{"id":20018,"date":"2020-12-23T05:30:12","date_gmt":"2020-12-23T10:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=20018"},"modified":"2020-12-24T21:07:47","modified_gmt":"2020-12-25T02:07:47","slug":"cultus-redux-part-1-of-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2020\/12\/23\/cultus-redux-part-1-of-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue \u00d6yster Cult: Cultus Redux – Part 1 of 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

An edited version of this feature was the cover story in the December 2020 issue of<\/em> Goldmine.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Blue \u00d6yster Cult returns with its first album of new music in nearly 20 years<\/b><\/p>\n

In the midst of a pandemic that has forced live concerts to disappear and the pace of album releases to slow to a trickle, one of rock\u2019s most enduring acts is ending a long period of studio inactivity. Wickedly witty rock band Blue \u00d6yster Cult released its fifteenth studio album, The Symbol Remains<\/i>, on October 9. For fans of the group\u2019s classic material, the collection of 14 new songs should prove to have been worth the wait.<\/p>\n

Until very recently, rock fans whose primary exposure to music is albums \u2013 as opposed to live shows \u2013 may have held the mistaken impression that Blue \u00d6yster Cult is no longer around. The Long Island, N.Y. rockers came on the scene in 1972, broke through in a big way in 1976 and again in \u201881. The band known for its hits \u201c(Don\u2019t Fear) The Reaper,\u201d and \u201cBurnin\u2019 for You\u201d and \u201cGodzilla\u201d released 14 studio albums between \u201872 and 2001. But then, it seemed, the music stopped.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not exactly what happened. The band \u2013 always a strong draw on the concert circuit \u2013 continued its heavy touring schedule. To date, reliable estimates place the number of live B\u00d6C shows somewhere just over the 4000 mark; that works out to an average of about one concert every ten days for the last 48 years. Right up until early 2020 when stages across the country (and globe) went dark, Blue \u00d6yster Cult stayed busy and on the road. But in an era when even the least prolific artists manage a new release every five years or so, fans hungering for new music from B\u00d6C have seen their requests go unanswered for nearly two decades.<\/p>\n

\"\"That all changed in October when the band roared back with The Symbol Remains<\/i>, an album full of songs that display all of the qualities that fired Blue \u00d6yster Cult\u2019s 11-album chart run in the \u201870s and \u201880s. Hearing songs like \u201cBox in My Head\u201d and \u201cThe Alchemist,\u201d it\u2019s as if the band never left.<\/p>\n

Lead guitarist and vocalist Buck Dharma (born Donald Roeser) fills in the gap concerning what might be thought of as the band\u2019s years in the wilderness. \u201cWhen we did Heaven Forbid<\/i> [1998] and Curse of the Hidden Mirror<\/i> [2001] for CMC Records, they weren\u2019t commercially very well received,\u201d he concedes. \u201cSo we figured, \u2018Okay, we\u2019ll just be a live act.\u2019 And we were very successful at doing that, just playing gigs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Founded in 1967 as Soft White Underbelly (and known for a time as Oaxaca and then Stalk-Forrest Group), Blue \u00d6yster Cult\u2019s lineup would remain constant from 1970 through \u201881, a period that lines up neatly with its album-charting era. Guitarist Dharma was joined by lead vocalist and guitarist Eric Bloom, keyboardist Allen Lanier and the Bouchard brothers, Joe and Albert, on bass and drums respectively.<\/p>\n

While core members Bloom and Dharma have been with the band from its inception as B\u00d6C, the other members came and went. But the band\u2019s current lineup has racked up quite a few live gigs in its time together: Jules Radino has been on the group\u2019s drum throne since 2004, guitarist\/keyboardist Richie Castellano has been on board since 2007, and even relative newcomer Danny Miranda has been playing bass in B\u00d6C for nearly four years. But until the release of The Symbol Remains<\/i>, the current lineup had never been captured on a studio recording.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t feel any pressure to record new stuff,\u201d concedes Bloom. \u201cWe were very busy on the road.\u201d Noting that a great deal of effort went into making the commercial flops Heaven Forbid<\/i> and Curse of the Hidden Mirror<\/i>, he says with candor, \u201cWe didn\u2019t really feel like working really hard to put out a product that nobody except the hardcore fans cared about. We figured, \u2018Why bother?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

But Buck Dharma says that by early 2020, the time was right. \u201cAt some point, we realized, \u2018This live band is so good now that we have<\/i> to record it,\u2019\u201d he recalls. \u201cAnd then it was just a matter of getting a record company to give us an offer that we found attractive enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people would just put out a couple songs on the \u2018net,\u201d observes Bloom. \u201cBut we were not interested in that. We make our living touring, so we wanted to have a label that had some interest and would give us some financial support so we could go off the road.\u201d He says that in July 2019 Frontiers Records \u201ctook a gamble\u201d and provided the funds B\u00d6C needed to make an album. \u201cFrontiers came to us with an attractive offer,\u201d Dharma says, \u201cand here we are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Click here to continue<\/a>\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An edited version of this feature was the cover story in the December 2020 issue of Goldmine. Blue \u00d6yster Cult returns with its first album of new music in nearly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20026,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,49,62],"tags":[349],"class_list":["post-20018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-new-release","category-rawk","tag-blue-oyster-cult","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20018"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20388,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20018\/revisions\/20388"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}