Morning Final No. 13

BUCK DHARMA AND ERIC BLOOM made a trek out to Los Angelesin January to visit the National Association of Music Merchandisers(NAMM) convention. This is “the big one,” as far as musicconventions go, and the show attracts not only buyers from the

major musical equipmentsupply stores, but also aplethora of big-namemusicians — it is one of theplaces to “see and be seen.”Besides displays of all thelatest products, famous andwell-respected bands andmusicians perform at thebooths of companies whoseproducts they support.

The boys came out tocheck out all the newgoodies, but they also hadother reasons to be at theconvention — Eric was doingheroic work on behalf ofBÖC’s endorsements, whileBuck was demonstrating a

new product, the Bird of Paradise Capo by digital revolution. Buck’s job was to be at the booth a few times each day to

demonstrate the product for equipment buyers.The capo is the same one he uses every time he plays “TheReaper” on stage. The Bird of Paradise Capo looks like a funkybird, and clips quickly on to the guitar’s neck without thefumbling that the use of traditional capos involve.And, interestingly enough (what a small world) the proprietorand inventor of the Bird of Paradise Capo is none other thanJohn Wiesenthal, a long-ago member of…Soft WhiteUnderbelly!

WINGS WETTED DOWN: BÖC just finished a three-week tour ofthe West Coast, which placed them smack dab in the middle of a“Terrible Natural Disaster.” No, not the big green guy, but thefloods in Oregon and Washington. This made travel very, verydifficult, but didn’t affect the attendance or cancel any of theshows. We talked to Buck and Eric, to make sure they had made itthrough OK. Eric said “The small roads and the Interstates wereclosed because of flooding and landslides, [so we] had to go asquirrly route, with lots of extra miles to get there. Getting fromOlympia, WA to Springfield, OR was quite a problem. The crewleft two hours before us and just barely made it. We were not

so fortunate. Interstate 5 had closed going South, so there wasno way to get to Springfield by ground. After several conferencecalls, we went North and flew out of Sea-Tac airport in Seattleand landed in Eugene just in time to play. Weird being in themiddle of a National disaster...” Buck commented, “From

Portland to Ellensburg, we waited 21/2 hours to pass a mudslideon I-5 in southern Washington. Saw luxury condos with the firstfloor underwater in downtown Portland, a whole village hip deepalong I-5 and many acres of farms and yards awash along theMackenzie River.”

BÖC GEEK NEWS: Attention all PC Gamers! A recent issue of themagazine CD Rom Today comes with a demo of a newinteractive game called “Ripper.” It features the talents of manystars such as Christopher Walken, Karen Allen, BurgessMeredith, John Rhys Davies, Jimmy (J.J.) Walker, Ossie Davisand Tahnee Welch (Raquel’s daughter, from Cocoon). It alsostates that it features the music of Blue Öyster Cult. The demostarts out with an opening screen shot to “(Don’t Fear) theReaper.” The game is supposed to feature an entire soundtrackby BÖC when it comes out later this month. The scenario: It isthe year 2040, and you are on the case of the Jack the Ripper inManhattan. It supposedly has a few different outcomes withfour different killers. It’s nice to know that the boys are stillpopular in the year 2040!…And while we’re talking PC games,a fan has created a BÖC DOOM II WAD file, and it’s available todownload from the WWW or by FTP at these addresses:http://www.europa.com/~doomer ORftp://ftp.europa.com/outgoing/doomer/bocdoom2.zip (Ittakes about 10 mins to download at 28.8, 30 mins at 14.4 —The rest of your life at lower transfer rates).

For those of you on AOL, or who are thinking of joining, theBÖC chats are now held monthly, every second Tuesday of eachmonth, in “The Nightclub,” keyword: Music Chat, click onNightclub. February’s chat was dubbed “The ’Zilla of Chats”with all five band members in attendance. The fans that cameby totaled up to be the second largest AOL “Nightclub” musicchat in the history of the “Nightclub!” Eric hosts the chatsunless he’s on the road. Log on and drop on by for a visit!

KenVT’s Flaming Telepaths home page has a new address.You can visit his web page now at:http://www/chelmsford.com/home/kenvt/boc.html

The BÖC Three-Pack (“Three Classic Albums for One Great Price”)was released in November ’95 by Columbia Records (Cat. No.64806). This package contains the band’s first three albums,Blue Öyster Cult, Tyranny and Mutation, and Secret Treaties.

Kiss Alive, that was over, and I switched to guitar.And I’ve been playing guitar and bass ever since.

So you’re proficient on guitar too?

Yeah…I get by, I use it mostly for writing. Idon’t gig much on guitar, but I write a lotwith it.

Your playing technique is one of myfavorites. I call it the Mick Ronsontechnique. Your arms are stretched all theway down so you can be comfortable asyou pick.

Yeah, it’s easier on my shoulder to playlower. With the Spectre bass the way theneck lays [the higher it is] the more youhave to do this… (demonstrates a largestretch of the left arm).

You’re self-taught I gather?

I’ve studied with a couple of people.When I was 16 studied with a guy forabout a year. And I studied theory inschool. My older brother Richie is anorganist and a school teacher, and Ipicked up a lot of music theory from him,but I studied theory in high school andcollege, and arranging and that kind ofstuff. Took a couple lessons from somelocal players in the city and took a couplelessons from Jeff Andrews who plays withMike Stern now. A great, great player. Butother than that, I’m self taught.

What’s your musical history?

I’ve ghosted on a bunch of records, Iplayed on a TNT record called RealizedFantasies. That was their only record forAtlantic in ’91 or ’92. Then after the bandbroke up, Tony Harnell and I put a band together calledMorning Wood, with Al Pitrelli, who played guitar with Alice Cooper,and Chuck Bonfante (of Saraya) who was a drummer.

We did a record called Morning Wood for Polygram out in Japan. We did some covers, andsome originals.

I also played on a record called The Mojo Brothers, which was Al Pitrelli and Joe Franco (GoodRats). They did an instrumental record for Japan, and I played on nine tracks. It just came outin Japan about a month ago [ed. note: this interview was conducted Sep 3, 1995]. T. M. Stevens ison it, Joe Lynn Turner is on it, and Derrick Sheranian (Dream Theatre). Al, Chuck and I did arecord called A Place Called Rage for the same label in Japan.

DANNY “THE LAW” MIRANDA

Did you audition for the band, or did you knowsomebody?

I knew Eric, John Miceli and Greg Smith…but I didaudition.

So you came by recommendation?

Yeah. Mostly by that. I did a club gig with Ericabout two years ago in New York with John Miceli anda couple other guys. It was a jam called “Meatballsand Clams” that was starting in Greenwich Village butnever worked out, but that was my first time meetingEric.

When were you born?

March 21. [Grew up] in Long Island and New YorkCity.

When did you start playing?

I started playing saxophone at 13, but after I bought

New BÖC powerhouse bass p layer :Photos by Ché

BOC was in a pinch when Greg Smith, thesummer’s interim bass player, suddenly wasunavailable for a performance. This potentialdisaster was averted when Long Island’sDanny Miranda walked into the room... Who isthis new face? Bolle sat him down after ashow at the Ventura Theatre, and asked...

..

I take it you are an original Kiss fan, like myself, so did you listen to BÖC?

I definitely did listen to them, but Kiss was so, so far to the left of anything at that point, theheaviest thing I was listening to was Elton John or Peter Frampton. Nothing looked or soundedlike Kiss at that time, so that’s when I knew I should definitely be playing guitar and notsaxophone.

Do you still playsax?

I have a saxophone…I haven’t touched it inyears. I touch it aboutas much as I touchmy Chapman Stick. Ihave a ChapmanStick at homebecause I’m a bigTony Levin fan, but Ihaven’t touched mysaxophone. Iattempted to yearsago, but they told meto put it away, so...

I know what youmean, I’ve tried someother instruments,but...

