Vida Blue Day, August 1971. That’s the day anybody whose last name was Blue (and could prove it) got in free at Yankee Stadium to see the Yankees face off against the Oakland A’s starring Vida Blue. Vida’s mom was there and all 51 people named Blue from the New York phone book white pages. But not the Blue Oyster^ Cult. They could’ve gone down to the Bronx with their Columbia recording contract which included the name Blue and their names and birth dates and they would’ve been allowed in free of charge. But they didn’t go. No they didn’t go.

Why didn’t they go? That’s a good question, how come they didn’t go? Because baseball is dull? Could be, in fact it’s likely since Cult singer Manny Bloom — who’s so greasy he comes across as hot rendered fat and belongs nowhere else but on top of a bowl of freshly chopped chicken liver — has often said “Baseball is punk shit.”

But that’s not reason enough, there’s gotta be at least two reasons for everything. So could it be because they were too tired and exhausted from the night before of an English howdown at Staten Island’s swill-famed rat-infested and damp Ritz Theater? Could be, in fact they were already stuffed from all the bread and brew at Max’s, too stuffed to take on the custard at Custard’s Last Stand across the street from the Ritz and so they were both stuffed and tired at the same time. Okay so the baseball was too dull and the Sandman was too cruel, are those the only reasons for skipping Vida Blue?

Nope there’s another one, a bigger one than both of them put together. The reason was that they were — how boring to say — practicing. Rehearsing, in other words. Getting it together even. To lend final credence to a slogan that is even now circulating in the streets of New York, a slogan about them and it reads simply: CITY’S ON FLAME NOW WITH ROCK AND ROLL.

But on Vida Blue Eve there was different business to knuckle down to of a different sort entirely. Like these limey creeps can really get a bit much sometimes. They were thin however and they were weak and they were asking for it. It seems the second act on the bill had finished their set and the Oyster boys, their manager Sandy Pearlman and R. Meltzer (both of whom write lyrics for the band) were bapkstage talking to the manager of said act. Immediately the road manager of the first-billed act said “Everybody off the stage, lots of stuff has been ripped off out of the dressing room of .” At first everybody thought this United Kingdom turtle was joking, like just try to imagine an Englishman thinking he owns Staten Island! I rpean just think of the fucking scumbag’s fucking audacity.

Well so as time wore on the Oyster crew ignored this heinous worthless asshole and then he decided to use his height to best advantage by leaning over on everybody. Meltzer said “Look you fuckin’ limey, just because you got the height on us don’t think we can’t handle you” and then the guy really leaned over and in so doing produced some physical contact. Pearlman at the time was saying something about wringing the guy’s neck, I mean like his group (the English guy’s) was already a sixfigure group (in dollars as well as pounds) and who the fuck was he to boss some American around, dig? Well as the guy made contact with Melteer it became obvious to R. that this cat was all bones and the bones weren’t very solid at all. One punch would’ve busted an entire chest. But then the official non-limey bouncer made his move and all parties from this side of the Atlantic were expelled.

Those fuckers, man. Like when was the last time England counted for more than Mantovani and Acker Bilk? Shit, y’know? Jesse Python (that’s what Manny calls himself sometimes) calls Englishmen “faggoids and fungoids” and others back him up. They know that the time is gone for traditional leftist political activity as the final solution to all this shit and they know there’s gotta be new ways to kick out the jams. Like at Max’s, man, all those aardvarks there are just the same as at the Ritz except they’re seated instead of standing. All you need’s a saw and you can cut the leg off their chair and they’re on their ass and they deserve it: they don’t even leave tips for the waitress! !

