Morning Final No. 8

The News we’ve all beenawaiting is finally fact...The Culthave spent these past weeks inand out of studios, laying downand finishing tracks for a newalbum!!

The 20th anniversary albumis slated to be ready in time foran autumn release. Meanwhile,scattered touring will supply uswith tastes from these newrecordings as the band hasbeen playing almost all of thesenew songs live in concert to trythem out and get the best possi-ble live feel for the tracks.

Titles so far have been “StillBurnin’”, a Jon Rogers/ BuckDharma composition, “HarvestMoon,” a Cult reworking of theRed & The Black tune from theirdemo and live shows, now witha full line up and a promised hotguitar duel between Buck &Allen, whew...this is hot stuff!!!“Found You,” “Cold Grey LightOf Dawn” and “Power Under-neath Despair” are three tuneswith Lyrics by Sci-fi writer JohnShirley and music byBloom/Dharma.

Meanwhile, more writing isgoing on, so we’ll have to waitand see what it’ll all be when theCD arrives... ‘til then, we’ll all havesomething to look forward to.

They are also contributingsongs for a film project that notonly will have two new songsfrom the band, “Demon’s Kiss”and “Out of the Darkness,” butalso the film score is being writ-ten by Buck Dharma and per-

formed by the band. Full MoonProductions’ “Bad Channels” isbeing directed by Ted Nicholausand stars MTV hostess MarthaQuinn. This direct-to-video Sci-Fiadventure should see the storesaround April or May.

That pesky video from the1976 show at the Capitol Centerin Landover, Maryland has beenreleased only in The UK and inJapan, where it was even re-leased as a Laser Disc, whichcosts around $50.00 to $75.00 inthe import shops. The CD, whichyou may be able to find at yourlocal import shop, is a sad caseof trying to cash in on the fans.The sound quality is kindly putawful, and only average Bootlegquality sound. Since it camestraight off the 2 track Videomaster and was never properlymixed in the first place, the resultis like having an official Bootleg.As for when the Video will bereleased in the US is still up in theair, leaving us still longing to seethis piece of Cult history.

Joe Bouchard and his CultBros. are also hard at work. Withlots of concerts booked for thefirst half of the year, the guys areout there bustin their butts to gettheir show off the ground.

Early in the year, Joe fin-ished work on their third demowith six tunes, four brand newsongs and two reworked songsoriginally intended for the B.Ö.C.albums Mirrors and The Revölu-

tion By Night. The first song,“Gun,” comes from the autumnof 1978, and has been polishedand given a slightly updated feelto it, but remains fairly true toJoe’s original demo. “So Super-natural” was one of my all timefavorite forgotten songs off theRevölution sessions, with a haunt-ing vocoder vocal and strongAlice Cooper feel to it. This ver-sion is more straight ahead, andhas lost some of the mysteriousand interstellar magic the origi-nal demo held, but Oh, what agreat tune and Joe’s delivery issimply flawless here. I hope boththese songs will be featured inthe band’s live shows as they willhave people up on the floor inno time.

Four brand new tunesinclude “Road To Paradise,” amasterful Vampire tune of theperfect JB kind. “Midnight Call”sends all the right shivers up myspine, and Billy Hilfiger’s guitar iswithout a doubt stronglycoloured by having played allthose Buck licks in the Cult Bros.live sets. His own persona hasadapted to that special Cultfeel. There’s some great stuffthere. I can’t wait to hear theCD quality mixes of these tunes!

Joe’s song writing makesme want to move up to Con-necticut and play the drums forhim...They’re all simply perfectfor my aggressive approach.And with that selfish plug I con-tinue to on “Struggle ToWin”…An Instrumental!!?! It

holds the same atmosphere asAstronomy (Recall that Joe co-wrote the music for that tune) ithas a slow jazzy feel, and per-fect in my taste of music...doesthis mean that nobody else willlike it?? This tune has that latenite feel to it, that just sits vam-piresque with me. I wanna howlafter hearing it.

The last tune on the Demo iscalled “Edge Of The Night” andis another fine example of Joe’smusical strength as composer ofclever yet commercial poptunes. This piece is a greatdanceable ending to this almostflawless Demo. If I owned arecord label I’d sign Joe on thespot, and force him to writeanother dozen tunes like these,get Martin Birch to produce itand put out at least one full hourlength CD a year. Without adoubt the best new music I haveheard in a long time, even beingbiased and one of Joe’s biggestfans around, this stuff is simplyput perfect. Keep ‘em comin’,We’re waiting for that realrelease! NOW!

And for you computer nerdsout there, check this out...Thecomputer information servicecalled “Prodigy” has a specialbulletin board section on musicalbands and there is a full ongoingCult section with approximately25 different subscribers commu-nicating over the networks. Tofind out more, contact theProdigy people.

