Morning Final No. 6, Exams of Music

Download Morning Final No. 6 and more Exams Music in PDF only on Docsity! Morning Final No. 6 “Roadhouse Blues,” and Side B: “Born To Be Wild.” Canada released singles simultaneously with Columbia USA, but these seem quite rare, as I have only managed to track down three different releases. The Canadian pressings look almost identical to the American releases, but come in Orange CBS logo sleeves. and there are no picture sleeve Canadian singles. The ones we’ve found are: “This Ain’t The Summer Of Love/Debbie Denise”COLUMBIA 3-10560 (1976) “Godzilla/Nosferatu” COLUMBIA 3-10697 (1977) “We Gotta Get Out Of This Place/E.T.I.” COLUMBIA 3-10841 (1978) United Presbyterian Church of Atlanta Georgia, had a series on syndi- cated radio stations all over continental USA between 1974 and 1978, called What’s It All About? hosted by Bill Huie. The focus was on present- ing the modern day music stars to their listeners with regards to religious aspects and meaning of each artists output. Huie presents a quick history and lets the artist comment after which Huie puts it all into perspective with Biblical quotes, and lets us know at the end of every show that: “That’s What it’s All About!” The shows were sent out as 7” singles to their affiliated stations, and each disc had two artists featured. Blue Öyster Cult were featured in programs # 352 (January 1977) and #447 (November 1978). The interview included on these is with Allen in 1976. He talks about the origin of the band’s name as well as commenting on violence in Rock & Roll. Although there are two different singles from different times, each disc contains the same show/interview. These pieces are normally found at a price ranging from $15.00 to $ 25.00 dollars each . Correct listings should read: WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT? For Public Service (Religious) B’cast Series “Gino Vanelli/Blue Öyster Cult” MA-1500 (# 351/352) (1977) “Blue Öyster Cult/Dion” MA-1538 (# 447/448) (1978) Stalk-Forrest Group had a single pressed up for Radio Station use only. “What Is Quicksand?/Arthur Comics” ELEKTRA EKM-45693 (1970 & 1976). Rumoured figures of only 200 copies pressed, seems most likely to be true. In 1976-77 bootleggers pressed up another 200 copies as a Pirated release, so these are in a sense equally rare, however, to confess, I have yet to see a copy of the supposedly original issue from 1970. A final note goes to the “Hear ’N Aid” Project, which featured Buck & Eric. There were singles released all over Europe in picture sleeves and I have a Dutch copy: HEAR ‘N AID “Stars/4 & half minute news” MERCURY 884 004-7 (1986) Having never been able to pick up any of the six released singles from Australia, I can’t offer any information on these releases, since I need to have copies of everything put forward in this article. Xerox copies of the labels will do fine, but I need substantial evidence of anything I list here. Such additions have been sent to me, and I thank the people involved in this little aspect of collecting records for the help and information given to me. Having now presented all known released singles from various parts of the world, I intend to update previously incomplete information on those releases as a final chapter on 7” singles. Germany has a different release of “We Gotta Get Out Of This Place/Kick Out the Jams” CBS-6760. On that picture sleeve is a miniature of Some Enchanted Evening sleeve, as opposed to the Dutch version that was released with a photo of the band from the Secret Treaties photo sessions. Germany also has a specially made series of rarer demo copies of their singles, a special series for the press, called CBS Blitz-Information, with a different touch to the photos from the official releases and a little biogra- phy on the tracks and artist on a yellow and orange coloured back sleeve. Quite the collectibles, if you can find them... England did release “Going Through The Motions/Searchin’ For Celine” CBS S-5889. The release did not offer a Picture sleeve. Both Stock Copies and Demo copies were made of this release, so go out there and find them. Bootleggers from England printed up a boxed set of three EPs called “Violences” and had it made in Italy. The box set included 3 EPs on 33 & 1/3 rpm speed of Ozzy Osbourne, Mötorhead, and Blue Öyster Cult. Each record came in a different black & white picturesleeve, offering a series of comix magazines pictures of various violences on the front and the back offered a xeroxed photo of the artists. The labels had photographs of rioting police from a Belfast bombing. Initial copies of the box had stickers included for Mötorhead. The total issue of the set was believed to be 500 copies, but in this business one can never tell. Most people split the boxes and started to sell the records separately, and the Mötorhead collectors got the actual box with their purchase. The B.