![]() ![]() Opting for the latter, Imaginos is renamed Desdinova and charged with a special task using his shapeshifting abilities, he is to adopt pivotal roles throughout human history in order to test mankind’s “ability to respond to the challenge of evil”. They disclose his true heritage and offer him the choice of death or servitude. As his life ebbs away, he is approached by entities who identify themselves as ‘Les Invisibles’ (another name for the Loa or Mystères of Vodou lore). ![]() Leaving home to seek adventure, Imaginos travels far and wide until a shipwreck in the Gulf of Mexico washes him up at death’s door. This “random access myth” was described by Pearlman as "an explanation for the onset of World War I, or a revelation of the occult origins of it" and centred around the character of Imaginos, a “modified child” born in New Hampshire at the turn of the 19th century. Within it, he blended elements of Lovecraftian horror, science fiction and conspiracy theory to form a metanarrative spanning centuries and continents, populated by characters real and fictional from Dr John Dee to Victor Frankenstein. “The writing in the notebook, notation from the stars.”Īs a university student in the late 1960s, Pearlman devised an epic fable entitled The Soft Doctrines Of Immaginos. Their reluctance to fully relinquish the innovations of 60s acid rock resulted in music which didn’t sound, as Sabbath’s did, like a wholesale rejection of sophistication rather, its oscillation between force and filigree echoed the post-Altamont confusion of a generation rudely cast from Eden into a grave new world of paranoia, mistrust and murder. Something else that distinguished BÖC from their contemporaries was the fact that each member of the band could, and would, sing. Brothers Albert and Joe Bouchard (on drums and bass respectively) comprised one of rock’s most underrated rhythm sections, supple yet forceful. Allen Lanier’s keyboards added a sickly, gothic tinge. “Stun” guitarist and frontman Eric Bloom - he of the permanent aviators - intoned tales of interstellar intrigue and earthbound debauchery in a velvety, laconic croon. Guitarist Donald ‘Buck Dharma’ Roeser alternated between post-Nuggets garage fuzz, blues-based repetition and Garcia-like prettiness. BÖC were laser-sharp and fleet-footed where their contemporaries were blunt and monolithic. ![]() While the band could certainly grind out the heavy riffs when required - as the debut’s ‘Cities On Flame With Rock And Roll’ demonstrates - their music just as often betrayed the unmistakable influence of West Coast psychedelic ensembles The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service. It’s often said that Crawdaddy contributor Pearlman had intended his charges to be the US equivalent of Black Sabbath. “To the rhyme of the, of the, of the star clock.” For the third, Secret Treaties (1974), pulp paperback artist Ron Lesser continued the B&W theme, casting the band members as comic book supervillains gathered before a modified Messerschmitt piloted by Death himself. In addition, Bill Gawlick’s monochrome sleeve art ensured that BÖC’s first two albums Blue Öyster Cult (1972) and Tyranny And Mutation (1973) looked like nothing else in the racks. Steered by manager, producer and lyricist Sandy Pearlman, the band’s career between 19 took in songwriting collaborations with writers Michael Moorcock, Eric Van Lustbader and Richard Meltzer, not to mention Jim Carroll, Patti Smith and Mott The Hoople’s Ian Hunter, while titles like ‘I’m On The Lamb But I Ain’t No Sheep’, ‘Transmaniacon MC’ and ‘Mistress Of The Salmon Salt (Quicklime Girl)’ hinted at an oblique wit equalled by few of their peers. Though Alice Cooper, Kiss and Rush did their best to maintain rock’s big bucks, high-visibility lunatic contingent, BÖC’s insanity was a great deal more insidious and intricate. New York’s Blue Öyster Cult are perhaps the weirdest rock group of 70s vintage ever to scan an arena crowd with potentially dangerous laser technology. “A bedtime story for the children of the damned.” ![]()
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