{"id":27654,"date":"2024-06-20T05:30:05","date_gmt":"2024-06-20T09:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=27654"},"modified":"2024-06-17T08:48:22","modified_gmt":"2024-06-17T12:48:22","slug":"blue-oyster-cult-archival-intelligence-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/20\/blue-oyster-cult-archival-intelligence-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue \u00d6yster Cult: Archival Intelligence (part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Bill Kopp: Was the band just so prolific in those days that you simply had more material than you could use? <\/b><\/p>\n

Eric Bloom: I don\u2019t know about that. These were\u2026 I won\u2019t use the word \u201crejected\u201d because that\u2019s too harsh. Maybe we were just not satisfied with them at the time. Or we just couldn\u2019t agree: maybe two or three out of five guys said, \u201cI don\u2019t want to work on this song anymore.\u201d These things happen when you have a democracy, of course.<\/p>\n

Buck Dharma: Historically, we didn\u2019t record a lot of extra stuff. When we\u2019d make a record, we would pretty much decide which songs we thought were going to make the record, and then those were the ones we\u2019d record. The treasure trove of Ghost Stories<\/i> is what George Geranios had retained from those days, centered around the time when we were writing songs for the movie Heavy Metal<\/i>. They picked \u201cVeteran of the Psychic Wars\u201d for the movie, but there were others. Listening to Ghost Stories<\/i>, it\u2019s like a lost B\u00d6C record that somehow got misplaced and then found, because it has all the original band members on it. It\u2019s got Allen Lanier, who\u2019s gone now. So it\u2019s nostalgic and bittersweet to hear it with a sheen of 2024 production on it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ghost Stories <\/b><\/i>includes a version of The MC5\u2019s \u201cKick Out the Jams.\u201d That one has been in B\u00d6C\u2019s set for a long time; you even included it on your first live album, <\/b>Some Enchanted Evening<\/b><\/i>. What\u2019s special about that song?<\/b><\/p>\n

Eric Bloom: I\u2019m an old guy; I actually saw the MC5 live. They were great. And [our then-manager Sandy] Pearlman was a fan; he dragged us by the scruff of our necks to go see them, though it didn\u2019t take much persuading. The MC5 has to be the archetype for a hard rock band; they were very inspirational.<\/p>\n

The Beatles\u2019 \u201cIf I Fell\u201d seems an unusual choice of songs for B\u00d6C to cover. Tell me about that. <\/b><\/p>\n

Eric Bloom: We did that when Kasim [Sulton] was in the band. We like doing covers; it\u2019s kind of a dressing room thing. We always sang Beatles songs in the dressing room just to warm up on vocals and harmonies. We\u2019ve actually done \u201cIf I Fell\u201d during sound checks. One time we did it at an outdoor venue, and the crews and everybody stopped what they were doing and came over to the stage. It\u2019s a fun song to do because it\u2019s got a lot of moving parts. And it was especially great when Kasim was in the band, because he\u2019s such a great singer. I\u2019m glad it found its spot on this record.<\/p>\n

Buck Dharma: My rule of covers is, \u201cFirst, do no harm, and then bring something new.\u201d We enjoy playing other people\u2019s music if we think we could do something with it. \u201cIf I Fell\u201d was done at a taping at Red Studios in L.A. at the time of the 40th anniversary of Agents of Fortune<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Has B\u00d6C played any of the original songs on <\/b>Ghost Stories<\/b><\/i> live onstage? <\/b><\/p>\n

Buck Dharma: No, [back then] we didn\u2019t play them live as far as I know. I could be wrong. Some completist might say, \u201cNo, you actually played it on this date, at this show.\u201d But I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if we would perform some of these new songs this year.<\/p>\n

Eric Bloom: It\u2019s possible we played them live to try them out somewhere, which [laughs] may have been the reason why they weren\u2019t used!<\/p>\n

Is there more unreleased material in the B\u00d6C vault?<\/b><\/p>\n

Eric Bloom: I really don\u2019t know. Never say never. There are songs that we wrote for movies and stuff like that; those have come out on as extra tracks [on CD reissues]. I don\u2019t know how much stuff is left. I think the well is dry, but you never know.<\/p>\n

Buck Dharma: Ghost Stories<\/i> is the cream of the crop, the small crop. I don\u2019t know if George has stuff that I\u2019ve forgotten about. I don\u2019t have a notebook from what was done at the time. Is there anything more? We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n

Over the course of Blue \u00d6yster Cult\u2019s career, there have been at least nine live albums. Is the group more in its element in the studio or live on stage?<\/b><\/p>\n

Buck Dharma: Historically, we sort of broke out because of the live record. That was our first Gold record: On Your Feet or On Your Knees<\/i>. And I think there was an energy \u2013 and even an ability \u2013 on our live recordings that didn\u2019t always come across in the studio recordings. But I like studio records myself. I wouldn\u2019t say the live records are better than the studio records; they\u2019re just different.<\/p>\n

Eric Bloom: I think we\u2019ve proved to have success both ways. Our best selling record is a live record; it\u2019s that single one that was supposed to be a double album, Some Enchanted Evening<\/i>. And On Your Feet<\/i> certainly is raw; a lot of people think it\u2019s a great live record, and it marks a certain time in our career. Extraterrestrial Live<\/i> is a good record, too.<\/p>\n

The press release for <\/b>Ghost Stories<\/b><\/i> refers to the album \u201cbookending\u201d Blue \u00d6yster Cult\u2019s career. That\u2019s an interesting choice of words. Should that be taken to mean that this is the final release from the band?<\/b><\/p>\n

Eric Bloom: I think that\u2019s \u201crecord label-speak,\u201d so I\u2019m not going to give it any credence. I\u2019m only going to say that if you\u2019re sitting on an airplane and you get an idea for a song and you have a napkin nearby, it doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re not going to start writing something else that might come out someday.<\/p>\n

Buck Dharma: At this moment, we\u2019re not planning to do any more recording, but that could change. As far as live shows, we\u2019re committed to 2024; we\u2019ll probably do between 20 and 30 shows. We haven\u2019t committed to anything in \u201825 yet. Eric and I are getting old, and I\u2019m just wondering if I\u2019ll ever do anything else but get up and play. Because that\u2019s basically what I\u2019ve done for 50-odd years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One… Bill Kopp: Was the band just so prolific in those days that you simply had more material than you could use? Eric Bloom: I don\u2019t know […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27657,"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-27654","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\/27654","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=27654"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27659,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27654\/revisions\/27659"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}