Ö.C. single has three songs taken from a KSAN-FM Radio broadcast of the famous Soft White Underbelly show at The Old Waldorf Theatre in San Francisco on 80- 09-08. Taken from the end of the show, the trax are Side A: “Arthur Comics” and singles bar…by Bolle more than just a timekeeping station that most drummers are bound to these days. In fact, the drumming is the stand-out feature of this band, after Hamm’s “lead bass” work. Hamm relies heavily on the Chapman Stick “hammer-on” technique popularized by Eddie Van Halen and Stanley Jordan for use on the guitar. This allows for a flurry of notes to be played in different octaves simultaneously, giving the illusion of two or more instruments being played at the same time. This worked really well on Hamm’s LP, but live, given the first-night-out jitters that the band was feeling made for a lot of ringing strings and slight miss- es on his part, and made the band sound a lot tighter and more together than its much- lauded leader. Playing to a sold-out crowd at the Bacchannal in San Diego, Hamm and the band sailed through most of the songs on his new album. Most the set is instrumental, only two or three songs featured Hamm singing, but after such a barrage of notes, the singing came as a nice treat, even though Hamm is a competent but not excellent vocalist. His bass tech- nique is indeed awesome. He plays his Factor bass with its transatlantic-cable-girth strings with such ease it seems he is sim- ply stroking the air, and the vari- ety of sounds he is able to evoke from his instru- ment certainly gives a person a new idea about the bass. Guitarist Skolnik is a fluid soloist, although at times plays with more flash than feeling, which is a defi- nite downfall of this genre of music, a flaw shared by Satriani, Steve Vai, and Billy Sheehan alike. After smiling Ronnie behind the drums, Skolnik was the happiest guy on stage. Keyboardist Yeager was mostly in the background at this show, musically and physically, holding down a lot of the bottom end so Hamm could solo over a full sound. A highlight of the set was a song called “Terminal Beach,” a piece for drums and bass that allowed our ‘öyster alone’ to shine. Unfortunately many of the pieces from Hamm’s album lost their subtlety and nuance in the room, which will most likely always plague this form of music in a live situation. After the show Ron was exuberant, and the band was congratulated and thanked by a plethora of fans. A few Blue Öyster fans had heard about the gig and were there to give our Ronnie a pat on the back. The tour is slated to cover the entire United States in the next six months, and also off to Japan in September. Mucho congratulations and luck to our man Ron! [Ron’s replacement in Blue Öyster Cult is Chuck Bürgi, who has worked with Eric Bloom on several occa- sions (see MF 5 for more on Chuck).] Hamming it up or, why Ron Riddle no longer fears the reaper by melne Ain’t that the way it goes—just when the BÖC boys were sounding their best, and the new guys were really happening and accepted as fully-fledged members of brotherhood of Blue Öyster Cult, yet another change has to occur. While this is a disappointment in the Öyster world, it is also a great step forward for the one who has left the nest, being our always smiling and happy drummer, Ron Riddle. He is now the drummer for Stuart Hamm, bass player extrodinaire, whose new record, The Urge is available on Relativity Records. While on their last southern California stretch of dates, Ron was contacted by Hamm’s manager, who had heard of Ron from the Red and the Black, and his playing with seventies progressive group Happy the Man. His experience with Happy the Man, however, really piqued Hamm’s interest in Ron, and he was invited to come audition for the gig. The way Ron tells it, with no idea he was going to leave BÖC, he came in for an audition with an idea of “seeing what I could do up against some of the heavyweights trying out for this gig. Just to compare and see where I stand.” Ron needn’t have worried or even wondered, as he stood well above all the rest, and was offered the gig on the spot! Ron was thrilled with the prospect, and after finishing the string of dates on the Öyster run, returned home briefly before head- ing out again to California for heavy- duty rehearsals to prepare the Stuart Hamm Band for a six- month tour. During prepara- tions for the tour we met up with Ron for an evening, and then traveled to San Diego to catch Ron’s “first day on the new job.” “I’m in musical heaven!” proclaimed Ron, and it was obvi- ous why. His compa- ny in the band includes Alex Skolnik of Testament on gui- tar, Jimmy Yeager on keyboards and of course, Stuart Hamm, whose credits include playing with David & David as well as Joe Satriani. Ron has a lot of creative free- dom in this band and makes the drum posi- tion much, much One of the highlights of going to rock shows is picking up any number of souvenirs to take home. Tour