Yeah, I played piano,keyboards, butsaxophone is soforeign to everythingelse that I’m doingright now, I’m playingall chordalinstruments…

I’m looking forwardto hearing youmelding in with thisband...I’m so gladthat you knew BlueÖyster Cult, asopposed to JonRogers, who onlyknew “(Don’t Fear)The Reaper”…

I was familiar with them, but a lot of it I’d forgotten. I saw the Black & Blue tour with themand Black Sabbath, but I was 16 and did not have a very good memory to say the least.

Danny’s stage presence and aggressive approach to the bass are just what Dr. Music ordered for the front line of attack. He is an excellent player, and hasalready painted his mark into the songs — which you will see next time the boys callfor Monster Bass — Danny Delivers!

I played on a couple records for Relativity, a guitarist named RalphValducci, put out a record called Balance. Joe Satriani-typeinstrumentals. That should be out now.

What kind of basses do you play?

My main bass is an old Spectre NS-2 that’s pre-Kramer that I gotaround ’83, and I have a ’78 Fender Jazz Bass on the road, a ’63 Jazz athome, which I don’t take out on the road, a Steinberger XL-2, and Ihave an 8-string and a Yamaha 5-string. Mostly I take the Fender andthe Spectre on the road. They seem to be the most road-worthy basses.

Any special string brand?

I prefer LaBella strings. [I use] 45-105, standard gauge. They’revery consistent, and they’re a great company to work with, too.

You have a bunch of pedals, I see.

Not much — I have a Boss octave pedal, and I have an Arionstage tuner, and a Morley A-B switch so I can tune while I’m playing,and that’s really all I use right now. I've got a lot of effects — digitaldelays, distortion units, but for this gig I try to keep it as simple aspossible. Pretty much straight cord to the amp.

What is the amp setup you have?

I have a Sans Amp Bass Preamp, going to a Demeter and fromthat to a Urie LA-4 compressor, going in to an Ampeg SVT-2, justusing the power amp section of that. I have an SVT-3 in the rack as aspare, which is solid state, into two cabinets — an old earlyseventies SVT 8/10 and SWR 8x8.

How did you prepare to get into Blue Öyster Cult, because there wasreally no time.

There were 2 days... A lot of it was walkman listening on theplane to St. Louis...(laughs). Just eating, sleeping with the music. Imean literally going to sleep with the walkman.

Do you read?

Yes, I do read music

Did you get the songs on charts?

I just wrote cheat sheets—I didn’t want to be a slave to thecharts, but mostly for arrangement purposes. I never wrote any ofthe riffs out, I wanted to get them in my head. They’re played sodifferently all the time. Buck will approach things differently all thetime so for me to write it down verbatim from a gig wouldn’t [workout]. It’s a good thing they keep primarily the same set. There was alot of page turning in the beginning, which was tough. The first gigwas in St. Louis for twenty thousand people and I’m praying that astrong wind didn’t come and blow the charts away. I had basicallytwo days to prepare.

Even though I’m familiar with a lot of the studio versions, they’vegone so far since then, so it didn’t really tell me a whole lot to getthe studio versions down.

incredibly impressive. He hardly moves a limb, and yet your ears hear all these grooves, intricatetriplets and interesting rudiments.

As the sound starts coming on, I ventured over to George Geranios to greet him, and he was intraditional form — swearing and cussing: “This piece of garbage crap isn’t working!” The in-house

sound person immediately copped an attitude towards the guesting crew and did little toaid in solving the irksome hum coming out of the PA. (George often gets

second-rate or worn-out equipment to work with).It took about 2 hours to get the sound set up, and for

George’s brother Tony Geranios, (a/k/a JackSecret), to program the various rental

instruments. He finally got thekeyboard patches to play, although

sounding somewhat differentthan usual. Chris Fenn,

Buck’s guitar tech,seemed to be the

happiest guy of theday with onlyminor things todeal with. Everytime rental gearis being used,anything out ofthe ordinarycan — and will— happen, sodouble-checking is a

necessity foreach rented piece

of gear.The band came down

at 5 p.m. to re-acquaintthemselves with their

drummer-du-jour, as well asto check out what kind of gear

they’ll be playing through. At aboutthat same time arrived the most loyal

followers and supporters of the band, and themain force of the America Online people.

With the Reverend Ché hosting them all at the side of thestage, they all enjoyed a rare moment as the band practiced a few

steps in their sound check. “See You In Black,” “Harvest Moon,” “Lips In TheHills,” and “ME-262” were being tested in front of the dozen-or-so fans who then understood whythey came here early. Eager cheers of “Encore” were heard as the band finished up, but to no avail.This would prove to be the day for no encores. (more of this later).

Doors at The Coach House were to open at 7 p.m. for seating and food reservations. The show was tobegin at 8:30 with an added opening act for the night. Originally BÖC were supposed to play 2 showswithout any support act. That was changed to one long set with an intermission and no opening act.Finally around 2 p.m. that day the final decision was made: An opening act would play from 9 to 10,and BÖC would play from 10:45 into the New Year. (Rick loves accurate pre-production).

1995 was the year with the most line-up changes ever in Blue Öyster Cult. After 10 years, JonRogers quit in May and was replaced temporarily by Greg Smith. Greg’s previous commitment toRitchie Blackmore’s Rainbow only allowed him time to play with BÖC through the summer. The bandthen auditioned a few players, but it was when Greg had to cancel at the last minute, with only twoday’s notice that they found the man to take the real place — Danny “The Law”Miranda.

Four-year veteran Chuck Bürgi remained with the rhythmsection until September7th, when he performedhis last show in Fresno,California. Chuck thenleft to tour alongsideGreg Smith withRainbow in Europe.(Greg and Chuck hadplayed togetherpreviously for theRed Dawn albumproject (see MF#12) which tookChuck awayfrom the bandin May andJune of 1992).During thatabsence, JohnMiceli took overthe throne.(Miceli was thedrummer who’dtaken Chuck’s placein Meatloaf’s band).When Chuck took leaveof BÖC this fall to tour withRainbow, he was replaced byJohn O’Reilly, who, incidentally,was the drummer on the latestRainbow record. John O’Reilly filled in untilthe end of 1995, but drumming in the New Yearwith BÖC, was once again, for a repeat performance,John Miceli. [Shortly after this gig, John O’Reilly came back, andhe’s the drummer currently touring with the band. —ed]

Arriving early at The Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, California, for sound check,Rick Downey greeted us like we were the relief of the day. He was not too happy dealing with theproblems of smaller venues and attitudes from the in-house personnel. The light guy had problemswith his console, and there were power fluctuations and computer problems, leaving Rick unable todo his light focus properly or program his scenes.

I was then introduced to John Miceli while he was setting up his rental kit for the day — An old-fashioned set with only one rack mounted tom, a floor tom, a kick drum, snare and hi hat. Half adozen cymbals completed the kit, but as he started to play and warm up, you could easily be fooledinto thinking you were hearing a huge kit with tom-toms galore...John’s confidence in playing is

Happy New Year! Ringing in 1996 with Blue Öyster CultBy Bolle

By the look of the lights, you can hardly tellthere were that many problems during theafternoon with the console, it looks as great asalways. Rick rules the lights despite whateverthe conditions are. “Joan Crawford” is up next.This is another song John’s never played beforebut he performs this just about flawlessly, withcoaching from Danny and Allen. The end pianotouch goes down great and John throws in thedrum rolls after a second’s pause and thusintroduces “Flaming Telepaths” to an all-smilespublic. The keyboard patches sound closeenough, but I could tell the difference duringthe solo.

The lone stroboscope seems adequate infront of Eric as it blinks away into the darknessand creates the outer world vision as theprophecy is called out “The Jokes On You!”

