{"id":20021,"date":"2020-12-24T05:30:27","date_gmt":"2020-12-24T10:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=20021"},"modified":"2020-12-26T11:19:25","modified_gmt":"2020-12-26T16:19:25","slug":"blue-oyster-cult-cultus-redux-part-2-of-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2020\/12\/24\/blue-oyster-cult-cultus-redux-part-2-of-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue \u00d6yster Cult: Cultus Redux – Part 2 of 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One<\/a>…<\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"The Making of The Symbol Remains<\/i><\/b>
\nThe process of creating an album is challenging enough on its own; making a record when the band\u2019s members are all sheltered in place and practicing the social distancing necessitated by the Covid-19 pandemic is even more of a daunting prospect. Fortunately, even after nearly two decades away from the recording studio, Blue \u00d6yster Cult got a head start before the pandemic stuck.<\/p>\n

Bloom landed upon some lyric ideas while aboard an airline flight. \u201cSo I just grabbed a pen from my carry-on and started scribbling,\u201d he says. \u201cSongs can be written a lot of different ways.\u201d He recalls finishing some of his co-writes with Castellano while in a rental car. \u201cI was driving, and Richie was sitting next to me with his laptop open, and we were just kicking ideas back and forth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Buck Dharma had a number of songs \u2013 \u201cNightmare Epiphany,\u201d \u201cFight\u201d and \u201cSecret Road\u201d \u2013 in development before the project started. \u201cHe had demo versions of songs that he had put out on the \u2018net,\u201d Bloom recalls. \u201cSo those were ready to go before we started doing anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even as the new songs came together, they didn\u2019t yet find their way into the band\u2019s live set. \u201cWell, we did play \u2018Stand and Fight\u2019 live \u2026 once,\u201d Bloom admits with a chuckle. \u201cBut probably not very well. It wasn\u2019t really ready.\u201d<\/p>\n

The recording project began in late 2019. \u201cBuck lives out of state, but the rest of us live in the New York City area,\u201d Bloom says. \u201cSo Buck came up and stayed at a hotel, and we all got together in a rehearsal place on Long Island.\u201d Dharma, Bloom, Castellano and Radino had all been writing music, sometimes collaborating with each other on composition. And as has long been its practice, B\u00d6C worked with writers outside the band as well, penning songs with novelist John Shirley (the writer responsible for all of the lyrics on Heaven Forbid<\/i> and Curse of the Hidden Mirror<\/i>) and longtime associate Richard Meltzer, lyricist of the band\u2019s hit single \u201cBurnin\u2019 for You.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone was bringing in all the songs they had,\u201d Bloom says. \u201cAnd bit by bit, the album started to come together. So like [when] making any record, we went into a studio and started recording.\u201d The band\u2019s sound engineer and tour manager Steve La Cerra is also a teacher at Mercy College just north of New York City, and he worked out an arrangement whereby Blue \u00d6yster Cult could work on the album using the school\u2019s state-of-the-art recording studio.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of our ex-crew guys is the audio engineer at Mercy College\u2019s studio,\u201d Bloom notes. \u201cSo after rehearsing in Long Island, we got a \u2018lockout\u2019 session at that very fine studio. We went in there and did all of our basic tracks.\u201d Radino\u2019s drum parts as well as some of the guitar and bass parts were finished during the Mercy College sessions. Once that work was completed, the band returned to the road for more concert dates.<\/p>\n

\u201cLuckily for us,\u201d says Buck Dharma, \u201cwe did all the basic tracks before the virus hit.\u201d But the record was far from complete. And returning to the studio wouldn\u2019t be an option; circumstances forced a change in working methods to complete the album. Fortunately, Dharma, Bloom and Castellano all have professional-grade recording setups in their respective homes. \u201cWhatever else we needed to do \u2013 vocals, guitar overdubs \u2013 we needed to do at home,\u201d Dharma says.<\/p>\n

State-of-the-art teleconferencing software allowed the band members to continue working together through the internet. \u201cWe used videoconferencing to talk to each other,\u201d Dharma says. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t play and sing together in real time, but we could definitely listen to each other and produce each other. We were all using programs like Pro Tools \u2013 I used Digital Performer \u2013 and we were able to look at each other\u2019s video monitors to see what we were doing. And that\u2019s the way we did it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bloom gives credit to Castellano as the \u201cpivot man\u201d of the quarantine sessions. \u201cThe band bought him a mobile recording technology setup, and he ran it from his studio,\u201d he explains. \u201cI did my lead vocals in a small recording booth in my house. And with Zoom-type technology, Richie would coach me through my vocals, engineering it from his<\/i> house.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The resulting album may have been pieced together using internet technology, but the finished tracks on The Symbol Remains<\/i> sound very much like the band playing together. The talents of Castellano and the album\u2019s executive producer Steve Schenck extend to video production: the official music video for \u201cBox in My Head\u201d shows the five-man B\u00d6C assembled in traditional rock band formation, even though all of their video parts were recorded in their respective homes as well.<\/p>\n

Modern recording and communication technology also made it possible for inclusion of a special guest star on one of The Symbol Remains<\/i>\u2019 tracks. Founding member and drummer Albert Bouchard quit Blue \u00d6yster Cult in 1981, returning briefly in \u201885. After leaving the group he went on to work with a wide variety of acts including Herman\u2019s Hermits, Mike Watt and his own band, Brain Surgeons. He released a solo album in 2014, and would continue to make occasional guest appearances at B\u00d6C live shows. \u201cAlbert has tucked into a few shows here and there over the last few years,\u201d Bloom says.<\/p>\n

So as the band neared completion of \u201cThat Was Me,\u201d they invited Bouchard to lend a hand. \u201cWe thought, \u2018What if Albert sang background on this song?\u2019\u201d Bloom recalls. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t that unusual for us to have him get involved, so he sang on \u2018That Was Me.\u2019\u201d And in a good-sport nod to the hilarious and well-known Saturday Night Live<\/i> \u201cMore Cowbell\u201d skit featuring Christopher Walken and Will Ferrell parodying the making of \u201c(Don\u2019t Fear) The Reaper,\u201d Bouchard also contributed cowbell for the song. \u201cAnd then when it came time to do the video, we asked him if he would like to come,\u201d Bloom says. \u201cAnd he did.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Continued from Part One… The Making of The Symbol Remains The process of creating an album is challenging enough on its own; making a record when the band\u2019s members are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20025,"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-20021","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\/20021","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=20021"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20390,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20021\/revisions\/20390"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}