Imaginos :Black & Silver

[John A Swartz]

Chip comments on mine:

> 2.  Participation - This album should have been recorded primarily by
> the entire original line-up.  Other people maybe could have had major
> contributions, but the original 5 members of BOC should have done the
> lion's share of the recording.

        To nitpick, I think this is true, *only if the original BOC
        members were in it for the story*.  That is, I have no need to
        know that it's the original BOC if they're in there just for the
        name's sake or to be hired guns.  In fact, some songs - Seige
        and Invest' - would be about 1/2 as good performed by original
        BOC members (who woulda' sung that?  Eric?  I think not...).


Oh, I definitely feel some of the work by outsiders was great - esp.
Cerisano's vocal on "Frankenstein", not to mention guitar work by
Robbie Krieger et al.  I would still have wanted that on the final
*Imaginos*.  But, as the album stands, it's credited to the 5 original
members, but other than Eric/Buck lead vocals and of course all of
Albert's input, the participation of the original 5 is somewhat of a
misnomer.  As I understand it, Joe and Allen provided keyboard work
for a few songs, and Buck provided some guitar work for a few.  For
this to have been the BOC epic that I think it should have been, there
needed to be much more participation in the final product.  Of course
Albert, while not in the band at the time needed to be a major player
due to his input.  Allen had re-joined the band prior to the release
of *Imaginos*, so he should also have been more involved.  The odd
man out, may have been Joe Bouchard (which, as I understand it, he
was the most reluctant to get back involved -- perhaps being the
last to leave prior to Imaginos had something to do with this -- maybe
Albert could offer some insight here).  But he is credited in the
writing of 2 of the songs on Imaginos, and to me that justifies hime
having more participation as well.  Since Jon Rogers was the BOC
bassist at the time, I don't think he should have been left out, but
perhaps he could have done most of the bass work (Joe didn't, and in
fact Kenny Aaronson - a fantastic bassist BTW - did most of the bass
work on Imaginos).

John