NEWS…NEWS…NEWSNEWS…NEWS…NEWS

could have spunked it up a bit andkept it for the remainder of the1981 tour, but they cancelled thetune after just two times live. After“Cities On Flame,” “JoanCrawford” made its first appear-ance and apparently went downa storm, most likely because of itsdownright bizzare lyrics by DavidRoter, who also wrote the lyrics for“Unknown Tongue.” “Flaming Tel-epaths,” one of the fan’s favoriteCult pieces of all times, had the frenzied audience goingape.

“Veteran Of The Psychic Wars” is next, and is played justas on the album without the change in tempo that was lateradopted on the actual Tour that followed these club shows.“ME 262” & “Hot Rails To Hell” were followed by “Godzilla.”Missing are the Bass solo and “The Five Guitars,” becausenext up the Motorcycle tape intro leads into the “Born To BeWild” Finale tune. Encores were “Heavy Metal: The Black &Silver,” and as with “Veteran” this too is played just like thealbum version, without the extended middle-8 break they in-cluded on the British Tour.

“Reaper” and “Roadhouse” end the show as BenManilla comes up on stage and signs off the band.

The second show was held on June 16th at The Bond’sInternational Casino and the recording trucks were waitingoutside to capture the show for “A Night On The Road.” Thisshow was aired almost two months later on August 8th. Theshow is very similar to the previous day’s set, and runs about95 minutes.

As it happened, the mixing budget ran out, so SteveSchenck & George Geranios opted for splicing in parts of thepreviously mixed Old Waldorf San Francisco show from theyear before.

This tape starts off with DJ Pat St. John welcoming us to ANight On The Road With B.Ö.C., and introducing the bandmembers. This leads straight into Sam Judd’s Intro: “Citizens

Kingdoms of the Radio

…a double dose of BÖC in 1981 — by Bolle

To help kick off the 1981 World tour, BÖC were booked todo a couple of Soft White Underbelly shows in the New Yorkarea in the middle of June, and two of these shows wererecorded for Radio broadcasts. While the first show was broad-cast as it happened on the WLIR-FM, the second show was re-corded by the ABC Networks affiliated Syndication show “ANight On The Road” and broadcast two months later.

The first show, on June 15th at the Spit Club in Levittown,N.Y., had a fiery spirit of freshness and high intensity from theband as they ripped into “Dr. Music,” the only keeper off theMirrors album.

Like the Cultösaurus tour the year before, all the songsfrom the previous album were replaced by new songs andthe familiar “Old Tunes” just remained where they were, as a

skeletal structure for the set list.“E.T.I.” is the second song of

the set, followed by the brandnew and possibly for the very firsttime (even before turning“hitsville”), “Burnin’ For You,”sounding very fresh but somewhatuntogether.

The title track itself, “Fire Of Un-known Origin” was actually playedlive here, and even though it didn’tquite cut the mustard, I think they

of New York! R.U.Ready 2 Get Down To Some Rock & Roll?!Here They Come—The Amazing Blue Öyster Cult!”

They sound a bit slow this evening, as “Dr. Music” startsoff the set, so a dull start opens this show, but a burning“E.T.I.” sets the pace for the rest of the night. “Burnin’ For You”goes down OK on this evening but “Fire Of Unknown Origin”almost kills, in spite of Buck busting a string during the highpoint of his guitar solo. It still comes out very fiery and con-vincing and a strong live piece, the only flaw being that theynever seemed to come up with a great ending for the song. Istill think this would have made a neat piece for the continu-ation of their live set, along with “Vengeance” and “Don’tTurn Your Back” (My choice for the single of that album).

Back to the show, and “Cities On Flame” featuring Ericwhipping the cymbals and bouncing his sticks on the floor.The third new song of this set, “Joan Crawford” held the audi-ence mesmerized for a while, not really knowing what tothink of a title like that. The song ends almost the same wayas on the album, without the Chopin like ending from Allen.

“Flaming Telepaths” had some difficulties making it ontothis recording, as Steve Schenck had to overdub keyboards

later in the studio to make it sound right. So this is a rarity,with Steve playing the solo, and he does it very well too. (afootnote to this is that they had no keyboard available at thestudio, so Steve had to walk on down the hall and borrowone from none other than Paul Schaeffer, of David Lettermanfame!)

“Veteran Of The Psychic Wars” gets good points on awell balanced performance, and “Hot Rails To Hell” runs hotwith a steamy vocal from Joe, and gets the usual roar fromthe audience.

“ME 262” ends the actual running order of the set. Theysalvaged one more new song from the Bonds performance,“Heavy Metal,” and positioned it after “ME 262” (it was actu-ally played in the encore at Bond’s).

All the other songs from this “Night on the Road” broad-cast were taken from the Old Waldorf but were edited ontothe Bond show using the between-song stage patter fromBond’s to keep a continuum. So, actually from the Old Wal-dorf, but included here in the guise of Bond’s are “(Don’tFear) The Reaper” “Godzilla,” “Born To Be Wild,” “The FiveGuitars,” and “Roadhouse Blues.”

