the album, with sludgy guitars and a thunderous staccato rhythm. Even though he didn't write the lyrics, Pearlman’s influence is on display--with imagery of an apocalyptic war fought with “three-thousand guitars” opposing each other in partisan camps devoted to Marshall and Fender. Rock n’ roll as a weapon, baby. The lead vocal is provided by Albert and his warbling voice provides a perfectly subtle menace.
“Workshop of the Telescopes”, is medium-light rocker, with a mystic vibe that seems to pack eight minutes of material into 3-1/2 minutes. Pearlman made an interesting choice when mixing this song, in that he placed the guitars directly over Eric’s vocals, and even cranked up their volume, on the last verse, effectively blurring them into incomprehensibility. I've read Sandy’s explanation of the lyrics, but the explanation seems as cryptic as the actual words. The gist is, the song describes an alchemical method to gain superior awareness to penetrate the lies of the political establishment. Pretty trippy, eh?
The album closer, “Redeemed”, is an upbeat, countrified folk tune, in the tradition of the Grateful Dead and was also a holdover from the Soft White Underbelly days. Writing credits go to Albert and Allen along with Harry Farcas. Farcas was a folk guitarist, and roadie, who worked for the band and helped them work out this song. See what I mean about their collaborative spirit? The song is deceptively light-hearted--disguising a sinister story by Pearlman of a man imprisoned in ice, tortured by an evil group, and his eventual redemption by teaching their children a country song. But was he released or did they just speed along his death to release him from pain? The ending seems to infer the latter. Blue Öyster Cult would revisit this particular motif throughout their career and this is the aesthetic of theirs that I love the most. In my mind this is the spiritual forbearer of “Don’t Fear the Reaper” and its ilk.
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A note on credits: Eric Bloom is credited on nearly every album as playing “stun guitar”. As near as I can tell this is an inside joke with the band about his playing ability (or lack thereof) and possibly the amount of fuzz he uses in his distortion. Also, the album credits list him as co-song writer on
Transmaniacon MC,
I’m on the Lamb, and
Workshop of the Telescopes but he admits that the band was pretty free with credits and that he only helped smooth out vocal melodies.
A happy accident for the band came in the form of their album art and the now famous “hook and cross”. Bill Gawlik (I laugh every time I read that name) was an eccentric designer that Sandy Pearlman knew from Stony Brook University. According to Sandy, Gawlik was designing a future America on a scroll that was long enough to encompass the school. Some of the designs on this scroll appealed to Sandy as potential album covers. The hook and cross was just part of Gawlik’s drawing but not long after the album came out the band members and their friends started seeing the emblem showing up at concerts and around Long Island. It added to the mystery and ominous overtones they were hoping to inspire. They adopted it permanently.
The album was well received by the U.S. east coast press. It gathered in some glowing reviews and even a positive review by Lester Bangs in Rolling Stone! Lester hates everything! It sold pretty well too, got some radio play and the band embarked on long nationwide tour for nearly two years to promote the album.
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So what do you think? Did they accomplish what they set out to do? Did Columbia finally have their answer to Atlantic’s Black Sabbath and Warner Bros’ Alice Cooper? In my mind, yes…but not, perhaps, in the way they intended. Sabbath was a scary music act in the vein of gothic monster movies and Cooper was a psychotic slasher gore-fest. BÖC was more akin to a psychological thriller, paranoid conspiracy theory or alien invasion. You may need to listen closer to get your chills. The musicianship and songwriting was top notch but there was also an overlaying mood that they maybe hadn’t quite bought into the heavy metal scene completely. In some ways they were seriously executing a parody, or so it seems to me. Insincere? That being said, I love this debut album and in my mind it’s right up there with the greatest debuts ever. When I want a fix of BÖC, this album is generally the one I reach for along with a couple others that we'll get to later.
In 1972 I turned 11 years old and wouldn't buy my first stereo until later that same autumn (I saved my money from working on a neighboring farm all summer to buy it). I heard “Cities on Flame” during the Skinny Johnny Mitchell show on Stereo X FM many times but I would not buy my first BÖC album for few years yet. I backed into this album, along with their sophomore and junior efforts, several years later.