Blue Oyster Cult: Classic or Dud?

Prairie Oyster Cult

In the new episode of the Rock's Backpages podcast we welcome heavy metal expert Deborah Frost, Zooming in from her native New York City, and invite her to talk about her career as a writer and musician.

Deborah reminisces about Flaming Youth, the all-girl "female Dolls" in which she drummed in the early '70s, and then explains how she came to write her first pieces for Circus in 1977. She talks about her love of hard rock and heavy metal, and about contributing to Rolling Stone and the Village Voice — including her acclaimed 1985 Voice piece "White Noise: How Heavy Metal Rules", with its unflattering descriptions of the drug-and-groupie-addled Mötley Crüe.

interview with joe bouchard on todd-o-phonic todd's show:

https://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/116574

Three shows in nyc in September with one of the first three albums played each night. Albert joining in.

yup, thanks -- that was mentioned during the interview (joe b hasn't been asked to participate as of yet). if i were still seeing shows it would be on my list for sure. still covid-shy.

Same here. Still tempting to get tickets for secret treaties night and hope the numbers are comfortable for me by then.

and of course, in addition to covid there's the probability of getting sucked into a transdimensional vortex

True… on the other hand, if that happens you get a Q&A with Sandy Pearlman

braving it thurs & fri, at $80 a ticket incl. service fees i will prob be disappointed if something like that doesn't happen

Is this Sony Hall? I've been there once for Parliament and it was a surprisingly casual set-up, albeit with posh surroundings. Like the band members just mingled with the crowd between their set and the opening act, and there was no barrier between stage and floor so a LOT of people easily got on to the stage when they wanted people to dance during the climax.

I need a really good soundboard recording from 1974ish where they do mostly Secret Treaties material, closest I've found is a kind of thin audience taped show from Baton Rouge

Yeah there’s not much

I just end up going back to OYFOOYK

http://soundaboard.blogspot.com/2010/02/blue-oyster-cult-live-in-west-1975.html?m=1

https://www.discjapan.com/product/blue-oyster-cult-soundboard-collection-3pro-cdr-uxbridge-305/

In the west is great I guess I didn’t mention it bc is it 75 but I guess that counts as 74ish lol

:D

Has anyone seen the doc about the lead singer who became a Buddhist monk known as The King of Chanting or whatever it was?

One Track Heart: The Story of Krishna Das. About a guy named Jeffrey Kagel.

But his involvement with the band was very early on: https://archive.nytimes.com/cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/12/ex-rocker-finds-a-different-path-to-fame-chanting-all-the-way/

who knew?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baD0sBuJVu4

Lenny Kaye on Sandy Pearlman, pretty cool & some stuff I didn't know: https://www.pattismith.net/souvenance.html

Was playing video games with my 10 year-old tonight and he asked me to put on a record while we played. “Something rock,” was his request. Cultosaurus Erectus was on the nearby rack, so on it went.

“Black Blade” starts to play and about two minutes in he goes, “yessssss this is what I needed to hear tonight”.

Folks, gonna consider that a parenting win for the month.

\m/

so Buck released a multi-CD home archives thing I'd never heard about, here's the demo for "I Love The Night", really interesting as 1) there's more/different lyrics, bit longer and 2) WOW Buck's demos are really polished and fully formed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2334KJL0UgM

Apart from "(Don't Fear) the Reaper," an aggressively middling band with fun ideas.

so wrong!!!!!!

I have a special place in my heart for that one song where they turned into Martha and the Muffins with better lead guitar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arc_I54oYrg

Oh man I LOVE that track

yes.

at this point, youtube has trained itself to play me live bootlegs from the black and white era after absolutely anything i watch, no matter what it is. i don't know why it's doing that- probably because it's the one thing i won't switch off after 5 seconds- but this is the first time any kind of algorithm has actually felt useful to me.

Being chased around!
By the neighbor's cat!
It's so lonely in the state of Maine!

dumb clouds

Stairway to the Stars is such a monster. Just such an evil sounding song.

Top 10 Most Evil BoC songs?

Stairway to the Stars
Don't Fear the Reaper
ETI
???

Not supernatural evil per se, but I would put “Then Came The Last Days of May” in such a list.

It is definitely a classic of a drug deal gone bad.

Er, I don't think BOC was more ev-yul than on, well, "Career of Evil." They'd like to do it with our daughter on a dirt road? Then keep the ransom money?! But continue to rob us of our sleep?!! And fail to apologize?!!

This will not stand!

well, I mean, I'm biased, but "Joan Crawford" has a very evil vibe. "Searchin' for Celine" is kinda ominous. But if yr in the right mood p. much any BoC song is ominous as hell

My 12 yr old loves BOC, not as much as he loves Steely Dan but they're the hard rock legends he prefers above all others I've played for him. I think the fact they're both vv smooth and rock the hell out is a rare and potent combo.

omar raising the next generation right

My evil selections above I think lean into the lurid, seductive chaos type of evil. Like beckoning the listener, making them complicit.

"Veins" off The Revolution by Night

It's funny how their explicit Nazi song is actually one of their least ominously evil sounding.

Transmaniacon MC is pretty menacing.

Omar 🫡

They'd like to do it with our daughter on a dirt road? Then keep the ransom money?! But continue to rob us of our sleep?!!

more to the point, they're coming for your blue-eyed horseshoe

I Love the Night sucks you into the vampire lifestyle with gorgeous soft-rock harmonies and Buck's mellifluous guitar tones, and then "the lovely lady in white was by my side" and it's all over.

Dominance and Submission is just plain fucking contaminated by evil.

Career of Evil, definitely.

Transmaniacon MC is about the tension at Altamont, really sinister vibe.

Mistress of the Salmon Salt is crazy, a woman serial killer lures men, kills them, and uses them as fertilizer.

Killer 1979 club set from when BOC were touring semi-incognito under their old "Soft White Underbelly" name
https://ijwthstd.blogspot.com/2024/03/blue-oyster-cult-san-francisco-ca-1979.html

Stairway to the Stars is such a monster. Just such an evil sounding song.

Never heard these guys before but oh man, this is brilliant. I came late to the Rolling Stones and never fully got into even the classic LPs, probably because, from all I'd read and heard about them, I was expecting the Stones to sound like THIS.

Xpost
I was listening to that show a couple of weeks ago downloaded from a different source - was really liking its “Astronomy” when there was a big cut in the middle. Does this source have that?

TIL There was an official concert film of 1980 BÖC/Black Sabbath tour

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4WGR3kEe4Y

Oh man. When I was a kid I remember seeing that as a midnight screening at my local movie theater (for, like, one weekend probably). I've always wanted to see it, though a bit nervous that Sabbath would be much more impressive than BOC.

lol @ the anti-Ayatollah Khomeni "Divine Wind" performance complete with mask & wig

^ that and the Godzilla head prop. BOC sure used to pile on the cheese in those days.