BOC: Lots More o' Stuff

[Scruton, Jason]

John Quoted (now I'll have to get a PDF viewer. thanks for the info on
Morning Final!):

>"To date, these rehearsals and recordings were the bands most thorough
>work for any album before or after, with almost 3 months on
>pre-production alone. And for all that work came the album that most fans
put
>at the bottom of their 'fave album' list; which Eric, in England's New
>Musical Express paper, alluded might make good frisbees;
>and to this day is sometimes referred to as "Errors.""  MF 08
Wow. that's interesting to know. It shows that Werman just wasn't the right
producer for the task. Fortunately for BOC, the live performances always
pull the band out of the fire... Just listen to their version of "The Vigil"
thats been in setlists these last few years-- its much more heavy than the
studio track.  They really needed someone who was able to do something with
the material presented. What artists did Werman produce for?  I'd wager
money (if i had any) that they were AOR through and through -- sounding
clean,pristine and devoid of anything that might be remotely enjoyable (like
Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours" sound, which was referred to before on this
thread. Makes you wish that people remember Fleetwood Mac for their Blues
band/Peter Green formation moreso than the later "stuff" (to put it
nicely)).

>> I listened to the 1st 3 releases I pretty much felt  them to
>be a unit - not only did I consider each one to be an album but all 3
worked
>together as a sort of meta-album.
>Most fans, and even the band, would agree with that assessment.

The liner notes of the remastered ST reflect that. Would be curious to hear
what pearlman or Krugman have to say about the rerelease of the catalog
these days.

Speaking of units, any word anywhere on when the next batch of remasters
will be set free from their prisons? and if there is, what can we look
forward to extratrackwise?
(I really hate not having internet access from work. then again, It's nice
to be productive once in a (long) while.)

>Exactly.  The band was no longer writing as much as a unit, but working
>on demos at home so there is much more individual efforts,
>which yielded >more diversity.  Also, after "Reaper", the band was more
conscious of
>trying to write a radio "hit".
Reaper's demo has a more Mideastern tinge to it with the demo, due to the
guitar(whose tone reminds me of Jeff Beck's in the Yardbirds' "Shapes of
Things" (esp. the guitar solo break)) soloing at the intro and book
percussion sound.

If AoF didnt convince you of the diversification, the bonus tracks on AoF
should do it:  Albert's FoUO is quite texturally different than the first 3
(with maybe the exception of the sound of Redeemed; it also blends nicely
bridgewise to "Death Valley Nights" (i think Brian said this to me once);
Sally has a much "funkier"/James Brown-ish allusion than what we'd be used
to from the band, esp. in the "scratches on your knees..." verse sections
and the "morning sun was rising", "Scratches on your knees..." and so forth.

But then again, look at how ST ended -- Astronomy is a very non- super heavy
monster metal riff song in the studio at least. Live is a different matter
cuz of the extended, heavier Dharma solo. It may have parts that are like
that(astronomy, a star, and the Hey! sections), but the main verse music is
very laid back and... different than the firestorm of "Flaming Telepaths"
and "Dominance", or the extra tracks for that matter. The 4 tracks
accelerated that direction of the group maybe.


>Probably partly true.  But "Some Enchanted Evening" broke up the space
>between "Spectres" and "Mirrors", so I think that contributed to the
>more sudden drop-off a the time of "Mirrors".
I wonder: did the inclusion of two cover songs on "SEE" probably throw some
for a loop as well? I would not have expected (had I been more than a few
years older than 3 then) a band with 5 studio albums under their belt,
coming off their biggest 2 albums to date, to throw in someone else's
material, no matter how cool their version of Kick out the Jams is. Then
again, a live version of "Celestial the Queen" (if it was ever done live)
probably would have resulted in furrowed eyebrows.

>Then again, if you were in high school in 1972-1974, by the time
>"Mirrors" was coming out, you may have been getting out of college and
>persuing other interests, so that may have been a factor too...

Wait a minute, slow down a second, John. There's more to life than BOC???
hypothetical answer: "Yes, Jason. The Brain Surgeons."
Jason replies," Whew! You had me worried for a minute!"

The world's my oyster soup kitchen floor wax museum,
Jason