BOC - remasters

[Jon Jarrett]

On Fri, 29 Jun 2001, John A. Swartz wrote:

> I've finished listening to the first round of BOC remasters and they are
> KILLER!  Excellent sound and packaging and the bonus tracks are great.

        The bottom end is back! You can at last actually use these damn
things to DJ with and not have them sound like tin. This meant that the
Cambridge Rock Society club night got `Dominance & Submission' played at
them the first chance I had.

> A few comments on them:

        <yet to get the first two due to an acute shortage of money, but
as for the others...>

> Boorman the Chauffer - Smokin' Joe Bouchard track that really should
> have been on the album.

        I'm in two minds about that. It is a *great* track, but I can't
quite figure out if its quirkiness would have seemed out of place in the
original running order. I suppose it's no more comprehensible than any of
the other songs...

> Mommy - nasty lyrics - and we thought BOC were just Nazi's... ;-)

        That's also a top track, but in this case you really can see why
they left it off - it's not exactly occult :-)

> Mes Dames Sarat - need to listen to this a bit more...

        My first reaction to that one was, "Hey! They liked `The Red and
the Black' so much they wrote it twice!" But actually despite the
similarity in the bassline it's a real twister of a song, and Eric's
really working at sounding offhand. I think this is a top
performance. What puzzles me is why Alan turned out such great songs with
the band and then as soon as home recording turns up... well, `In Thee' is
the only one of his post-1975 for which I can find even grudging praise.

> Career of Evil - Single version with tamed lyrics.  "Do it like ya oughta..."

        Actually makes the backing vocal a lot easier to hear too...

> Fire of Unknown Origin - Very different music - more simplistic than
> what ultimately came out, but interesting to hear.
>
> Sally - Neat, although tBS version on *Eponymous* blows this away - but
> you can hear the beginnings of a really great song.

        Pair of Al specials, really. I was slightly disappointed by the
former, actually, because I remember Al posting ages back saying how sorry
he was it hadn't been put on the album because he'd given his absolute all
getting the vocals right, and it's not as impressive as I imagined it. On
the other hand though I wouldn't deny the tBS version of `Sally' takes the
crown, I am *really* impressed by Al's singing here, he's managing to get
all kinds of little diversions into the space of the lines and it actually
sounds subtler to me than the tBS version.

> Reaper (demo) - good stuff - some have heard this before - it's on the
> Buck Dharma Archive CDs - The "drums" are actually Buck pounding on a
> book as well as saying "Pssssshh" for a cymbal - amazing how well it sounds!

        It is shocking how good a version it is considering it's recorded
with the same gear wit which Alan turned out the following one...

> Dance the Night Away - Jim Carroll eventually released a version of
> this.  I need to listen to this a bit more...

        No, don't bother. It's really not very good. There might
conceivably be a decent song in there somewhere but I can't hear it. And
how can it sound, when he has a four-track and a piano, so much worse
than the (very similarly styled in fact) Becker & Fagen pre-Steely Dan
tracks of which it reminds me, which they recorded with vocals mikes and a
tape recorded? Ugh.

> Indeed they are.  Whether you want to argue that they don't have the
> same finesse as the Bouchards or not, they are definitely great players.
>  They give the band a harder sound than what they had in the 1980's -
> less subtle in times, but it definitely works well for them live.

        I think Danny could whip it up as much as Joe if he had the space
but I think he has to be part of the sort of rhythm section that Bobby can
do his best in, which is as you say less subtle. But Danny's solos remind
you how many other intsruments he plays and you know it could be
different...

> > The liner notes remind me of A.Levy's liner notes to Career of Evil: the
> > Metal Years style. What does anyone else think of 'em so far?
>
> A little bit, although I'm liking them better.  Some of the writings
> though make you wonder if BOC put as much thought into the meaning of
> their stuff as some of us did.  Listen to this from the Tyranny notes:
>
> "There was something Copernican in the Cult's worldview, themselves
> included.  Where some bands attempted to rabble-rouse, BOC's concerns
> were more scientific, each song an abstract tale rather than a personal,
> emotionally wrenching narrative.  If this detachment sometimes made the
> band seem like characters in their own play, it allwed them to ride
> their "Hot Rails to Hell" along the edge of the malebolge and escape
> unscathed, singed but hardly consumed by the flames they'd unleashed
> over the City."

        I think as long as Pearlman was around *someone* was thinking that
hard about it, and I kind of get the idea he wouldn't have minded
explaining at *any* opportunity...

> > Maybe I'm just growing tolerant in my old age, but I find little to complain
> > about with the new album.  Great songs, great performances.  If you don't
> > like it, that's cool.  I'm just glad that I love it!
>
> Well said.  Perhaps I too am less demanding as I age (or, increase in
> "old fartidude"...)

        I'm still not convinced there's any `great songs' on there, but I
do play it quite a bit. In fact, since Clutch's _Pure Rock Fury_ has
ended... Yours,
                Jon

ObCD: Blue Oyster Cult - _Curse of the Hidden Mirror_
--
       Jon Jarrett (01223 514989)     jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk
   =====================================================================
  "There is a certain pleasure in being mad, which none but madmen know"