Blue Öyster Cult: A Long Day's Night

BLUE ÖYSTER CULT: A LONG DAY'S NIGHT (2002)

1) Stairway To The Stars; 2) Burning For You; 3) OD'd On Life Itself; 4) Dance On Stilts; 5) Buck's Boogie; 6) Quicktime Girl; 7) Harvest Moon; 8) Astronomy; 9) Cities On Flame; 10) Perfect Water; 11) Lips In The Hills; 12) Godzilla; 13) Don't Fear The Reaper.

Okay, one more encore — just because you asked for it so nicely and persistently and obsessive­ly, here is yet another live Blue Öyster Cult album. Everybody knows by now that each cohesive period of this band's existence has to be summarized by a live document, and just because we have moved into a new millennium does not mean that the principle warrants an exception. This one was recorded in Chicago on June 21, 2002 (solstice day!), and came out on CD and DVD; I have not seen the DVD in its completeness, but it is longer by six tracks, all of them from the band's most classic period, so, reasonably, the DVD release is the one you should be more inte­rested in. For marketing purposes, though, the DVD lacks the 10-minute version of ʽAstronomyʼ, including Roeser's most gut-wrenching guitar solo of the entire evening, so if you are a true fan of the salmon salt, you have no choice but to get both.

With Bobby Rondinelli on drums and Danny Miranda on bass as a perfectly reliable and well-involved rhythm section, there is little reason to doubt that the whole thing will be professional and suitably spirited, but what can be said about yet another bunch of live performances of ʽGod­zillaʼ, ʽReaperʼ, ʽCities On Flameʼ etc.? Setlist-wise, much more curious is the inclusion of ʽPerfect Waterʼ from Club Ninja — apparently, the band takes this «retrospective show» concept seriously, leaving no stone unturned; but, as you might have guessed, the live version eschews the evils of Eighties production, and sounds much more like a normal sentimental hard-rocker in Buck Dharma's usual style than a bad reminiscence of 1986. Another surprise is the long-forgot­ten ʽLips In The Hillsʼ from Cultosaurus, with all of its frenzied arpeggiation intact. And the two songs from the band's latest record, while not on the classic level, still align pretty damn well with the classics in style and mood.

Still, all this professionalism can be a bit tiresome — the Rolling Stones, for instance, whose live performances from around 1975 to 1982 had turned into a sometimes exciting and hilarious, but persistently drugged-drunken sloppy mess, later tightened up their act significantly and made the contrast between their «early», «mid-life», and «late» live albums so interesting that most of them are worth owning, for one reason or other. In comparison, these guys just evolved from a tightly professional hard-rock act to a tightly professional arena-rock act to a tightly professional oldies act. Compare the original live performance of ʽBuck's Boogieʼ from 1975 with this one — gene­rally the same stuff, but just a wee bit more «formal» on the 21st century side of the business. Rondinelli gives it a much steadier, but also less youthfully exciting rhythmic base, and Roeser sounds ever so slightly by-the-bookish on it.

In any case, we should not take the record for anything other than what it is — a document of the entertainment potential of this band circa 2002. If you were wondering, back then, whether to attend or not a BÖC show, A Long Day's Night would have suggested «yes» (these days, more than a decade later, with further lineup changes and Lanier dead, I really have no idea). If you have any special personal memories of your own of a late-period BÖC show, here be a memento status, obviously. But other than that, A Long Day's Night is probably not turning into your favorite live album from these guys any time soon — it's got plenty of worthy competition from past decades to render itself superfluous after just one listen. Oh well, at least they keep the silly audience teasing bits in ʽGodzillaʼ on a tight leash this time.

Blue Öyster Cult: Curse Of The Hidden Mirror

BLUE ÖYSTER CULT: CURSE OF THE HIDDEN MIRROR (2001)

1) Dance On Stilts; 2) Showtime; 3) The Old Gods Return; 4) Pocket; 5) One Step Ahead Of The Devil; 6) I Just Like To Be Bad; 7) Here Comes That Feeling; 8) Out Of The Darkness; 9) Stone Of Love; 10) Eye Of The Hurricane; 11) Good To Feel Hungry.

This is, fundamentally and spiritually, as close to a legitimate «comeback» as the aging remnants of (Rotten-)Blue Öyster Cult could ever hope to get. Everything, beginning from the title of the record (which echoes Mirrors and just generally sounds like a good title for a BÖC-related some­thing — indeed, it was taken from an old unreleased song going all the way back to 1970), going on to the stylish album cover, and ending with the unexpected return of Meltzer as a lyricist on one of the tracks, just screams that they want to be the real Blue Öyster Cult just this one more time, and make some music that is, if not worthy of their legacy, then at least consistent with that legacy. And in some respects, they succeed.

Where Heaven Forbid made a big point of being loud, heavy, and brutal, this quasi-follow-up is more subtle. The songs still rock, but there is very little stuff here like ʽDamagedʼ or ʽSee You In Blackʼ, because the emphasis tries to be on dark, brooding atmosphere. They continue their asso­ciation with John Shirley, who keeps on supplying them with lyrics that fluctuate between mysti­cism and psychoanalytics, yet the lyrics take second and third place to melodies, harmonies, and dark, cavernous production when it comes to justifying the record's existence. Exciting freshness and instantly gripping melodies are the only things that do not let you forget that this is, after all, «just one of those comebacks», and not a proper follow-up to the band's classic stretch.

Individual missteps are an occasional pest, but they'd always had some of these, even on the best of days, so let us forgive them when, every once in a while, they accidentally slide into bland adult «hard-pop» while trying to pen another sentimental rocker in the vein of ʽBurnin' For Youʼ (ʽHere Comes That Feelingʼ). And let us even disregard the fact that the Meltzer-aided song ʽStone Of Loveʼ begins with the lines "There is a box that I have shown / And in the box / There is a fox that I have known" (swear to God, these are the exact words, and this is the only song I know of that has actually dared to rhyme ʽboxʼ with ʽfoxʼ). Really, none of it matters.

What matters is that the best songs on this record (a) take some getting used to and (b) even when you get used to them, they still sound like songs written and performed by old men, who are really more tired than they let you see, and are way too preoccupied about glancing back at their past, and maybe even idealizing it a little. Is this bad? It certainly ain't unpredictable, and it is much better than it could be — in fact, from that angle, Curse Of The Hidden Mirror is a pretty damn good last word, addressed by BÖC to themselves and their veteran fans. ʽThe Old Gods Returnʼ, all by itself, is a frickin' anthem to the past: Shirley may have written the lyrics about something completely different, but when Bloom sings lead vocals on that song, culminating in a series of ecstatic "forever! forever!"s, and Roeser whips out the ol' axe, there is no doubt who they actually mean under «old gods».

Once the songs do sink in, there are some nice riffs and choruses, though — even if they now seem a bit too dangerously close to other people's: ʽOne Steap Ahead Of The Devilʼ could be easily mistaken for a late-period Aerosmith rocker, with its «glossy-swampy» main blues riff, and the verses of ʽDance On Stiltsʼ sound rather leaden and lumpy, like a Black Crowes song, and I am still trying to figure out what the hell that dancey funky bass figure on ʽGood To Feel Hungryʼ reminded me of. More Aerosmith? Oh well, all the better than emulating «Rambo metal», which they were sometimes guilty of in the past, but not here.

Although Bloom still hasn't lost his caveman growl (I suppose the man is on a steady raw meat diet three times a day, right?), the most pinching moments still come from Buck Dharma — where ʽHere Comes That Feelingʼ fails, the power-pop anthem ʽPocketʼ that could just as well have been done by the Bangles (sorry, couldn't help it) succeeds, with a bit of a heartfelt tug, and if you can distance yourself from the hilariously abysmal words of ʽStone Of Loveʼ, that one, too, is a pretty emotional tune. In fact, now that everything has been laid so bare, it is funny to see Bloom and Roeser so vividly illustrate the two faces of Blue Öyster Cult — the «Alien Nean­derthal» of the former and the «Alien New Romantic» of the latter, happy as the latter occa­sionally is to pour some additional kerosene on the former's bonfire. Their musical faces may have become wrinkled and a tad ugly, but they have not melted away.

