Blue Öyster Cult- Album by Album

I can’t recall this ever being done. I like the underdogs
Any interest? I will head it up if there is sufficient interest!

 

I vote yes, start with the pre BOC stuff?

 

Please do! I'd like to learn more about BOC.

 

Didn't @prognastycator do this already? I know he did.

Yep: Here it is: Blue Öyster Cult Album by Album Thread

 

It's been closed

 

Yeah, but you could have it re-opened much like my Black Sabbath album by album was resurrected.

I mean, Nick's covers all the albums. But, hey, if people want to do it again, go for it. I just find that a thread like that is pretty all-encompassing and revisiting the albums isn't going to add much more than what was said in his thread. Your mileage may vary of course.

 

There hasn't been a response on it in four years. I think there's enough new members to make it feasible

 

All the more reason to go forward, my friend

 

A reboot could be nice -hopefully with some more participants. Go for it, I say.

 

You in? I’m probably not. I said what needed to say the first time.

Aside:
Oh, but, hey. If you’re talking about BÖC use the damn umlaut. It’s an important part of their name. Don’t be lazy.

 

Sounds positive! After work I will start it up!

 

BÖC was my favorite band in high school (and I still love them, have seen two great shows this year) and I was not on this site four years ago, so I will gladly participate!!!

 

Blue Oyster Cult has been one of my top bands since 1977.
My forum name on Harmony Central all those years ago was Black Blade, and I've started some threads here on BOC subject matter.
I think a new album by album thread is a good idea and always interesting.

 

Okay, to start us off, here is a little background information, from Wiki, for the uninitiated. I've summed up and kept away from any album related info. We'll get into that soon enough.

Blue Öyster Cult (often abbreviated BÖC or BOC) is an American rock band formed in Stony Brook, New York in 1967, perhaps best known for the singles "(Don't Fear) The Reaper", "Burnin' for You", "Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll", and "Godzilla." Blue Öyster Cult has sold more than 24 million records worldwide, including 7 million in the United States alone. The band's music videos, especially "Burnin' for You," received heavy rotation on MTV when the music television network premiered in 1981, cementing the band's contribution to the development and success of the music video in modern popular culture.

Blue Öyster Cult's longest-lasting and most commercially successful lineup included Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser (lead guitar, vocals), Eric Bloom (lead vocals, "stun guitar", keyboards, synthesizers), Allen Lanier (keyboards, rhythm guitar, backing vocals), Joe Bouchard (bass, vocals), Albert Bouchard (drums, percussion, vocals). The band's current lineup includes Roeser and Bloom, as well as Danny Miranda (bass, backing vocals), Jules Radino (drums, percussion) and Richie Castellano (keyboard, rhythm guitar, lead and backing vocals).

Blue Öyster Cult is a hard rock band, whose music has been described as heavy metal, psychedelic rock, occult rock, biker boogie, acid rock, and progressive rock. They have also been recognized for helping pioneer genres such as stoner metal and speed metal. The band has also experimented with additional genres on specific albums. An example of this is Mirrors (1979), which is primarily a power pop record.

The band is influenced by artists such as Alice Cooper, Grateful Dead, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, MC5, The Blues Project, Jimi Hendrix, and Black Sabbath.

While Blue Öyster Cult has been noted for heavy rock, they would often add their own tongue-in-cheek style. Keeping with their image, the band would often include out-of-context fragments of Pearlman's The Soft Doctrines of Imaginos into their lyrics, giving their songs cryptic meanings. Additionally, the band would keep a folder of Meltzer's and Pearlman's word associations to insert into their music.

The name "Blue Öyster Cult" came from a 1960s poem written by manager Sandy Pearlman. It was part of his "Imaginos" poetry, later used more extensively on their album Imaginos (1988). Pearlman had also come up with the band's earlier name, "Soft White Underbelly", from a phrase used by Winston Churchill in describing Italy during World War II. In Pearlman's poetry, the "Blue Oyster Cult" was a group of aliens who had assembled to secretly guide Earth's history. "Initially, the band was not happy with the name, but settled for it, and went to work preparing to record their first release..."

In a 1976 interview published in the U.K. music magazine ZigZag, Pearlman told the story explaining the origin of the band's name was an anagram of "Cully Stout Beer".

The addition of the umlaut was suggested by Allen Lanier, but rock critic Richard Meltzer claims to have suggested it just after Pearlman came up with the name, reportedly "because of the Wagnerian aspect of Metal". Other bands later copied the practice of using umlauts or diacritic marks in their own band names, such as Motörhead, Mötley Crüe, Queensrÿche and parodied by Spın̈al Tap.

