BOC/BRAIN: Bouchard Dunaway Smith in London

[Jonathan Jarrett]

        Right, first a small rant, then the actual review. When I first
heard about this gig it was said, from Stuart's newsfeed which I assume
was from Totalrock, that it was on the 24th of October. So I went `wah'
on-list because that meant missing Bedouin, and Si Halley posted saying, I
don't know if it was a typo given he got the date right later on (which I
sadly didn't notice) that it was actually the 20th so that was all
right. Only I was dubious generally so rather than be sure from the list,
I rang the venue on the 20th and the muppet on the phone confirmed it was
that night, so down I went and it wasn't. It was the 30th, same night as
Mountain, which cost me eleven quid to find out. Bah.

        Anyway, that wasn't all bad, as it meant I could go with Kirsten,
and it was clear that I had to go as Mountain will be back unless
something disastrous happens whereas I'll probably never get to see Joe
again. And I wrote this of it, later on:

        "Somehow managing despite all transport problems to meet outside
the Underworld, we were in in time for everything and the support act,
Crown of Thorns took the stage slightly after we were sorted. They, um,
sounded like Survivor. You know, did `Eye of the Tiger', no-one knows
anything else by them, they sounded like that, but without the obvious
classic song. Very tight, real clown of a bass player who was very bored,
looked like the sheriff in _Blazing Saddles_ but with hair dyed blonde,
spent a great deal of time cracking jokes behind the singer's back; widdly
lead guitarist, reasonable drummer, keyboardist less sure of himself than
the others, singer and rhythm guitarist very good at the former and
dispensable with the latter. Since he had the guitar though they had a
very full sound. Their music is designed for stadia, not for clubs, and I
kind of hope they manage that some day as they're as good as many other
people who do, but the same basic chord progression behind all the fairly
melodic tunes left me in no doubt about why the bass-player was so bored
and after six or seven songs so was I. Good, but not new, and they've
missed getting any airplay by ten or fifteen years.

        "The act we'd actually come to see was Bouchard Dunaway Smith,
that is Joe Bouchard, the ex-bass player of Blue Öyster Cult now playing
his first instrument, guitar, again, and the rhythm section of the
original Alice Cooper group. Two thirds `School's Out' and one third
`(Don't Fear) The Reaper'. They were having tremendous fun. Joe is very
short, and sounds weirdly like his brother (BÖC's ex-drummer Al
Bouchard) and also like Donald Roeser, BÖC's lead guitarist. They did do
`Reaper', which Donald wrote, and people who didn't know any better must
have gone away thinking Joe had originally played and sung it. Other stuff
they did that I knew was two other BÖC numbers, `Fallen Angel' which has
always been unremarkable but by way of being sandwiched into a lengthy
percussion break thereby altering its shape rather became less so, and an
absolutely lovely `Astronomy' (which I've never seen BÖC play). They also
did something by way of encore called `18' which I'm guessing was an Alice
number. But much of it was actually improvised, as far as I could
tell. Not only did Denis Dunaway (who had some very loyal fans in the
audience to whom he showed off the bass he played on "_School's Out_, and,
oh, all those other album") do a five-minute solo spot with the bass,
and then later on the rhythm section two or three minutes by themselves
which then turned into `Fallen Angel' as I said, but the breaks were long
and good too. They can all play. Neal Smith is very very tall. He dwarfs
the rest of the band. Denis Dunaway is not particularly short but likes to
play crouched down with his bass pointing in the air. Joe likes doing the
same tricks as Donald does with the audience, catching someone's eye and
thus pointing this little lick at them, smiling evilly a lot, and so
on. The two stringsmen took the piss out of each other mercilessly. They
were very chuffed to be over here even playing to about a hundred people
if that. Their album sold out. I shall get it some other time I suppose."

        So that was good, as you may be able to tell. Long past time I
sorted out US currency for a Cellsum order... Yours,
                                                     Jon (dropping back
into obscurity again, I hope briefly)

ObCD: Sons of Selina - _Fire in the Hole_
--
"I recognise that I have transgressed many of the precepts of the divine
law, and that I am subjected by various vices and iniquities, disobedient
to the words of the divine mystery brought unto me and a worshipper of the
delights of this military age." Marquis Borrell of Barcelona, 955 A.D.

             (Jonathan Jarrett, Birkbeck College London)