Unfortunately, by 2001 most of the veteran fans of the band seem to have faded away, and the young ones were not interested — the album failed, and, consequently, their record label (Sanc­tuary) unflinchingly gave them the boot (ironically, since Sanctuary used to specialize on jaded-faded rock stars of the past), meaning no new attempts at studio production. On the other hand, why unfortunately? Further clones of Curse Of The Hidden Mirror would have been just that (clones), and this record really works much better as The Godfather Part III than as anything that supposedly has a future. It is good that they were able to say goodbye to us in this-a-way, much more fitting than Heaven Forbid or any of those awful Eighties' records — Curse comes full circle, reminding us of the band's original purpose and mission and pretty much saying «mission accomplished, thank you, beddy-bye now». So just a modest thumbs up here to a fitting career conclusion (not too disappointing, not too uplifting), and all in all, it's been a fun ride, despite a few bumps every now and then, particularly on those last circles.

Blue Öyster Cult: Heaven Forbid

BLUE ÖYSTER CULT: HEAVEN FORBID (1998)

1) See You In Black; 2) Harvest Moon; 3) Power Underneath Despair; 4) X-Ray Eyes; 5) Hammer Back; 6) Damaged; 7) Cold Gray Light Of Dawn; 8) Real World; 9) Live For Me; 10) Still Burnin'; 11) In Thee.

Say, it's a new Blue Öyster Cult album, and perhaps I'm «damaged», but I like it. It is not really a proper «comeback» album, because, as it happens, the band never truly went away — they just stopped producing new music for a while, but the original duo of Bloom and Roeser, usually combined into the original trio with Lanier, never really split, continuing to tour on a limited scale and quietly biding their time. That time finally came in 1998, with a new record deal with the indie label CMC, and a new traditional collaboration with one of the pulp fiction guys: John Shirley, specializing in cyberpunk sci-fi and other stuff that I have little interest in. I do have some interest in moderately successful career rejuvenations by oldies' acts, though, and Heaven Forbid, while certainly and predictably not on the scale of BÖC's classics, passes the test — as surprising as that is.

First and foremost, it sounds good, and that is what counts. Almost no synthesizers (gone are they together with the Eighties); healthy, grumbly, nicely distorted heavy metal tones, occasionally lapsing into pop metal style, but usually reminiscent of the band's classic sound; great drumming from Chuck Burgi; unspoiled powerhouse vocals from Bloom — I have not a single complaint about how the record has been produced. In fact, come to think of it, they haven't sounded that well since at least Fire Of Unknown Origin... hmm, perhaps even earlier. Okay, so perhaps the iron Teutonic grip of ʽHammer Backʼ pushes them a little farther into Accept territory than us conservatives would have desired, but they understand how to handle this approach, and make the song kick as much primal ass as any Accept clone would.

The songs — that's a different matter. The songs are not too memorable, and it would have been a total wonder if they were. It's not that there aren't any hooks: it's simply one of those records that may enthrall while it's on, and then quickly evaporate when it's off. But that in itself is already a sign of some progress. And then there is at least one song here that is totally on par with the clas­sics: ʽCold Gray Light Of Dawnʼ, a grim, dusty slab of doom-laden-rock, burns with terrifying implied threats as properly as anything they'd done earlier. The "you can't hide the truth, hide the truth anymore" bit at the end of the chorus hits hard, as does Buck Dharma's soloing throughout. I sure wish they'd re-record some of the Imaginos material in the same style.

A couple other songs seem to have been written by Roeser in «heartfelt» mood as well, and I think that ʽHarvest Moonʼ and ʽLive For Meʼ, reflecting Buck Dharma's trademark «heavy lyri­cal» style, both have potential; at the very least, there is no denying a certain mournful nostalgic pull of ʽHarvest Moonʼ, whose verses, with Roeser recounting the imaginary losses borne by all sorts of people, are actually emotionally superior to the chorus. Then again, I guess that, as Buck Dharma grows older, his little death-and-misery fetish must only get stronger and stronger. So more songs about famine, devastation, and nuclear fallout, please.

As for such simpler, less moody, more directly hard-rocking tracks as ʽSee You In Blackʼ, ʽPower Underneath Despairʼ, ʽDamagedʼ — well, they're okay. Catchy choruses, not too catchy riffs, and an atmosphere that never gets too out of bounds ("I'm damaged, and I like it, I live for rock'n'roll" is as close as they come to «campy» here, but it's not that bad when it's taken at such a fast tempo and with such a cocky-funky attitude). Nothing to go bananas over, but nothing to seriously complain about, either.

There is some playing around with their own legacy here that we could all do without — for instance, there was no need to name one of the songs ʽStill Burnin'ʼ, as it is not even stylistically similar to ʽBurning For Youʼ (it actually sounds more like a Van Halen tribute), and the decision to finish the record on a live acoustic performance of ʽIn Theeʼ is a dubious one: it's a nice per­formance, but gestures like these inevitably bring on associations with creative burnout — all the more surprising since, on the whole, Heaven Forbid shows that the band, on the contrary, has somewhat picked up steam after a decade and a half of drifting around in a figurative sea of radioactive waste. But then I suppose that it is really hard to avoid the temptation to fall back upon auto-quotations when you want to remind your old fans what was it that was great about you in the first place. Even if you do stupid things in the process.

Anyway, a pleasant minor thumbs up here, and a rock-hard recommendation for the seasoned fan. Also, there are two alternate album covers for the record: the normal one features a horribly mutilated guy with a glass eye and half of his face burnt, and the ugly one features Morgan Fair­child following printed instructions on how to probe her patellar reflexes with a steel-cast female gender symbol (or so I read). Thank you, Blue Öyster Cult, for proving in such an innovative manner that «freedom of choice» remains more than an empty idiom in 1998.

Blue Öyster Cult: Cult Classic

BLUE ÖYSTER CULT: CULT CLASSIC (1994)

1) (Don't Fear) The Reaper; 2) E.T.I.; 3) M.E. 262; 4) This Ain't The Summer Of Love; 5) Burning For You; 6) O.D.'d On Life Itself; 7) Flaming Telepaths; 8) Godzilla; 9) Astronomy; 10) Cities On Flame With Rock'n'Roll; 11) Harvester Of Eyes; 12) Buck's Boogie; 13) (Don't Fear) The Reaper (instrumental); 14) Godzilla (instrumental).

Yes, you have heard all these songs before, and no, this is neither a live album nor a greatest hits compilation. These are re-recordings. That is right, straightforward re-recordings of BOC classics, engineered at several different studios in New York City in early 1994 by three original members of the band (Bloom, Roeser, and Lanier) and the band's then-current rhythm section (Jon Rogers on bass and Chuck Burgi on drums). Not «reinventions» or «special guest mixes» — just really rigid, rigorous, note-for-note re-recordings of the original songs.

Do not ask me the obvious question: I do not have enough information to give a convincing answer. The «polite» version that I have encountered is that the band was trying out those tempt­ing new alleys of digital recording, and wanted to engineer their best songs in a brand new format that breathed modernity and coolness. I myself tend to veer towards the cynical version, though: seeing as how they were dropped from the big Columbia label that must have owned the rights to their old recordings, they simply went to all that trouble for good old financial reasons. After all, if the customer walks into a store and sees an album called Cult Classic and it's got that ʽReaperʼ song on it, how is he going to tell the difference between the original and the copy? He ain't no musical art dealer, he's just a customer.

