Blue Oyster Cult - POX

Keep em coming Scott Seward. I would love copies of those reviews if you have em on pdf or some such...

Isn't it xgau who starts some review saying, "warning: critics band!" (And then later sex something like "sometime last year I began to wonder if a cross between Uriah Heap and the Velvet Underground was my idea of a good time")

OK, how about (in no particular order) :

Joan Crawford
(Don't Fear) The Reaper
ETI
I Love The Night
Transmanaicon MC
7 Screaming Diz-Busters
Subhuman
Flaming Telepaths
Astronomy
Then Came The Last Days Of May

but narrowing it down to 10 is a killer, how about POXXX?

so far my list would probably have to include "Transmaniacon MC", "Cities On Flame With Rock And Roll" and "Hot Rails To Hell". which is a pretty normal way to start, i guess. i can be normal. first side of T&M is kinda all great.

actually those quotes just come from the sticker on the cover of Tyranny & Mutation! but i'm sure some of those are searchable online.

that's a good list, matt. i'm sure i will like all the lists anyone does! ten is hard. but that's what makes it fun.

all the xgau fit to print:

Blue Oyster Cult [Columbia, 1972]
Warning: critics' band, managed by Sandy Pearlman with occasional lyrics by R. Meltzer. Reassurance: the most musical hard rock album since Who's Next. (Well, that's less than six months, and this is not a great time for hard rock albums.) The style is technocratic psychedelic, a distanced, decisively post-Altamont reworking of the hallucinogenic guitar patterns of yore, with lots of heavy trappings. Not that they don't have a lyrical side. In "Then Came the Last Days of May," for instance, four young men ride out to seek their fortune in the dope biz and one makes his by wasting the other three. B+
Tyranny and Mutation [Columbia, 1973]
Says S. Pearlman: "We want to be disgusting, not trans-repulsive." Says R. Meltzer: "This is really hard rock comedy." Musically, Long Island's only underground band impales the entire heavy ethos on a finely-honed guitar neck, often at high speed, which is the punch line. And the lyrics aren't inaudible, just unbelievable--a parody-surreal refraction of the abysmal "poetry" of heavy, with its evil women and gods of hellfire. Which is not to suggest that it doesn't become what it takes off from. But is that bad or good? B+

Secret Treaties [Columbia, 1974]
Sometime over the past year, while I wasn't playing their records, I began to wonder whether a cross between the Velvet Underground and Uriah Heep was my idea of a good time. The driving, effortless wit and density of Buck Dharma's guitar flourish in this cold climate, but Eric Bloom couldn't project emotion if they let him, and I'm square enough to find his pseudo-pseudospade cynicism less than funny. Subject of "Dominance and Submission": New Year's 1964 in Times Square. B

On Your Feet or on Your Knees [Columbia, 1975]
This live double, proof that they've earned the right to issue cheapo product, is a fitting testament. The packaging makes their ominoso joke more explicit than it's ever been, and if the music is humdrum more often than searing, maybe that means these closet intellectuals have finally achieved the transubstantiation of their most baroque fantasies. C+

Agents of Fortune [Columbia, 1976]
Just when I figured they were doomed to repeat themselves until the breakup, they come up with the Fleetwood Mac of heavy metal, not as fast as Tyranny and Mutation but longer on momentum, with MOR tongue-in-cheek replacing the black-leather posturing and future games. I wonder how long it took them to do the la-la-las on "Debbie Denise" without cracking up. B+

Spectres [Columbia, 1977]
Although Sandy Pearlman used to say the Cult's audience couldn't tolerate any suggestion that the band's laser-and-leathers fooforaw was funny, their parodic side has become progressively more overt. What do today's Cultists think of "Godzilla" ("Oh no there goes Tokyo") or the beerhall intro to "Golden Age of Leather"? I bet some of 'em like laughing at laser-and-leathers, and good. I also bet some of 'em are so zonked they wouldn't get it if John Belushi emceed, and to, er, hell with them. B

Mirrors [Columbia, 1979]
The Cult's identity has been deteriorating for years, but this is a quantum leap into anonymity--songs for slick (what happened to dense?) hard rock band by five different musicians and their numerous collaborators. Only "In Thee," a farewell to Patti Smith by Allen Lanier that deserves to become a standard on the order of "Alison," is more than marginally interesting. C

Yes, the XGau I know. I always thought he had the BOC trajectory inverted: it seemed much more tongue in cheek at first, and then they really did start to make "a career of evil," if you see what I mean.

