“ And I'm young enough to look at, and far too old to see
All the scars are on the inside”Fire of Unkown Origin (1981)
Eric Bloom—lead vocals, bass on “Heavy Metal”
Albert Bouchard—drums, synthesizer, vocals
Joe Bouchard—bass, vocals
Allen Lanier—keyboards
Donald (Buck Dharma) Roeser—lead guitar, vocals, bass on “Joan Crawford”, additional percussion on “Veteran of the Psychic Wars”
Additional Musicians
Karla DeVito—background vocals on “Sole Survivor”
Sandy Jean—background vocals on “Don’t Turn Your Back”
Bill Civitella and Tony Cedrone—additional percussion on “Veteran of the Psychic Wars”
Jessy Levy—strings on “Veteran of the Psychic Wars” and “Joan Crawford”
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Fire of Unknown Origin 4:09
Burnin' for You 4:29
Veteran of the Psychic Wars 4:48
Sole Survivor 4:04
Heavy Metal: The Black and Silver 3:16
Vengeance (The Pact) 4:41
After Dark 4:25
Joan Crawford 4:55
Don't Turn Your Back 4:07
Total length: 39:06
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Band tensions were at an all time high largely due to Albert’s contentious behavior and because of feuding between band-wives that had been escalating for years. It was becoming obvious that the band was in decline. Concert ticket sales were down, and money problems were so bad that there was talk of calling it quits.
Not all was gloomy though. The producers of the animated movie “Heavy Metal”, based on the magazine of the same name, had asked the band to submit songs from their upcoming album for the soundtrack. They were flattered by their inclusion and tailored several songs after seeing the movie at a private screening.
Pearlman arranged for the Martin Birch to produce another record and everyone had enjoyed working with him so much that they entered the studio with a great deal of enthusiasm. There was an overarching attitude of ‘going out on a high note’ so their determination to make a record they could be proud of helped drive the project.
The thought going in was that
Cultösaurus Erectus had gone to far (as a reaction to
Mirrors) in eradicating pop radio viability, but they were at least pleased to have excited their fan base again. Could they make a heavy record that would also be embraced by radio?
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The album opens with
Fire of Unknown Origin, a poppy little number that had been slated for recording as early as the
Agents of Fortune sessions but due to the band never being satisfied with Albert’s composition it was rewritten, at least partially, by nearly everyone else. Using an unusually sparse, but gorgeous, lyric by Patti Smith, the song bounces along with a quasi-reggae guitar riff over a trotting rhythm that slides into a melancholy chorus full of gloomy synthesizers and a background choir. The descending keyboard lines over the slow, fade-out riffs at the end of the song show a deliberate new wave flavor. Albert was slated to sing the song, and was quite proud of his performance, but during the recording Eric was asked to redo the vocals.
Burnin’ For You is a Buck tune to a Meltzer lyric (at least partially borrowed from Jack Kerouac’s novel
On The Road) that was slated for Buck’s solo album
Flat Out. Buck really didn’t want it to be a BÖC song because the music was personal to him but relented mostly because everyone felt it would be a hit, so he took one for the team. They were right of course; the song spent 3 weeks at number 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 single chart and peaked at number 1 on the Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks. In my mind it earned every bit of its popularity and I’m certain everyone reading this has heard it.
Next up is another collaboration between Bloom and Moorcock, the BÖC masterpiece
Veteran of the Psychic Wars. The song is perhaps a reference to Moorcock’s eternal champion concept of which Erekosë is the principle character. The song is largely atmospheric but still manages to rock because of the
We Will Rock You drum rhythm that never really feels like the Queen song. Perhaps that’s due to the addition of a military snare pounding out a march while distorted guitar and silvery keys build a backdrop for the vocals. This is Eric’s finest vocal performance ever! He really pours emotion into the words, giving them a visceral weariness through all the twists and turns of this emotive epic. Buck plays a dialed back lead built around these cool fading echo trails.
Sole Survivor is a stripped down rocker by Eric, John Trivers, and Liz Meyers that feels like a spiritual extension of “Veteran” with a story of the last man on earth who is offered succor from visiting aliens but instead slinks off to hide in his paranoia. It has a nice hooky chorus but without any pyrotechnics it doesn’t really go anywhere and fades away feebly.