merchandising is big business, and an odd assortment of buyables have been offered over the years bearing the name or logo of Blue Öyster Cult. After T-shirts, tour books are the next most-thought-of and most-bought- of tour collectible. BÖC has had seven tour books over the years. In the United States and in England there are three BÖC tour books each and there is also one Japanese tour book for the 1979 tour there. The U.S. tour books were issued in tandem with the Spectres tour, the Cultösaurus Erectus tour, and the Fire of Unknown Origin tour. In England the books correspond with the Some Enchanted Evening tour (with the Spectres book, since their tour didn’t reach England until Some Enchanted was almost released), the Mirrors tour and the Club Ninja tour. The Japanese book was published to coincide with BÖC’s only tour there in 1979. The Spectres book is the same in content but not in size for the United States and England. The U.S. version measures 14x11 inches and the English one is 10x8. The book’s cover is black and lettered in white with “Blue Öyster Cult in Concert,” and a poorly rendered logo. The interior begins with a short bio of the group, followed by color and black and white pictures, one page spread for each band member, and a great collage of “goodies” (passes, guitar picks, stickers, old reviews) in the centerspread. This is probably one of the coolest tour books for its variety of photos and artful approach to presenting the band. The Mirrors tour offered fans in the U.K. a book slightly bigger than their previous one, measuring 10x9. The cover is blue with the band name in the “On Your Feet” lettering on the cover, with a logo. It offers no text aside from a list of band members and a brief discography, just colorful pictures—all taken at the same show. In America, no tour book was offered, but a fold-out poster-magazine called Rockbill was distributed at the shows. Later Rockbill became a little magazine, but in its beginning it was a large sheet (the size of four regular sheets of paper) folded twice. On the cover is the same photo of the band as on the back of the Mirrors album cover. The paper opens up once to a bio and some pictures, and opens up once more to reveal a very nice poster of the band wearing sil- ver satin tour jackets (for which there is an order form on the back page). The Cultösaurus Erectus tour book is small 9x12 book done for the U.S. 1980 tour and on the cover is a color live pic of the “Born to be Wild” finale and pyrotechnic display, lettered simply “Blue Öyster Cult,” and the return of the good-looking logo. Inside is a two page bio, a center spread in color, and a selection of photos in black and white, plus a list of the Tour Collectibles tour programmes examined… tour personnel. This tour book contains two type errors: In two places Buck Dharma’s name is misspelled as Dahrma, and the errors are covered up by black corrective stickers. The Japanese tour book is another oversized book, measuring 14x10. On the cover is a color photo of the band on stage, lettered with “Blue Öyster Cult” on the top, and “Blue Öyster Cult Japan Tour” on the bot- tom. The text is, of course, in Japanese, and the photos are a combina- tion of black and white and color. The Japanese tour books also have advertising, in this case for coffee, musical instruments, radio stations and…other upcoming concerts! The book for the Fire of Unknown Origin U.S. tour is another great book. The cover is black with a blurred but blazing-red photo of the group on stage, typeset with “Blue Öyster Cult in concert” with a logo above the photo. The inside has the obligatory bio, and a variety of great color pho- tos. In the back of the book is a dynamite spread of all their album covers printed against a black background opposite the tour personnel listing. The last tour book was printed for the U.K. Club Ninja tour, but the left- overs were also sold in the U.S. Sized the same as the U.K. Mirrors book, the cover is a color stage photo of the group along the top is “Blue Öys- ter Cult” in the Club Ninja lettering. The photos inside, all color, were taken at Hammerjack’s, a club in Baltimore, MD. It also contains a bio and list of tour personnel. Other goodies for sale have included badges, pendants, key chains, stickers, baseball caps and visors, scarves, headbands, belt buckles, patches and some local giveaways like frisbees. Blue Öyster Cult's Japanese tour programme PRESS THE EJECT… These forever enchanting live tapes we all collect display a lot of fun “moments of truth” of our artist’s true genius (or lack thereof) captured at the spur of the moment, with no chance of going back to repair any blunders. We can go home and relive these moments and share them with other fans of similar interests. Thanks to this phenomenon known as bootlegging, I have come to a much greater understanding of my favorite bands and their music, by trading tapes with people who “were there” to tape it all, and then share these tapes with anyone who’s into the same music. Not ever being able to see B.