BOC: Article in Seconds Magazine

[John A Swartz]

Check out the latest issue of Seconds magazine for some cool stuff on
BOC.  There's interviews (and pictures) with Bloom and Buck, Albert
Bouchard, and Sandy Pearlman.  Here's a few interesting snippets:

Bloom:  "When we were left-of-center we did our best work.  Every time
we tried to get towards the median we stepped on our dicks..."

Bloom makes a public apology to Gene Simmons and KISS for "stupid
things" he said about them back in the 70s

Dharma:  "America is the country where shit floats"

Bloom indicates that no-one in the current band does drugs - anymore.
He also mentioned his "pro-pot" rap he used to do - apparently Allen
Lanier was the one who first told him that he didn't agree with Bloom
promoting it.

Al Bouchard (on his first band with Buck, The Disciples):  "We sucked"

Al wrote a few articles for "Crawdaddy" magazine (hey Al, got any of
those still around?  Might be interestin' reading...)

According to Al:  Bloom threatened to quit if "The Reaper" was put on
*Agents of Fortune*, but the band overruled him.  He also threatened to
quit if they put "Fire of Unknown Origin" instead of "Tenderloin" on
AoF, and the band relented on that one.

Al on Buck:  "I've talked to him several times and we correspond via
E-mail, but I don't know him anymore.  I feel a sense of loss about
that..."
and on BOC in general these days:  "I've decided not to hate these
guys anymore.  It's just a waste of my energy.  I've hated them long
enough; it's time to bury the hatchet."

Pearlman (on *Club Ninja):  "...an unspeakably horrible record.  I
really wanted not to be involved with making Club Ninja.  There was
no material."

Pearlman (on BOC material):  "...there are things left on the cutting
room floor... it didn't happen and a lot of it is unfortunately just
a function of the decisions the record company made and then the
increasingly negative attitude the record company took toward the
band as the years went by."

Pearlman claims it was Albert, not Bloom, that threatened to leave
if "The Reaper" was on AoF.

Pearlman (on Some Enchanted Evening): "Eric was tortured into making
that record..."

Pearlman (on Imaginos):  "Columbia gave me money to create this thing
using a lot of musicians, not Blue Oyster Cult.  It was NOT Albert's
solo album.  I don't know where this comes from.  It was just an
idea.  We were going to use all sorts of singers and Albert was going
to be one of them...I had written the lyrics and come up with the
story...I read somewhere that I was invited to work on this with
Albert.  As far as I know, I had thought this all up...I don't think
there was much distortion in what I just said."

Pearlman (on current music):  "Music is, to a much greater extent than
people in music want to believe, reduced to lots of remodularization
and recombination.  There's just a lot of modular tools and modular
contents being plugged in, not in new ways but in different ways.
The fanatics and the people who do whatever it takes to make the
outcome that they desire happen are no longer in music."


Personal observation:  Sandy Pearlman may have been a genious, but
he certainly KNOWS he was a genious, and continues to believe he is
despite having done so little in music for the last, what 10 years?
Maybe he's just still doing all the drugs that BOC no longer does.
He has some interesting perspective on alot of BOC's career, but
I think his views of BOC and the world are too warped by him being
so full of himself.

Anyways, some great reading - I recommend it to any BOC fan.

John