Side one ends with the metal anthem
Heavy Metal: The Black and Silver. The music by Albert and Eric was already recorded to a different lyric called
Ear Damage but the band didn’t think it was cryptic enough for a BÖC record so the asked Sandy Pearlman apply his touch to it. Thus we get a cosmic, alchemical formula for making heavy metal…Pearlman style. It’s a good song if perhaps a bit formulaic. I really like the effect Buck uses for his guitar on this one and his use of harmonics and feed back is pretty interesting. The band was very surprised this song wasn’t chosen for the animated movie.
Starting out with a haunting little pipe organ refrain is
Vengeance. Written and sung by the Bouchard brothers specifically for the movie Heavy Metal. It wound up being just a bit too specific about the plot and was rejected as one huge spoiler alert to the Taarna story!
But, what a great song. Electric guitars pick up the organ riff and build into medium-heavy verses. From there, the song takes a few unpredictable turns, builds up to a huge dramatic conflict before coming back around to the familiar riff to end the song. Great fun here and steeped in the trademark BÖC sound.
Now we come to one of my favorites, the vampire boogie number
After Dark by Bloom/Trivers/Meyers. I just love how the drums and bass jump into a light, foot-tapping rhythm to be joined by bright 80’s style synths and then serenaded with aggressive electric guitar. It features a great, sing-a-long, two part chorus with clever use of language that tricks the listener into hearing a double meaning that’s not really there. Buck throws in a blistering lead over the instrumental bridge. All together you get a deceptively bright tune with a dangerous edge that was very germane to the times.
Welcome to tonight’s Creature Feature, the dark and campy
Joan Crawford. Even if you’re familiar with this song you probably don’t know that it was inspired by Albert’s wife Caryn. The story goes that Albert, David Roter and Jack Rigg were working on a song late at night in his basement studio when Caryn popped in and started screaming at Albert. He left to calm her down and Roter looked at Rigg and said, “Jesus, it’s like Joan Crawford has risen from the grave.” 10 minutes later they had this bizarre rocker that became a surprise concert favorite. The grandiose piano intro was written by Joe but wound up be performed by Allen on the record. As much as I love this crazy song--it cracks me up every time I hear, “Catholic schoolgirls have thrown away their mascara. They chain themselves to the axles of big Mac trucks.”--I must admit that it is the odd song out and the album probably would have been more cohesive if they’d gone with something else.
Don’t Turn Your Back is a plodding meditative song originally written by Allen but reworked by Albert and Buck. This is yet another song submitted for the movie Heavy Metal and was actually the last one rejected before
Veteran was ultimately chosen. It’s not a bad song and I always enjoy it when it’s on but once it’s over, it’s forgotten. The mood is fitting for an album closer, coming off as a sort of epitaph but, ultimately it’s a bit limp to my ears.
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By all accounts, this was a difficult album for the band. Birch was on short time and even though he got a terrific production--arguably the best of their career--there’s a rushed feeling to some of the performances and you just know that given more time, several of these songs would be different. Everyone was sick of everyone else and Albert seemed on a mission to make everyone as miserable as he was. Even so, they went on the road to promote the album culminating the infamous and ill-fated “Black and Blue” tour: A subject for an entire thread by itself. [edit] I misspoke, the Black and Blue tour was actually between
Cultösaurus and
Fire of Unknown Origin in 1980. I will now submit to punishment for my error. [/edit]
Fire of Unknown Origin was very popular in its day and was quite a phenomenon for the band. I can attest that the album was actually more popular than its sales figures would indicate even though it would be certified Gold the next year. Just look at its performance on the Hot mainstream Rock Tracks charts: “Burnin’ for You” peaked at #1, “Joan Crawford” at #49, “Veteran of the Psychic Wars” at #24, “Vengeance” at #16, “Fire of Unknown Origin” at #11. The radio was playing the shit out of this motha, in fact, when I was listening to this album a few years ago, Mrs. P started singing along to “Sole Survivor” (she’s a dance music fan) and I asked her where she’d heard it before, “The radio, back in the day.” was her response. I can only assume that the U.S. recession had much to do with sales lagging behind popularity. Times were tough.
Still, the album stayed on the Billboard 200 for three months and peaked at 24. The UK Album Chart peak was 29 and it ended up being certified Gold in Canada in 1982 as well.
I, of course, was all over this album like Burt on Liz when it came out. I don’t know if I over played it or if Cultö is that much better but the years haven’t been kind to this album for me. Some flat out classics and one masterpiece not withstanding this album is down my list to around the five or six position. That’s difficult to justify too since I don’t skip a moment on this record, yet when I want a BÖC fix, there are several I go for first.
Topic: Blue Öyster Cult Discography: Curse of the Hidden Mirror (Read 43799 times)