Therefore, BUYER BEWARE: Cult Classic with all these classic Cult songs is NOT a compila­tion! Others, too, have been part of this fraud program — I vaguely remember Eric Burdon, for instance, re-recording the old Animals classics with a band that had nothing to do with the real Animals — but nobody I know of, at least if you're talking the real great ones, came as close to genuinely duping the consumer as the good old Blue Oyster boys. You have to remember your classics fairly well to understand that something's wrong here.

On the positive side, when it comes to evaluating the material here on its own terms, I would not know where to begin complaining. Re-recordings they may be, but they are surprisingly good re-recordings, and if you ever wanted to have a good case for digital recording over analog, you simply cannot go wrong with Cult Classic. The sound is crystal clear, the mix is as perfect as it could possibly be, and that guitar tone... well, suffice it to say that the opening riff of ʽHarvester Of Eyesʼ simply blows away the original. Thicker, creepy-crawlier, breaking out of the speakers to run you over with its track, leaving behind lifeless pulp with eyes extracted.

I have no idea how they did this, but everything sounds totally authentic, not one bit spoiled by any production excesses — in addition, Bloom's vocals have not deteriorated one bit, and that new drummer guy is every bit as dexterous as Bouchard used to be. It is possible, of course, to prefer the old versions, but it is impossible to deny that they did a fine, fine job copycatting them twenty years later. Oh, and for ʽAstronomyʼ they actually preferred to remake the live version of the song — the one where they added a lengthy coda with a killer solo by Buck Dharma. The one here is not as impressive, but still serves as a very useful tension-builder in a song that I have, until now, tended to underrate.

It is not quite clear how an album like this could merit a thumbs up — but, curiously, I will not recommend it as a representative introduction to the greatness of Blue Öyster Cult for all them youngsters not because it is a «rip-off», but because the youngsters might actually remain un­impressed with the original recordings from the 1970s in comparison, just because of all these vastly improved production values. Originals are originals, and they have their little sonic nuances that, want it or not, probably did get lost in the re-recording process. But it would take us some time to find, properly feel, and describe this, with multiple relistens and stuff — who wants to spend valuable time doing that? I certainly do not — veteran fans of the band, though, unless they believe in such a thing as «desecration», should by all means check this stuff out and try to savor new values quite respectfully applied to the old classics. That said, the band certainly loses points from me if I ever find out that the record, when sold in record stores, did not bear an explicit sticker with the word «RE-RECORDINGS» on it. At least a small one. At least in minu­scule print or something. They obviously handled this whole re-recording business with love and care — so why mix it with customer dishonesty? 

Blue Öyster Cult: Imaginos

BLUE ÖYSTER CULT: IMAGINOS (1988)

1) I Am The One You Warned Me Of; 2) Les Invisibles; 3) In The Presence Of Another World; 4) Del Rio's Song; 5) The Siege And Investiture Of Baron Von Frankenstein's Castle; 6) Astronomy; 7) Magna Of Illusion; 8) Blue Öyster Cult; 9) Imaginos.

What do you mean, it took us nearly twenty years to realize that the true purpose of Blue Öyster Cult was to serve as a backing band for a sprawling sci-fi rock opera, adapted from the wrinkled pages of Sandy Pearlman's school yearbook? Here we were thinking that this band was some sort of high-falutin', acid-satiric, pre-post-modern take on rock and pop culture, and in reality it was just this imaginative young fellow with the hots for Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, and whatever cheap sci-fi flicks they were making in the hot-for-outer-space Sixties. Of course, the band very quickly got out of control and started following its own path, but the shadow of Sandy Pearlman haunted them all the way, and in the end, it got 'em.

Actually, as far as I understand, by the time 1987 rolled along, Blue Öyster Cult as a viable pro­ject was altogether finished. Their latest albums bombed and sucked at the same time, band members were scurrying away from the ship like rats on speed, and the remaining ones were aging, sulking, and uncomfortable. In other words — the perfect condition (not!) for Sandy Pearlman to try and resuscitate the original idea of a major concept album (at one point, the idea was for a trilogy of double albums — no mean feat indeed, although, funny enough, I think that Ayreon eventually did something like that) about Imaginos. Who is Imaginos, you're asking me? Well, I used to think that «Imaginos» was the fictional name for a band of Mexican rogues, but apparently, it is about this «modified child» born in 1804 in New Hampshire, and there's this group of seven extraterrestrial beings called Les Invisibles, see, and they foster the child's occult and mystical powers, and then he goes to Mexico to search for a magic artefact, and his ship sinks and he is picked up by Les Invisibles and their servants, who call themselves Blue Öyster Cult (with an Umlaut, for certain. How do we know that? Well, they all wear specially designed T-shirts), and they accept him as a member and give him a new name, Desdinova (have you said your prayers tonight, Desdinova?), and he begins to influence world history, and...

...well, to cut the story short, you see now that Pete Townshend's Lifehouse has got nothing on this: Sandy Pearlman takes the whole thing seriously, and, unlike Pete, he actually offers a rea­sonable explanation to why World War I and II actually happened. (No, not because people did not buy enough Blue Öyster Cult records). I suppose that the story, had it been realised properly and had all the loose ends been logically tied, wouldn't have been any worse than your average sci-fi epic — of which I have never been a magic fan — but ultimately, the only thing that mat­ters in all these mixtures of sci-fi concepts and rock culture is the music. The question is: was this sudden stab at «conceptualization», in an era when «concept album» and «commercial offer» had become antitheses, at least capable of producing anything better than Club Ninja?

You'd think that it could, since, anyway, bits and pieces of the «Imaginos» concept had already been scattered throughout many of the band's albums — ʽAstronomyʼ, for instance, which was a song about Imaginos discovering that the stars are the source of his knowledge of powers — and, furthermore, the album itself had been a long time coming. Within the band, the biggest fan of Pearlman's fantasy concept was drummer Albert Bouchard, and the two had been working on a separate album already in the 1970s, and even more so after Bouchard had been fired from the band: in fact, if you look at the credits, you will see that Bouchard is listed as composer on 7 out of 9 tracks — appropriate, since most of the basic tracks actually date back to 1981-84, when they were produced (along with many others) as potential candidates for inclusion on Bouchard's first solo album. Lots of people guested on those sessions, even including Robby Krieger of The Doors and several members of the Ian Hunter Band. Fun time it was, but Columbia Records refused to release the album. Smart lads.

Fast forward to 1987, and here we are wondering where to now, St. Peter, after Club Ninja turned out to be such a turd. The group is falling apart, but Pearlman steps in with the proposition that Blue Öyster Cult complete work on Imaginos. Since most of the work had already been done, a small budget is allocated to clean up, refresh, and remix the tracks, as well as add lead vocals by Eric Bloom and Buck Dharma. The budget is spent way too quickly, so not too much work is done: only nine songs (some of them stretched to rather absurd lengths if seen in proportion to their pure musical value), mixing different parts of the story in an order that blocks the listener from understanding the concept without a separate digest. The album is then released, left without any promotion (to be fair, I am not certain how it could be promoted in this form), neglected by the public, rejected by the critics, and for a long time, it even remained unavailable on CD.

No wonder then, that Imaginos came to be regarded, under all these circumstances, as something of a «legendary» object — an overlooked epic classic or something like that. Unfortunately, it isn't. Had Pearlman had his way in the early 1970s, and forced the band to fully accept and realize his vision while they were still young, fresh, and unspoiled by the «hit mentality», Imaginos might have had a chance to be the ultimate in «fantasy-rock». This, however, is but a pale shadow of what could have been: enough of a shadow, that is, to genuinely hint at some potential great­ness, yet only a shadow nevertheless. Most unfortunately, they chose a very wrong time period to go through with that concept.

