BOC: TYRANNY & STAGNATION

BOC: TYRANNY & STAGNATION

Michael Davis

And now, the band:

Eric Bloom—often the frontman vocally and utility guitarist/keyboard player instrumentally. His attempts at being macho and/or freaky just point up the human side of the band. Making up for his deficiencies in lung power and charisma with energy and enthusiasm, the guy makes it all work somehow. And did I mention his sense of humor? Can you imagine Robert Plant singing “She’s As Beautiful As A Foot” or “7 Screaming Diz-Busters”?

Albert Bouchard—until recently the drummer, best known for singing “Cities” and for his drum solo extravaganza during “Godzilla.” But he was also a prolific writer—he co-wrote half the tunes on Agents Of Fortune—and his hyperactive drumming style on the first couple of albums damn near made him the Tony Williams of rock ’n’ roll for awhile.

Joe Bouchard—bassist and vocalist. Joe’s concert feature has generally been the riff-snorting “Hot Rails To Hell,” but his more melodic “Morning Final” and “Nosferatu” ain’t too shabby either.

Allen Lanier—the main keyboard player/synthesist and rhythm guitarist of the group. Allen also gets points for his longstanding relationship with Patti Smith — odd that she wrote with Albert when she wrote for the band—and her leaving inspired his best tune, “In Thee.” He’s also done session work with Jim Carroll and John Cale.

Donald (Buck Dharma) Roeser—lead guitar, vocals, and maybe just a little more equal than the others. He plays lyrically and forcefully, writes with an amazing amount of diversity and sings with the smoothest voice in BOC. Their biggest hits—“(Don’t Fear) The Reaper,” “Godzilla,” and “Burning For You”—are all his, which must drive Bloom nuts; no wonder Eric’s gotten so heavily into fantasy and science fiction.

Their story is a variation on the one about hard work overcoming bad breaks. In the late ’60s, Sandy Pearlman helped organize the Soft White Underbelly, which included Roeser, Lanier and Albert Bouchard. They recorded two albums that lie languishing in Elektra’s vaults to this day, eventually added Eric and Joe, and became Blue Oyster Cult.

Their first two albums remain as testaments to their early greatness but they didn’t sell very well because rock radio was so mellowed out at the time that these abrasive New York upstarts couldn’t get much airplay. Blue Oyster Cult had great tunes, great playing and so-so production; Tyranny And Mutation had good tunes, great playing and maniacal production, and functions as a primer on how to play and produce speed/stomp heavy metal.

The following Secret Treaties found the band slowing down a bit, adding synthesizers and more ballads as they busted their buns on the road and started getting some record sales as well. Everybody put out a double live album in the mid-’70s so the Cult did too; On Your Feet Or On Your Knees continued their climb to fame and, uh, fortune.

And Agents Of Fortune put ’em over the top. With a minimum of creative input from Pearlman, the guys rallied all their resources and came up with a nearperfect blend of melodicism and mayhem; they’ve yet to best the one-two-three punch of “The Reaper,” “E.T.I.” and “The Revenge Of Vera Gemini.”

Their success meant that they didn’t have to spend 250 days a year on the road and that they could set up separate residences, which must have been good for the guys’ sanity but sanity and rock ’n’ roll don’t always mix well. They began writing together less and spent less time jamming their tunes into shape in concert; the eventual result was that their material grew weaker and they recorded it with less fire.

Their decline wasn’t all that apparent on Spectres, which featured Roeser’s “Godzilla” and “I Love The Night,” along with “Going Through The Motions,” which Bloom wrote with lan Hunter, and the following live album, Some Enchanted Euening, which documented BOC’s “laser period,” had its moments as well. But the Tom Werman-produced Mirrors stressed professional eclecticism at the expense of force and fever—and won over more radio stations in the process. The last couple of studio efforts have had Martin Birch behind the board and while they’ve packed a bit more punch, they’ve still found the Cult plundering their own past as often as they explore any new territory. To bring things up to date, Extraterrestrial Live sounds good real loud (if you shine on the occasionally sloppy drumming) and Roeser’s solo Flat Out is kinda spotty, though “Your Loving Heart” is the most hilarious thing he’s written in years.

Looking ahead, you never can tell but 1 doubt the Cult will disband any time in the near future. As Bloom speculated three years ago, “One of the things that might be keeping it all together is that we’ve done it all from the beginning; we’ve done a lot of it ourselves and we don’t feel ready to let it all go.”

What can I add to that? If I’m not getting off on the Cult as much as I did 10 years ago, it might be that the standards the BOC set back then are just too tough to top.