Blue Oyster Cult (Official Thread)

dr wu

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BTW...'Kick out The Jams' and 'We gotta Get out of This Place' are on Some Enchanted Evening live from 1978 as well as a very good compilation called Workshop of the Telescopes
 
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dr wu

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The original name was Soft White Underbelly(67-69 and also Stalk Forrest GRoup(1970).
Been meaning to order this one for over 2 years now.
1. What is Quicksand? 00:00:002. I'm on the lamb 00:03:223. Gil Blanco County 00:06:264. Donovan's Monkey 00:10:065. Ragamuffin Dumplin 00:13:536. Curse of the Hidden Mirrors 00:19:097. Arthur Comics 00:22:298. A Fact About Sneakers 00:25:449. St. Cecilia 00:33:4010. Ragamuffin Dumplin (Alternate Mix) 00:40:3111. I'm on the Lamb (Alternate Take) 00:45:5312. Curse of the Hidden Mirrors (Alternate Mix) 00:48:5113. Bonomo's Turkish Taffy (deleted from the final album) 00:52:1114. Gil Blanco County (Alternate Mix) 00:54:2915. St. Cecilia (Alternate Mix) 00:58:1016. A Fact About Sneakers (Alternate Take) 01:05:0017. What is Quicksand? (Mono Single Mix) 01:08:1318. Arthur Comics (Mono Single Mix) 01:11:37

Sandy Pearlman (rock critic) was their manager, got them gigs, and even named them and wrote some lyrics including 'Astronomy'. Richard Meltzer another rock critic and writer helped write many BOC songs over the years. They both helped to create the occult image and Meltzer claimed to come up with the umlaut over the O thing in their name. The principal lyricists in the early days were manager Sandy Pearlman and fellow rock critic Richard Meltzer. Key members of the New York punk scene Patti Smith, Helen "Wheels" Robbins and Jim Carroll - all friends of the band - contributed from the mid-1970s. Later in the decade frontman Eric Bloom, a science fiction fan, recruited English author Michael Moorcock to write for the band, and later did the same with Eric Van Lustbader and John Shirley. In order to add to their mystique the band would often use out-of-context fragments of Pearlman's unpublished sci-fi poetry cycle The Soft Doctrines of Imaginos as lyrics, rendering their meaning obscure. Additionally, they kept a folder of Pearlman's and Meltzer's word associations to insert into their songs.
The hook-and-cross logo was designed by fellow Stony Brook student Bill Gawlik for his master's thesis in January 1972, and appears on all of the band's albums. In Greek mythology, "... the hook-and-cross symbol is that of Kronos (Cronus), the king of the Titans and father of Zeus ... and is the alchemical symbol for lead (a heavy metal), one of the heaviest of metals.
Blue Öyster Cult have been influential to the realm of hard rock and heavy metal, leading them to being referred to as "the thinking man's heavy metal band" due to their often cryptic lyrics, literate songwriting, and links to famous authors. The band's influence has extended beyond the musical sphere. The lyrics of "Astronomy" have been named by author Shawn St. Jean as inspirational to the later chapters of his fantasy novel Clotho's Loom, wherein Sandy Pearlman's "Four Winds Bar" provides the setting for a portion of the action. Titles and lines from the band's songs provided structure and narrative for the third book in Robert Galbraith's (a pseudonym for J. K. Rowling), series of Cormoran Strike novels, Career of Evil.

info from wiki and other articles
 

LeftyLoungeLizard

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BÖC is one of my faves. I was very aware of them in the early 80's on the radio "(Don't Fear)The Reaper", "Burnin' For You", "Black Blade", but I never really dug deep until the 2K's.

Very unique band with a touch of mystery, spookiness and menace sprinkled throughout. Lyrics intentionally penned to relay this; Sandy Pearlman contributed heavily to the image and writing. One of the 1st truly heavy (metal) rock bands ever.

Favorite album overall is their 1st; the vibe on it is very enigmatic. Fave song, however, is "Burnin' For You".

Here's a link to the "official" BÖC FAQ; which explains a lot of things about the BÖC "mythos" that many fans may be scratching their heads about:


Excerpt:

Who is (Suzy, Celine, Debbie Denise, Sir Rastus Bear ...)?
"Suzy" is referred to in at least 4 BOC songs ("Before The Kiss, A Redcap", "Dominance and Submission", "Astronomy", and "The Marshall Plan"). Suzy originally referred to one of Sandy Pearlman's many girlfriends, but later just came to refer to "some mean bitch" (poor Sandy).
An interesting aside is that BOC's *Imaginos* was actually released on SUZY Records in Yugoslavia (the only BOC album issued in that country), as this was the record company that had exclusive rights for CBS Records in Yugoslavia.
"Celine" (as referred to in the song, "Searchin' for Celine") is Louis Ferdinand Celine, a French writer from around the turn of the century. As such, "Searchin" was originally written as searching for a "he" instead of a "she".
Celine suffered from narcolepsy, which is an affliction which causes one to fall asleep at any time without warning - this may be why the song contains the line "I know why she's sleeping, I know why she's tired." The following is from the America On-line Encyclopedia on CIS:
Celine, Louis Ferdinand {say-leen'} Louis Celine, originally named Louis Ferdinand Destouches, b. May 27, 1894, d. July 1, 1961, was a French writer and doctor whose novels Journey to the End of the Night (1932; Eng. trans., 1943) and Death on the Installment Plan (1936; Eng. trans., 1938) are innovative, chaotic, and antiheroic visions of human suffering.
Pessimism pervades Celine's fiction as his characters sense failure, anxiety, nihilism, and inertia. Celine was unable to communicate with others, and during his life sank more deeply into a hate-filled world of madness and rage. A progressive disintegration of personality is visible in the stylistic incoherence of Guignol's Band (1944; Eng. trans., 1954), Castle to Castle (1957; Eng. trans., 1968), and North (1960; Eng. trans., 1972).
His novels are verbal frescoes peopled with horrendous giants, paraplegics, and gnomes, and are filled with scenes of dismemberment and murder. Accused of collaboration, Celine fled (1944) France to live in Germany at Sigmaringen and then moved (1945) to Denmark. Condemned by default (1950) in France to one year of imprisonment and declared a national disgrace, Celine returned to France after his pardon in 1951.
"Debbie Denise" (referred to in the song of the same name) was originally one of Patti Smith's poetic flirtations with lesbianism -- the words were about a woman as told by a woman (the line "I was out rolling with my band" originally read "I was out rolling with my man").
Was there a Debbie Denise? It doesn't appear that there was. However, somewhere in the mid to late 1970's, two young, blond, attractive twins named "Debbie" and "Denise" turned up in L.A., and apparently became well acquainted with members of the band's touring personnel.
According to Bolle Gregmar, "Sir Rastus Bear" (as referred to in the song, "Redeemed") was the dog of Henry Farcas (who wrote the lyrics to the song).
 

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