“Cities On Flame With Rock & Roll” is still abig favorite with the audience, but it has neverbeen the same without Albert on the wackydrum fills and the special vocals only he couldprovide. John Miceli follows along Chuck’s pathfor this song which is impressive. I am amazedstill at Eric’s capturing of the rock & rollaudience participation. It works extremely well.George, of course, enhances the trickery byadding great echo effects to both Eric’s voiceand Buck’s guitar break. The end boogie is fastand furious and gains an immediate ravereview from the audience. Eric looks at hiswatch and whispers to Buck: It’s close tomidnight. The last song for 1995 comes on inthe shape of “The Came The Last Days OfMay.” What a great mesmerizing way to end1995. Eric takes the mic after the song andproclaims that there’s only a minute left of theyear. as he then whole-heartedly gives outspecial thanks to The BÖC Fan Club, friendsfrom AOL, and their crew…and then proclaims“HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!”

Champagne is opened and things go nuts.Everybody is toasting in the New Year withkisses and hugs as Buck begins to play “AuldLang Syne” and leads the Coach House Choirinto song for the lone verse. Then, John andDanny take off into a punk/speed metal versionfor the second time through. I think Johnplayed a bit too fast for that great groove of thepunk era, so it took Buck a few seconds to findhimself and then show off what a greatmusician he really is. After that little romp, Ericturns on his Monty Python and goes:

John Miceli toasts the New Year

The band and crew had been up since 4:30 a.m. New York time, and on a plane for 5 hours, sothey were all in need of food and a rest before the show. Gary Folgner, owner of The Coach House(and both The Galaxy Concert Theatre in Santa Ana and The Ventura Theatre in Ventura),recommended The Villa Mexican Restaurant. I was invited to go along, and we had a veryenjoyable dinner before retiring to the hotel for a nap before the show.

After a great meal and a rest, we all ventured back to The Coach House around 10 p.m, theopening band having just finished their set. The place was decorated festively, with helium-filledballoons tied on the back of each chair and party favours for all the patrons. An estimated 350people had come to this somewhat poorly promoted show. It had been booked at the spur of themoment the first week of December when The Coach House found itself without entertainment forNew Year’s Eve. Only small local ads were printed. The Orange County version of The Los AngelesTimes printed a timely article about BÖC in their Saturday rock section of “What Goes On.”Considering all the New Year’s Eve competition, the turnout was very good. The Coach House isalways a nice place to come to, and this night the party spirit was definitely in the air.

Before the band went on stage there were lots of autographs to sign and photos to take for allthose special moments people will remember the rest of their lives. Ten minutes before the show,the band requested everyone leave the dressing room so they could have some pre-show privacy,make last minute plans for the show and give Miceli some added tips on cues etc. I went to set upmy video camera and prepare to document this very special event.

As always, The lights dim and the crowd goes nuts as “End Titles” of Blade Runner pulsatethrough the PA. Chris Fenn’s introduction began with a great sinister laugh as he asked: “Is it timeyet? I said is it time yet? Father Time welcomes all the way from New York City, the Amazing BLUEÖYSTER CULT!!!” The bright spotlight illuminates Buck for his opening riff to “Stairway,” revealingan added attraction — an in-house video projected on two screens placed on either side of thestage to give the folks at the back a chance to see the artists up close. This type of wall projection isbecoming more and more essential with each year and it’s great to see this feature in more venuesas we go along now into the end of this millennium. The band shows off real excitement from thevery first second. Allen is grinning as he’s watching Danny and John play together for the first timeever, and both Eric and Buck feel very comfortable as they rely on this very frail yet great rhythmsection of the band this night. “Dr. Music” rolls on as Eric proclaims “T’nite we’re gonna party likeit’s 1996!!”

“O.D.’d on Life Itself” holds the first ooops from John Miceli as he has never played this songbefore, but he still captures the feel of it like he’s known the tune forever. Allen and Danny supportJohn whole-heartedly and coach him through all the unknown or hesitant areas of the set list. Itworks like clockwork and you can tell all throughout the night how thrilled Eric and Buck are toplay with this guy again. There really is a party on stage this evening as “ETI,” perhaps thestrongest set-piece musically is performed. I watch George struggling with the sound balanceexecuting it flawlessly but looking like it’s the worst sound in eons. A sigh of disgust accompaniedby a happy smile makes me think he is enjoying this night a lot more than he’s letting on. Mr.Dharma ends the song with his gesticulations of outer limits up there somewhere in space.

Surprise set list change brings “Harvest Moon” as the next song, giving Buck the spotlight for thenext two songs. I noticed an added lead over the intro-riff which creates a further dimension to thisgreat song. The middle-eight part with the borrowed fast “Transmaniacon M.C.” / “Career of Evil”riffing sets up the solo part for a great guitar duel between Buck and Allen, in his best KeithRichards mode.

On the next tune, “Before The Kiss A Redcap,” Buck sings the song alone. Jon Rogers used to singthe main vocal with Buck on the harmony line, so it sounds quite a bit different than years past.

One fun aspect of the show is the pace at which the songs are being played — they feel a bitfaster than usual — but I think that comes from John Miceli’s drumming. His playing style creates afaster feel to the songs. Allen looks at him here and there, smiles and then again gets his attentionto perhaps hang slower a bit. A great rock & roll tension is built here between John, Danny andAllen trying to keep things under control each in his own way. It sounds really spunky.

“I’d Like To See You In Black” is really fast this eve. In my mind I chuckle away as I recall John’shelium voice taking the mickey out of this tune during dinner. He’s a crazy guy and what adrummer! It’s all fun with a guy like John and he’s loving every moment too.

After all these years of waiting for a boxed set ofrare and collectable Blue Öyster Cult material, we’vebeen given the next best thing — a special greatesthits compilation from SONY subsidiary LegacyRecords (who last year also released a terrific MottThe Hoople double CD collection).

I held high hopes that they would issuesomething extra terrestrial for us fans, but SONYopted for reusing the same analogue-to-digitaltransfers that were used for the original CD re-issuesin the late ’80s.

BÖC was never known for their single releases butColumbia Records did release singles from every album. This collection presents themajority of the single releases from each album with the curious exception of Imaginos.While the contents of this package contain a lot of the Blue Öyster Cult aura, there aresome serious musical milestones mysteriously absent.

Starting off on disc one, we’re greeted by BÖC’s first single, “Cities On Flame With Rock& Roll” from the first album, which sets the pace for the package. It is followed by“Transmaniacon M.C.” and the B-side of “Cities,” “Before the Kiss, A Redcap,” thatastounding tale of the days back at Conry’s bar on Long Island, where the Stalk-ForrestGroup used to play. “Stairway to the Stars” ends the selections from the first album. Butwhile still in that era, for the first time on CD, comes three tracks from the elusive BÖCBootleg EP. Recorded at Nugget’s Pizza Parlour in Rochester, New York, by local radiostation WCMF-FM on April 3rd of 1972, that EP has been called “The Maltese Falcon ofHeavy Metal Collectibles,”

Workshop features 3/4 of the EP in remastered versions — “Buck’s Boogie,” which alsoappeared on the album The Guitars That Destroyed The World in the ’70s, “Workshop of theTelescopes,” and the re-working of “I’m on The Lamb (But I Ain’t No Sheep),” now called“The Red & The Black.” Why they left off the last song of the Bootleg EP, an excellentversion of “Cities On Flame,” is a mystery.

Tyranny & Mutation is represented by only one selection, “7 Screaming Diz-Busters,”which, by the way, was the B-side to “Hot Rails To Hell,” which for some unknown reasonis missing on this set.

Cuts from Secret Treaties include the song chosen for the single, “Career Of Evil,” butinstead of the actual single version, we have the normal album version. The real singlerelease had the altered lyric. Instead of singing “I’d like to do it to your daughter on a dirtroad,” the line was sung “I’d like to do it like you oughta.” (The single version wasreleased on the On Flame With Rock & Roll compilation).

“Flaming Telepaths” comes in midway through the German Glockenspiel Harmoniumwhich sounds bad if you are familiar with the album. Either give it the full thing or none ofit it at all!

“Astronomy” follows, of course. But I’m not sure it’s as impressive here as it is on SecretTreaties. Perhaps “Astronomy” should have been culled from Imaginos in this package.

