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Blue Öyster Cult

Blue Öyster Cult

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Blue Oyster Cult: Tyranny and Mutation

Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Phonograph Record, April 1973

YOU MIGHT remember my brief mention of Blue Oyster Cult's new album in the heavy metal piece. That was after only one listen, however, and ...

Blue Oyster Cult: Some Enchanted Evening

Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 30 September 1978

IT COULD be just my fevered imagination running away with me, but right now it seems that Sandy Pearlman (wily old fox and Cult behind-the-scenes ...

Blue Oyster Cult: Night Of The Locusts

Interview by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 13 September 1980

THE GOLDEN AGE of hotrod and dragster racing is over but the USA is still littered with its mythology. One such relic is Lebanon Valley ...

Audio interviews

Blue Öyster Cult (1978)

Interview by Ian Ravendale, Rock's Backpages audio, 30 April 1978

In which the late Allen Lanier debunks myths, largely spread by Richard Meltzer, about the band's formation; discusses songwriting formulae for success and disputes the latent satire in their music; and talks about the role of producers and, specifically, Sandy Pearlman's relationship to the band.

File format: mp3; file size: 22.9mb, interview length: 25' 03" sound quality: ****

Blue Öyster Cult's Eric Bloom (1978)

Interview by John Tobler, Rock's Backpages audio, 4 June 1978

The Cult singer/guitarist/keyboard player talks about recording the current UK tour for future release (as Some Enchanted Evening); studio albums vs. live albums; American radio, and their place as an FM band; the band's stage show and use of lasers; the importance of breaking Europe; getting the rights to use the name 'Godzilla', and writing for the pop market while retaining credibility. Note: ends very abruptly...

File format: mp3; file size: 14.1mb, interview length: 14' 41" sound quality: ****

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Blue Öyster Cult: Blue Öyster Cult (Columbia 31063)

Review by Nick Tosches, Fusion, May 1972

NEVER JUDGE a fellow earthling by the way he/she looks; this was perhaps the first lesson I gleaned from the Blue Öyster Cult — upon ...

Jeff Beck/Blue Oyster Cult/Flash/Argent: Gaelic Park, New York NY

Live Review by Jon Tiven, Phonograph Record, October 1972

BLUE OYSTER CULT had a real bad time at the big park and oh boy did they know it...one of the guys backstage connected wit ...

Blue Oyster Cult, Claudia Lennear & Bump City: Schaefer Music Festival, Wollman Rink, Central Park, New York NY

Live Review by Dan Nooger, The Village Voice, 26 July 1973

OYSTER CRACKING ...

All That Glitters Is Not Rock

Report by Dave Marsh, Newsday, 19 August 1973

Being a Partial Compendium of Some of the More (Or Less) Outstanding New York Unknowns ...

Blue Oyster Cult, the New York Dolls: New York's Beasty, Brutal Music Explosion

Overview by Greg Shaw, Phonograph Record, October 1973

The N.Y. Dolls & Blue Oyster Cult Revive Manhattan ...

Blue Oyster Cult at Hollywood Palladium

Live Review by Metal Mike Saunders, Phonograph Record, November 1973

FEW GROUPS in recent memory have had as successful a California debut performance as Blue Oyster Cult's here this September. Third-billed to Joe Walsh and ...

Blue Oyster Cult: Cult Heroes

Profile and Interview by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, 16 February 1974

NEW YORK: They say that heavy rock is on the decline and it's become fashionable to put down bands whose music is based on a ...

Blue Oyster Cult/Black Oak Arkansas

Report and Interview by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 2 March 1974

THIRD TIME down 52nd and 6th, and this guy from The Process is still trying to accost you with his pamphlets and spectre-of-doom rap. ...

Blue Oyster Cult: Tyranny And Mutation (Columbia Import)

Review by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 16 March 1974

WELL, HERE it is then: volume two of Sandy Perlman's boys' collective voyage in the S.S. "Cosmic Greaser Speed-freak" towards strange new worlds of murk ...

Blue Oyster Cult: Secret Treaties (Columbia)

Review by Greg Shaw, Phonograph Record, April 1974

BLUE OYSTER CULT was formed with a very definite idea in mind, and they haven't deviated from or enlarged that idea much in two years. ...

Blue Oyster Cult, Nazareth: Civic Auditorium, Santa Monica CA

Live Review by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 10 June 1974

Blue Oyster Cult in Heavy-Metal Offering ...

Blue Oyster Cult: Secret Treaties Columbia KC 32858

Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, 20 June 1974

THE BLUE Oyster Cult shares certain traits with that other New York cult band, the Dolls: an appropriate image for the outpouring of urban (and ...

Blue Oyster Cult: Secret Treaties (Columbia KC)

Review by Arthur Levy, Zoo World, 4 July 1974

VIOLENT FANTASY, and the fantasy of violence — confrontation and aggression — present the logical ultimatum of warlike Christian civilizations: Imperial control of the means ...

Blue Öyster Cult: That's Right, Another Bunch Of Neo-Fascist Heavies

Profile and Interview by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 15 February 1975

"We're pain, we're steel, we're a plot of knives...we're obsessed with the technology of matter...our symbol is a swastika substitute..." ...

