Blue Öyster Cult

Members: Eric Bloom, Buck Dharma, Allen Lanier, Richie Castellano, Jules Rodino

Active: 1967- present

Blue Oyster Cult is an American psychedelic/heavy metal band formed in the late 1960s and active as of 2006.

They are probably best known for two songs: their 1976 single "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" from the album Agents of Fortune (featured in the cult movie Halloween and in the TV movie The Stand based on Stephen King's novel of the same name), and their 1981 single "Burnin' for You" from the album Fire of Unknown Origin. Their song "Veteran of the Psychic Wars," with lyrics penned by Michael Moorcock, appeared in the soundtrack of the movie Heavy Metal. Two other well-known songs are "Godzilla" (1977) from Spectres, and "Astronomy" (1974) from Secret Treaties; the latter was covered by Metallica on 1998's Garage Inc..

HISTORY

The members of the band began to come together in the late 1960s, as a band called "Soft White Underbelly", in the vicinity of State University of New York at Stony Brook on Long Island, New York, at the prompting of critic Sandy Pearlman. Pearlman was very influential for the band, getting them gigs, their first record with Columbia, and using his poetry as the basis of many of their songs, including "Astronomy". For a while they played under the name of Oaxaca, a province in Mexico. The band changed its name to the Stalk-Forrest Group in 1968. One single was released on Elektra Records under this name in 1969, though over one album's worth of songs were recorded. The name again changed to the Blue Oyster Cult in 1970.

THE BLACK&WHITE YEARS

The self-titled debut album Blue Oyster Cult was released in January of 1972. Its striking monochrome cover, by artist Bill Gawlick, featured the now famous hook & cross symbol prominently which the band adopted as their logo. The album sold fairly well, and heavy touring started the growth of a country-wide fan base.

Because of the hectic touring schedule, the band had to complete most of the second record's songwriting on the road. The second record took on a much heavier and ominous tone, Tyranny and Mutation built on the first album and moved them towards fulfilling Columbia's wish to have a stateside Black Sabbath.

By 1973, the days of the communal band house were over, and each member lived in his own place, which led to less collaborative songwriting. They still retained a "band house" for rehearsals, but rather than working out songs as a group, they began to come to rehearsal with songs more or less together, and only the details to be hashed out with the group. The band aimed to make an album with more emotional impact for their third outing. When Secret Treaties hit the streets in 1974, it garnered great critical acclaim, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest heavy records of the 1970s, and is probably the most popular record with fans.

COMMERCIAL SUCCESS

Despite the punishing touring schedule & increasing proficiency in the studio Blue Oyster Cult still hadn't managed to attain commercial success. Their first live album On Your Feet or on Your Knees was not only a cheap album to produce (it was not overdubbed in any way) but also their most successful to date and paved the way for the follow up album.

Agents of Fortune contained the Buck Dharma-penned hit single "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" which reached #12 on the Billboard charts, and "Agents of Fortune" became the band's first gold record. The crowds at the concerts grew, and shortly the band found themselves headlining coliseums.

For the tour that promoted Agents of Fortune, the band decided to complement its stage show with a new cutting-edge entertainment technology: Lasers. This relatively new (for entertainment) technology offered the ability to enhance the songs with twirling, twisting shapes made from different colored light, a high-tech version of the old psychedelic oil and pigment projections done in the sixties.

Although the laser show brought BOC a lot of recognition and notoriety--many people still heavily associate "Blue Oyster Cult" with "Laser Show" the band finally decided that the expense and troubles associated with hauling the staff and equipment around the country just wasn't worth it, and they happily sold off the laser equipment and its accompanying hassles to someone else.

The success of Agents had the band on the road for extended periods of time, and the follow-up, Spectres took over a year to complete. Bolstered by the success of "(Don't Fear) The Reaper", the band worked very hard to try to come up with an even better record in Spectres. For a lot of hardcore fans, Agents was too "soft" and Spectres was even softer, with lush production and a very polished sound. Others, however, found the diversity of songwriting on Spectres a pleasant experience, as each band member contributed at least one song, and everyone except Allen Lanier contributing at least one lead vocal. Although Spectres sold very well, and generated a minor cult hit in "Godzilla," its sales and its promotion by Columbia were ultimately disappointing for the band.

At this time they chose to record another live album. Some Enchanted Evening, featuring what is to many the "definitive version" of B?C opus "Astronomy" and a new version of "Reaper" went Platinum in short order, and it also gave the band some time in which to work on material for a new studio release.

For the next album Mirrors, the band decided to get some "new blood" in the studio, and chose not to work with producers Sandy Pearlman and Murray Krugman, who had worked with the band on every previous album. This time they chose Tom Werman, whose work included Cheap Trick and Ted Nugent. Unfortunately the pairing of Werman and B?C was not optimal, and the resultant record was not only a disappointment to the band, but also to the fans, the majority of which felt the record was far too pop and commercial. Although the record does have some songs that many fans consider great, including "The Vigil" and "The Great Sun Jester," sales were bleak. It was apparent that the band was trying very very hard to write another hit, and both critics and fans took the band to task for it. Needless to say, Tom Werman would not be hired again, and the band realized they had to step back and reevaluate their next move in order to recover from the Mirrors debacle.

During this time, Sandy Pearlman had become Black Sabbath's manager, and that association led to Heaven and Hell producer Martin Birch being hired for the next B?C record. That, coupled with BOC's decision to get back to "being BOC" rather than trying to write with the commercial hit machine in mind, brought 1980's critically acclaimed Cult'saurus Erectus. Critics wrote that Birch brought out the best in the band, with clean, polished production that didn't obscure the harder edges of the band's sound. Sales were rather disappointing in the U.S., but the record was a hit in the UK, reaching #14 on the charts there.