My all time favorite track “Subhuman” from On Your Feet, follows — and it sounds

BEFORE MY BIG CONVERSION WHENTHE RIDGE WAS CLOSED...After My Visit to theWorkshop of Telescopes

Workshop of the Telescopes is the new2-CD collection from Columbia/Legacy.

By Bolle

“And now…for something completelydifferent!” In terms of being completelydifferent, I think it was never the less veryappropriate to do this sentimental bit inconjunction of old friends…Allen Lanier’slament to his old flame Patti Smithcreates a great start for the New Year. “InThee” comes on and sounds really goodthis evening even though the party hatsmake them look too festive to sing such asong. After the song, Eric almost repeatshimself as he tells us, that the nextsong is a little different from that one.This time I totally agree… Eric sings“Lips In The Hills” as his first song in1996, and I personally couldn’t askfor a cooler choice.

“Lips” was always one of myfavorite tunes and having it back intheir set list is an excellent treat anytime. But I recall back in 1980 Allen played the leadguitar and Eric did the rhythms, as Buck played themain lick in the intros. I miss Allen’s lead playing.

“ME-262” brings the full party spirit back up top witha bit of strobe lights again. The almost furious pace of thesongs after midnight seems to indicate they’re ready to takeon anything. We’re almost fooled into believing the band wasgoing to support the new Double CD by playing “Workshop OfThe Telescopes,” as it was mentioned before the beginning of the BigThree — “Burnin’ For You,” “Godzilla” with its double solo spots from both Danny and John, and“(Don’t Fear) The Reaper.” Great solos from Danny and John, and ravenously cheered by the ripeand ready audience. Danny’s “monster bass” is indeed a monster. That guy can play!

As the band leaves the stage, some power problems occur as we lose complete power in the venuetwice, but only for a short second each time. We think nothing of it and the wait for the encore. Itgets pretty wild from this united audience, unanimously trying to bring the band back out for more.

Well, The Blue Öyster Cult does not disappoint its fans. They return to the stage and proceed witha little “Dominance and Submission,” and that goes down quite well — until the guitar solo rightbefore the bridge. Buck gets about two bars into it when all of a sudden there’s a complete powerfailure black-out. Massive confusion emanates from the audience, who are thinking all kinds ofthings, like the venue shut the band down for playing too long or these guys are so hot the killed thepower… Well, numerous theories were devised, but in reality, some poor schmuck crashed into anelectric pole in the vicinity of The Coach House and thus killed the power supply for the entireneighbourhood. The power was out for some 40 minutes, which left the band having to say goodbyeto its fans in the darkness with the occasional bic lighter or flashlight illuminating the club. So, thatwas the end of the show and the beginning of the New Year.

My thoughts were those of the same philosophy of Garp: How great this is...Darkness like this canonly mean a much brighter future for the rest of this year! It wasn’t long before my words started totake that effect. All of the AOL fans and some of the band gathered at the local Denny’s for an earlybreakfast. We had a great night, ending it in a hotel room with warm champagne and tales to tell. Iretired finally at 5 a.m. only to get up 3 hours later to have breakfast with Buck and John Micelibefore driving back to Los Angeles and home in West Hollywood. In all honesty I can think of nosingular New Year’s Eve that brought me more pleasure than this one, so in memory of it all, and intrue cultsmanship, I raise my can of beer on high and seal this memory forever with this statement:Happy New Year Folks! 25 years an going strong!

Auld Lang Syn

e

It really escapes me how the band’s final two singles were left off the CD. It isunderstandable why these were not included, as they are not technically Blue Öyster Cultsongs, but both “Astronomy” and “In The Presence... The Final Chapter” were issued aspromo-only CD singles. I am sure a lot of knowledgeable fans who picked up thiscollection are scratching their heads wondering where the Imaginos songs are.

The packaging itself could have been a lot better. The concept is a good one, but itsexecution lacks visual appeal. The biggest flaw in the package is the lack of a new frontcover, although the dog which was used came from the inner sleeve of Revölution By Night,and is a great illustration. Something brand new, though, with some eye-catching colorwould have been more desirable.

The Museum Of Cult supplied most of the featured collectible paraphernalia that wasused for the booklet, down to the dice and the necklace used on the disc imprints. My firstreaction to opening up the package was the discs themselves. Why are the discs yellowand blue, when everyone knows that “Red and Black – It’s their color scheme”? Thenecklace on the yellow disc is easy to tell what it is, but the dice on the blue disc are toughto figure out what they really are. The disc set’s accompanying 16-page booklet is nice butpoorly designed. It has some quick notes about each song in the track index, printed ontop of a collage of photographs of old posters and promo pictures. Some misinformation isobvious though — “Dominance” was recorded 2/80 not 12/80, and they neglected toindicate that the Bootleg EP songs were recorded live, as well as the OYFOOYK and SEEtracks, however they did mention that “Dominance” was live.

The liner notes are filled with erroneous information, rehashed press kits and excerptsfrom past tour books. Errors and all, it is still an interesting story to read. The pageindications are done in the shapes of theirguitar picks, and that’s pretty clever.

The back cover is probably the worst thingabout the cover. Ten old backstage passes,lined up poorly, and looking shabby — andthen they had to put the UPC symbol on top oftwo of the cooler looking passes. The idea ofthe passes is great but the art direction is verypoor.

This collection disappoints with its lack ofrare bits and and unreleased goodies. Theoversight of Imaginos is bothersome, as is thelack of concert favorite, “Hot Rails to Hell.” Ireally hope SONY will come through one dayby putting out a serious CD boxed set withlots of rarities from the vaults. And, ask me todo the liner notes instead of someone who doesn’t care for the band or their music.

In all, this is a package that is aimed at the novice fan, and not the hard core believers.I do think the title “Greatest Hits” is appropriate, but it is not even close to being The Bestof BÖC. However, for the new-to-BÖC, this collection offers a wide variety of the band’swork, and should be able to greatly broaden the scope of anyone who believes that BÖC isonly “Reaper,” “Burnin’” and “Godzilla.” This 2-disc set is a must to buy for youruninitiated friends, family and co-workers. Great for birthdays, weddings and holidaygiving. Be the coolest gift-giver on the block, or buy it as a gift to yourself. You deservesome BÖC today!

Workshop of the Telescopes Legacy/Columbia C2K 64163

The back cover design looks sloppy.

great. On the tail of that is “Harvester of Eyes,” my very second favorite, also from On YourFeet. That album’s contributions end with “ME-262” which contains the originalincarnation of “The 5 Guitars.”

The first CD ends with the very rare studio version of “Born To Be Wild,” often referredto by the band as the “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” version. This version came outas an obscure A-side of a single that featured the On Your Feet version very same song onthe B-side. This song was an experiment during rehearsals at S.I.R. in the spring in 1975while the band was in Los Angeles and had some days off to just fool around.

The second CD begins with three songs from the Agents of Fortune album. “(Don’t Fear)The Reaper,” “This Ain’t The Summer of Love” and “E.T.I.” All three tunes were issued assingles, which further establishes the Workshop set as more a “Greatest Hits” than a “Bestof” BÖC.

Two singles from the Spectres album appear in “Godzilla” and “Goin’ Through TheMotions” plus the most serious selection from that album, “Golden Age Of Leather.”

Some Enchanted Evening’s choices were two cover versions — the MC-5’s “Kick Out TheJams” and the Animals’ “We Gotta Get Out Of This Place.” “We Gotta” is the cut from theoriginal vinyl release, which was replaced on the CD release by a different take. Making itsCD debut is the correct version from Newcastle as opposed to the London version thatwound up in the CD re-issue of Some Enchanted. Not that it differs much, the drum break isslightly different and some utterings from Eric make the difference audible, but apart fromthis, both versions have the same feel.

“In Thee” follows as the lone cut from Mirrors, but not present is “You’re Not The One,”which was the second single released in the U.S.

“The Marshall Plan” is the only song from Cultösaurus Erectus. This song was the single,although on the 7" it was called “Here’s Johnny” and was an edited cut. Here on WOTT isthe full album version. It is strange that none of these singles were actually reproduced intheir 7" versions with all edits, but of course for listening pleasure we’re happy they usedthe album versions.