All those other reviews you quoted above were news to me. Would love to see more.

Whoever mentioned (in the other thread) that a remaster of On Your Feet Or On Your Knees would be richly appreciated is dead on. I hadn't given that a listen in decades but picked it up at my local used record shop. Wow what a record.

Here's my top ten:

Career of Evil
Harvester of Eyes
ME 262
This Ain't the Summer of Love
Dominance and Submission
Hot Rails to Hell
Transmaniacon MC
Flaming Telepaths
Astronomy
7 Screaming Dizbusters

5 July 1975 was my first ever concert of any kind.

I was 18 and in the U.S. Army. I remember the line all the way around the block outside of the Paramount NW. I had 100 hits of LSD on my person... eating, selling and dropping some on the ground. I was as high as a kite... but in tune with every single note that was played by BOC.

The Paramount was the perfect venue for BOC... you could hear a pin drop from the top row. I remember Albert's little shorts... Buck's white suit. It was a scene straight out of the inside of the OYFOOYK album cover.

It was the most amazing thing that I had ever seen.... and nothing has ever come close since. Eric shooting a 6 foot long bolt of lightning out of his finger at the end of Flaming Telepaths.

I remember watching spec5 Hough inhale a whole freshly lit joint down his throat as the flashpots went off at the start of born to be wild. I remember being amazed at AB's drum solo and Buck's solo that went on for seemingly hours.

By far.... the night I would go back and relive if I had the chance. And for 20 years after that night... I preached what I had seen... until I found BOC on the internet.

After the show the trip back to Ft. Lewis involves a broken down Honda 500 (550?) stuffed in the trunk of a 66 Chevelle with 6 U.S. servicemen packed inside.

a lot of the best reviews are on rocksbackpages. anyone know how to hack that site?

i milk my teenage boc stories too much, i know. (my best buddy was eric bloom's nephew, & i'd always conspire to be at his house when eric visited.) anyway, we were listening to agents of fortune and eric was explaining how reaper was getting a lot of airplay. my friend bobby's father said, eric, i've been telling you this all along -- you just have to go "la la la" and you'll finally start selling some records.

he was right too. la la's win every time.

has anyone ever named a band Harvester Of Eyes? and if not why not? or The Cagey Cretins. that would be another good one. or The Flaming Telepaths for that matter.

this maybe is too hard. if i add "Career of Evil" and "Harvester of Eyes" to my list i've only got five left to choose!

^ want your childhood

I Love The Night
Hot Rails To Hell
Dominance & Submission
Debby Denise
Goin' Through The Motions
In Thee
Career Of Evil
True Confessions
She's As Beautiful As A Foot
OD'd On Life Itself

Hey! I think I have all 5 members accounted for as lead singers.

Nice work on the vocalists Henry. I always wondered if Hot Rails to Hell would be even better if Professor Bloom sang it.

BOC were also my first concert, though it was at the beginning of their decline: Revolution by Night tour, Saginaw Civic Center, with Dokken and Aldo Nova opening!

Also there was a bass solo...

Saginaw, cool! I caught them at Cobo Arena on the Mirrors tour (Rainbow opened), then the next year at the Joe with the Dio version of Black Sabbath.

Right on! I recall many a smashed bottle of Black Velvet on the floor.

"Nico and John Cale had this Teutonic attitude about their music which I very much like. I think Lou Reed in his Berlin is projecting the situation of a spy film, the spy standing in the fog smoking a cigarette. I have also been told of the program "Hogan's Heroes", though I have not seen it. We think that no matter what happens Americans cannot relate it. It's still American popcorn chewing gum. It's part of history. I think the Blue Oyster Cult is funny."