BÖCD bootleg released in Italy

having. It complements the other live al-bums very nicely. Although I have yet toacquire one, I assume they took thesound straight off the LPs. The soundshould be almost perfect, only lacking indynamics and Hi-Fidelity. (Unlike theOfficial live ‘76 CD, which has innumerableaudio flaws). The CD is selling for $35 to$70, depending on where you find it.

The Italian CD titled The Thing is thefirst “real” (full-length) CD Bootleg ofBlue Öyster Cult available. The showfeatured is the June16th 1981 per-formance at Bond’s InternationalCasino in New York. (see review above).This show, although already availableon the ABC Radio “A Night OnThe Road” vinyl discs, is well worth

Being a Virgo makes for practical, math-ematical and symmetrical reasons a verylogical choice for becoming a Mr. Spockof Music. For Rick Downey, a native ofElizabeth, New Jersey, being born onAugust 29th makes him a most eligiblecandidate for such a task. Rick grew up inLinden, N.J, the same town that broughtthe originators of “Bubblegum Music,” the1910 Fruitgum Company to the world.

“I used to pass the organ player’s houseon the way to school and see his goldalbum awards on the wall through his win-dows, thinking how cool it would be to bein the biz.” Rick remembered.

Rick started playing drums early on atthe age of 10, and by age 12 he begantaking lessons from the local music storeand then from a local pro, Russ Moy, who

would teach him both rudiments as well asthe drum kit. By the time he got to Jr. High hejoined his first band, “The Clergymen.” These

guys stuck together for 3 years and played almost every Thursday throughSunday, making a lot of money for kids their age.

When he first heard of the band Blue Öyster Cult (on the radio with “CitiesOn Flame”), it was 1972, and Rick was playing country/rock in a band calledTaylor Mills Road. BÖC sort of crossed paths with Rick again when their Ex-Tour Manager, Elliott Crowe began managing Taylor Mills Road. Crowe man-aged to do almost all the right things, setting them up with a couple of inter-ested parties, and putting the band in the studio to record a demo which,coincidentally, Buck Dharma heard. When a showcase gig failed to get theband signed, they broke up.

In 1973, Crowe went back to work for B.Ö.C., and now they were now inneed of real crew members, not just friends willing to carry the gear for freebeers. Crowe thought of Rick, and called him up to ask him if he would liketo “roadie” for The Cult. Three times Rick declined, thinking “I’m not gonnaset up someone else’s drums.” Eventually, after having seen the band playlive at The Capitol Theatre in Passaic, N.J, Rick was finally persuaded tobecome a Roadie and Drum Technician for Albert Bouchard. And, a coupleof tours later, Rick found himself in the position of Tour Manager.

Rick’s position of Lighting Designer came quite abruptly. One night inIowa, Rick was suddenly told he was going to have to run the lights for thenext show, because the Lighting Designer had been fired.

Rick cannot forget his first night as Lighting Director, under the pressure ofhaving to doing something he’d never done before. And he had a tenseintroduction to his new position. As the show began, he couldn’t get thelights to operate at all and the stage was completely black, and curiousspotlight operators were frantically asking Rick “What do you want us to do?”

Rick could only press and turn every possible button and knob until hefound the right switch to get the show up and running. Fortunately, after thatfirst slimly avoided disaster, the rest of the show commenced perfectly. By1977-78 Rick was the Crew Chief and Lighting Designer.

In the late summer of 1981 B.Ö.C. went off to Europe to play England’sDonnington Festival and “The Munsters Of Rock” show, with a few warm updates beforehand. After their first couple of shows in Germany for “The 4thGolden Summer Night” tour package, they went to England and (for the firsttime outside of America as The Soft White Underbelly) played a couple ofsmaller clubs to prepare for the big show.

At the West Runton Pavilion in Norfolk, on August 18th, the band waitedabout an hour and a half for Albert to show up, and because the show wasdelayed so long, Rick had gone out to the car to catch some Zs. Suddenly,Steve Schenck woke him up and to his surprise informed him “Rick, You’replaying this show tonight” “Yeah, Right!” said Rick, and tried to go back to

Rick Downey stickin’ with Rock ’n’ Roll

BÖC circa 1982—Eric, Allen, Donald, Rick and Joe.

Rick Downey today – Getting Anthrax'show on the road.

by Rick, Bolle and melne

sleep. “No, Seriously!, You are playing this show tonight!” was the reply. So,without any chance to get into the right frame of mind, and rather per-plexed, Rick found himself playing Live in England with Soft WhiteUnderbelly!

Albert finally arrived and took over, after Rick played on the first five songs.The next day, things were back to normal, and the band played The Venuein London. Then, on The 20th, they played Queensway Hall in Dunstable,and Albert was late for a second time, and the band was once againforced to start the show with Rick playing the drums.

