Y'all can just skip the rest of my comment here, because I'm going to be talking about something that literally nobody will click on, and will forever taint everything I ever post again to Hubski with a stain of "ok, sure goobster, but you made that one post to the weekly music post, remember? So we can't really believe anything you ever say again..." . . . . . . I've been listening to a lot of Blue Oyster Cult recently. They were one of my three favorite bands as a kid (Sabbath, AC/DC, BOC), I've seen them live multiple times in multiple different decades, and I've owned a large portion of their catalog. They are the original swords-and-sorcery bar band. Their songs are often mystical Tolkein-esque stories of magic and swords and other shit I have zero time or patience for. Their musicianship is basically the best bar band in the world; they can play like motherfuckers, but don't show off. They just execute, and produce rockin', interesting music. So here's my BOC playlist for those who have only ever heard "Godzilla" or "Burning for You" from Saturday Night Live. - Veteran of the Psychic Wars This one surprised me. I know the song well. But in a COVID world, it takes on a real poignance and timeliness that the original song didn't have. It struck me. - Black Blade Just a great rock song... the story would be a fantastic movie. The hero just wants to be a Casanova, but he happens across a dark sword that takes over, and turns him into a hellion of murder and destruction. A fun twist of the genre that let's you look into the "bad guy" and see the world from his perspective, rather than the good guy, who needs to defeat him. - 7 Screaming Diz Busters No, I don't know what a Diz Buster is. But this is some virtuosic 1970's lead guitar riffing that any band of the era would be proud of. Lyrics are funny as shit, too. - The Red and the Black What band has EVER recorded an ode to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and their ability to "always get their man"? And NOBODY has ever rocked as hard whilst doing so. (Greatest song intro, too!) - Career of Evil Is completely unexpected. Just read the lyrics. - Astronomy Finally, this is BOC's magnum opus. A Pink Floyd style wide-ranging song with an almost orchestral arrangement of parts and sections. The live version from Some Enchanted Evening is transcendent, and the definitive version of this track. Just wonderful. - (NOTE: Blue Oyster Cult stopped writing new music in 2001, and still spends 11 months of every year on the road. It is what they do. It is who they are. They are a road band that plays live. And their catalog of good songs is so huge, they don't even have setlists anymore. They just play whatever they want to on that particular night. They sell a single piece of merchandise: a t-shirt reminiscent of their first album cover that says "Blue Oyster Cult - On Tour Forever".)
Blue Oyster Cult absolutely rules and nobody can tell me otherwise. I saw them live when I was like 17, at a free concert in the middle of a thunderstorm and seeing them do a 15 minute live version of Then Came the Last Days of May, which imo is worthy addition to your list.
YAY! Then Came The Last Days of May is kinda the BOC litmus test, isn't it? :-) I'm SUPER surprised you know (and like) BOC, my friend. I just didn't have that weird kink in my mental model of you, for some reason. Gotta do some renovations on that image of BFX I have in my head! :-D
Yep and yep! I even saw Uriah Heep open for Black Sabbath on the Mob Rules tour, IIRC. Live, in the 1980s, they were completely unremarkable. But before that? Deeply wizardy... until Ronnie James Dio out-Tolkeined everyone... Dio's lyrics still make me cringe with awkwardness...
Libby insisted Don't Fear The Reaper was our song. By the time we'd had this discussion I'd already bought a ticket to see them play at a strip mall bar in Albuquerque on the off-chance that the bouncer would take pity on me and let me in despite not being 21. He didn't. I ended up on San Mateo at 10pm on a Tuesday, 90 miles from home, with a state citizenship test the next morning that I was forcefully opting out of. I wandered around the freeway greenbelt collecting broken fan belts, while waiting for the midnight showing of Silence of the Lambs. I got home at 4am. I'd stopped dating her before the show and ended up dating her briefly again; Libby was the kind of girl who would get knocked up and end up giving up twins for adoption. Twice. In your honor I cued up Fire of Unknown Origin for the first time since, probably 1993. You're right - they're a hell of a bar band. I've always held that The Doors are the ultimate Holiday Inn lounge act and what's wrong with music is that everyone pretends that they were somehow more than that. There is a certain purity to Blue Oyster Cult that a band like Nazareth or Deep Purple (another under21 stripmall bar fail) lack. But I mean I'm in a weird mood. I decided yesterday that I really needed to listen to Def Leppard's Hysteria for some reason, and followed that up with three hours of Shania Twain because fundamentally Mutt Lange is a badass and I will fight anyone who disagrees. BOC is in a weird spot in my head. It was a centerpiece of a relationship that would have been spectacular if we weren't so busy being dysfunctional. Our ACE scores probably broke thirteen when added together.
I wondered what your take on Cult would be... they are definitely not in your usual milieu, but it's hard to deny liking any band that has such apparent integrity. I mean, when the backline retired (Albert and Joe Bouchard on bass and drums), their SONS played with the band for like a decade. And the guys in those roles now? Been playing with the band since like 2002. BOC has been doing this shit a LONG time. Side note: Last time I saw them was at the Emerald Queen Casino in Tacoma. Holy shit it was fantastic. The room sounds AMAZING. The sound system was PERFECT: loud and detailed and precise and ... you could still talk over the music to the person standing next to you. And the band was as tight as ever. I saw them play the Kingdome in 1982, for fucks sake... These guys just get on stage - ANY stage - and put on a great rock-n-roll show. City's On Flame, with Rock-n-Roll. Absofuckinglutely.
Without a doubt! So much swords and sorcery... I'm sure their rec rooms are velvet walls, huge leather chairs, lots of weapons majestically displayed on the walls... and paintings of warriors on horseback, wielding their mighty swords against hordes of the undead...