“Veteran of The Psychic Wars” and “Burnin’ For You” follow from the album thatregained mass popularity for our Cult, Fire of Unknown Origin. This was the first album toregain Top 100 status and the first single to get the band back on the serious charts.“Burnin’ For You” is still a staple AOR play list ingredient today on most U.S. rock stations.

“Dominance & Submission” was the cut they chose from ETL, their third live album andAlbert’s last stand with the band on vinyl. Although “Roadhouse Blues” became the singlethat everyone would associate with BÖC from this album, they did not include it on thisset. Another odd choice from those SONY people.

“Take Me Away” and “Shooting Shark” were the singles from Revölution By Night as wereClub Ninja’s songs “Dancin’ In The Ruins” and “Perfect Water” which end the second CD.

The infamous BÖC billboard, at the gateway to Long Island in 1977 is the coolest photo inthe 16-page booklet. What do you suppose the commuters thought as they drove by this?

Above the Dom, and coming down on bothsides of it like Jabba the Hutt, was theBalloon Farm. A big space, for bigshows, no real decor, but plenty ofroom.

And then it was gone, and in itsplace was the Electric Circus. Whenyou walked in the music was pumpinglouder than you had ever heard music.Rock and roll as a visceral experience isalways great in a cavernous space. Thelights swung and blinked and burst againstmirrored balls.

The best was the strobes. Most of youhave probably seen strobes, but youhave not ‘experienced’ strobes untilyou have seen strobes with ALL theother lights out. That’s when strobemagic happens. Most people havenever actually seen that. I seeclubs all the time where theyflash a little strobe into themix. Pretty, but when the strobes come on in complete blackness,something’s there...and then it’s not...

They make all movement seem like ballet. Everything isgraceful and beautiful under strobes. Every dancer is great.

Suddenly the lights would go out at the Electric Circus, and a strobe spotlightwould pick out a juggling unicyclist in white face appearing and disappearing instuttering bursts as he swept around the floor...or a LIVE TIGER would be ledflowing across the room...or the strobes would illuminate something high up bythe 40 foot ceiling and a trapeze acrobat would risk fate by twirling like asparkler in light that came and went.

I loved the Electric Circus because it understood the power of spectacle. How amultiplicity of stimulae can take you out of yourself...so that you can not be avoyeur. You are the show. I remember at a Group Image show we played, theywere tossing some of those giant blow-up balls from the balcony to the crowdbelow under strobelights. Nobody seemed able to catch them. I thought, “I cando this,” so I stood under the balcony and watched a guy drop a ball directly

S o f t W h i t e U n d e r b e l l y

First rumblings of the Soft White

UnderbellyWith Les Braunstein at

the front of the SoftWhite Underbelly, the

band took that giantleap to from playing

parties and bars tobeing signed andmaking records.

Compiled from a phoneinterview and some of

Les’ postings onAmerica Online,

enlighten yourself tothis documentation

from early Blue ÖysterCult research and

development.

L es B r a u n s t e i n s p ea k s ( p a r t 2 )

by Les Braunstein

THE ELECTRIC CIRCUSNew York City is everything you’ve ever heard

about it and a lot more. Dirty, dangerous,exciting, powerful, beyond control. Some citiesmay be bigger, but when you’re in New Yorkyou know there’s something different here. It’slike space aliens have taken over the place, ormaybe it’s actually the ultimate expression ofEarth Culture — Earthlings gone mad. NewYork will make extraterrestrials think we are thedangerous aliens.

Down on the Lower East Side is St. MarksPlace. One live honky tonk block packed withclubs, record shops, clothes shops, hair salonsand ACTION all over. Bleecker street is good,but maybe a little too conscious of itself. St.Marks was just cookin’.

In ’69, down the middle of the block, were acouple of clubs called the Balloon Farm and theDom. The Dom was down one level from thestreet. Dark. Nico played there. Nico was aWarhol model. White. Like marble. Incrediblybeautiful. Incandescent. Pouty. One time Ifound myself in a limo with her and a couple offriends. This guy she was crashing with, a nicegay Jewish boy, was complaining about herhousekeeping. “I opened the kitchen drawerand there was BACON FAT! A PAN FULL OFBACON FAT! IN THE DRAWER!!!” “Well,” she

pouted, “I was savingit…”

there early in the afternoon to set up, and Chuck comes in for a quick practicesession and to check out the band. He plugs in his guitar and says “JohnnieB.Good in D” and immediately launches into the tune. As I have said he playedwith a lot of lame bands but he knew from the first few bars that this week thatwould not be the case. The boys all knew his tunes backwards and forwards andhad a lot of respect for him, too, so they were doing the best job they could(which was very likely as good as any back-up Chuck had ever had).

He ran through a few more tunes, and satisfied that this one was in the bag,split.

That night was a pretty hairy one for us since we weren’t exactly the same kindof band as either of these guys, but we pulled it off nicely (another story) and Ileft the stage and then Chuck came up.

I was sitting in the front for the set, and as expected it went great. You couldsee that Chuck was very happy with the performance. About two thirds of theway through, Chuck, uncharacteristically, turns to Donald and says “Take alead.” This was very unusual because the Chuck Berry show is about Chuck

Berry and his music — and that’s usually it. Obviously he saw something specialin the band and in Donald.

Donald took a lead that was, of course, very solid, but I could tell he washolding back out of respect for Chuck and out of the private knowledge thatChuck was rightfully a legend but nowhere near as accomplished a guitarist asDonald. Chuck must have noticed that Donald was holding back also, because hekind of smirked at the audience and said to Donald “Take another lead.” At whichpoint Donald stepped out and took a MONSTER LEAD that we knew he wascapable of, totally blowing away Chuck Berry. The entire audience screamed, andinsured that Donald was never offered another lead for the rest of the week.

We were a band on the rise. Wherever we played it caused a stir. People wereinto us. I caught their attention, and the boys knocked them out. It was exciting,

down towards me. “I’ve got this,” I thought. I could see the ball about three feetabove me. Piece of cake. And then nothing was anywhere and the ball was hittingme in the face. Strobes.

The Soft White Underbelly played there — they loved us there — the peoplewho ran the club, and the people who came to it, and they were our favorite club.

THE FIRST CHUCK & BUCKWe used to play 2 or 3 times a month. Some of those were gigs that went on for

a couple days. Some of the best gigs were at the Electric Circus, the Cafe Au GoGo and Steve Paul’s Scene and any of the gigs set up by the Group Image. Wealso played a society party for Marrietta Tree who was I think the Ambassador tothe UN at the time. We played at Hunter College and at various places on LongIsland. Of course we also played at Stony Brook. We opened there for The Bandat their very first gig. And we played a club called Generation between ChuckBerry and BB King, (that’s where Jimi Hendrix, Al Cooper, Mike Bloomfield andElvin Bishop jammed after our show).

Generation was only open for one season but was booked chock full of theabsolute best rock bands ever. The first two weeks they had Janis Joplin and thenThe Youngbloods. The third week they had Chuck Berry and BB King.

Now Chuck, in order to maximize his profit potential, usually traveled aloneand required the clubs at which he played to supply his back-up band. In theorythis was semi-reasonable because every guitarist played some Chuck Berry tunesat some point and they are a simple (although admirable) form of Rock and Roll.In reality, though, he played with a lot of very crummy bands.

Not this time, however, because someone had come up with the idea ofsandwiching the Soft White Underbelly between Berry and BB and then I wouldget off the stage and Soft White Underbelly would back up Chuck.

The day of the first performance (we were supposed to play for a week) we got

set. Usually starting with a power song to establish our command of the room,and then after a bit of that dropping down to something strange and sweet, andthen into something interesting and oblique (like a Meltzer tune) and thensuddenly back into power and then the powerfully hypnotic.