When Albert got there five songs into the set, he excused himself by dedi-cating “Flaming Telepaths” “To Ford Owners Everywhere!” After the show,Albert went outside and in a fit of anger kicked the shit out of his rental car.Later that evening there was a big argument, the outcome of which was Al-

bert being fired and Rick being asked, or almost told that he was going toplay Donnington the next day. That show was Rick’s first full performancewith the band. Although a lot of criticism surrounded that show, a live tapeand a Bootleg record called “Still Kicking” gives no evidence of any actualmusical problems. On the contrary, the band sounds fine, but they did havemany technical problems with the sound, and headliners AC/DC gave thema very hard time, resulting in bad sounding stage monitors, and making itvery hard for the band to hear themselves play. The show lasted only a shorthour as a result of their problems with the sound.

Although Rick bailed the band out of serious show cancellations and con-tractual problems, he was not actually asked to join the band until they hadexhausted other drummer possibilities. So, in January of 1982, SandyPearlman offered Rick the job of being a full band member, which Rick ofcourse accepted happily.

Then followed a year of touring, and Rick’s first ever appearance on arecord, in the shape of this beautifully packaged double live album, ETL.Rick was not very happy with some of the aspects of the record, especiallybeing victimized by a horrible sounding edit in the first tune on the album,“Cities On Flame.” During his drum break, they cut out half the fill and madeit sound like a mistake.

In 1982 B.Ö.C, froze into that etched-in-stone set list that didn’t change fora full year. But in 1983, things changed for a moment with the band’s mostadventurous live shows ever. For a change, the aim was to play all theirshows for us true blue fans.

Midway through that year, Rick recorded what was to be his only studioalbum with The Cult, and a fine job he did too. “The Revölution By Night”was without a doubt the finest record put out in 1983.

But, 1984’s world tour found the band playing almost the same set list as in1982 with only three new tunes from the album they went out to promote, atrend they have adhered to ever since.

Rick’s last outings with the band came around the Christmas time of 1984when the band went out for a smaller club tour as The Soft White Underbelly.The last known (to me) show Rick ever did was on December 20th of 1984 at“Key Largo,” a club in West Islip on Long Island in New York.

January 8th of 1985, Rick had a phone call from the band, asking himhow he would feel if he were not playing on the next record, but he’d still beplaying the live shows. After a short but silent pause, Rick said, “I’ll Quit.”They asked him to think it over, and held a meeting about a week later, onJanuary 15th. His decision stood firm, though, and he left Blue Öyster Cult.

After having spent the past 13 years with this band, he was now on hisown. After throwing out a couple of hooks into the sea, Rick got a couple ofnibbles, including Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad fame, but nothingpanned out, so Rick returned to the production side of music shows.

Rick first became Tour Manager & Lighting Designer for Utopia on their“POV” tour combo with The Tubes and their “Love Bomb” tour of 1985. Afterthat tour ended, Rick moved on to become the Lighting Designer for MötleyCrüe. After this L.A. version of Kiss, Rick worked with The Outfield between‘86-’87 as Tour Manager, Lighting Designer and tour advance. After TheOutfield, Rick (became first baseman? —ed.) got involved with Anthrax whooffered him a multiple position in production, so his current job is TourManager, Production Manager, Lighting and Set Designer, Tour Advance,and Video editing for Anthrax. Rick also has BÖC’s longtime soundmanGeorge Geranios keeping him company on the Anthrax tours.

When Anthrax wasn’t taking his time, he also worked with Living Colour asProduction Manager, Lighting Designer and tour advance, between 1989and 1991.

A hard working man indeed, Rick still finds time for playing. He has beenseen playing the drums a couple of times with Joe Bouchard and his CultBros. band, and manages to partake in various jam sessions. And so on thatnote, we all know he still sticks to his skins every now and then.

“Bootleggers! Roll your tapes, ‘cause this is arare one!” Bruce Springsteen once exclaimed as

he played a couple of tunes never beforeheard, and never heard again. This is an

occurrence that has been a part of atleast a dozen BÖC shows over the

years, when they decided to playa cover version of somebody

else’s tune, or just dig out some old nuggets from the past. Luckily for ushard core fans, there often was an interested party there with recording fa-cilities, either fans with hand held cassette machines or on better occa-sions, professionals to capture these historical events.

One of the most notable acts of preservation is the now famous 1980Soft White Underbelly Old Waldorf show which went out over the airwavesin San Francisco courtesy of KSAN-FM. This show is by far the most col-lectable show around the trading market of live tapes. Clocking in at al-

most 110 minutes, it holds a bunch of rare treats for us true blue fans.First of all, the sound quality is phenomenal, mainly due to the im-

peccable on-site mix from George Geranios. Since it was live-as-it-happens, there are no repaired mixes or overdubs.