-Ralf Hutter of Kraftwerk, in an interview with Lester Bangs in the September 1975 issue of Creem

This thread inspired me to play Fire of Unknown Origins. My seven-month old was bouncing right along with "Burnin' For You".

eric telling us about listing to buck's demo for godzilla: "all i could hear was cash registers."

"listening"

Fascinating quote from Hutter.

they really knew how to open an album. listening to The Revolution By Night right now and "Take Me Away" is such a good intro. (and kinda the opposite of the next track "Eyes On Fire" which i don't think is anyone's fave.)

still one of the best things for utter buck-ness on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAi1mIHb2FU

and this still best for utter bass-ness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZRiV0qaJkQ

ETI: I love how no one in the band is wearing a shirt with sleeves. A great version too -- definitely tops the studio version.

one of my favorite parts of the BOC live show was the "Godzilla" intro: Eric Bloom setting the scene, "so, you're all alone, there at home, chilling out, smoking a ...joint [wild applause], when you start hearing some strange kind of noise"...{bass drum thump]..."it's getting louder!"...[THUMP THUMP THUMP}..."could it be?...oh my God, it IS!"...enter Spinal Tap-esque Godzilla head with illuminated eyes, breathing smoke machine fog...

OMG bass solo. "without whom all this would not have been necessary"

That ETI clip may have been the only time in BOC history that all members of the original line-up sported facial hair (stubble notwithstanding).

a woman in my store right now used to work with albert bouchard at a school for at-risk kids in harlem. they put on an opera that the kids wrote. see, you learn all kinds of things when you play BOC in your store.

good god where the hell is your store?

For me the only way to do this is one song per album...

Transmaniacon MC
7 Screaming Diz-Busters
Subhuman
ETI
I Love The Night
Mirrors
Deadline
Veteran of the Psychic Wars
Shooting Shark
[skips Imaginos and CLub Ninja]
Harvest Moon
[scowls at running out of room cuz there's still "Pocket" from the last album]

go ahead. you can do it.

ugh, i'm not so sure about that...

"Before The Kiss, A Redcap"
"The Red And The Black"
"Dominance And Submission"
"Career of Evil"
"E.T.I. (Extra Terrestial Intelligence)"
"Godzilla"
"Don't Fear The Reaper"
"Golden Age of Leather"
"Joan Crawford"
"Veteran of The Psychic Wars"

could do ten more in a flash

ok, i just starting writing down the first songs that entered my head as absolutely all-time faves, and stopped when I reached ten. didn't rank them, just listed whatever entered my mind in order-

E.T.I.
OD'd on Life Itself
Burnin For You
Black Blade
Dominance and Submission
M.E. 262
Career of Evil
Golden Age of Leather
Stairway to the Stars
Transmaniacon MC

the older i get the more i really just think christgau sucks so much. i find his tone and whole persona just incredibly irritating beyond belief. i used to sort of "admire" him because it feels like you're supposed to, but his whole smug non-committal half-zing backhanded compliment thing is annoying as fuck.

^word is bond

In no order:

E.T.I.
Veteran of the Psychic Wars ("Extraterrestrial Live" version)
Dominance and Submission
Astronomy
Stairway To The Stars
7 Screaming Dizbusters
Subhuman
Mirrors
I Love The Night
Transmaniacon MC

Damn, 10 is too few! Damn, can't believe I had no room for "Reaper!" And damn, I picked the wrong day to quit smoking!

(and fuck that cowbell sketch)

metal mike, meltzer, AND christgau all seem to agree that BOC were great partly because they were better/smarter/more clever/more self-aware than your average metal band:

"Says R. Meltzer: "This is really hard rock comedy." Musically, Long Island's only underground band impales the entire heavy ethos on a finely-honed guitar neck, often at high speed, which is the punch line."

plus, xgau's whole: they're really funny and clever and if you don't get that cuz you're so zonked out well forget you.

which, i'll be honest, bugs me. obviously if BOC were JUST funny/clever/smarter they wouldn't be what they are. or they would be a different band altogether. they didn't sell so many records because of their witty lyics. and having buck in your band automatically makes you a better band no matter who you are. so, xgau did get that right.