But this time we knew Jac Holtzman would be there for just one set. So this setwas eleven tunes long and built into the crescendo three times, each one higherthan the last and finishing with “All Night Gas Station.” The purpose of the songwas that we all got to take it away on the last tune of the night. It had a longjamming part where the boys could each play whatever they wanted and theaudience was able to hear them culminate their night as individuals and as akick-ass band. They jammed on almost everything, but this was the one at theend of the night where everyone really took their best kick. And then they wouldturn it over to me, and I would sing a song about meeting a blonde-hairedwoman-child, who didn’t speak. And I’d tell what happened to her, every night adifferent story about the same girl in a different place with different charactersand always the same end.

This particular night I was talking about how I went outside just before our setand I was standing around the outside of the building I was thinking about what Iwas going to sing during this song, which was the song that I just sing off the topof my head. I start singing that to the people. And I said I went outthere, and there was this really nice looking girl standing out there,long straight blonde hair, wearing a kind of apron-y thing andreally pretty. I said hello to her, she smiled, but she didn’t sayanything. And then this guy comes over, and he was reallyannoying kind of guy, and he sees her there, and hesays hey how ya doin, and she just smiles at him.And he says hey how’s it goin, and she doesn’tsay anything, and it starts to piss him off, that shewon’t talk to him, and next thing you know this guy isyelling at her, standing there yelling in her face, she’sgetting really red in the face, and she reaches into herpocket and pulls out these two long silver pins. (Thishappens every time I sing this song), and she holdsthese pins right in front of him and he freaks out.She’s threatening him with these pins, and he reallystarts to scream and he looks like he’s gonnasmack her and she plunges the pins in hereyes…and the boys are suddenly going Wham!Wham! [accenting the plunges with heavy hits]then dead silence... then boom, everybody isscreaming and yelling and running all overthe room and going nuts, and JacHolzman comes flying down out ofthese bleachers that werethere and he runs upon stage, and he throws

and we knew we were headed to some sort of flashpoint. During all this, Sandywas moving as quickly as he could to get us a record deal. Sandy decided that aconcept should be sold, that a general charade should be created for the band. Iwasn’t so sure at the time that I was against it. I didn’t feel it was a problem,because we played so many different kinds of tunes.

JAC HOLZMAN SIGNS THE UNDERBELLYSandy Pearlman had been setting up demo sessions for the band at various

companies. I remember one demo session, I think it was for Columbia, where AlCooper engineered the session because he was taking a look at us. We kind ofliked Al Cooper — the early Blood Sweat and Tears was a very different groupthan what they became. (A little less Vegas.) He played that great keyboard parton “Like a Rolling Stone.” Nothing came of this particular demo session, but wegot along fine.

Pearlman always arranged for us to play a showcase for Elektra. Not just forsome under-assistant West Coast promo man, but for El Presidente himself—JacHoltzman, owner and founder of the company, and the man who discovered theDoors.

Holtzman had earned his position, money, power and fame (and he was auniquely famous exec) because he had proven he could do the one thing that haseluded music business people throughout music business history… he couldactually spot a good band. And he had the clout to get behind them and make ithappen.

We were a little like the Doors, but it was more true that we occupied the samekind of space on the East Coast that they did on the West. Both were bands thatcould rock out sometimes but who could also trip off on a tune and take you withthem, with the singer making stuff up from the depths of his skull and the bandall around taking you there too.

So Sandy sets up a gig for us in the Ballroom of the Diplomat Hotel off TimesSquare, and it’s a Group Image gig. We always get along great with their crowd. Atribe of together hippies and a couple hundred general partyers. Sounded good tous.

The Ballroom at the Diplomat was a perfect mix of Victorian grandeur andTimes Square sleaze. It was gorgeous in its way, its proportions, the detail fadingslowly to ruin. It was the kind of place you might expect Victorian zombies tohang out. One can only assume that it must have had a great day, and been agreat dance hall at one time when the city had a different kind of greatness, butnow the HIPPIES had it…for one night a week. Talk about your worm turning. Infact it was the best night of the week for the grand Ballroom, Times Square beingwhat it was.

Part of my job was to determine the sets. Normally I would plan at least 2 sets,seven or eight songs each. That would be about 35 to 45 minutes a set. Some ofour songs, like “John L Sullivan” were fast and went by quick, but some of oursongs took off and didn’t touch down till quite a while later. I would usually seethe sets as ascending energy levels building up into a crescendo once or twice a

yelling upstairs “Lunch is ready!” and Meltzer yelled downstairs “What is forlunch?” and I told him it was chicken necks, and so there it is in the song —“Chicken necks, what the heck why should I get out of bed for that?” So that waslife in the band house.

There was a certain amount of tension that was beginning to grow. And thathad to do with the dichotomy of singers and the band. For instance, sometimespeople would use me as the focus of a magazine article or something. There wasthis one woman, Gloria Stavers, who founded 16 magazine, the grande dame offan mags, and she discovered me, and would put me into her magazine. Iremember one picture of me and the drummer with the NAZZ, Tom Mooney.There was a picture of the two of us there, and it said “Tom Mooney and thelovely Leslie.” Naturally that was quite a popular item around the band house. Itdidn’t fit right with the guys. They were making a big fuss about “the singer.”

THE ALBUMWe were doing their songs and my songs, and their songs were Meltzer and

Pearlman lyrics, and my songs were either ones that were totally mine orsometimes were my lyrics and their music, like “Rational Passional.” In theirgame plan, Pearlman and Meltzer didn’t have room for this extraneous stuff thatI was writing. They were putting out a poetic whole so when it came time torecord, even though we had a great time playing these songs, and some of them,like “Rational Passional” was one of our most popular songs, Sandy didn’t wantthem on the record.

When we got into the studio, for the first time, I heard my vocals. I had neverheard them when we were practicing because I was singing through a guitaramp. But when we went in to record a song, (we recorded in a way that Iconsider to be the best way to record, that is everyone simultaneously playing atonce. Everyone isolated, and I would be in the vocal booth, doing a scratchvocal). We’d do the tune, and then we’d come out... I would get into the controlroom and for the first time I would hear it and I would think WOW! You knowwhat I could do there? I like to experiment, and I got a million ideas of things thatI wanted to do on the songs. It was the era of the Beatles putting wonderfulthings into their music, I certainly believed in it, I thought it was great.

I would say “I want to do a second vocal,” they would say “What’s the matterwith that one? It was great,” and I would say “Wait, I have some ideas, let me doanother vocal.” They would of course save the first vocal, cause we had plenty oftracks, so I would do a second vocal where for example I’d sing like the carnivalbarker, and I would say to myself, great, I see that this can work, I just have to doit one more time. They would say, “What’s the matter with you? The vocals aregood.” They were complaining that I was doing so many takes. They thought thatI was overthinking it, overworking it. There might be something to that. I listen tothe tapes and they sound experimental. I don’t know if that is because I shouldhave worked them further, or I worked them too far. So in the end what they hadto do to please me, because I wouldn’t give up on the idea, was take the tapeback to Elektra’s personal studios, which they had in their building, and withPeter Segal, I overdubbed vocals.

his arms around me and he says, “You’re in thefamily, boy, you’re in the family.”

UP AND ON THE WAY…Signing was a very

interesting moment. Sandycame to us, and said Elektrahas written up a contract.Sandy had negotiated withthem, and brought it backto us, and I said, “Well,I’m going to have to get my attorney friend to take a look atthis, and tell me what’s in it.” Sandy said “If you gotta do it, you gotta doit, but don’t screw this up.” So I bring it to Kenny Berkman, (he was a friend ofmy father). He read through the contract and then called me a few days later andsaid “In the end you should do what you want to do, but I wouldn’t sign thesecontracts. I can tell you a dozen different things right now that are very importantand are definitely not in your favor and definitely should be changed. Andfrankly, even though I am your attorney, I think the rest of the boys should hearthis too.”

So, I told the boys, and we went down there and Kenny told us. They [Elektra]were trying, of course, to take the best possible advantage of the band contract,and Kenny said that if it were him, he would suggest that all of these things bechanged. I told the boys “I think I want to do what Kenny is saying, and theylooked up and said, “Absolutely! Go back and negotiate this thing for us!” Sandysaid, “Oh my god! what are you doing? You’re going to screw this deal up!”