The Intro Tape, Mussorgsky’s “Night On A Bald Mountain”sets a perfect mood to start the show (Although it doesn’t

hold a candle to Vangelis’ “Bladerunner”).“Dr. Music” opens the show just perfectly with every-

body in a great mood, followed by “Lips In The Hills,”making this evening worthwhile right from the start.

“Lips” is such a happening live tune, it’s a shamethat they never play it anymore. The quirky

“Unknown Tongue” precedes the perennial“Cities On Flame.” The next highlight of the

evening comes with “The Marshall Plan,”performed with great feel from E. Bloom

and Albert. One of my all time favorite live tunes is“Divine Wind,” one of the meanest sounding blues tunesever to have graced a plastic 12”. “Then Came The LastDays Of May” of course gives lots of lead guitar space forBuck. On this night he’s evenly hot throughout.

Pledging allegiance to the old SWU days, they bring out aone-time set standard from the olden days, a cover of the RollingStones tune “It’s Not Easy,” complete with a percussion section in themiddle with both Buck & Eric joining in on various drums and things theycan hit along with Albert, making it energetic to watch, but somewhat bor-ing to listen to. Definitely a “live on site” kind of tune, fun to have on tape,but I’m sure way more fun to watch.

“ME 262” takes off and lands straight into the “Black Blade” with all itssound effects and groovy back beat. E. Bloom delivers a supreme vocalwith an awesomely tight band and a wild Albert on the drums. (The tapehere has a mini edit where the Station Identification was removed by theguy who made my copy). By this time in the show, it’s time for Eric to tell thestory of Terrible Natural Disasters, and that means it’s time for that “Made InJapan” chap. Since they already indulged in the “It’s Not Easy” percussionblowout, the drum solo here is shorter than usual. Joe’s Bass solo leads intothe classic and popular “Five Guitars” (Mark-3 ála Golden Age), so good itwas added onto the Bond’s 1981 FM broadcast.

“Born To Be Wild” ends the set, with strength both visually with the‘Crossed Guitars’ and the Buck and Eric ‘High Kick Step’ and aurally withthe Anthem feel to it that only true bikers will fully understand. Although,these days, with the “Mothers Against Possible Accidents” finally success-fully brain washing the politicians into implementing a Helmet Law, thissong doesn’t hold much truth to anymore, and there will be no reason foranyone to ever play this tune again.

Back to the history and Encore time, and the most special moment ofall. On this night, for the first time and so far the only time, the band decid-ed to play something from the REAL Soft White Underbelly days, one of thebest selections off the never-released Stalk-Forrest Group St. Cecilia album,“Arthur Comics.” Buck spills his guts on the guitar and turns in a very firm

lyrical delivery on the Meltzeresque (now there’s a new one forWebster’s! —ed.) feel of times past. The show finishes with two more

songs, “(Don’t Fear)The Reaper” and one of the earlier renditions of“Roadhouse Blues” when it was still a fun novelty. This has got to

be one of the rarest moments in Cult tape history, and shouldreally be a part of everybody’s collection.

…by Bolle

know that the end result came out as one of the heaviest songs off thealbum.

Albert, as always with tons of songs in his back pocket dished up twopieces that almost made the record, and both of these were also tried outlive a couple of times in February of 1979. These songs were “Shot In TheDark,” a detective romance with a hearty lyric, and “TNT (Tough ‘n’Tender),” a pretty heavy tune, but neither of these fit in with the other selec-tions, so they were shelved.

Eric brought in a winner with his first collaboration with MichaelMoorcock, “The Great Sun Jester.”

Allen had a couple of great tunes, “In Thee” which in its early versionfeatured Eric playing the drums, friend Pete Haviland on rhythm guitar andAllen singing. Allen’s other tune was originally called “Wind In My Veins”,but because of its repetitive chorus, it was nicknamed and finally renamed“Lonely Teardrops.” With Allen feeling uneasy about singing, he left thatchore for Buck to handle on the album.

More songs were learned and rehearsed before X-mas, and one ofthese Albert had written, a beautiful tune called “The Only Thing that LastsForever.” It sounds as it would be a fitting piece for a part of the Imaginossaga, and speaking of that… Joe had written “In The Presence of AnotherWorld” the year before, and the band had tried it out during rehearsals for

At the end of the 1978 World Tour in October of that year, the bandfinally had some time to themselves to start concentrating on song writingfor the next album.

After a full year of concerts they had lots of material packed awayfrom hotel room sessions, sound checks and normal passing time, so pre-production for Mirrors-to-be began in December with (as usual) all five guyssubmitting their home song demos,themes and ideas they’d come up withduring the year.

Starting around the first week of December the band was booked atFull Tilt Rehearsal studios in New York. After getting comfortable in the stu-dio, test recordings were done on a bunch of brand new songs.