read something online somewhere today where someone said that BOC are both underrated and overrated and i see a germ of truth there. the thinking man's/critic's metal tag gets too much play. even by me! (duh the guy quoting all the quotes) when list after list you just can't help notice how GREAT and utterly COOL the songs are. on a completely gut level. no critiking required. and they managed that neat trick of being progressive (without being boring or self-indulgent and, no, 4 hour BOC solos are NOT self-indulgent they are required listening) AND heavy AND completely catchy and later way poppy and they did it really well. yet, so did a lot of other people. think that's where i diverge with xgau line of thinking. thin lizzy were smart. stooges were smart. mc5 were smart. alice cooper band was smart. friggin' sabbath were SMART. no end to smart heavy stuff. so, i - though i'm younger than these crit dudes - never saw a need for an antidote to hard rock thuggishness. plus, i like tons of "dumb" stuff too.

o yeah, Christgau sucks big time. there isn't any sense ever that he actually enjoys music. It's just his "job" to listen to every album that comes across his desk. what a horrible life.

this is the best

<3 Byron

haha! Byron! i spent a nice evening with byron a couple weeks back down at the feeding tube. he's fun to talk to. byron is just as crazy as xgau if you ask me. though i would probably agree with byron way more about music. i've totally consciously or unconsciously ripped both of them off a ton so there is that. been reading both of them since i was a mere boy.

and he totally ENJOYS music, stormy. you can't say he doesn't. i just don't get a lot of his loves and he hates probably most of what i like. i don't hold that against him though.

Fascinating quote from Hutter.

I've read that Bangs piece many times, and I can't help thinking he made up all the Kraftwerk quotes himself.

i actually had drunken conversations with both byron AND christgau in the last month. both very pleasant evenings and conversations really. they both have really big brains.

oh but that's what i wanted to add: creem's whole THE STOOGES ARE THE BEST BAND IN THE WORLD thing and all that from back then. i didn't have to fight those wars. i didn't have to champion BOC as an antidote to anything. so its a totally different worldview/experience that those guys had. i have never felt threatened by uh i dunno Bread or James Taylor or whatever rock band those hepcat crits thought was phoney or whatever st the time.

yeah I was being over the top in criticizing Xgau; i mean, i own the 70s and 80s guides and i've read them both pretty much from start to finish. and i do think he is a great writer. but almost NEVER agree with him on anything. and he is such a killjoy. and i do wonder if his talent would be better applied doing .... something else. of course he must enjoy on some level all of the records that he ranks highly. but i really do think there is some quote out there somewhere where he talks about the reviewing as his job, and sort of states that he can't afford to get too invested in 'music' qua particular artists, albums, etc

The Guides show how over time he's gotten into some acts he initially dismissed, like Sonic Youth, who have gotten at least one A+, and he sez "I love 'em to piecees." And he's long-time friends with some musicians, but the thing is, Stormy, it's not fair to the readers if you're too invested in particular artists. Like Chuck quoted Byron (in an interview, so no secret), as saying of Sonic Youth and the Swans, "Those people are my friends," and he'd never say anything to offend them. This as a reply to Chuck expressing some of what he thought were these bands weak points, and implying that however true such comments were, he, Coley, was in no position to agree. Got so bad, Mykel Board even put out those parody records, as Swanic Youth and Swan Jovi, although they were advertised in Forced Exposure, Coley saw the humor of the whole thing. But being friends or even just sort of pen pals, I've seen how musicians can look for, even assumme an advantage in that. Good that Bangs gave Lanier a hard time in Creem, recounting drunken arguments, when he thought they were turning into the kind of arena hacks they'd started out turning into glorious parodies. Speaking of arena rock, I wasn't a professional writer then, but my friends who were (also photographers) got so fucking sick of that shit in the early 70s--it wasn't like being in high school and having these occasional weekend adventures, if you were in NYC especially, like Xgau, who also went to clubs a lot (and had been writing about shows, band profiles, etc, in between reviews, for six or seven years before BOC made it downstate), you too might have an aversion to seeing the same moves, on stage and in the audience, every night. One reason punk had to happen, for crits and others. But BOC were great when they were any good at all (he's really wrong about On Your Feet) Music is about the power of association, and it can be really hard to get past the social associations--certain sounds can remind you of certain assholes, and you stop listening before you follow the sound to the artist's intended effect--or even if you do follow it--so xgau knew perfectly well what they were doing, but the assholes from last night's show, and tonight's, and tomorrow night, kept giving him static, Plus, he's never approved much metal, only Motorhead and Slayer come to mind. His loss, of course.