Ö.C. in concert between 1978 and 1987, I am very happy about finding tapes at record fairs and conventions, as well as through trades via magazines like Goldmine, where all these tape collectors advertise their listings. Most of the time, the tapes they offer seem to be radio recordings, taped off the air or straight from the Radio Station Discs. These shows always hold a higher sound quality, but a lot of people trade with poor quality cassettes, as well as using Dolby (Dubly?— ed.) and/or have poor dubbing equipment resulting in hissy or muffled sounding tapes, and that can generate more aggravation than pleasure. Also, as a general rule, buying tapes from people who are only in it for the quick money should always be boycotted. Most of the time they don’t even know what tapes they are supplying, which of course is an insult to both the artist as well as their customers. so I recommend staying away from the profit makers of Bootleg tapes. Audience recordings often vary in sound quality, but most of the time, you can count on fairly good sound on tapes from clubs, of course there are tapes that sound as if they came from paranoid tapers with too-well hidden recorders and microphones, but luckily enough this is more an oddity than the rule. Here’s a look at some shows taped at the L’Amour Club in Brooklyn in late 1984 through late 1985. These are shows I would otherwise know nothing about, but thanks to some hard core fans, I now enjoy listening to three shows from the winter, summer and again winter prior to the release of Club Ninja. There should have been a fourth tape to complete this history as The Cult played a fourth show at L’Amour on August 2nd of 1986, but so far no luck in finding a taped copy of the show, so I can only deal with three-fourths of the whole story. Out of the three shows, the first is the best sounding, given a 90% rating, with each one following with lower sound quality. On December 14th of 1984, Soft White Underbelly went out on a pre- Xmas tour of California and New York, and for the first time presented material from that would eventually turn up on their next album (Club Ninja). This show ran for a hefty 100+ minutes, and it was a very spunky performance from the band, with (although unknown at the time) Rick Downey doing his last run of shows before quitting the band in early January of 1985. This show ran a double opening with first “R.U.Ready 2 Rock” followed immediately by “Stairway To The Stars,” what more can anybody ask for? “Buck’s Boogie” followed with a statement from Eric saying: “It’s a good night in New York, I love that!” Shooting away with “ME 262” fol- lowed by “Last Days O’May”—the first time they adopted the ‘Car-Stop’ arrangement which gave the song a new strength for their live shows. “Golden Age of Leather” followed and back in 1984 the band still used a tape to provide the choir of “Raise Your Can Of Beer...” The performance was great with all the good spots really coming off right. 7th song of the show is the debut of the new material—for the first time “Make Rock Not War” was being played and Eric introduced the song by talking of the 13th Album that’s supposed to be out in 5 months…(It really took 12 months before this actually happened). The song was met with a strong reception from the people. Astronomy was Buck’s highlight of the evening as he shone through his parts with that Magic he sometimes displays on a tune such as this. Following and ending the show were “Joan Crawford,” “Take Me Away,” “Burnin’ For You,” “Godzilla,” & “The Reaper.” The band came back for a strong three-song Encore, playing “Let Go” with “Hot Rails To Hell” following, and before ending the night with “Cities On Flame.” They ask people what they want to hear, and the band plays “Let’s Spend the Night Together” for about ten seconds, and just leaves us wanting to hear more...but, more had to be postponed until six months down the road, when the band returns for yet another S.W.U. show on June 29th, featuring not Blue but New Öyster Cult: with new drummer Jimmy Wilcox, and new Keyboard player Tommy Zvoncheck. For this new chapter of The Cult, they had a new Intro tape with a fu- turistic theme to fit the Ninja Line-up more. The theme, “S-Scape” from Larry Fast’s 2nd Synergy album provided a perfect intro feel for these shows. “R.U.Ready 2 Rock” opened the set, and “E.T.I,” followed by “Buck’s Boogie,” led into Ninja material “Spy In The House Of The Night” intro’d by Eric, who once again talks of their 13th release, to be out in a couple of months... “Rock Not War” is once again presented, this time one step closer to the album version, with Jimmy playing the drums in the …A Brooklyn trilogy on tape by Bolle …and give me the tape Press the Eject…con't. mold of Thommy Price’s on the recording. “Take Me Away” interrupts the