“Oh Cherry,” a song written and sung by Buck, was another up-tempotune in the same vein as “Born To Rock.” Somehow this tune fell short andwas dropped from the front-runners. Another entry from Buck, “Mirrors,”made such a strong impact it even spawned the title of the new album,(and for the first time, there was a title track on a Cult album).

On the original demo, Buck had his wife Sandra singing back upvocals, which might have been a deciding factor in their trying femaleback up vocals on this album for a change.

Joe Bouchard had written a trio of songs that he presented earlier inOctober, and all three were strong. They were “Gun,” a song that waseven played live in concert a couple of times in February of 1979, and “ElleSol” (or English title “She’s The Sun”), a definitively New York Velvet Under-ground sounding piece. The third song was “I Am The Storm.” At first thesong was kinda wimpy sounding-like a western saloon tune with spikepiano and a happy-go-lucky feel and a slightly different lyric, but we all

the Some Enchanted Evening Tour, but this time the band tried it for real forpossible inclusion on the album. “Moon Crazy” was also tried out beforethe holidays and originally started out a bit differently with some rhythmfeels changed for the final version.

Buck had written a song for a Patti Smith poem called “The Devil’sNail.” They decided, however, that Smith’s lyric was too ‘out there,’ evenfor BÖC, so Buck went home over Christmas and with Sandra’s help, wrotea smashing new lyric. And the song, retitled “The Vigil,” is without a doubtmost fans’ favorite song from the album.

After the Christmas season was over the band returned to the studiosand a couple more songs were tried out. Albert’s attempt a hit song,“You’re Not The One (I Was Looking For),” used The Cars’ tune “My BestFriend’s Girl” as a model, but added a twist with Albert’s overturned backbeat against the song. Although in terms of Öyster wisdom it was a totalsell-out, I still found the tune a perfect commercially likeable pop song,making it a favorite of mine.

The last song to enter these rehearsals was Joe’s riff rock song“Dr.Music,” brought to life with an almost ordinary lyric from none otherthan the wacky master himself, Richard Meltzer!!

When these early rehearsal sessions ended, the band went out toplay a handful of shows in the New Jersey area, and there they tried outthe new songs that they felt the strongest about. Two of these specialshows were at a place called Alexander’s in Browns Mills, New Jersey, andlucky fans there got to hear songs that never made the album, and werenever performed anywhere else.

Before the band went out to California to record the album, the col-lected pre-production demos were submitted to the record company andproducer Tom Werman, who made the final decisions on which songswould fit the best together.

To date, these rehearsals and recordings were the bands most thor-ough work for any album before or after, with almost 3 months on pre-pro-duction alone. And for all that work came the album that most fans putat the bottom of their ‘fave album’ list; which Eric, in England’s New

Musical Express paper, alluded might make good fris-bees; and to this day is sometimes referred to as “Errors.”

For the recordexhuming the dead —

a look at Blue Öyster Cult on 12" vinyl LPs…by Bolle

Since I’ve dealt almost a full hand on 7” and 12” singles, I figuredthe main purchase on a band needed some representation:Albums. Even though they are now a thing of the past , the ol’ 12”plastic discs held lots of fun moments for us older fans of Music. Notonly did you buy the new music but also an intriguing and excitingpackage to go with it.

I first learned about serious record collecting through Beatlesfans and collectors who sought out everything — unofficialrecords, promotional and demonstration copies, mono or stereo,Mobile Fidelity or sound lab presentations, all of the same record.

A collector can hold up to as many as a dozen different releas-es of the same record all made in the same country, and to furtherthat craziness, after acquiring all those, one can begin collectingall other countries’ releases too!

In America, there are the records that are printed exclusively togo out to Radio Stations. Each Radio Station disc comes with oneor more of the following differences: a white label on the disc itselfwith the inscription of ‘Demonstration - Not For Sale’ printed ontop, a DJ timing strip affixed to the front cover, or a Gold Stampimprinted on the back cover, reading either ‘Demonstration - NotFor Sale’ or ‘For Promotion Only - Ownership Reserved By CBS - SaleIs Unlawful.’

A DJ Timing Strip is a special label used in the late Sixties throughthe later Seventies, to simplify the DJ’s job. It was affixed on thefront cover, and had the song titles and track times of each songon the album listed. Each title is also preceded by a little box sothe DJs could check off the “Hits” of their choice. Around 1979when Radio was no longer free for the DJ’s to do with as theypleased, and their song selection began to be done by specialprogramming consultants and computers, these labels were nolonger made.

For the press, these promotional copies also might come with apress kit, which could include a biography of the artist, a blackand white 8 x 10 promo photo, or both. On some occasionsselected press cuttings would also be enclosed to enhance the

package with proof of the artist’s popularity, and hopefully impressthe person receiving the package.

In collecting Blue Öyster Cult, I have learned that DJ timing stripsexist for all their albums from 1st album through Some EnchantedEvening. By Mirrors they had abandoned these labels.