Kenny went in there, and when he came out, he not only had every single thingthat he had told us about, but he wound up doing business for Elektra in thefuture. They were impressed by him.

So we got this good contract, and we got $20,000, so we rented this house inGreat Neck, and bought all new equipment, which meant a nice big guitar ampfor me to sing through. We insulated the basement, and that’s where we went towork practicing. Things got pretty good and tight in there.

SOME LYRIC SECRETS REVEALED:We were into Traffic, Mr. Fantasy, and we would make believe we were Archie

Bell and the Drells. (Meltzer’s “Arthur Comics” reference — The reference is, thaton the beginning of “Tighten Up” Archie says “Hi! I’m Archie Bell and these areArchie Bell and the Drells...” The way he’s saying it made it sound like there weretwo Archie Bells. “So which one would be the real one?” was Meltzer’s questionin the song)

The reference to chicken necks in “Bonomo’s Turkish Taffy” — that comesbecause I did a lot of the cooking, and it was real cheap to buy chicken necks,which I like all slathered in barbeque sauce. When you had nothing to eat, thatwas great. For 40 cents you could buy this great mass of chicken necks and putanother 20 cents worth of barbeque sauce on it, and you were cookin! I’d be

we were going to get to it. But I believe Sandy had already had a discussion withthe band and convinced them that it was in everybody’s interest that we don’trecord it. We got down to the point where we only had time to record one moresong. And we were supposed to record “Rational Passional” and some other tune.

That was the moment of truth, where they would have to say we weren’t goingto record “Rational Passional.” I could see that that was what they were planningon doing, and they certainly could outvote me, but nobody had the guts to say it.So I said, “Let’s flip a coin to see which song we’re going to record.” They jumpedon that, because that wasn’t confrontational, and up came “Rational Passional.”So, everybody looks at each other, and they go OK, you want to do “RationalPassional”? Let’s do “Rational Passional” heh-heh-heh. That’s the way SandyPearlman was saying it.

We all started walking out into the studio. And along with me, Donald, Albert,Allen and Andy, out comes Sandy with a harmonica in his hand, and Eric Bloom,who was our equipment man, with a tambourine... They all go out to do “a job”on “Rational Passional.” What happened was, as always, we got into the sucker!We did up “Rational Passional,” we had a good time, and that was the best thingof mine that was going to be on the album.

INWHICH THE FAT LADY SERENADES…There was always an essential basic tension in the band because the band,

before they got a lead singer, was a great band — they didn’t have vocals (by theway they all turned out to be very fine vocalists). They could have done vocals,but they weren’t at the time and they knew that they deserved going somewhere.This business about lead singers was kind of rankling because why couldn’t theyjust be appreciated for what they were? They had to have some kind of leadsinger up front?

We were halfway through the album and we were having these troubles. Mostlyme — I was separating further and further from the band, from something that Ifelt was coming from Sandy’s desire to tone down my end of it, and everyoneelse’s desire to have a little more of the front light. It was getting tiring.

I started doing vocal overdubs. We moved out of the big studio and over toElektra’s small studios. I recorded every day with Peter Segal, for about a week to10 days. I feel that at the end of that, only some of it was my best work. Some ofit had lost its spontaneity. I was getting too close to it. I was stressed out aboutthe distance that was opening up between me and the guys who I loved playingwith.

No matter what was happening, the sad thought was just beginning to settle inon me that this wonderful future with the guys that we’d always dreamed aboutwasn’t going to happen, because it was getting to be a little wrong. It hadnothing to do with the music.

I felt that maybe in the end I was going to leave the band. But Iwasn’t going to leave before we recorded our album! That just

seemed wrong. I figured “Let’s get the album out, let’s take a shot andlet everybody see what we are because we all believed passionately that

once people saw what we are we’d be made at that point. So I said, not now.

We wound up recording three of my tunes. “Jay Jay,” “Home from the Hills,”and “Rational Passional.” When I wrote “Jay Jay” I had written it keeping in minda lot of the classical themes I’d played in concert band in high school, where Iplayed French Horn. When we recorded “Jay Jay” I was nicely indulged becausePeter Segal got me together with this arranger David Horowitz. He was a greatpiano player/arranger. I told him what I want is these classical themes to playalong with the music and then come out at you, meaning not blend with themusic, but suddenly be juxtaposed on the music. So he would say “Like this?”“No I want it to come out more.” “Like this?” and he was understanding just whatI was looking for, and he created this wonderful classical piece that went with itwhere 6 different classical themes rose up and out of the music and then came toa final tumultuous, but together, finish. It was phenomenal. He and Peter Segalhired 8 or 9 classical musicians — strings, trumpets. This is early on in theperiod of rock bands using classical instruments. The Beatles had just doneSergeant Pepper a little while before. They would occasionally get a rock gig, andthey had no respect for it whatsoever. So he hands [the scores] over to thesemusicians who are like “oh we’re playing on this trashy little rock and rollsession but these bastards seem to have money, so we’ll do it...” And here’s thisyoung guy who’s going to conduct. After examining the scores, the guy who’s incharge said to David on behalf of the musicians, “There’s a problem in the scoresthat you have written out. I have an E right next to his Eb...” He pointed toanother instrument. And David says, “No that’s correct.” And so once they sawhe was serious, they all lean over their music and start taking it seriously. Davidled them through it a couple times, and they were really cooking in anexhilarated way by the time they were done. They laid down those tracks, butthey’re not on the tape I’ve heard.

We were coming down to the end of our session time for laying down the basictracks, and still hadn’t recorded “Rational Passional.” We started getting into abind. Sandy didn’t want it on the album. I don’t know if that was because it wasa little too goofy, but when I look back on the words, if you weren’t in the moodof the psychedelic sixties [you might not] appreciate it. But it was a tune thateverybody really got off on, and of all the tunes I had written, it was the one

being most successful with the SWU. So if I was going tohave any song on the album, I wanted it to be that one. I

was getting three on the album, if we did “RationalPassional.” So we came down to the last day doing tracks.

Everybody was afraid to confrontme. As far as

anybodyknew

nobody called me. They knew where I was, and about three days later, after I hadbeen totally dosed by this new world, I felt I should do what seemed really rightrather that just what seemed to work.

I went back down, and continued recording. I was standing one day in the Elektraoffices, talking to someone in the art department who I considered my friend, and Iwas saying what a great experience I’d had up there, and that I’d really come tothink of the band as being something I was going to do that would be good for allof us and then I was going to move on, like some kind of stepping stone.

Maybe three minutes later Pearlman comes dashing into the room and says “Didyou tell people you were quitting the band?” and I said “Uhhhh...no...” but I toldhim what I said, but that suddenly brought it to a head, because Elektra wasalways a label that seemed to buy a band based on its lead singer. They definitelyconsidered the lead singer to be crucial. The news that the lead singer might bequitting was a real problem for them.

That night I went back to the band house, and with my knowledge, I wentupstairs while they had a band meeting downstairs.

Then they came and got me, I came downstairs, and what they said to me was “Ifyou want to leave, we won’t stop you.” It was a no-advantage-over-the-otherparting of the ways. We both at that moment came to the conclusion that maybethere was too much strife together. And so, I said I would leave. I packed up andtook off. I headed back to the Finger Lakes, and then headed across the country,spent a year doing that, and then I left the country.

I think that Jac Holzman made the decision to drop the band when the band and Isplit up, and they had to present an album without a lead singer.