For starters, the production on the album is atrocious — most, if not all, of it is realized within the «pop metal» framework: big booming drums, «steroid-powered» riffs, and a deep, cavernous echo on everything. If this really were pop metal, like Mötley Crüe, that'd be a different story, but I do not understand why a concept album about supernatural beings altering the course of world history should sound like a cheap soundtrack to Conan The Barbarian: surely these guys deserve better than taking their instructions from the hairy giants of the day!

Even when there is a moderately interesting riff pattern going on (ʽThe Siege And Investiture Of Baron Von Frankenstein's Castleʼ, for instance), the guitar tone and drum/keyboard overdubs still end up sucking all the life out of it. (And let's not even mention the awful wheezy lead vocals of guest star Joe Cerisano, who used to sing backup vocals on Michael Bolton records, among other interesting details of his pedigree). I used to be disappointed with the original ʽAstronomyʼ, but that was like a total masterpiece next to the complete and utter butchering of the song's melodic and atmospheric potential that they do here. ʽDel Rio's Songʼ is supposed to be about Imaginos' ship­wreck off the coast of New Orleans — so why the heck does the song sound like one of Bon Jovi's pop hits? What is this, the only extant rock opera in the hair metal genre?

The only reason why I am not giving this a thumbs down is that I think I sense potential. Many of these songs were conceived at much earlier dates than 1987; Bouchard and the other members of the band do have enough of respect for Pearlman to approach the task with reverence; and even though Buck Dharma's guitar is usually misplaced or misproduced, there are enough scattered flashes of brilliance (check out the lead parts on the final jam part of the title track or the stinging lightning bolts on ʽLes Invisiblesʼ) to make me yearn to have these solos transplanted in a more deserving setting. Fairly speaking, the more you listen to these metallic slabs of sheer bombast, the more lumpy, amorphous goodness you smell beneath them — there are some inspired piano parts, some nice sax solos, some moody vocal lines every now and then. It just never really comes together into anything fully satisfactory.

In fact, guys, as of 2014, it's not too late yet to do the job right. Most of the original band mem­bers, with the exception of Lanier, are still alive, as is Pearlman. Now, when anything can be done right even on a very tight budget, is just the time to do it right. Double album (three double albums, if you wish, as per the original plan — if Ayreon can do this, anybody can), convincing guitar tones, completed and polished riffage, come on, you can do it, you got nothing better to do anyway. Make Imaginos that latter day equivalent of SMiLe and Lifehouse that you know it has always deserved to be, at least according to the laws of the universe of Michael Moorcock.

Blue Öyster Cult: Club Ninja

BLUE ÖYSTER CULT: CLUB NINJA (1986)

1) White Flags; 2) Dancing In The Ruins; 3) Make Rock Not War; 4) Perfect Water; 5) Spy In The House Of The Night; 6) Beat 'Em Up; 7) When The War Comes; 8) Shadow Warrior; 9) Madness To The Method.

Hello, I'm Leonard Pinth-Garnell, and welcome to «Bad Rock Music». As I throw a sideways glance at the calendar, I happen to notice that we are, indeed, right in the middle of 1986, and as every true connaisseur of rock music is liable to knowing, 1986 is a year well famous for pro­ducing — indeed, festering, as some might say — some of the absolutely worst rock music ever known to man, woman, kitten, or door-to-door salesman. As we have only just found out, the year was no exception for once popular and creative, ever so slightly post-modern rock act «Blue Öyster Cult», who have confirmed the rule with their newest LP, one that sports no less than one of the absolutely worst LP titles in the business — Club Ninja — and contains some very, very, very bad songs that seem almost custom made for our show.

To begin with, it must be noted that, while this band had previously been known to write the majority of their material themselves, and harvest some verbal help from the likes of acclaimed celebrities and pop-culture-intellectuals such as Richard Meltzer, Sandy Pearlman, Patti Smith, and Michael Moorcock, Club Ninja is their first record to have a mind-blowing four songs pro­vided by completely outside songwriters — corporate songwriters, one might add. With contri­butions by Larry Gottlieb (who had also written songs for Marie Osmond and Kenny Rogers that very year), Bob Halligan Jr. (a hard rock singer who'd written a couple of tunes for Judas Priest), and another song taken over from the Leggat Bros., there is little reason to doubt that Columbia Records played the usual trick on the poor fellows — saddled them with «commercial» material in order to have a hit on their hands. Unfortunately, what worked for Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, and even Eric Clapton (in terms of popularity, not artistry) backfired for Blue Öyster Cult, who simply lost their reputation without any financial gains to compensate for the shame.

In the midst of this utter travesty, it remains almost unnoticed that the band also lacks their keyboardist, Allen Lanier, now, temporarily replaced by Tommy Zvonchek. This might even be for the better, because the keyboards are not so much at the center of the sound now as they were on the previous albums — but what is at that center? Rotten, faceless pop metal guitar, for the most part, acting primarily as a monotonous background for the band's pop metal gang choruses. If you thought "B-O-C! You can be whatever you want to be!" was bad enough, wait until you hear "ROCK NOT WAR! Make ROCK NOT WAR!" or "BEAT 'EM UP! BEAT 'EM UP!" (the latter song, courtesy of Bob Halligan Jr., also features probably the worst verse in BOC history, which simply must be quoted: "You take a lickin', keep on kickin' / This fight we both can win / We'll stop sockin' when you stop rockin' / You don't give up, you just give in" — the idea, of course, is that you are supposed to deliver these words while keeping a straight face, which was probably only possible circa 1986).

The biggest disappointment is Roeser, who finds himself very much a part of this travesty — for instance, handling the lead vocals on ʽDancing In The Ruinsʼ, the Larry Gottlieb song that was supposed to become a hit for the band but did not, perhaps because the song never manages to properly let us know if it is «romantic» (Roeser sings it that way) or «apocalyptic». In any case, the great American nation much preferred to be ʽDancing In The Darkʼ at the time, so Buck Dharma's effort to make this boring piece of schlock come to life was doomed artistically and wasted commercially. The problem is, his own contributions are not much better: ʽSpy In The House Of The Nightʼ does not even reach the catchiness of ʽBurnin' For Youʼ, and I really hate the way he drawls out the word "rendez-vous", as if he were a Vegasy crooner for a second.

Arguably the only song on the entire record to merit somebody's attention is ʽMadness To The Methodʼ, a seven-minute final epic where the band suddenly remembers that their «bad boys of rock and roll image» is supposed to be an ironic front, after all. Had the album been a commercial success instead of a flop, the P.M.R.C. would probably have had a thing or two to say about such totally gross lines as "it's the time in the season for a maniac at night" or "there's a lot to be said for a blow to the head", but, of course, the song really just pokes bitter fun at the «violence men­tality» of rock music, or, at least, it definitely reads that way when it is not «drunk caveman» Eric Bloom taking lead vocals, but «quiet melancholic» Donald Roeser. Even so, the song never truly grips the senses — musically, it is a rather generic, monotonous New Wave-style rocker that sounds tired rather than inspired. Ironically, it is Mr. Zvonchek, the band's new keyboardist, who provides the best bit with a beautiful piano solo at the end — probably wanted to make a real good impression for his first time.

After all this, minor questionable trivia (such as the infamous Howard Stern reciting the spoken-word introduction to ʽWhen The War Comesʼ) are of no importance, and all that remains is to issue the predictable thumbs down and deposit the unfortunate LP in the specially designed trash bin. The worst thing about this, though, is that we cannot even say «This is no longer Blue Öyster Cult», because it is — the band's fascination with all things BÖC-ish is still very much in place, you know, darkness, vampirism, sci-fi, heaviness, «rock warriors in po-mo garb», whatever. It has simply mutated into a totally gross, grotesque, faceless form. And, ironically, it is also their first record in a while for which Sandy Pearlman has returned as a producer. Boy, did he ever produce a mess. Bad, bad rock music.