So far I have only ever seen white label copies of three releases:Agents Of Fortune, Spectres (which actually has a Kronos Logounderneath the Demo inscription) and Cultösaurus Erectus. The twomissing titles in between had the same picture labels on them thatcame on the regular stock copy, only having the “Demonstration -Not For Sale” inscription stamped on top of the Picture label. Thisand the back cover gold stamp are the only differences betweenthese LPs and the regular stock copies. This results in five knownDemo labels, three white labels and two Pic labels. If anyone knowsof any of their first 4 albums with White Labels, please let me know,and if possible send Xerox copies of these to me. I also need a copyof Tyranny & Mutation with DJ-Timing Strip (or at least a xerox of theTiming Strip).

All promo albums from 1981 and on, starting with Fire Of UnknownOrigin only have the Gold Stamp, and the records are the same asthe Stock copies, with the only notable difference that these initialpressings of the record supposedly have the best possible vinylpressings.

In 1972, Sony introduced the 'SQ system' or better known as quad-rophonic sound. This four-speaker method of sound reproduction

The Quad version of Tyranny & Mutation…Columbia CQ 32017; the label is gold with red and black printing

was supposed to allow the listener to experience the music to sucha degree that he felt he was a part of the scene. In anticipation ofthe quad revolution, CBS remastered most of their albums in that1972-75 era to fit this new system. As it happened, quad nevercaught on with consumers, but two BÖC albums were released inQuad versions, Tyranny and Mutation and Secret Treaties. Both ofthese records offer a richer sound, but the quad version of Tyrannyholds an extra surprise with added vocals and sound effects.

In Japan the records come with a special paper band aroundthe album known as an OBI, which is actually a price tag, and alsotranslates the title of the record into Japanese. You will also alwaysfind inside the album a special biographical insert on the artist inJapanese along with phonetically transcribed lyrics for each of thesongs in Japanese Katakana as well as English. Usually the lyrics aretranscribed by people guessing at whatever they think they hear,and they get it wrong more often than not with hilarious results towe English speaking people [see MF #2 for more on Japan].

Along with the official stock copy, you can also find white labelcopies, and there are sometimes rare Japan Only releases - promo,stock or both. In 1975, there was a specially coupled album withAerosmith and B.Ö.C called “NEW YORK’S HEAVY METAL SOUND.”The album was a promotion-only Item, and was put out by CBSSONY (record # YAPC-66). The disc has The Cult on Side A with fivetracks from their three first studio albums. The B Side has four Hotchoice songs from Aerosmith’s “Get Your Wings” album. Quite arare find these days, with a price tag of about $100.00, it is withouta doubt the most expensive Cult collectible of all their albums.

Japan also released a special 12” Promo Only version of their“Godzilla Live/Born To Be Wild” single, which looks almost identicalto the 7” version on the front, but the back has added live picturesof the band in concert. This is another rare issue and if you locatea copy, you can expect to pay anywhere from $50.00 to $100 for it.

Going over to Europe you can find the albums on the Europeanbranch label of CBS Records, and find printings made in GreatBritain, with a different outer cover paper quality. Unfortunately, theinner sleeves are usually absent, replaced with a simple white innersleeve.

England has issued a few special collectors items over the years,and most notable are the Cultösaurus Erectus album which in-cluded a special monster poster with the first 5,000 copies. Anotherspecial Item from Britain is the first known coloured vinyl Cult Album,a limited edition of Imaginos on special Blue Vinyl.

releases, as I have not yet obtained these albums on CD fromtheir respective countries, and have yet to find out if they stuckwith the original mixes, or if they are now all uniform.

Benelux/Scandinavia (which share the same pressing plant)have cheaper looking releases thatonly seem to have the neat innersleeves included with their very firstpressings, so after a year or twothese are deleted.

German copies look the same,but always have the inner sleevesincluded with the packaging. InGermany you will also be able tofind special White label Test press-ings on some titles. These are ex-tremely rare.

España has nice White Labelpromo copies with OK soundingVinyl, and the covers have justabout the same paper quality asthe British releases, making them afavourable choice ahead of theScandinavian issues.

Other parts of the world can alsobe sources of releases, for instance,there is an Argentinean version ofSome Enchanted Evening with allthe text translated into Spanish,which titles the album "Una NocheEncantadora” on a cheap lookingcolor-Xerox front cover with blackand white back cover. There areTaiwanese copies of at least threetitles, On Your Feet, Secret Treatiesand Tyranny & Mutation, but theseare so cheaply made, that whenyou see the price tag that comeswith them, you’ll hesitate to buythem.

In its initial first couple of pressings, Spectres came with afaulty label, which calls the band ‘Blue Öyster,’ forgetting theCult. (This also happened on the first three issues of the Americanrelease). The last Columbia album Career Of Evil: The Metal

Years was actually released inthe UK on Vinyl. It wasn’t everavailable in the States on thatformat, making it a truly rarepiece (of crap).