Stuff like that sure doesn’t happen at Dartmouth, no sir. When the band hit town there last winter it was the biggest frat weekend of the year and they were up for it and so were the people. They started out with “Transmaniacon M.C.” with an incredible spoken introduction about L.A. They popped right into “I’m on the Lamb but I Ain’t No Sheep” which bears a strong resemblance to various European national anthems (and they write them good in Europe, not like over here or in limey country) like “Deutschland Uber Alles” and “The Marseillaise.” And that stuff can really get you off when the timing is right, like haven’t you even seen Casablanca? Okay so they went right from that into “Then Came the Last Days of May,” a song about two murders in Arizona, and “Before the Kiss of a Red Cap,” a traditional love song featuring a jump section. They ended up with a 35minute version of “It’s Not Easy” with triple drums and fuzz bass, after which the audience collapsed like a house of cards. And most of what was left was male because the gals had left earlier when their beaus for the weekend ignored them in favor of the band and one of the males who was left went up and grabbed the mike and said “You guys are hot shit” and he meant it.

But that was just tbe end. In the middle was the highlight of the show, “City’s on Flame with Rock and Roll.” And at the beginning was their ominous entrance onto the stage, already filled with an excessive amount of amps, and the aura of impending doom hanging about the smoke-filled whatever-thefuck.

Certain Germanic comparisons could easily come to mind and that night they did. Could it have been the Panzer tank flag draped over the amp of Buck Dharma (who also calls himself Donald) who plays guitar in the band? Yes it could be and in fact a friend of the'band went to a Nazi store in L.A. once and bought $200 worth of World War II memorabilia used originally by the losing side of that one. In fact there was a jolt of recognition on the face of the president of CBS Germany when he saw the band while in this country recently.

So there’s the concept and they’ve sure got the execution. And who’s there to execute? Well there are the Bouchard Brothers in the rhythm section, Albert on drums and Joe on bass. Joe looks kind of like the Gerard Malanga of 1967 and Albert has looked like everybody from Jerry Garcia to Country Joe to Artie of the Group Image to Legs Larry Smith to Eric Clapton. He really knows how to handle those oxcart accents and his cymbals sizzle like a set of XXXX’s on a frying pan. And you better listen girls when he sings his line from “City’s on Flame”: “My heart is black but my lips are cold” and you know he’s not lying.

Buck likes his $14 Tosca guitar real much, especially now that it’s fitted out with a Condor Echo Pickup which adds one full octave of bottom. In other words he really knows how to enter your skull with his boss licks and consequently his fans claim he has the most sinister style among rock virtuosos. Allen Lanier is overly concerned at present about where the band will live and his fingers are like stabs in the dark anytime a set of keyboards is offered to him. He’s the remaining member of the band and he’d like to see them put an umlaut on the O for Oyster. He’s from North Carolina and his sympathies are never far from those of the Confederacy. And lately he’s been getting it on musically with Patti Smith and together they’ve already polished off a tune about a girl who has this boyfriend who’s a werewolf but she’ll take her chances with him up on “Holiday Hill.”

They’ve got other hotsoes too, notably “Donovan’s Monkey,” “Curse of the Hidden Mirrors,” “Beautiful as a Foot” and many thousands more. I’m not kidding, they got thousands and the titles speak for themselves, Sidney! But practice makes perfect and so they do, making them the first band to get beyond the idea of leaden metal to the actual presence of a metal which is crystal. Remember Grand Funk, Mountain, Led Zep, Black Sabbath? They had an idea of heavy metal but the metal spelled weight not flash. These bands all drowned in their own momentum, their weight made them sink after a while. Flashing means internal abrasion, which means energy constantly expended and never exhausted. So it’s energy not subject to entropy, energy which doesn’t waste itself in the momentous roll downhill. That sort of shit.

The Stooges turn on the energy 38 minutes too soon in a 39-minute set, it doesn’t go anywhere. Should it? Well just suppose it did.

Well anyway some girl said of the Blue Oyster Cult recently “They’re 10 years ahead of their time but I love them anyway, especially their asses.” But I don’t know, this is the dawning of the age of crystal. And I don’t mean dope, I mean crystal as in salt, glass and — better still — some metals. Yeah and with the B.O.C. it’s a trip through “the tears, the smiles, the last domain, the rods of broken crystals.” And it’s all hot shit — no joke. All here for real and it’s only 1971!