BOC & Challengers of the Unknown -Club Ninja Debate is

[John A Swartz]

> Historically CN will be looked upon a bit more favorably I believe.

No, I doubt it.  As it is, I'm not sure BOC, historically, will be even
looked upon so favorably.  What I mean is this:  in the mid-70's BOC
was huge - they were in the rock magazines constantly, Buck Dharma was
always in the top-10 in the guitarist polls, and their laser show was,
at the time, state of the art and one of the coolest concert experiences
around.  Or, so I am told - the only band I followed in the mid to late
70s was KISS (I was a young teenager with little scope in musical taste -
although I still think KISS is a lot of fun), and had no knowlege of BOC
until around 1979, about the time I started listening to other bands.
BUT - when I read publications today on the history of rock, BOC is hardly,
if ever, mentioned.  History may have already forgotten this band.  Sad.

>If Al had still been around, I wonder
if tunes like 'Make Rock...' and 'Beat 'em Up' would have been
included.  Not to say that Al's taste is perfect, but even his odd
songs have a certain quality that makes them acceptable:  a tongue in
cheek humor that isn't the case in the two aforementioned songs.
Notice how immediately after Al's departure, the appearance of songs
like that and 'Let Go' on tRBN begins to happen.  Probably meant to
be jokes, but they aren't all that funny

Hmm... well, "Debbie Denise" and "You're Not the One" were some of Al's
less memorable moments, the latter was specifically a joke aimed at
*Mirrors* producer Tom Werman.  On the other hand, some of Al's humour
in the work of The Brain Surgeons is excellent - "the devil got your mother,
he did not use a rubber" (o.k., David Roter wrote the lyrics...)

Some have mentioned Allen's absense on keys as being significant to the
problems of Club Ninja -- I don't think so.  Zvoncheck is a fine
keyboard player, perhaps technically even better than Allen (sorry for
the heresey).  The problem I have with the keys on CN is that there's
too much of them.  The use of Allen's keyboards has always been more
subtle, with the emphasis being still on the guitars (not to say that the
keys weren't important-they just weren't in your face).  CN, in it's
attempts to be more pop-oriented, has too much keyboard-laden stuff,
among it's other problems.  As Bloom said, they stepped on their dicks...

Interesting that we complain about "stupid" songs on CN like "Rock Not
War" and "Beat 'em Up", yet many of us want BOC to release a song like
"Wings of Mercury".  The song kicks, but lyrically, it's probably as
stupid as some of these others.  Hey, I like the song, but I also like
"Beat 'em Up" at some level too.  But - if you're going to say that this
song sucks for it's stupid lyrics, well, then I think had "Wings of
Mercury" made it to the album, many of us would have been as unkind to
it as we are to "Beat 'em Up".

John