Club Ninja is the best collec-table choice from Britain.Because of its early release,( a lit-tle more than a month beforethe US release), it sports a differ-ent mix than the American ver-sion and is almost a differentalbum. A Few major differencesare, for example, “White Flags”has the full track all the way tothe end without the fadeout.“Madness To The Method” has aguitar solo with piano on theoutro, and “When The WarComes” doesn’t include NewYork shock-jock (who, inciden-tally, is a cousin of Eric Bloom [bymarriage])! Howard Stern’svoice-over on the intro. Most ofthe other songs have variationsin the mix as well.

Caught in the middle here isthe Scandinavian version ofNinja, which is different fromboth the British and Americancopies. For hard core collectors,these are well worth seeking outfor the differences. To my knowl-edge, the different mixes existonly on the vinyl copies of these

The American white labels from Agents, Spectres and Cultösaurus Erectus, Sides A… …and B!

try trips he’s driven since starting this job a year and a half ago.While Chris Fenn usually travels with the band, it’s Bob and drum tech

Mick Gormally that actually drive the equipment from gig to gig. While mostof the band is slumbering away in their hotel rooms, these two road warriorsare usually driving all night to the next town. It’s not unusual for the nexttown to be 400 miles away, so on a typical day they’ll roll into town around

dawn and catch a fewhours of sleep beforeheading to the concerthall just past lunchtimeto start setting up. On agood day they’ll com-plete soundchecks intime to eat a real dinnerbefore the crowdbegins to fill the hall.After hours on tweakingand tuning and re-checking, it’s showtime.(Translation: two hours ofmore tuning, changingstrings and draggingover enthusiastic fans offthe stage). Of course,

as soon as that last encore is played, these guys have to repack all theequipment, load it into the truck, and get back on the highway in search ofthe next town.

Mick and Bob began working for BÖC on the same day in March of1991. Mick has a technical background, and most recently was working inrecording studios prior to his BÖC job. But even farther back he spent eightyears drumming in the house band at New Jersey’s famed Stone Pony withJon Rogers (before he became an Öyster). While he plans a hiatus this sum-mer to drum at Action Park, New Jersey, Mick should be back on the roadthis autumn.

Mick’s electronics knowledge makes him the resident whiz kid, a skill thathas come in handy when things don’t always work right on the road. Un-questionably the quietest member of the crew, what Mick lacks in gregari-ousness is more than compensated for by Chris and Bob’s outgoing person-alities.

While touring is always an adventure, Chris, Bob and Mick all agree thatthe toughest part of the job is the miles they put in. It is not unheard of forMick and Bob to drive 5000 miles in a week in addition to working severalshows. But knowing that they are appreciated helps make it worthwhile.These three hard-working techs work well together, taking care of business inwhat can often be grueling circumstances. So if you see them haulingdown the highway—give ‘em a lane!

Hanging out with rock stars isn’t all the glamour that it appears to be. Itnearly takes an act of god to get BÖC’s three techs to pause for a moment.Even when they can be tracked down, the first thing you’ll discover is thatthey don’t particularly like to talk about themselves.

Newest to the road crew is Chris Fenn, stage right tech who maintainskeyboards and guitars. This lifetime Brooklyn resident joined the team inOctober 1991, following a careerin stage lighting that includedwork with the likes of Joan Jettand Tyketto. Prior to his profes-sional involvement in music, Chrisspent 10 years working on theNew York Stock Exchange. But,

The hardest wOrking men in rock

The road crewphoto and text by Jessica Livingston

BÖC's miracle workersL-R Bob Johnson, Mick Gormallyand Chris Fenn

having been a BÖC fan since 1972, he feels that this is “the best gig I’vedone. Lots of hard work, but a lot of fun.” The heavy touring schedule cancreate havoc in one’s life. During a three day break in May, Chris was ableto squeeze in getting married. No doubt that his new wife Barbara is look-ing forward to the next tour break so they can get away for a honeymoon.

Chris found this job through his long-time friend Bob Johnson, BÖC’sstage left guitar tech. Bob has spent his entire career in the industry workingfor acts such as Skid Row, Rickie Lee Jones, Trixter, Deborah Harry, EZO andthe Beastie Boys. At the tender age of thirty he’s BÖC’s youngest tech, buthas the most years on the road. It was during a Trixter tour with Stryper thatBob was recommended for this gig via former BÖC soundman Rude Boy.

On those infrequent times when BÖC isn’t touring, Bob can be foundrestoring old cars from the ground up. His collection of more than a dozeninclude a ‘31 Packard and a ‘46 Ford. While this Staten Island native stillresides on the East Coast, it’s the West Coast tours he prefers, due to thewarm climate. Perhaps this helps take the edge off those seven cross coun-