80s Metal

[Theodore O Jackson]

... I'm rather of the opinion that  
BOC should have simply broken up in the wake of Albert's departure,  
if not after releasing _Extraterrestrial Live_ at least after RbN.   


Couldn't agree more, and the subsequent releases more than bear this out.
After Pearlman and Meltzer were marginalized as BÖC contributors, Albert
filled the power vacuum quite nicely.  He was always a prolific, if
sometimes scattershot, songwriter.  Firing Albert was like shooting the
proverbial albatross.  The band went quickly downhill material-wise,
and they just never seemed to have the same onstage chemistry either 
after that point.  OTOH, BÖC by that time had become quite a cash
cow, and who could blame the rest of the band for not wanting to pull
the plug on a great band that was still making lots of money, esp. given
the musical climate of the times.  Why should BÖC call it quits when the 
musical landscape of the day was rather barren?  It's not like Buck is/was
a shabby songwriter, he just doesn't work fast enough to write an album's
worth of material on his own.  Joe was still in the band before CN, and he's
always been a great songwriter.  But when he left the band, it was time to
call it a day...



CN should not have happened really -- whatever saving graces we might  
try to extricate from it could have easily have been saved for  
another time.  However the workload might be broken down, the twin  
departures of Al and Sandy Pearlman from the BOC orbit clearly did  
them no good in terms of actually producing reliably decent music.   
We need only compare CN and Imaginos (though that latter only came  
out in 1988, if one tracks down the demos that are floating around  
the internet, it's clear that a some sort of polished version could  
well have been released earlier had CBS actually wanted that) to see  
how that story was playing out.


Can't blame CBS for wanting to make a buck off the band.  Imaginos,
though brilliant, showed almost zero commercial potential.  Whilst adored
by the hardcore fans, a lot of casual listeners would have been left
scratching their heads...



  Without Al and Pearlman, the writing  
talent is basically reduced to Buck -- and though that's a pretty  
good talent (!), it doesn't seem to be enough to provide a constant  
stream of new material for a band rightly or wrongly linked to a  
proto-metal reputation.

I should have read your entire post before writing the above!



I would _like_ to say that the plan should have been (with shades of  
Sabbath) to triumphantly reform the original lineup in the latter  
1990s or for the new millennium  -- giving everyone time to, ya know,  
work out their various issues with any luck.  And that perhaps would  
have been the time to unleash the _Imaginos_ material with all new  
recordings.  As it is, I think the years of touring with the puppet  
show and a rotating cast around 2OC or 3OC have "diluted the brand".   


I think by that time, there was just too much bad blood on all sides
to make that happen.  All the pity, as you'd think a bunch of great
musicians could have realized the amazing thing they had, and swallowed
their pride to give it another go.  But by that time, BÖC had become
an institution, and I think the 3ÖC remainders realized that the group
had settled into a routine, playing smaller venues, albeit, but also
without the huge overhead of the old days.  I expect, at the end of
the day, it was a simple business solution...



 Will CotHM the last  
studio album to bear the BOC moniker?  

Probably...


Will we eventually see the  
band touring as 1OC, sans one or Eric or Buck?


Well, they're currently 2ÖC, and have been for quite a while.
They actually played in my town a while back and I refused to go
because of that...


tj