Blue Oyster Cult: Classic or Dud?

Secret Treaties is their magnum opus IMO. Fire of Unknown Origin's my second fave.

40 min later, Secret Treaties, A+, thanks all

He's found the awful truth, Balthazar

Details of import down at conry's bar IMO

WELL IT'S SO LONELY IN THE STATE OF MAINE

Now ladies fish n gentlemen

He's found the awful truth, Balthazar

Perhaps he just wants to know where winds come from?

I had put on Secret Treaties the other day and couldn't take the goofiness of Career of Evil

big part of the appeal, once you get your mind right

BOC was not afraid to be a bit absurd and trashy, it's kind of their tie to what went on in NY in the later 70s. "She's As Lovely as a Foot" indeed. They had a wide sound and did quite a few different type of numbers and styles.

I've never heard any of the later BOC records, but I am getting curious.

The BOC milestones:

S/T: deeply strange band who all live in a big house together and sound like it. First 3 records all have a governing "band" sound and lyrical ethos pretty much.

Agents of Fortune- the first record where they all got pro quality 4 track recorders for their pads, inaugurating the era of 'buck songs' 'Albert songs' 'joe songs' etc, which may sound radically different from one another. The aesthetic distance between 'reaper' and 'sinful love' is vast.

Cultosaurus Erectus: in comes Martin Birch from his proto-nwobhm stomping grounds to pull together a band sound again for this and Fire... a glorious sweet spot of totally successful SFF-infused hard rock. Yessss.

Revolution By Night - the first album without Albert illustrates what a critical part of the gumbo he was. Weird atmospheric 80s production and a p bad drum sound, and solo turns from iirc letterman's future sax player. Yet about half the album is great, especially the bizarre patti smith lyric 'shooting shark' and 'veins'. The same cannot be said for the next album Club Ninja.

Imaginos - surely the misbegottenest most difficult to explain rock record ever. Originally a kind of Albert solo album with heavy pearlmanisms made after his ouster from the band, that version suppressed and recut as a boc album with Eric and buck and a studio hireling rerecording the vocals. Session singer is comically hair metal but gets the unforgettable lyric HE WAS ME! AND I WAS CAAAALLED! [group vox] FRANK, EN, STEIN! The original Albert version of this album is all on YouTube in c90 sound quality and is well worth hearing. But so is the official version. With this, boc became a strictly live band for about a decade.

Heaven Forbid and Curse of the Hidden Mirror - reunion albums for a band that never broke up or stopped touring. The Buck-Eric-Allen core intact. SF writer John Shirley brought in to fill the sandy pearlman role. Between these two albums there is one really good album's worth of songs, with Buck bringing the highlights: 'harvest moon' which they wanted to evoke a haunted territory over time a la Stephen King's It and the super hooky 'Pocket'. Some cringey lyrics on here too. Annnnd back to strictly touring for another decade and a half.

Last year: RIP Allen
This year: new Albert solo album which I really need to get

The... End?

club ninja has a couple really sweet ones at least - "perfect water" and "dancin' in the ruins". they never put out a record that didn't have two or three great tunes. which i'm fine with actually

the super hooky 'Pocket'.

so otm. what a jam

Yeah aero I was stoked when you threw love its way a couple years ago. Idk if buck realizes how awesome it is... they play 'harvest moon' live still but not 'pocket' I don't think...

Tyranny and Mutation remains one of the sickest trips to the gutter of all time. I don't do drugs anymore but I can taste that sulfuric bitterness in my sinuses every time I put this motherfucker on.

There is a certain dread and malevolence bubbling under the surface of their slick AOR that is alternately cheesy yet more unsettling to me than lots of more heavy/extreme/"evil" metal bands

I think the two early live records "On Your Feet or On Your Knees" and "Some Enchanted Evening" are pretty ace. The recording quality (either live or overdubbed) is good on On Your Feet and exceptional on Enchanted Evening. Many of the early record numbers are edgier and meaner sounding live too. They are not Yes or Crimson, but some of BOC's tunes have some pretty elaborate arrangements.