almost-trilogy of songs from this new album. But, “Beat ‘Em Up” comes on strong, and takes some of the audience fists in their face. Some fans knew this song from the Canadian Songstress Lee Aaron’s record, put out in 1983, so it was like a cover tune to a few. “Last Days Of May” & “Joan Crawford” were both followed by “Wings Of Mercury,” promised to be on the album, but it never saw the light of day. Most people would have forgotten about this hip boogie tune (that is very close musically to New York Doll’s “Jet Boy”) had it not been on the Bisquit Flower Hour in 1986. The rest of the show was sim- ply standard and almost the same as the previous show, with only “Let Go” missing from the repertoire of the New Öyster Cult. Five months later the band returned to this same stage, and as on previous shows, the billing was for Soft White Underbelly. Warming up for an upcoming Tour of The United Kingdom the set list was expanded and the new guys had broadened their cultövated vocabulary, Open- ing up the show was the forever flying “Messerschmitt 262”, and setting the pace for the rest of the night to show who’s the boss “Dominance & Submission” had re-entered The Cult’s shows. “E.T.I,” and “Buck’s Boogie” were tearing the place apart before a surrender of “White Flags” was announced, a small mistake as Buck comes in too soon, almost screws up the band, but these guys know how to stay in Power, and White Flags turns out to be the coolest song of the night. “Take Me Away” and “Veteran Of The Psychic Wars” had the audience capitulate completely, and the band just went “Dancin’ In The Ruins” before finding “Joan Crawford” had indeed risen, and then took off once again Riding The “Wings Of Mercury”. “Burpin’ For You” and then Eric was pleading for the audience to give him a break, saying “You don’t want to hear this story again for the 8th Billionth Time???!!” He proceeded to tell it anyway and continued with the usual ending of the show. The band came back for 2 more songs, “Cities On Flame” and specially for the upcoming English tour “We Gotta Get Out Of This Place” left nothing more to be said. This third show was about 95 minutes, and the sound only gets a rat- ing of 80% there, as it appears to have been recorded almost by the bar, where a bunch of people are constantly talking, not paying any attention to what’s going on in the house. Annoying, but the band makes up for it with their varied set list. Into the Night with BÖC Ahh, Then came the First days of May... and on the 8th day B.Ö.C. created a special reason for watching Television. KABC-TV Los Angeles and Rick Dees invited the band to become guests for Channel 7’s night- time competition with Arsenio Hall and Johnny Carson—one time KIIS-FM DeeJay Rick Dees’ Into The Night. Just in time for the spring ratings, Rick has the good taste of bring- ing on the ultimate heroes of underground music. The band played two specially edited tunes: “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” and “Godzilla,” and we were also offered a little chat with Buck & Eric who were being very polite, answering Rick’s very inane questions. In all, it was a typical TV show performance with a lousy sound mix and wrong camera angles. The picture producer shows the keyboards when there’s a guitar solo, and the drummer when there’s a crucial line from the singer... I was invited to come and see the show taped and be a part of the audience, which gave me a better insight as to how these kind of shows are made. What baffled me was that they set up The Cult for one song and the interview, then struck the stage for the appearance of a comedienne, and after that set up all monitors and micing again for the 2nd song. Now, wouldn’t it be better if they’d done the band stuff all together in one go, and for the broadcast of the show edit the different segments into their planned spots? It is all pre-rehearsed but then run and taped as though it were live on the air, with perhaps just one short re-take in between commercial breaks, and pausing during ads for fresh make-up and fixing hair or a quick review of anything needing to be edited; or in a worst case sce- nario re-shot. On this particular show Rick Dees had to redo one thing because of a faulty mic-line, but apart from that the show seemed to run smoothly. We arrived at The ABC studios in Hollywood around 2pm where we were directed straight to the “Green Room” a hospitality room for the guests of the show, to hang around, eat some snacks, and watch nine monitors with the different camera angles displayed. I talked to some of the guests, and went almost immediately up into the audience to watch the whole show, we were seated at the very back, so that we basically wouldn’t show up on anyone’s camera whenever audience was filmed. This made it easy for us to leave when we wanted to, because officially, once you’re seated, you can’t leave the studio until somebody shouts..It’s A Wrap! by Bolle