Sorry to get into that "you" shit, just bad rhetoric, I've had kneejerk responses too of course.

During the surf music wave of the 90s, Drag Strip did a great instrumental cover of Don't Fear The Reaper. Including the guitar solo!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3valJGHCR6Q

FRANKIE CAMARO siting on ILX!!!

I know that guy and have seen him play a ton when I lived in Bloomington. He's a killer guitar player and cool dude.

thanks for the pointer to that providence show, tyler. setting me up right.

god, this is great

Dance On Stilts from Curse of the Hidden Mirror is a fucking killer tune just f everybody's i

Thanks for posting that boot above, that's awesome.

Check my display name for a hint at what i think is at the moment my favorite BOC tune

xpost 'Dance on Stilts' is one of the keepers from Curse... for sure.

yeah i'm really enjoying that bootleg. not perfect sound, but a very nice you are there ambiance. you can almost smell the pot smoke.

Subject: BOC announcement -- anniversary and remasters
‎Legacy Recordings, the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment, will celebrate the 40th anniversary of Blue Öyster Cult--unleashed in 1972, the eponymous debut album from America's heaviest psychedelic metal band presaged punk, thrash and hardcore--with the release of Blue Öyster Cult - The Columbia Albums Collection, a monumental career-spanning BÖC library comprised of 16 CDs (the full official canon plus two discs of rarities) and the mythic Some OTHER Enchanted Evening DVD (a blistering concert video from 1978). The highly-collectible boxed set will be available Tuesday, October 30.

Blue Öyster Cult (led by founding members Eric Bloom and Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser) will perform an historic New York City/Times Square show--featuring special guests and other surprises--at the Best Buy Theater (44th & Broadway, Manhattan) on Sunday, October 28 (doors at 7pm). Tickets go on sale, Friday, August 17. Reserved seating is available for the show.

A limited number (100) of individual deluxe VIP packages for the Times Square Show will also be offered. Designed to provide the ultimate BÖC experience, each deluxe VIP package includes Blue Öyster Cult - The Columbia Albums Collection (in advance of street date!) in addition to a guaranteed seat in the first five rows of the Best Buy Theater for the BÖC Times Square concert; a pre-show meet & greet with the band; an autographed limited edition Blue Öyster Cult event poster and an exclusive commemorative laminate.

Blue Öyster Cult - The Columbia Albums Collection brings together the group's 14 official Columbia Records albums--including newly-mastered editions of On Your Feet or on Your Knees, Fire of Unknown Origin, The Revölution by Night, Mirrors, Cultösaurus Erectus, Extraterrestrial Live, Club Ninja and Imaginos--alongside two newly-curated bonus discs: Rarities and Radios Appear: The Best of the Broadcasts (a special collection of classic live performances).

In addition, the Blue Öyster Cult - The Columbia Albums Collection box set comes with a special download code good for four live concert broadcasts as well as as a forty page booklet chock full of photos and liner notes from celebrated music writer and guitarist Lenny Kaye.

* * * * *

Blue Öyster Cult - The Columbia Albums Collection includes:
1. Blue Öyster Cult (1972 - studio - with 2001 CD bonus tracks)
2. Tyranny and Mutation (1973 - studio - with 2001 CD bonus tracks)
3. Secret Treaties (1974 - studio - with 2001 CD bonus tracks)
4. On Your Feet or on Your Knees (1975 - live) - 2012 Remaster
5. Agents of Fortune (1976 - studio - with 2001 CD bonus tracks)
6. Spectres (1977 - studio - with 2007 CD bonus tracks)
7. Some Enchanted Evening CD (1978 - live - with 2007 CD bonus tracks)
8. Some OTHER Enchanted Evening DVD (1978 - live)
9. Mirrors (1979 - studio) - 2012 Remaster
10. Cultösaurus Erectus (1980 - studio) - 2012 Remaster
11. Fire of Unknown Origin (1981 - studio) - 2012 Remaster
12. Extraterrestrial Live (1982 - live) - 2012 Remaster
13. The Revölution By Night (1983 - studio) - 2012 Remaster
14. Club Ninja (1985 - studio) - 2012 Remaster
15. Imaginos (1988 - studio) - 2012 Remaster