Birch was again in the producer's seat for the next record, Fire of Unknown Origin. This album included "Burnin For You," a song Buck had written with a Richard Meltzer lyric and was intended for inclusion on his solo album, which hed been wanting to do as an outlet for the music he'd written that didn't fit as a Blue Oyster Cult song. Although the "Burnin" demo is the song that secured the deal for him to make his solo record, Pearlman convinced him to put the song on the Fire album, and it subsequently became the band's next hit single. The song reached the top 40.

During the supporting tour for this record, founding member Albert Bouchard was dismissed forcing the band to go on with lighting designer Rick Downey filling in on drums.

DECLINE AND FALL

With Buck working on his solo album, and Albert's prolific pen absent, and an album contracturally due Columbia, the band recorded yet another live record, the double-LP Extraterrestrial Live.

Albert, in the meantime, devoted himself to writing and recording Sandy Pearlman's late 1960s song cycle, "Imaginos." Gathering his long list of New York musical friends and associates, he spent the next 5-plus years working on what he hoped would be his debut solo album.

BOC was soon back in the studio to record their next record, and this time Bruce Fairbairn was brought on board as producer. In late 1983 The Revolution by Night was released. Although the band was satisfied with the work, it wasn't as successful as Fire of Unknown Origin, and the single, "Shooting Shark" only reached #83 on the charts.

After the Revolution tour, Rick Downey decided to leave the band, and in 1985 the band found themselves with dates to play but no drummer. As it happened, they called upon Albert, who rejoined the band for a two week tour of California. Things did not go well, the old differences came back, and the reunion of original members was over when the tour was.

Shortly after this, Allen Lanier quit the band as well. In the meantime, with both the drum and keyboard positions vacant, and a new album in the future, the remaining members hired Jimmy Wilcox and Tommy Zvonchek and with them finished the Club Ninja album which is one of the least favored BOC records, by both the band and fans.

After the German leg of the tour behind Club Ninja, Joe Bouchard decided to leave the band. BOC now only had two original members: Eric Bloom and Buck Dharma. Jon Rogers was hastily hired to replace the departed Joe, and this band finished out the 1986-87 tour.

Shortly afterward, the band, for all practical purposes broke up.

IMAGINOS AND CONTINUED TOURING

This split was very short-lived, however, as they received an offer they couldn't refuse to play in Greece. This was the impetus for Allen Lanier's rejoining the band.

In the meantime, Albert had gotten a long way with his "Imaginos" project, but to his dismay found that the record company was no longer willing to support its release. Pearlman negotiated with Columbia executives to have it released under the Blue Oyster Cult moniker. The decision was made to turn the tapes over to Pearlman and Blue Oyster Cult. New vocals, guitars, edits and overdubs were added at Pearlman's San Francisco studio with the assistance of producer Daniel Levitin (credited as sound designer), and in 1988 Imaginos was released. The album was only half-heartedly promoted by Columbia and consequently sold poorly, yet many fans consider this one of the finest BOC albums. Notable is a remake of the hit Astronomy. Shortly thereafter, Columbia records was sold to Sony Music and the new management terminated Columbia's almost 20-year relationship with Blue Oyster Cult.

Aside from a couple of songs that appeared on the Bad Channels soundtrack, the band went 10 years before releasing another album. During these years, BOC took to the clubs, hiring Ron Riddle for the drum position, and retaining Jon Rogers on bass. In 1991 Riddle quit the band, and over the years the drum position has been held by Chuck Burgi, John Miceli, John O'Reilly, Bobby Rondinelli, and now Jules Radino (hold the Spinal Tap jokes). In 1995 Jon Rogers quit the band, and was briefly replaced by Greg Smith. Long Island bassman Danny Miranda held the post from 1995 until October 2004, when Richie Castellano took over on bass.

In the late 1990s, BOC secured a contract with CMC records and are continuing to perform into the 21st century. Two studio albums have been released, 1998's Heaven Forbid and Curse of the Hidden Mirror from 2001, with sixteen songs co-written by cyberpunk/horror novelist John Shirley, followed by another live record and DVD, both drawn from one epic show in Chicago. In the Summer of 2005, Blue Oyster Cult performed at Retrofest in Chilliwack, British Columbia, with Rick Derringer, Edgar Winter, Jefferson Starship, and It's A Beautiful Day.

BAND NAME

The name "Blue Oyster Cult" came from a 1960s poem written by manager Sandy Pearlman. It was part of his "Imaginos" poetry, later used more extensively in their 1988 album Imaginos. 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 collection of aliens who had collected to secretly guide Earth's history.

The addition of the umlaut was suggested by either Allen Lanier or Richard Meltzer. Other bands later copied the practice of using umlauts or diacritic marks in their own band logos (see Heavy metal umlaut), such as Mot?rhead, Motley Crue, Queensryche, and the parody band Spinal Tap, which put an "umlaut" over the n (a symbol found only in the Jacaltec language of Guatemala and in some orthographies of Malagasy).

STUDIO ALBUMS

1972 - Blue oyster Cult

1973 - Tyranny and Mutation

1974 - Secret Treaties

1976 - Agents of Fortune

1977 - Spectres

1977 - Mirrors

1980 - Cultosaurus Erectus

1981 - Fire of Unknown Origin

1983 - The Revolution by Night

1986 - Club Ninja

1988 - Imaginos

1998 - Heaven Forbid 1

2001 - Curse of the Hidden Mirror

LIVE ALBUMS

1975 - On Your Feet or on Your Knees

1978 - Some Enchanted Evening

1982 - Extraterrestrial Live

2002 - A Long Day's Night

COMPILATIONS

1990 - Career of Evil: The Metal Years

1995 - Workshop of the Telescopes (cd boxset)