The Faces, Blue Oyster Cult: Madison Square Garden, New York NY

Live Review by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, 8 March 1975

Faces bring back the fun ...

Blue Oyster Cult: On Your Feet Or On Your Knees

Review by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 22 March 1975

FIRST OF ALL let me tell you about the art work that John Berg has concocted for the Blue Oyster Cult's most extreme venture to ...

Blue Oyster Cult: On Your Feet Or On Your Knees

Review by Steven Rosen, Phonograph Record, April 1975

THOUGH THIS record does not rank with the Beach Boys In Concert for sheer recording quality or the Who's Live at Leeds for spontaneous instrumentation, ...

Blue Oyster Cult: On Your Feet Or On Your Knees (Columbia)

Review by Wayne Robins, Creem, May 1975

THE BLUE OYSTER CULT have been heavy metal's premier studio musicians. Initially, they were an image manipulated, a persona directed by their producers, Murray Krugman ...

Stanley Kissed Off At Cult

Report and Interview by Ron Ross, Circus, July 1975

THE FLAMING ROCK 'n' holocaust that Kiss brings to the stage has caused many intimidated headlining groups to ban the New York nitro-rockers from appearing ...

Blue Oyster Cult, Motorhead: Hammersmith Odeon, London

Live Review by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 25 October 1975

Heavy metal fatigue ...

Blue Öyster Cult, Motorhead: Hammersmith Odeon, London

Live Review by Geoff Barton, Sounds, 25 October 1975

SUPPORT ACT Lemmy's Motorhead played the second worst set I've ever seen. The only past concert I can think of that surpasses it, in terms ...

Blue Oyster's Buck Dharma

Interview by Steven Rosen, Guitar Player, January 1976

DONALD "BUCK Dharma" Roeser is the lead guitar player in the New York based band, Blue Oyster Cult, a driving and loud outfit which has ...

Blue Oyster Cult: Agents Of Fortune

Review by Ken Barnes, Phonograph Record, June 1976

NO MATTER HOW predictable rock seems to become, it can still surprise you, and I've got to admit to being surprised as hell by the ...

Blue Öyster Cult: Agents Of Fortune (CBS S 81385)

Review by Geoff Barton, Sounds, 19 June 1976

There's a fortune in Öysters sez seafood-crazy G. Barton, the kid with the plutonium-lined skull. ...

Blue Oyster Cult: We Copped A Lot From Sabbath

Interview by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, 24 July 1976

EVEN THE hardest of hearts must soften sometime, and so it is with Blue Oyster Cult, whose fifth album Agents of Fortune offers a degree ...

True Confessions: Weird Tales From The Early Days Of the Blue Oyster Cult

Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, 31 July 1976

O.K. The B.O.C.’s have just come offstage at the San Francisco Day on the Green, and they’re tired. ...

Blue Oyster Cult

Report and Interview by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 21 August 1976

Nectar of strychnine! Seminal psychedelic trip-wire rock'n'roll! Geometric chaos! Neo-nuclear Pearl Harbour precision! Flash-pod explosion! Blood-on-snow controlled fury! Boot-heeling dangerous! ...

Blue Oyster Cult: Agents Of Fortune (Island)

Review by Gene Sculatti, Crawdaddy!, September 1976

It’s back-to-the-roots for the Oysters this time; the roots being the band’s late-’60s incarnation as the Stalk-Forrest Group. Which is to say, Agents Of Fortune ...

Blue Oyster Cult: Spectres

Review by Paul Rambali, New Musical Express, 5 November 1977

SINCE 1971 this band has been one of the few HM perpetrators worth listening to. Since 1974's Secret Treaties it has been only one. If ...

John Denver is God; Bruce Springsteen is God; Blue Oyster Cult is God!

Interview by Robert Duncan, Creem, January 1978

I HATE TO be the one to bring it all up again, but goddamnit, the '70s have to be dealt with. An ugly affair, to ...

Blue Öyster Cult: Spectres (Columbia)

Review by Richard Riegel, Creem, January 1978

THE BLUE Öyster Cult have been able, in the past few years, to abandon their critic-induced anxieties about striving on as the vanguards of N.Y. ...

Blue Öyster Cult: R.U. ready 2 rock?

Interview by Ian Birch, Melody Maker, 4 February 1978

Blue Oyster Cult's ALLEN LANIER talks to Ian Birch in New York ...

Blue Oyster Cult: The Cult Occult And The Disco Nightmare

Interview by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 4 March 1978

ALLEN LANIER sits down for a pleasant chat about bikers, Burt Bacharach and band ideology. ...

Blue Oyster Cult: Colston Hall, Bristol

Live Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 6 May 1978

FLAMING PYROTECHNICS, lasers, smoke...plus great rock'n'roll; Blue Oyster Cult is the group you always dreamt about. Even though there were sound problems and the visual ...

Blue Oyster Cult and Sandy Pearlman

Interview by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 13 May 1978

ERIC BLOOM is adamant about the current position and status of the band he sings and plays for, the am-aaa-zing Blue Oyster Cult; they are ...