16. Rarities
17. Radios Appear: The Best of the Broadcasts

* * * * *

Originally formed in Long Island as Soft White Underbelly in 1967, Blue Öyster Cult combined adventurous lyrical themes with an aggressive instrumental sound. With passion and intelligence on display in equal measure, Blue Öyster Cult became the thinking fan’s rock band and a sign of life in a sea of dull, anemic soft-pop. Anthems like “Godzilla,” “Harvester of Eyes” and “Don’t Fear the Reaper” stretched the boundaries of rock topics while lead guitarist Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser became a hero to legions of budding axe-wielders. The band’s mystique extended to their album artwork, resulting in some of the most distinctive and iconic LP covers of the rock era. Blue Öyster Cult - The Columbia Albums Collection gathers the essential pieces of the Blue Öyster Cult story into one mind-boggling totality.

Logon to www.blueoystercult.com for information about presale tickets for the Oct. 28th show at the Best Buy Theatre.

psyched for the new remasters (CULTO!) and rarities discs, though the box is way out of my price range.

I know. Any guesses if they'll be available individually? It might almost be worth it for On Your Feet Or On Your Knees and Lenny Kaye's (!) booklet.

I don't expect any of the remasters to be separately released. None of the prior "complete records" boxes have had any remasters sold as single albums. Cuts into box sales if you can pick and choose.

i'm assuming some of these will be the previous issued remasters from a few years ago?

the list above shows which remastering batch they're from

ok

also sad there's nothing new in the vaults from these 2

10. Cultösaurus Erectus (1980 - studio) - 2012 Remaster
11. Fire of Unknown Origin (1981 - studio) - 2012 Remaster

could be on the rarities disc.

I assume they're not padding those out because they're not being sold as single discs like the prior remasters had been.

yeah hope there's more from those eras on the rarities....would love some fire outtakes

^^^

Non box question: has anyone seen Blue Coupe play ? It's Dennis Dunaway from the Alice Cooper band (the "Coupe") and the Bouchard brothers from BOC (the "Blue"). I've heard good things.

damn! that could be cool.

This is a band having fun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKiJzZ5YKZs

i mean that's not a whole lot sillier than eric bloom circa 2012......that said the real thing still have buck dharma and there are still moments with him where you're just real amazed to be in the same casino

true.

pretty

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gVmETShDrc&feature=channel&list=UL

wow

Wow indeed.

that led me on a youtube link journey that made me discover that bonnie tyler has a total eclipse of the cult

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lairGgAh_MI&feature=related

http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj242/donaldparsley/boceyes.jpg

XD

they did reaper too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUdZt18W18o&feature=BFa&list=UL7gVmETShDrc

Got my tickets for the Oct 28th times square show. Hope it doesn't get 'special guest'ed to death-- I really just wanna see a fired up regular BOC show.

Box set is out of my price range but I'll buy it anyway. Remastered Knees, Cultosaurus, Fire all at once? I mean, christ.

I think it's gonna run in the 130 buck range.

^^^the box set that is, not the concert...

lolol WRONG LINK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUdZt18W18o&feature=BFa&list=UL7gVmETShDrc

ok this is fucking weird.

this is a marching band playing burning for you, not hear n aid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ke1DwXupckk&feature=related

and this is the high school choir that i'm WATCHING RIGHT NOW

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUdZt18W18o

Wow, winterguard and a pagan ribbon batallion. Go 9th ward marching band!

lol, i have an album of that (9th ward marching band). quintron put it together. has covers of "burnin for you", "crazy train", "slow ride", bunch of other jams. pretty fun.