"The Subhuman" on On Your Feet is legendary, s is the slight Lou Reed dis

I love the way On Your Feet... starts, with that giggle from a bandmember...such a weird production/mixing choice, like you're eavesdropping on them backstage right before they run onstage for the show.

Yeah that version of subhuman is guitar heaven

One of my top 5 live albums for def

you know, i think i saw one of the shows where "on your feet" was recorded. 10/5/74 at the academy of music. with triumvirat! they were sort of an elp knockoff, or so my memory tells me. man, look at those double and triple bills in '74.

http://www.hotrails.co.uk/giglopaedia/1974.htm

Aerosmith feud starts

wonder what that was all about?

I'd like to know! I don't think that was covered in the Popoff book.

lol triumvirat

BOC just destroyed the place. The "feud", I believe, relates to Aerosmith pulling the plug on BOC's use of FX as their warm up act. Then, quid pro quo, Aerosmith's entire sound and power mysteriously vanished mid set for them. Joey Kramer, Aerosmith's drummer did his solo acoustic, which was lame - I remember he goofed, grabbing his own head of hair and slamming his head into a drum while simultaneously using his kick pedal. Funny... but not as amusing as when singer Steven Tyler lept on stage after power resumed wanting to know "who was the cunt who shut us down."...

I remember that the set was very short after the power outage... It was a magical night in rock & roll.

a week and a half of nothing but BOC... I think I've opened up my veins too many times.

ny'ers with wheels: they're playing a free show in long island on saturday.

http://oysterbaytown.com/departments/community-and-youth-services/cultural-and-performing-arts-capa/music-stars-2014/

"veins in my eyeballs
damage that i've done
veins on the stairway
veins in my skull"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qs8jrK8Q_ek

^^last ever BOC song with Richard Meltzer lyrics iirc

One of the two indispensables from revolution by night. Though shadow of California is pretty good too.

Xpost goddamn them for playing NYC area as soon as I get to Minnesota >:[

holy crap "Then Came the Last Days of May" has the weirdest fucking reverb

entire first album just the oddest sound-world, totally unlike anything else

Yeah the *vibe* of that first album is really something else. Like it actually sounds like there was evil in the air.

it does! the kind of evil that can only be evoked by a band who are actually all living in a big house together.

uggghhh the fucking segue into "she's as beautiful as a foot" SO PERFECT

And that looped-and-reverbed-unto-eternity "Telescope-ope-ope-ope-oPE-OPE-OPE-OPE-OPEOPEOPEOPEOP..."

Its like the sonic equivalent of the album cover's vanishing point.

Deeply unnatural production and equalization on this record, just unright and uncanny and downright unamerican!

Drug the debut out earlier tonight thanks to this revive. In the liner notes they say it was recorded on the cheap in an 8-track studio known for recording jingles!

Jingles that eventually drove people to madness and murder?

That explains the bizarre reverb and fidelity. It works.

"Veteran of the Psychic Wars" in 81

check out this motherfuckin buck solo damn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pFdkkjGiEs

Yeah that's pretty dope.

OK so look at the NYTimes book review section today. There's a new crime novel by JK Rowling writing under a pseudonym and it's titled Career of Evil, and is apparently stuffed with further overt BOC references. Liek tons of them.

This delights me and it can't help but enhance the visibility of BOC.

WHAT

Review by M Kakutani today. It reads like a joke! I'm v happy for my boys.

Amazing, no? It's still not going to convince me the Harry Potter books are worth reading...

haha! that's awesome

E Bloom is an SFF nerd so I'm sure he has commented on this by now

This is great, if it turns out there's a chapter called She's As Beautiful As A Foot I might even read the thing.

Chapter 7
Screaming Dizbusters

anybody know what synths they used on Fire of Unknown Origin? Don't Turn Your Back came up on shuffle and those pads grabbed me.

Man I just spent ten minutes researching that, couldn't find anything but a list of what he used live in the 90s. Where are the gear nerds when you need them?