BRAIN / BOC INdy CD's and Royalties

[John A Swartz]

Theo asks:

>Which causes me to speculate.  Why did a great band like BOC fall off
the map so suddenly and so desperately?  Black Sabbath still puts out
an album every year, and somehow hangs together regardless of the
quality of recorded output.  How come they stay signed (albieit on
small-ish I.R.S.) and the clearly superior B.O.C., who have many
great songs already ready cannot?  Did B.O.C's fans somehow desert
them en masse, and if so, for what reason?  They were very popular
with their die-hard fans before and after the radio success of
'Reaper' and 'Burnin''.  Was the loss of the Bouchard brothers
somehow fatal to fan interest? Welcoming all comments and
speculations...




Haven't we beaten this topic to death in the past?  No offense meant
to Theo, but there's been alot of talk on BOC-L over the past year
about this.  But I will make a few comments on your question.

1.  While not really relevant to the rest of my points, let me comment
on Black Sabbath -- they may still put out albums every year, but that
doesn't really mean much.  Sabbath today is a mere shell of a shell of
itself - only Tony Iomi is left -- he almost shouldn't call his "band"
Black Sabbath (BOC, on the other hand, still has 3 of its original 5
members).  But do you think Black Sabbath is that much more popular
these days than BOC?  My feeling is that BOC makes its money these days
on touring (and royalties of past album sales, along with WOTT), while
Black Sabbath makes more money by releasing albums.  But hey, as I
think has been said several times here, there really is nothing stopping
BOC from releasing an album on their own - if they decide that's what
they want to do and take the time to do it right. (and, I think that
album will be released in '96, but that's personal speculation)

2.  I don't think BOC "fell off the map so suddenly" -- it has been a
fairly steady decline since 1981 or '82.  It all started (IMHO) with
the loss of Albert -- look at the songwriting credits (listed in the
FAQ) and you'll see what a major influence he had on the band's material.
Maybe not the radio hits, but the bulk of each album had his input (he
used to come to the recording sessions with a whole album's worth of
his own material).  BOC had to rely more on outside writers after
that -- "Revolution by Night" maybe didn't suffer too much since they
probably had some material worked up for it before Albert left (also
in the FAQ, you will find that it says that "Shadow of California" was
based on a song that Albert had worked on for *Imaginos*), but look at
the writing credits for *Club Ninja* - it was obvious that the band
was having trouble coming up with enough quality material on their
own.  Also, hindsight has shown that BOC trying to make a more commercial
sounding album was a major mistake.  Through all of this times change,
new bands emerge (which record labels and fans take more interest in,
showing less for bands like BOC), and more personnel changes occurred
in BOC.  And, with no new material being released by the band, the fan
base will continue to dwindle.  I don't think that there was ever any
"en masse" desertion by their fans - it's been a steady process over
the last 15 years.

3.  The Bouchard brothers were fatal to fan interest only in the sense
that they were major contributors (especially Albert, as I've mentioned)
to BOC's material -- when they left, alot of song-writing (not to
mention instrumental) talent went with them, and the band has never
adequately replaced that talent.


John