Blue Öyster Cult: Apollo, Glasgow

Live Review by Tim Lott, Record Mirror, 13 May 1978

Smokey Blue ...

Blue Öyster Cult's Bivalve Personality

Interview by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 6 August 1978

BLUE OYSTER Cult's lead singer Eric Bloom was never comfortable with the band's original image — a tongue-in-cheek, leather-bound melange of macabre, tough guy and, ...

Blue Oyster Cult/UFO: Live In Los Angeles

Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 2 September 1978

THEY DON'T have a Trades Descriptions Act in the States. If they did, then the Cult might be in trouble. Their ads (and, what's more, ...

Blue Oyster Cult: Some Enchanted Evening

Review by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 7 October 1978

NOW THAT Blue Oyster Cult have a patented studio style of their own, neatly quashing any lingering doubts that they had softened up in the ...

Blue Oyster Cult: Mirrors

Review by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 7 July 1979

DEMOCRACY IS A wonderful thing in theory, even if the practice is not always assured of success. And that self-same philosophical trait is a rare ...

Blue Oyster Cult at Pauley Pavilion

Live Review by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 28 August 1979

THERE WERE enough guitar solos at Blue Oyster Cult's concert at UCLA'S Pauley Pavilion Friday to satiate even the most dedicated ax fanatic. But, judging ...

Blue Oyster Cult: Cultosaurus Erectus (Columbia); Shakin' Street: Shakin' Street (Columbia)

Review by Roy Trakin, New York Rocker, November 1980

FUNNY ISN'T it, how both of these records, for one frustrating reason or another, make you long for the late and all-too-unlamented Dictators? Sorry, folks, ...

Fantasy Castle: Monsters of Rock!

Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, July 1981

BARNEY HOSKYNS straps on his breastplate, girds his loins and takes his sword to the HM Monsters Of Rock joust at Castle Donington. ...

Blue Oyster Cult: Country Club, Los Angeles CA

Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, 16 January 1982

FIRST TIME I've seen Blue Oyster Cult in ages. Actually seen them. Last time HM's Santas-little-helpers played in the neighbourhood was one of those monstrous ...

Why You Should Care About Blue Oyster Cult

Comment by Jim Green, Trouser Press, February 1982

Action conforms to preexistent imagery.– Sandy Pearlman, The History of Los Angeles, 1965-1969 ...

Blue Oyster Cult: Extraterrestrial Live

Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 29 May 1982

ANGLE OF VIEW, that's the ticket, the key to the mystery of this one! BOC, y'see, have made two previous excursions into the highly dubious ...

Blue Oyster Cult: Club Ninja

Review by Edwin Pouncey, Sounds, 14 December 1985

HEAVY METAL groups come and go but the Cult apparently to on forever. It kinda makes you feel warm inside — at least you can ...

Blue Oyster Cult: Cult Classic

Review by Susan Compo, MOJO, August 1994

NERDY menace dogs this murky compilation, which sounds like it's coming from an eight-track player in a gas guzrler stuck beneath a muddy stream. ...

Blue Oyster Cult: California Club Caprice, Redondo Beach, CA

Live Review by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, March 1998

WHEN ONE plopped down the appropriate coinage for the self-titled debut of the Blue Oyster Cult in 1972, one prepared to enjoy the hard-edged glory ...

Blue Oyster Cult: Blue Oyster Cult/Tyranny & Mutation/Secret Treaties/Agents Of Fortune

Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, August 2001

WITH ITS de rigueur darkside lyrics, bugaboo blues-monster riffs, and hypermacho pose-striking, heavy metal was always the dumbest member of the rock family. ...

Rock Criticism as Brain Surgery: Deborah Frost Looks Back

Interview by Steven Ward, rockcritics.com, June 2002

MUSICIAN/SONGWRITER Deborah Frost took a little break in the early '70s from a gig with an all-girl band that lasted until the early '90s. ...

Don't Fear the Blue Oyster Cult

Retrospective and Interview by Gillian G. Gaar, Goldmine, 14 September 2007

IN THE SUMMER of 1977, Blue Oyster Cult found themselves in one of the trickiest situations for a rock band: recording the follow-up to a ...

Blue Öyster Cult: The Making of '(Don't Fear) The Reaper'

Retrospective and Interview by Jaan Uhelszki, Uncut, November 2010

Riff approaching! Buck Dharma and co's "trans-awesome" tune, and the spookiest FM staple ever. "Nothing like the Byrds," apparently... ...

The Primer: Occult rock

Guide by Edwin Pouncey, The Wire, August 2016

Channelling the magick of Aleister Crowley and the neo-paganism of witchcraft, occult rock is the sound of rock 'n' roll's secret society. Edwin Pouncey reads ...

From Soft White Underbelly to the Stalk-Forrest Group

Book Excerpt by Mick Houghton, 'Becoming Elektra' (Jawbone), November 2016

NOTE: In an excerpt from the new edition of Becoming Elektra: The Incredible True Story of the pioneering Elektra Records label and its Far-sighted Founder, ...

see also Stalk-Forrest Group, The

see also Soft White Underbelly, The

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