AFTERMATHAfter I left the band I did some traveling — first across the country, and then

around the world. I wound up in Ceylon, (now Sri Lanka), bobbing in the water infront of my beach house, watching the sun set in the West. It had taken me twoyears to get that far and I knew that, by any logic, it was probably going to take meanother two to continue around in the direction I was going. I felt, as I bobbedthere in that water, warm as tea, that I couldn’t afford the luxury of that time,because I owed it to my music to not lose touch with the music world I had left.Except for the estrangement with the band, I had left on good terms with the NewYork music world. People had appreciated my work. But at the time I wanted to goand eat the world — I couldn’t wait. The world had just at that moment — thiswas 1969-72 — gone through a change of state. There was exciting turmoileverywhere and we were on the loose. Before that, all you could hope for waselementary school, high school, then (for a girl) maybe a little college and thenmarried. For guys, the same thing only with the Army in the middle. No choice,Bozo Boy, les joux sont faits. So I chose to take off. But the point is, that after threeyears off the stages, I wanted to go back.

When I got back I didn’t really expect to hear from the boys in the band, butDonald invited me to his wedding. I was happy and honored.

At the wedding, which was very nice, I got into a little mess when Meltzer askedme to get him a drink. His girlfriend Ronnie had told me not to get him anything to

Maybe someday, but not now.Around this time, while I was recording the vocal

overdubs, we had booked a gig up in the FingerLakes at Wells College in Aurora, NY. Beautiful

territory, overlooking the lake, and it was mystomping ground in college. I went to Hobart,

on the next lake over, but I hung out in Aurora atthe beautiful girls’ college of Wells, which hadnothing but beautiful, classy women.Somehow we had booked a gig there, and we

were going up to play, but the night before Iwas scheduled to do more vocal overdubs, sothe band went up with the van, and I droveup to Aurora after I was done recording. Itwas a seven hour trip, so I drove all throughthe night, and I was pretty spaced out. Ihadn’t been back to the Finger Lakes since Igraduated college in ’67, and this was ’69. I was a pretty out front guy in school. I had ahumor magazine, I had a jug band, I hungout… didn’t really do much of what isconsidered school work. I had a lot ofpresence up there, and right before I left I gotthe song on the Peter Paul and Mary album,

and then I disappeared. And now they heard I wasplaying with a rock and roll band. I didn’t know

what kind of reception I would get. I got there at 7 in the morning, in a total stupor, and

as my truck pulls up, a bunch of wonderfulpeople come to the truck, people I knew, reallyvery together freaks! A freak couldn’t find a better society to live in

than the Finger Lakes. It is gorgeous. Living was easy,and wonderful. Suddenly I was surrounded by people who seemed genuinelypleased to see me, and they were looking forward to the gig, and so a few hourslater, I found myself outside in the sun, (it was an outside gig), with all thesepeople I knew. And when we started to play they totally got into it. It was a totallywonderful gig, and they really liked our stuff and the band had a great time. Afterthe gig, the band packed their things in the van headed back to the city. Which Iobviously wasn’t going to do, because I hadn’t slept yet.

I was taken in hand by these lovely folks back to Geneva, and the next day I wassupposed to get up and drive to the city. But I got up the next day, and around mewere these wonderful people that were living these very truthful, good lives anddoing what they believed in. And I was not feeling like that was what I was doing. Ifelt like I was acting like a trained monkey on a stick at that point. I didn’t go backthat day. In fact I didn’t go back for a couple more days. I didn’t call anybody, and

drink, but in those days we never thought in terms of alcoholics. Meltzer was abig boy, and I had real respect for him and did not think that there was a momentwhere he should not be master of his own fate. (I realize differently now).Anyway, I got him a drink and within seconds Ronnie and Patti Smith had rushedover and were screaming in my face. I stood there looking at them and I could seethat I had made a mistake, that it was very important to them and I wasimmediately sorry. So the wedding was about all the contact I had with the BlueÖyster Cult for a few years.

But Donald and Albert were a kind of ideal for me. Remember they were my firstrock band. I didn’t have to work my way up through the garage. My first band wasone of the best bands on earth. That’s what I thought then and I definitely knowit now. And specifically playing with Donald and Albert I felt a synchronicity thatI knew as cosmic. People can claim that for a lot of things. But when you areriding the power train of one of the greatest hard rock units alive and you arehowling electronically and speaking in tongues to an audience of your fellowbeasts who are also howling and riding the train into the sky — you know this iscosmic and anyone who says it isn’t must not have been there.

I wanted to make an ideal tape so I asked Donald and Albert, who until ourparting had been my friends, to play with me. I didn’t know if they could,contract wise, much less if they would — but they did.

Donald and Albert came down to the Basement Studio on Greene Street in Soho.Very special place. (Aren’t all studios when you think about it?). It was built like alittle space yacht, designed, they said, for Philip Glass, the modern classicalcomposer. Basically it had very nice sound and equipment. The engineer, by luck,was great, a Polish guy named Vishik Wodsic or something like that.

In addition to the boys, I had asked Jon Trivers to play bass with us. I hear thatthese days he’s perhaps the most major jinglemeister in LA. He had played a lotwith me on tapes since college (where he played with Bloom). He has a lot ofenergy and humor, and both can be big pluses in a bass player. I played rhythmguitar.

I recorded and played like that a lot. Pull together the best musicians aroundand play my tunes, sometimes with one or two rehearsals, sometimes withoutany. It works if the musicians are really good, confident, and especially if theyknow the songs or if some of the songs are simple progressions. Very often all ormost of the musicians know the tune, but have never played it with each other. Istill often play this way.

That day, all the tunes were simple progressions. None of the musicians hadever played them. “Whippoorwill,” which has four chords repeating, “Ticket toNegumbo,” which had three chords (Donald added a fourth), and “Dark Angel,”which had two.

I ran down the three tunes for them. We told ourselves that we would be happyif we got one good one, but really, I was looking at these guys thinking, “how canI not like whatever they’re gonna play?”

So, Albert sat down at his drums, Donald and Jon plugged into their amps and Iwent into the vocal isolation room, and we went right for Dark Angel, which we

all felt in our guts was the big one.Recording, nowadays, is usually a process of layering. A good drum track,

human or machine, a bass part on top of that from either a bass, keyboard orcomputer, then guitars, keyboards and whatever, over and over till you like how itsounds. And the sound is usually good. Very clean. Sometimes well thought out.Minimized mistakes. Perfect time. It’s good to be able to record like that. It givesevery musician the ability to get something together even if he has no help fromhis friends.

But for me it’s passion. I’d put plenty of thought into writing the tune. (unlesswe were making it up on the spot.) But I have to feel the energy that happenswhen Jon starts pumping his bass ideas onto my song, and Albert gets it cookinglike it never was before, and Donald lays his perfect power madness into thegroove. Then, believe me, I’m singing it like I never did before.

So, we ran it down once (with the tape rolling, of course) and then did a take.One. Jon is very solid, dark. Albert’s drums are controlled and chaotic. Everyoneunderstands that a drummer keeps the beat, but with a drummer like Albertthere’s always so much more. Albert has ideas, and his ideas express themselvesin the texture of his drumming. His drums create a world, and his drums areeverywhere in that world. Inescapable. My guitar is crude. Together withDonald’s growling rhythm guitar the track crashes forward like a giant beast inan apocalyptic landscape and then, Donald takes a lead.

You all have your favorite Buck Dharma leads. This is mine. Even if you didn’tknow that this was the first take, the first time he had ever played the music, youwould be amazed at how his lead pours out of him, how it never stops for breathand then rises to a crescendo where I sing “Gangs at night eat up the lights / Andpillage shipwrecked cars.”

That’s the recording that became the 45 that I put out a few years later. Youknow, if I never did anything else, I’d have to say that I’m proud of the work I’vedone, just because of that tape.

Some years later I added violinist (performanceartist, painter) Walter Stedding. Donald’s howling-beast-on-the-moor guitar part gets echoed byWalter’s mad fiddle.

After we recorded “Dark Angel,” the rest wasgravy. We recorded “Whippoorwill,” song of theexistential party boy, and then we recorded“Ticket to Negumbo,” which is kind of a boogierocker that eventually got girl-group back-up anda great boogie piano.

In the end we had them all. All three tunes.Donald never had time to do more than that onelead, but you know, maybe he can do some moreleads for me some day. Life is like that. And so ismulti-track recording.