The hook-and-cross logo was designed by Bill Gawlik 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." Sandy Pearlman considered this, combined with the heavy and distorted guitar sound of the band and decided the description "heavy metal"would be aptly applied to Blue Öyster Cult's musical sound. The hook-and-cross symbol also resembled the astrological symbol for Saturn, the Roman god of agriculture, and the sickle, which is associated with both Kronos (Cronus) and Saturn (both the planet and the Roman god). The logo's "... metaphysical, alchemical and mythological connotations, combined with its similarity to some religious symbols gave it a flair of decadence and mystery ...

 

Saw 'em in Dallas a couple of weeks ago with UFO, the latter being on their final tour. Got to get my copy of Agents of Fortune autographed by Eric Bloom and Buck Dharma Roeser. Tragically didn't get to catch UFO though, had my Strangers in the Night album and a marker ready but it was not to be.

That's the first time I realized how short those guys were. Some things you just could never guess til you see 'em face to face!

 

I would love to see BOC. Growing up was never living anywhere close enough to see a show. Always been a fan though!

 

Let’s start here! From wiki:

St. Cecilia: The Elektra Recordings is a compilation album by the American rock band Stalk-Forrest Group (now known as Blue Öyster Cult). The tracks were recorded in 1969 and early 1970, but not officially released until 2001 (aside from a promo-only single of the song "What is Quicksand?" released in 1970). The album compiles all the recorded output by the group that was recorded for Elektra Records during their short tenure with the label.

St. Cecilia: The Elektra Recordings



Stalk-Forrest Group
Released 23 April 2001
Recorded Elektra Sound Recorders, New York City and Los Angeles, February–May 1970
Label Elektra, Rhino



Overview

The band (originally known as 'Soft White Underbelly') had recorded demos for Elektra Records in 1969 with original vocalist Les Braunstein. Elektra signed the group based on the demos with a $100,000 advance. When vocalist Braunstein left the band, the group re-recorded the songs in New York with new vocalist, former roadie Eric Bloom. The 10-song album was turned in to Elektra completed, mixed and mastered, ready for release. For reasons unclear, Elektra decided not to put out the recordings and ended their recording contract. Back to square one, the band then recorded new demos of several of the songs for Columbia Records in hopes of scoring a record deal. Some of these Columbia demos eventually surfaced as bonus tracks on the re-mastered version of the first Blue Öyster Cult album in 2001. After being rejected by Columbia as well, manager Sandy Pearlmanconvinced Elektra Records to give the band another shot, and the group traveled to California in February 1970 to begin reworking and re-recording the songs for a full-length album release. Meanwhile, the band had changed its name to Oaxaca, and would soon change it again to Stalk-Forrest Group. Ultimately, after being presented with the two different versions of the album (the one recorded in '69, and the one that featured the new re-worked Feb '70 arrangements), Elektra decided not to release it again, and dropped the band from the label (again). These recordings finally surfaced as a bootleg in the late 1990s. Confusingly, the bootleg was titled Curse of the Hidden Mirrors, after a song on the Elektra album, but Curse of the Hidden Mirror was eventually used as the title of a Blue Öyster Cult studio album in 2001.

The untitled "California" Elektra album was finally released officially in 2001, along with the previously unreleased original '69 sessions, as St. Cecilia: The Elektra Recordings by Rhino Entertainment in a limited, numbered edition of 5000 copies. It is now out of print. This same release was reissued in 2013 by Wounded Bird Records and is also now out of print.

Inferior "bootleg" versions of the album with a shuffled track listing are available as grey-area releases, such as St. Cecilia: The California Album on Radioactive Records (not the real Radioactive label, but a grey area label using the same name). These releases are not made from the original master tapes like the Rhino/Wounded Bird release.

The group's founder and bass player, Andrew Winters, was pushed out of the band by drummer Albert Bouchard so that his brother could take Andrew's place. This happened after Sandy Pearlman refused to allow Elektra to release the album that the band cut in California, leading to no gigs and poverty for many months during the spring and summer of 1970, after the band returned to New York. This is what led to the band being dropped by Elektra. The band renamed themselves Blue Öyster Cult, and they would finally secure a solid recording contract with Columbia Records in 1971.