Blue Öyster Cult: The Revölution By Night

BLUE ÖYSTER CULT: THE REVÖLUTION BY NIGHT (1983)

1) Take Me Away; 2) Eyes On Fire; 3) Shooting Shark; 4) Veins; 5) Shadow Of California; 6) Feel The Thunder; 7) Let Go; 8) Dragon Lady; 9) Light Years Of Love.

Rule of thumb: if you go to the producer of Loverboy, who has only recently completed produc­tion of a multiplatinum album by Loverboy — do not be surprised if your album ends up sound­ing like Loverboy. That is, of course, provided your original plan, for some reason, was not to have your album sound like Loverboy — but for all we know, the 1983 edition of Blue Öyster Cult, replete with new member Rick Downey on (mostly electronic) drums, wanted to sound like Loverboy. See, the whole idea behind Blue Öyster Cult was that they had to override this «cult» status — had to be super-bizarre, post-modern, ironic rockers of stadium, rather than small club, caliber. And if you need stadium-size audiences, you gotta hang on to stadium-size commercial success. So off you go and find yourself one of the hottest new things in town: Bruce Fairbairn, the guy who would very soon not only be the guy behind Loverboy, but also the guy behind Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet and Aerosmith's Permanent Vacation and Pump.

The real weirdness of the situation does not begin to come out, though, until you realize that substantially, fundamentally nothing has really changed. The band is still working with Meltzer (ʽVeinsʼ), Pearlman (ʽShadow Of Californiaʼ), and even Patti Smith (ʽShooting Sharkʼ). They are still writing songs about darkness, thunder, dragon ladies, and all sorts of sordid subject matters, and are still willing to play their «grinning gods of rock» game with anybody still willing to stick around and listen. They do not seem to realize, as it is, that something vital has gone out of their sound with this transition to a new style of playing and production — they probably think, like so many of their contemporaries, that it's just a matter of stylistic progression.

And back in 1983, it might have been, but in retrospect, that «stylistic progression» turns out to have been a near-complete loss of face. Songs like Gregg Winter's ʽEyes On Fireʼ are little more than instantaneously trashable synth-rock, devoid of grit and decent melody — but when they try to preserve the grit, the results are even more pitiable: no matter how much ʽFeel The Thunderʼ begs me to obey its title, all I have to say in response is «I have no true feel for Rambo Metal», regardless of whether I hear it on Alice Cooper's Constrictor or any other record. Get rid of those ugly keyboards first, and then we'll talk — maybe.

Production, occasional bad ideas, and poor outside contributions aside, Revolution By Night (can I be spared the task of pasting in yet another of these gratuitous Umlauts?) has its share of «decent beginnings» — ʽShooting Sharkʼ and ʽShadow Of Californiaʼ are both solid epic tracks that deserved a much better fate. The former is a collaboration between Buck Dharma and Patti Smith, a dark, smoky ballad of love gone bad with a touching vocal performance, a catchy funky bassline (courtesy of guest star Randy Jackson — Joe Bouchard does not have a knack for this funky shit), and moody lead guitar and sax parts: somewhat monotonous, perhaps, but still one of those ʽReaperʼ-type songs where Roeser's melancholic-romantic personality makes a temporary break from the band's usual tongue-in-cheek attitude prison.

On the contrary, ʽShadow Of Californiaʼ is completely tongue-in-cheek, a hilariously spooky portrait of a band of Hell's Angels as a Satanic symbol of the West Coast — apparently, Pearlman still hasn't quite managed to exorcise his demons, or satisfy his fetish, since the days of ʽTrans­maniacon MCʼ. With a memorable riff, evocative guitar work that does resemble a swarm of bikes casting a shadow that "will grow to cover California", it could be that perfect devilish anti­dote to the angelic ʽCalifornia Dreamin'ʼ that all of us cynics had been waiting for — if not for the production, which predictably sucks a couple pints of blood out of this organism. Dammit, why couldn't they have written this circa 1976 or 1977?

Alas, but in addition to these problems, there are further embarrassments: ʽLet Goʼ starts out promisingly punkishly, like a deconstructed take on ʽI Can't Explainʼ, but quickly degenerates into lameass stadium football chants ("B-O-C! You can be whatever you want to be!") that rank among the tackiest things this band has ever stooped to. And the closing ballad ʽLight Years Of Loveʼ makes ʽAstronomyʼ sound like the epitome of refined profoundness and complexity in comparison — not only are the lyrics here completely pedestrian ("our love is like the shining sea?" — come on guys, we know you can do better than that), but they are delivered by Joe Bouchard in such a pathetically whiny manner, and accompanied with such a stiff guitar tone, that the song has no life whatsoever, and I have no idea who the hell it was meant to woo over — early Eighties' teenagers? bored housewives? certainly not the veteran fan guard.

We almost forgot to mention the opening track and lead single, ʽTake Me Awayʼ, but that is only because there is very little to mention: it is just another leaden, lifeless, stillborn arena rocker from Bloom and his Canadian friend Aldo Nova. There's an embryonic silhouette of a good riff somewhere at the end of the chorus, but other than that, it's pop metal mess personalized. All in all, thumbs down seems to be the only reasonable solution — a pity, since I'd almost gotten partial to ʽShooting Starʼ and ʽShadow Of Californiaʼ, but two good songs (one of them overlong at that) do not a recommendable record make. Blame it on the Eighties if you will, but really, given the band's evolution over the Seventies, we all saw this one coming, I guess. 

Blue Öyster Cult: Extraterrestrial Live

BLUE ÖYSTER CULT: EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIVE (1982)

1) Dominance And Submission; 2) Cities On Flame; 3) Dr. Music; 4) The Red And The Black; 5) Joan Crawford; 6) Burnin' For You; 7) Roadhouse Blues; 8) Black Blade; 9) Hot Rails To Hell; 10) Godzilla; 11) Veteran Of The Psychic Wars; 12) E.T.I. (Extra Terrestrial Intelligence); 13) (Don't Fear) The Reaper.

Okay, so maybe Blue Öyster Cult do need that many live albums out, if only to demonstrate how far they had evolved as a touring act over the decade — just as far, actually, as they'd evolved as a studio band, from once having been a tough, experimental, tightly focused meta-hard-rock act to now realising the wet dreams of Spinal Tap fanbase right there on the stage. On Extraterres­trial Live, it's «rock and roll burlesque» all the way.

Not that I really mind. By 1982, the band was so grotesquely over the top that only the most hateful listener, or the most naïve listener, could suspect them of being serious in their approach. The whole concert was basically one big circus show — so that founding member Albert Bouchard, who was either kicked out or left inimicably halfway through the tour, should have been glad to be deprived of the dubious honor of participating in this debacle. And yet, there is something delightfully silly about how they re-deconstruct their already deconstructed material and poke irreverent fun at themselves, their music, the audience, and the «rock mentality» even as they give out the superficial impression of embracing it.

Invocations to the great power of rock and roll start immediately, right from the hysterical "one two three four!" that opens ʽDominance And Submissionʼ. Then, taking over from the departed Bouchard on vocals, Eric Bloom gleefully salivates over the words "rock and roll" in ʽCities On Flameʼ — and then there's simply no stopping the band, particularly on ʽGodzillaʼ and an extended cover of the Doors' ʽRoadhouse Bluesʼ, which they try to turn from a mere «epic» track into a multi-mega-arch-epic powerhouse-of-a-track, adding extra repetitions of the "let it roll" section and a lengthy monolog on the details of the process of waking up and getting myself a beer. Meanwhile, ʽGodzillaʼ, complete with a spoken warning about the nuclear peril, finally de-cloaks itself as a contemporary update of ʽWild Thingʼ, but hip enough to quote ʽMilk Cow Bluesʼ in the instrumental section. In short, it's all a madhouse.

