![]() ![]() (Extra Terrestrial Intelligence),” which features another great guitar riff, Eric Bloom’s grainy vocals (I love the way he says, “Wait, there’s more”) and the wonderfully melodic chorus (“All praise/He’s found the awful truth, Balthazar/He’s found the saucer news,”) which never fails to blow me away, just as Buck Dharma’s guitar solo is one of my all-time favorites.Īs for “The Revenge of Vera Gemini” it features a pair of spoken opening lines and some sultry backing vocals by Patti Smith, who was in a relationship with Allen Lanier at the time. And then there’s the infamous cowbell, and the cool backing vocals, and the great ending where Death appears at the distraught girl’s bedroom window (like one of the “Lost Boys”!) and urges her to take his hand and take the big leap.Įven better is “E.T.I. ![]() ![]() What matters are Roeser’s instantly recognizable opening guitar riff-and the great solo he tosses off near the 3-minute mark-as well as his hushed vocals (come to think of it, the whole song is hushed) about death and how it’s no more to be scared of than a visit to your friendly dentist. ![]() Meanwhile Lanier sings about a failed relationship (“We’re never sorry/We’re never sad/We’re modern lovers/What fun we had”) and if this one reminds me of anybody, it’s vintage Ian Hunter.Įverybody knows “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper,” which supposedly led to a spate of fatal lovers’ leaps although I’m certain that’s purest hoo-hah. Meanwhile, “True Confessions” is a pop song by Blue Öyster Cult standards, with its perky melody and Lanier’s piano at front and center, to say nothing of the saxophones blaring in the background. It took long enough, but somebody finally got around to putting a stake through the heart of the Woodstock generation. Eric Bloom sings, Buck Dharma plays some stunning guitar, and the chorus says it all: “This ain’t the Garden of Eden/They ain’t no angels above/And things ain’t’ like they used to be/And this ain’t the summer of love.” They were the first band to employ an umlaut in its name and came up with the most instantly recognizable band logo this side of Black Flag, and were guided step by step by manager Sandy Pearlman, who got them signed, wrote a lot of the band’s lyrics, helped produce their LPs, gave them their name, etc.Īs for the band’s members, at the time of Agents of Fortune they included Eric Bloom on lead vocals and “stun guitar,” Albert Bouchard on drums and backing vocals, Joe Bouchard on bass and backing vocals, Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser on lead guitar and vocals, and Allen Lanier on keyboards, rhythm guitar, and backing vocals.ġ976’s Agents of Fortune may or may not be their best album-my vote would go to the band’s harder rocking eponymous 1972 debut, which includes the great “Then Came the Last Days of May” and the wonderfully weird “She’s as Beautiful as a Foot.” Or 1974’s Secret Treaties, which includes the great “Career of Evil,” the prog-metal classic “Astronomy,” and the wonderful “Flaming Telepaths,” on which the boys basically give the game away by singing, “The joke’s on you.” But I like 1973’s Tyranny and Mutation too, and of their pre- Angels of Fortune LPs I’m only indifferent to 1975’s double live On Your Feet or On Your Knees, which was the band’s highest charting LP but not much to write home about.īlue Öyster Cult opens Agents of Fortune with the wonderfully cynical “This Ain’t the Summer of Love,” a death notice (7 or so years too late, granted, but better than never) of the Age of Aquarius. When it comes to 1970s faux evil rock bands that didn’t have a bone of true evil in their bodies, Blue Öyster Cult comes in right behind Alice Cooper and Black Sabbath.īÖC flirted shamelessly, tongues planted firmly in cheek, with the iconography of the dark side (they sang about S&M, made references to Martin Bormann and put Nazi jet fighters on their album covers, and let’s not forget the Patti Smith-penned “Career of Evil”) and people bought it until, like the previously mentioned bands, the boys from Long Island took it right over the top, and it became obvious that it was all a big joke and they were about as evil as Debbie Gibson.īut if it was all a shuck-and it was: even the rock critic Richard Meltzer, who wrote some of the band’s songs including “Burnin’ for You,” noted, “This is really hard rock comedy”-it led to some pretty great music, culminating Agents of Fortune, which was so wildly successful Robert Christgau dubbed BÖC “the Fleetwood Mac of heavy metal.”įormed in 1967 as The Soft White Underbelly, the band subsequently changed its name to Oaxaca, then the Stalk-Forrest Group, then and the Santos Sisters before finally settling on Blue Öyster Cult in 1971. Celebrating Eric Bloom on his 79th birthday. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |