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GreatSunJester

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Posts posted by GreatSunJester

  1. First off, don't listen to anyone who says BOC sucked after the first three. This is the typical nonsense that most people do with all bands, and it's generally not true.

    Most bands tend to be at their best during their mid period, because they still have the energy, but have honed their skills. During the later period they seem to get burned out, or change their direction too much. They still get great songs out of it though.

    I'm not trying to discount their first three. There are great songs on those albums, such as Wings Wetted Down, Astronomy, Cities on Flame, and Flaming Telepaths. 

    But there are also duds like Career of Evil. Don't misunderstand that though. Even at their worst, BOC are better than even than the best of other great bands.

    It might be kind of hard to truly know the quality of Tyranny and Mutation, and Secret Treaties, because they feature some awful production. It's like listening to And Justice For All from Metallica. There's just a flatness to it that I think takes away from the song quality.

    Agents has pretty great song crafting, but it's fairly light in comparison to other works, even Mirrors. It's got great tunes on it, but Buck's playing on it is fairly limited, and some of the guitar tones don't do it for me. But it's got Reaper and ETI on it, which has one of my favorite guitar riffs on it. 

    Mirrors gets put down a lot, and about half of it is just way too pop driven. But there are 4 great metal/prog songs on there, and The Great Sun Jester is one of my favorite songs. 

    A lot of people tend to like Cultosaurus Erectus, but I feel it's a lot like earlier work, where there are some great songs followed by some duds. Black Blade is killer, but the Marshall Plan ends up being hokey. It also has bad production.

    Another one that gets ripped is Club Ninja. That, as well as Revolution by Night don't have Albert Bouchard on them, the original drummer. Not only is he an amazing drummer, but he also wrote a lot of the original and best material, and helped the band pull everything together where they just had general riffs and ideas.

    But both those albums have great material on them, as well as some not so great stuff. They do feature some of Buck Dharma's most ripping guitar work.

    Imaginos is an amazing CD. The problem is that it's not a true BOC record. While the original members are on it, it was largely written by Albert Bouchard with members of his band The Brain Surgeons, and featured a number of studio musicians. I think Joe Bouchard (original bassist) has no input.

    Buck and Eric came in to sing, and Buck redid a lot of the guitar work, but there are songs where he's absent, and someone like Robby Krieger of the Doors is playing the solo. It's an amazing solo, but it's just not right not having the real BOC on it.

    Fire Of Unknown Origin is pretty great and generally strong overall. There's only one song on there that doesn't quite match the others.

    They had a couple albums later on that were pretty decent(Heaven Forbid and Curse of the Hidden Mirror), but clearly lacking due to the absence of both Joe and Albert. HF feels the least like BOC, but it shows Buck playing metal riffs that put metal bands to shame. I just prefer his older melodic and harder stuff. 

    For me, their best record is Spectres. This is the one that has Godzilla on it. To me, this is the most cohesive record, where every song is either very good or amazing. It walks the line between being heavy and melodic more than other BOC records, has the best production, etc.

    Quite possibly the best song ever written by anyone is on here, called I Love The Night. It's about meeting a woman vampire who turns Buck into a vampire. This is followed up nicely with Nosferatu, another vampire song. 

    There's also Godzilla, of course, one stomping (no pun intended) beat with great riffing by Buck, Golden Age Of Leather, Death Valley Nights, and so on. 

    Really, what you should do, is buy the "blue oyster cult the columbia albums collection" since it has all their cd's up to Ninja, minus the Bad Channel's soundtrack. Even though that has a number of other bands on it, it has two new songs from BOC, and instrumental work Buck did for the movie. I'd even say to get HF and Curse. You can't go wrong with anything from them.

    Another suggestion: seek out their live stuff. I don't know if they were rushed a lot in the studio, but hearing live versions of songs like 7 Screaming Diz Busters vs the studio version is in a whole other stratosphere. They obviously have the skill, so there must have been something going on with the studio recordings to limit what they put on them. 

    They've had some missteps, but so have other bands. Rush's work during most of the 80s was not up to their 70s work. 

    Each member of BOC are probably my favorites in their respective instruments. A lot of praise is rightfully given to Buck, but Eric (and Buck) are both amazing singers. They obviously don't have the range of Halford or Tate, but if you listen to Eric's singing around the Hearing Aid time (and even on songs like Astronomy) he has a lot of power and melody. Buck's got a great tone to his voice.

    Allen Lanier was a great keyboard player, but he also played guitar live. Obviously, no one is going to match Buck's playing, but he could not only stand toe to toe with Buck and not only not suck, but sound pretty amazing.

    Albert Bouchard is quite frankly a better drummer than Peart and Bonham. He tended to be somewhat minimalist on later CDs, but if you listen to some earlier stuff and his live drum solos, he played fast, hard, and creatively. His brother Joe played bass like a lead guitar, and had amazing melodies to match Buck's guitar playing.

    I also recommend the solo work and work with other musicians they did. The Brain Surgeon's was Albert's band post BOC and he has some great music on those records. The only thing that might put people off is the singing of his then girlfriend, Debbie Frost. He also had a solo album that came out last year that's pretty good, but it's decidedly different from his BOC stuff.

    Joe had some of his own projects as well that are worth checking out. He's done some reworkings of his BOC stuff that might be better than the originals. Both he and Albert have a new band called Blue Coupe, which includes the bassist from Alice Cooper, Dennis Dunaway (hence, the Blue Coupe name). Dennis sings on some songs, and he's not my favorite, but he's a pretty good bassist.

    Eric has some solo stuff he's done, mostly covers of Metallica and other bands on various tribute albums. BOC were a huge influence on Metallica, as well as many other bands.

    Then there's Buck's Flat Out, which has some lighter stuff from him. But 2 of my favorite songs are on here, Cold Wind and Your Loving Heart. They're ballads, and if you have any romance in you, these songs will give you chills.

    Buck also has done work on the Guitar For The Practicing Musician album called Gamera Is Missing, guitar on Blotto's Metal Head, and a song with Albert Bouchard and the singer they had before they became BOC, Les Braunstein, called Dark Angel that you can find here. 

     

    Buck also had his Archives release, which featured a lot of his demos for songs that became BOC songs, as well as his other music. I think it's still available to buy.

    So, yeah, I love this band. A lot.

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