There is one serious reason to own this record, though: Buck Dharma. You could always count on that guy to save the band out of a tight spot, and on this record, he seems like the only member who can still remember what a proper straight face looks like. His playing throughout is awesome, but nowhere more so than on the lengthy solo in the middle of ʽVeteran Of The Psychic Warsʼ: with little warning, they suddenly pick up the tempo and let Mr. Roeser explode in a super-fast, flashy passage that is totally overflowing with passion and ecstasy — unquestionably one of the best ever guitar solos captured on a live album, period. Even though he did not write the original song, he must have sensed its potential — that, despite its Moorcock origins, it was really that one sci-fi tune in the band's catalog that could have a universal application, Cold War and Viet­nam associations included — and he gave it his due.

In addition, just like their preceding two live offerings, Extraterrestrial Live also serves as a marking time album, closing the door on the «third age» of Blue Öyster Cult — the band as sea­soned veteran cosmic rockers with a penchant for campy excess and arena-oriented bombast, towards which they re-orient even their older material. Little did anybody suspect to what sort of depths this band would soon plummet, even if in retrospect, it does look fairly predictable that 1981-1982 would just have to be the last years where good taste and common sense could at least occasionally prevail over market demands, or at least go hand-in-hand with them. In memory of that, let us conclude the review with a big fat thumbs up («big fat» being a reference to the overall sound of the record, not the emphatic nature of the thumbs up in question).

Blue Öyster Cult: Fire Of Unknown Origin

BLUE ÖYSTER CULT: FIRE OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN (1981)

1) Fire Of Unknown Origin; 2) Burnin' For You; 3) Veteran Of The Psychic Wars; 4) Sole Survivor; 5) Heavy Metal: The Black And Silver; 6) Vengeance; 7) After Dark; 8) Joan Crawford; 9) Don't Turn Your Back.

Seeing as how everybody and their tattooed grandmothers seem to love ʽBurnin' For Youʼ, I won't say anything particularly bad about this song — but I do want to express a little sorrow in light of the fact that, where their first big hit (ʽReaperʼ) sucked up to the Byrds and their second big hit (ʽGodzillaʼ) sucked up to... well, let's say The Move and Roy Wood's Wizzard, among other things, their third (and last) big hit sucks up to Foreigner. And it's written by the band's bestest melody-writer (Roeser) and bestest lyricist (Meltzer), no less! Yes, gentlemen, change is definitely in the air, and not necessarily for the better.

Not that ʽBurnin' For Youʼ is a particularly disappointing spokessong for the arena-rock genre: as a catchy, danceable vehicle to express longing and torment, it is totally on par with the best that Foreigner and Boston had to offer us. Nor would I want to deny Buck Dharma the right to con­tribute another «serious-sounding» rather than «tongue-in-cheek» song, after he'd proved himself so capable with ʽReaperʼ and ʽDeadlineʼ. But the pop metal riff tone that he generates (or is made to generate by Martin Birch, once again returning into the producer's seat) is so far removed from the classic hard rock sound of BÖC, and the chorus hook is so unashamedly «commercial» (in the not-so-good sense of the word), that even if we «accept» the song, it will still be clearly indicative of the numerous embarrassments to follow.

On the whole, Fire Of Unknown Origin still preserves the basic accoutrements of a typical BÖC product. The original line-up is still intact, Meltzer is on board, and so is Moorcock, contributing the lyrics from another of his fantasy scenarios; and so is Sandy Pearlman, with lyrics for ʽHeavy Metalʼ, a song that, along with several others, was intended to appear in the soundtrack to the animated movie of the same name; and so is even Patti Smith, helping out with the title track. There is sci-fi, fantasy, spoof horror, and campy, grotesque atmosphere a-plenty, starting with the album cover and ending with a song about Joan Crawford as a ghoul that has risen from the grave to keep on tormenting her unfortunate daughter (ironically, the album was released three months before the premiere of Mommy Dearest with Faye Dunaway, so who influenced who?..).

But the music, oddly enough, even though they still retain their heavy metal producer, once again veers off the «heavy» trajectory (as they tried to re-establish it with Cultösaurus). Those pop metal riffs I have mentioned are, in fact, the heaviest element of the sound — which is otherwise very much dominated by synthesizers. Thankfully, they try to use them creatively and in diverse ways, from background tapestries (title track) to doom-laden church-organ substitutes (ʽSole Survivorʼ) to playful, danceable New Wave patterns à la Cars (ʽAfter Darkʼ), and, besides, we have only just begun to knock upon Eighties' doors, so there is a good sense of balance. Addi­tionally, we must keep in mind that the band was essentially a «meta-rock» formation, meaning that they had to present their own quirky take on whatever was currently en vogue, so this shift to an early amalgamation of pop metal and synth-rock was probably inevitable. However, that does not mean that we have to enjoy it, and I would not call this album tremendously enjoyable.

In fact, out of its exaggerated, cartoonish, corny darkness (well fit for the exaggerated, cartoonish, corny darkness of Heavy Metal, for which many of these songs were written, but almost none were used), I would say that I instinctively enjoy only two songs, for different reasons. ʽVeteran Of The Psychic Warsʼ somehow, almost as if against its own will, manages to capture a bit of the war-weary, troubled-paranoid syndrome — forget about Moorcock's fantasy-based lyrics, it could just as easily be about Vietnam — with an impressive build-up towards the ominous conclusion of the chorus ("oh please don't let these shakes go on..." is almost creepy), and its sonic atmos­phere, with those booming martial drums, is vaguely reminiscent of Peter Gabriel's ʽIntruderʼ, perhaps not accidentally so. A mini-masterpiece that I would recommend, hands down, over ʽBurnin' For Youʼ as the album's best track any time of day, night, or the interim.

The second track that I get a real kick out of is... yes, ʽJoan Crawfordʼ. It is a silly joke, yes, but a hilarious one, as if the band is spoofing its own predilection for the subject of vampirism and revenants — I can see how some stuck-up admirers of ʽNosferatuʼ could be offended by being offered this parody, but as a (self-)parody, I'll be damned if it doesn't work. Not only is it one of the best-produced tracks on the album (classical Chopinesque piano instead of synths! old-school distorted guitars!), but that little ghostly whisper ("Chrissssteeena! Mother's home!...") gets me every time. Plus, for what it's worth, there might be a glimmer of wisdom to this parody — in ad­dition to sending up their own obsessions, it also sends up the exaggerated «celebrity-bashing» wave after the sensationalist publications of Crawford's daughter had turned the late Joan into a model monster. Maybe the song does not have a great melody, but it has great theater.

The remainder of the songs are tolerable and not without compositional decency or hooks, but tunes like ʽSole Survivorʼ keep getting stuck halfway between «serious» and «campy», not at­mospheric or heartfelt enough to overawe the senses and not funny or inventively arranged enough to be appreciated as first-class parody, satire, or intriguing exercise in post-modernism. ʽHeavy Metal: The Black And Silverʼ is the worst of the bunch (Spinal Tap incarnate); ʽVenge­anceʼ sounds like it should be the personal anthem of Conan the Barbarian, but would he have liked all those keyboards, really?; and, closing the album, ʽDon't Turn Your Backʼ is a repetitive, syncopated white R&B number that wants to say goodbye to us with a moody, but friendly piece of advice for the road ("don't turn your back, danger surrounds you...") but, in all honesty, sounds about as exciting as The Average White Band — which, all through the 1970s, BÖC never were. White, yes, but definitely above average.

Even so, Fire Of Unknown Origin deserves a lukewarm thumbs up. Its flaws are very much defined by its epoch, and the band's interest in pushing forward the boundaries of their sound and in exploring various alleyways around their main street is still very much intact. By all means, it could have been much better if they had a better grip on the really exciting things that were going on in the musical world around that time (for comparison, one of their chief American competi­tors in the «glam and satire» market, Alice Cooper, did get a much better grip — his Flush The Fashion was a far smarter and snappier exploration of the New Wave scene at the time). But even the way it turned out, it was anything but a simplistic sell-out, or a betrayal of the band's ide­als. They just thought it'd sound more cutting-edge with the keyboards, that's all. 

Blue Öyster Cult: Cultösaurus Erectus

BLUE ÖYSTER CULT: CULTÖSAURUS ERECTUS (1980)

1) Black Blade; 2) Monsters; 3) Divine Wind; 4) Deadline; 5) The Marshall Plan; 6) Hungry Boys; 7) Fallen Angel; 8) Lips In The Hills; 9) Unknown Tongue.

Kind of a confused record, but not without some major points of interest. As the disco backlash hit the streets, Bloom and Co. must have realised that they'd wandered a bit too far off in the back alleys — even if songs like ʽDr. Musicʼ and ʽLonely Teardropsʼ were not without their merits, hearing them in 1980 might make the fans feel as if they'd just caught the band with their pants off or something. Quickly, the boys devised Salvation Plan B — drop all the vaudeville and get realigned back to heaviness. For extra security, they teamed up with famous hard rock producer Martin Birch, fresh off work on Heaven And Hell, the new album by the new-look Black Sab­bath (with Dio) — and once Birch helped them get out their own record, they even went on tour with Sabbath together (an old video, still officially unavailable on DVD, predictably called Black And Blue, actually captured that glorious moment).

Getting back some of that heaviness was a good thing, and, in fact, what with all the advances in technology and all, Cultösaurus occasionally sounds thicker and denser than anything they ever did before (Birch certainly saturates some fat inside Joe Bouchard's bass, for one thing) — but don't let that fool you: this is not an improvement on the first three albums, and, in fact, I'd rather we did not compare them at all, because the poor skeletal beast will not survive the procedure.

With just a couple exceptions that I will save up for a little later, Blue Öyster Cult have finally entered what is commonly referred to as «Spinal Tap territory». The typical song here is a big, bombastic, superhero-style light metal rocker — sometimes equipped with its own riff, but more often not (I'm still trying to locate one in ʽBlack Bladeʼ, but to no avail: most of the time it is the bass that drives the song rather than the rhythm guitar). The first songs start us off in sci-fi / B-movie mode, but as the album progresses, the band moves on to the subject of «Rock And Roll Hero», dedicating song after song to issues of superstardom, rebellion, and fall from grace — and much of this stuff just sounds like parody (sometimes rather pedestrian parody) on rock'n'roll aesthetics. Not deconstruction of rock'n'roll aesthetics, as it used to be in the glory days, more like relatively simplistic parody.

The «epic» number that opens the album is ʽBlack Bladeʼ, another collaboration with Moorcock on one of his fantasy subjects (the «soul-sucking» sword of Elric) — but, unlike ʽSun Jesterʼ, this one has no emotional subtlety whatsoever, and even though its fat chords, Neanderthal vocals, and scree­ching guitar leads do a good job visualising images of Boris Vallejo characters, the melody is not particularly memorable, and the song is neither awesomely impressive nor awesomely funny, so I am not exactly sure what to do with it. ʽMonstersʼ is much more interes­ting, melody-wise, especially the way it manages to combine jazz with hard-rock (the mid-section reveals direct influences of King Crimson's ʽ21st Century Schizoid Manʼ), but... it doesn't sound much like «monsters». More like a passable jazz-fusion piece integrated with some generic hard rock passages. No visions springing up.

The second side is dominated by the shadow of ʽThe Marshall Planʼ, a bombastic saga of a proverbial rock'n'roll hero, peppered with lyrical references to Don Kirshner, quotations of the ʽSmoke On The Waterʼ riff, fake audience noises, and endless namecalling of a certain «Johnny» — good thing the album was released a good half-year before the Lennon shooting. As a glam-rock theat­rical piece, it's okay, I guess, but not particularly necessary after we've had ourselves that lengthy Alice Cooper streak of early 1970s albums, much more powerful on the whole. Again, musically it is the shorter songs that have more pull. ʽHungry Boysʼ is a rare case of a New Wave-influenced pop-rocker here, with electronic effects and slightly robotized vocals that contrast with fully traditional rock and roll guitar leads; and ʽLips In The Hillsʼ is a good showcase for the boys' guitar interplay — nasty swirling arpeggios overlayed with stinging solos, fully redeeming the song for Meltzer's whacko lyrics.

But all of this is merely «decent». The only moments where the album approaches an oasis of greatness are, interestingly enough, ʽDivine Windʼ and ʽDeadlineʼ — two songs credited solely to Buck Dharma, indicating that, at this particular time, he was the most reasonable of the band members. ʽDivine Windʼ is melodically unexceptional — a fairly standard blues-rocker — but, alone of 'em all, it actually sounds serious: Buck's chorus — "if he really thinks we're the devil, then let's send him to HELL!", with heavy threatening emphasis on the last word — occasionally sends a shiver down my spine. Apparently, never mind the actual title, but the song was referring to the Ayatollah and the Iran crisis, and in these politically sensitive days would probably count as warmongering and maybe cost Blue Öyster Cult their place in respectable society and align them next to Ted Nugent, but things were kinda easier in 1980, and besides, regardless of deeper causes, the Ayatollah was one rather sick son of a bitch, so I can empathize. Most ardently, though, I empathize the howling guitar breaks and the doom-laden basslines.

ʽDeadlineʼ, one of the record's lighter tracks, memorizes an incident in which one of the band's booking agents was shot by a guy from whom he wanted to wrestle out a gambling debt — and the memorial is well held, with a chorus that somehow implies that being resolute and determined is not always a good thing ("he missed the deadline / he passed the deadline, darling"), and some moody, echoey guitar leads for atmosphere. Lighter it may be, but ultimately it cuts deeper than anything else on here, and I'd certainly return to the album in the future for ʽDeadlineʼ rather than ʽBlack Bladeʼ or ʽThe Marshall Planʼ.

Unquestionably a thumbs up here, because even the «bad» songs are so obviously tongue-in-cheek that only an idiot could get offended. But I would be lying if I said the album didn't have its problems — the major one being a noticeable disappearance of good rhythm guitar. You can't live on solid Buck Dharma solos for eternity, and the riffs did provide a reliable foundation for the BÖC legend in the past. Taking them out and substituting «theatrical pomp» in their place, hoping that we do not notice, is a bad move, and one that would eventually lead to their downfall. Fortunately, here we are still some way away from it. 

Blue Öyster Cult: Mirrors

BLUE ÖYSTER CULT: MIRRORS (1979)

1) Dr. Music; 2) The Great Sun Jester; 3) In Thee; 4) Mirrors; 5) Moon Crazy; 6) The Vigil; 7) I Am The Storm; 8) You're Not The One (I Was Looking For); 9) Lonely Teardrops.

As the band's commercial fortunes started slipping somewhat with Spectres, a shift of direction and environment was thought of as a potential good move. A radical shift indeed — the band not only ditched Pearlman (temporarily) and long-time co-producer Murray Krugman (permanently), but it also betrayed its alma mater — New York City, going to California for the bulk of the re­cordings. The new choice of producer wasn't too bad: Tom Werman, the guy behind several clas­sic late-1970s Cheap Trick albums — but the choice of location certainly was, at least for 1979, the last year of the classic disco era.