Song details

• The song "I'm on the Lamb" was re-recorded for Blue Öyster Cult's first proper album Blue Öyster Cult in 1971. It was re-worked and recorded again for the Tyranny & Mutationalbum (1973), under the title "The Red and the Black".
• The very last part of the song "Gil Blanco County" would later re-emerge at the end of "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" on the popular live album Some Enchanted Evening (1978).
• The chord changes for "Arthur Comics" were recycled for the instrumental "Buck's Boogie", released on the 1975 live album On Your Feet or on Your Knees. More directly, however, the bridge from "Gil Blanco County" was used as the main development section in "Buck's Boogie," although the progression is in D rather than Db in "Buck's Boogie."
• Demo versions of three songs from this album ("What Is Quicksand?", "Donovan's Monkey" and "A Fact About Sneakers"), appear on the remastered CD of the album Blue Öyster Cult, as does a cover of the Bobby Freeman tune "Betty Lou's Got a New Pair of Shoes". Another song from these sessions, "John L. Sullivan", was released on the 2001 promo-only CD "God Save Blue Oyster Cult From Themselves". It was also included in the 2012 Blue Öyster Cult box set that compiles all the band's output during their time at Columbia. All were recorded as demos for Columbia Records in 1969.
• The tracks intended for the Stalk-Forrest Group's debut album (EKS-74046) were reissued on 15 October 2017 by Australian label Blank Recording Co. under the title The Stalk-Forrest Group.

Track listing

1. "What Is Quicksand?" (Allen Lanier, Richard Meltzer) – 3:19
2. "I'm on the Lamb" (Eric Bloom, Albert Bouchard, Sandy Pearlman) – 3:00
3. "Gil Blanco County" (Lanier, Pearlman) – 3:37
4. "Donovan's Monkey" (Bouchard, Meltzer) – 3:44
5. "Ragamuffin Dumplin'" (Bouchard, Meltzer) – 5:12
6. "Curse of the Hidden Mirrors" (Bouchard, Meltzer) – 3:17
7. "Arthur Comics" (Bouchard, Meltzer) – 3:11
8. "A Fact About Sneakers" (Bouchard, Meltzer) – 7:53
9. "St. Cecilia" (Andrew Winters, Bouchard, Pearlman) – 6:48
10. "Ragamuffin Dumplin'" (alternate mix) (Bouchard, Meltzer) – 5:19
11. "I'm on the Lamb" (alternate take) (Bloom, Bouchard, Pearlman) – 2:54
12. "Curse of the Hidden Mirrors" (alternate mix) (Bouchard, Meltzer) – 3:17
13. "Bonomo's Turkish Taffy" (deleted from final album) (Bouchard, Meltzer) – 2:14
14. "Gil Blanco County" (alternate mix) (Lanier, Pearlman) – 3:37
15. "St. Cecilia" (alternate mix) (Bouchard, Pearlman, Winters) – 6:47
16. "A Fact About Sneakers" (alternate take) (Bouchard, Meltzer) – 3:10
17. "What Is Quicksand?" (mono single mix) (Lanier, Meltzer) – 3:21
18. "Arthur Comics" (mono single mix) (Bouchard, Meltzer) – 3:10

• Tracks 1–9 are the finished, but unreleased and untitled Elektra album EKS-74046
• Tracks 10–16 taken from earlier version of the unreleased album labeled "OAXACA"
• Tracks 17 and 18 are from the Elektra promo single EKM-45693, released 20 July 1970

Personnel

• Eric Bloom a.k.a. "Jesse Python" – lead vocals, guitars
• Donald Roeser a.k.a. "Buck Dharma" – lead guitar, vocals
• Andrew Winters – bass, acoustic guitar on "St. Cecilia." Guild guitar courtesy of Jackson Browne.
• Allen Lanier a.k.a. "La Verne" – keyboards, guitar
• Albert Bouchard a.k.a. "Prince Omega" – drums, vocals

 

I have number 0914/5000 of this Rhino Handmade release.
The band is very tight and it’s a pleasure listening to them at this early stage. Lyrics are a bit nonsensical though.

 

Arthur's Comics appears on the Elektra records redux box set Forever Changing.

 

After relistening to this title I was really surprised how tight this band was playing at this early stage. Buck is in fine form!

 

I just checked mine. It's 0922. Yours is just 8 ahead of mine!

When this was first offered back in 2001 I ordered early on as I did not want to miss out.

 

Me as well. If it was BOC related I wanted to hear it.

 

Bump for the BOC.

 

This is disheartening......

 

Anyone wish to make any comments on this pre BOC release? Perhaps nsmith1002 and myself are the only ones that have heard it.