Mirrors is not a disco album, but it is certainly one of their most danceable records, going very light on heavy metal riffs (no ʽGodzillaʼ for a hundred miles around) and very heavy on Cali­fornia-style folk-pop and contemporary R&B influences. Technically, it is not so much a sellout as an experimental attempt to plant the «BÖC spirit» into a different kind of soil and see how it works — the songs are still relatively «weird» in construction terms, and the lyrics still contain plenty of the mock-Gothic, ironic-romantic imagery of yore. On ʽThe Great Sun Jesterʼ, they even enter into collaboration with a new familiar face — fantasy goon Michael Moorcock, who probably needed a change from his long-term collaboration with Hawkwind. All in all, this here is not a case of «band on autopilot»: Mirrors is an honest-to-goodness attempt to reinvent them­selves and stay up-to-date while at the same time conserving the old essence.

Naturally, it is a little offensive when a song called ʽDr. Musicʼ opens the album and sounds like a mix of ʽPretty Womanʼ, ʽOb-La-Di Ob-La-Daʼ, and some dinky mid-1970s proto-disco dance number that I can't quite lay my finger on. But it is essentially a comedy number, more of a straight parody on sexy posturing than anything else — Bloom's vocals are quite indicative of that — and condemning the band for this experiment, while trying in vain to get its catchy chorus out of your head, would be as useless as condemning the Beatles for ʽMaxwell's Silver Hammerʼ. It is much easier to condemn the closing number: Lanier's ʽLonely Teardropsʼ, riding on a Clavi­net line not unlike the one in ʽSuperstitionʼ, and taking it a little more serious than necessary (the "Lord I tell you, all I want to do is get back home" bit sounds achingly poignant, but the rest of the track is so dance-centered that the vibes clash and explode).

Yet the album is diverse, enough for everybody to be able to pick at least one or two favorites. I really like ʽThe Great Sun Jesterʼ, for one thing — a fun, exciting lite-prog epic, which I could have easily imagined on a Yes album, exuberantly sung by Jon Anderson instead of Eric Bloom and with a high-in-the-sky Steve Howe solo for the climax, but even in the hands of this here band it still rolls along with a wallop of life-asserting optimism, a little surprising for a song that laments the «death of the fireclown» (a Moorcock fantasy personage), but where there's death, there's always rebirth, you know.

On the other end of the pole, there's ʽI Am The Stormʼ, the album's only seriously rocking cut: a little Boston-glossy, perhaps, but it does rock the socks off, true to its name, with magnificent lead guitar from Buck Dharma and a hyperbolic-exaggerated old-testamental anger at the betrayal of love that we haven't seen since ʽI Can See For Milesʼ. It's a pop song at heart, but they work hard to imbue it with rock fury, and I am quite won over by its theatricality. Heck, I am even won over by the theatricality of ʽMoon Crazyʼ, with its odd wobbling between old-time Kinksy music-hall and new-style whitebread 1970s pop — especially when it goes into overdriven drunken Slavic rhythmics and wild guitar pirouetting at the end.

Quite a bit of the time the record is boring, or somewhat limp: you'd have to be a major fan of the decade's conventional pop balladry, for instance, to get any thrill out of the ballad ʽIn Theeʼ (de­livered way too sincerely to be salvaged by irony), and ʽYou're Not The One (I Was Looking For)ʼ seems to be a very self-conscious effort to write something in the style of that hot new Boston sensation, The Cars, but with those boring power chords for the chorus hook, the song becomes Foreigner rather than the Cars when it comes to climaxing, and gets the death sentence for that. Even so — it is at least interesting to watch it start out so promisingly and then self-de­struct so maddeningly.

Underwhelming as the effort is next to Spectres, with the lack of a definitive highlight (ʽI Am The Stormʼ comes close, though), I still give it a thumbs up — if you want to look for something really bland in this style, check out the average Average White Band from the same time period; Mirrors has its own intrigue, diversity, and charming clumsiness when you view it in context and see them try to corrupt all those new influences with their irreverent approach. One of these days we might even forget them the temporary move to California, I guess.

Blue Öyster Cult: Some Enchanted Evening

BLUE ÖYSTER CULT: SOME ENCHANTED EVENING (1978)

1) R. U. Ready 2 Rock; 2) E.T.I. (Extra Terrestrial Intelligence); 3) Astronomy; 4) Kick Out The Jams; 5) Godzilla; 6) (Don't Fear) The Reaper; 7) We Gotta Get Out Of This Place.

At the moment, I only own the original short version of this album: in 2007, it was doubled in length with the addition of a whole bunch of extra performances, which might have doubled its value, I don't know — fact is, it was the original 36-minute long platter that managed, for some odd reason, to become the band's best-selling album ever. Maybe it was just the fact that here was a chance to get ʽReaperʼ and ʽGodzillaʼ on the same record, so people just mistook it for a best-of compilation — or maybe everybody and their grandma just wanted to own a pretty picture of The Reaper sitting atop a black horse with a rather stoned expression on his face.

Anyway, even more so than On Your Feet, and even despite the short running length, Some Enchanted Evening presents the band as a fire-breathing rock monster sent from rock hell to kick everybody's ass, even though the band's tongue remains firmly in the band's cheek, as they more often send this image up rather than across. To honor their rock'n'roll legacy, they perform a couple of covers — the MC5's ʽKick Out The Jamsʼ is significantly tightened up, its primal chaos converted into a more crowd-friendly blast of focused «social anger», and ʽWe Gotta Get Out Of This Placeʼ shows that they... well, understand how to play around with the obsessed, paranoid soul of that song, even though not one singer in this band is an Eric Burdon when it comes to «winding yourself up» during the performance.

Other than the hip classics, the track list (again, culled from several different venues — don't be fooled by the reference to Atlanta, Georgia in the ad-libbed section of ʽReady To Rockʼ, because that's just one of the songs) concentrates on their recent albums, going only as far back as Secret Treaties, with an extended version of ʽAstronomyʼ that downplays the original's prettiness (re­placing pretty pianos with ugly synths), but has many more passionate distorted guitar solos in store, all in line with the «kick-ass» attitude. Even ʽThe Reaperʼ trades «clean» jangle and subtle­ty for a rougher, coarser approach, robbing the song of some of its otherworldly magic — but probably making it easier for the fans to headbang non-stop.

The funniest thing about the record, I'd say, is the intro. "ATLANTA, GEORGIA! ARE YOU READY TO ROCK'N'ROLL?" So many millions of times we've heard about this sermon, but fact is, you don't hear the "ARE YOU READY TO ROCK?" mantra on actual live albums all too often, unless you regularly listen to really stupid bands — which makes it all the more hilarious to hear it done by one of the smartest bands (at the time). The only problem is, this album rocks nowhere near as hard as On Your Feet: for all their bravado, Blue Öyster Cult have already moved well into their second, «smoother» phase, and most of the hard rock on this album is either cumbersome and lumpy (ʽGodzillaʼ — meant to be cumbersome like its protagonist, but that don't make it biting, snappy rock'n'roll, and the «Japanese» ad-libbing actually pushes it close to comedy), or closer to the power-pop idiom (ʽE.T.I.ʼ, which in this setting sounds almost exactly like something you'd hear from Cheap Trick in their Budokan era — come to think of it, this was Cheap Trick's Budokan era, and the two bands could easily learn a few expensive tricks from each other).

Which should not be taken as a criticism — it's a fun album, except that I do not particularly feel any desperate need for its existence, other than simply to document the then-current BÖC at the top of their arena-rock popularity, and that popularity has always seemed a little weird to me. In other words, it still does not convince me of the greatness of this band in its live incarnation, more like, of its ability to successfully manipulate the audience, following in the footsteps of the decade's early glam heroes like Bowie or Bolan, and in all these cases, I tend to view the live avatar of the artist as perishable, contrary to the studio avatar. Subsequently, the record does deserve a thumbs up if we're not being too serious about it, but if we are being serious about it, just stick to their studio albums.