The images were unsettling, in keeping with the music, which was heavy, dark, dangerous, and beautiful. The cover of the record was a black-and-white drawing of a building that stretched out to infinity, stars and a sliver of moon in a black sky above it, and, hovering over the building, a symbol that looked like a hooked cross. The song was about the end of something, its tone both ominous and mysterious, and it troubled Alex and excited him. He was looking at the Blue Öyster Cult art now, while "Then Came the Last Days of May" played in the room. Prior to the incident, there's a scene where the character who is later beaten was listening to the first BOC album in his bedroom, waiting for his girlfriend to call: I had no idea he had resigned until the next morning, when I was driving through the wilds of southern Arkansas on my way to Alexandria. The reason I know I saw that concert took place on August 7 is that Richard Nixon went on television to resign from office at 9:01 pm on August 8, and I was at the Travelers game with my cousin that night. On the way, I stopped to visit a cousin of mine who lived in Little Rock, where her boyfriend (now husband) played baseball for the Arkansas Travelers, who were the Double-A minor-league affiliate of the St. That was the summer before I went to law school, and after quitting my summer job (which was driving a water truck for a company that was widening US Highway 71 south of my hometown of Joplin, Missouri), I decided to go visit a high-school friend who had moved to Alexandria, Louisiana, and then say good-bye to my college girlfriend, who was spending the summer in Houston before heading off to Stanford Business School. I saw BOC on Augin Little Rock, Arkansas (along with the Guess Who). It looked like it definitely meant something serious and important, but who the hell knew what? (That's right, Columbia Records sucked me right in – I did EXACTLY what they hoped I would do.)īOC's first album cover – the artist was a guy named Bill Gawlik – got your attention. The fourth cut on side one of "Music People" was "I'm On The Lamb But I Ain't No Sheep" by Blue Öyster Cult (or "BOC," as I will hereinafter abbreviate it) - and it impressed me sufficiently that I immediately ran out and bought BOC's eponymous first album, which led off with this song. The musicians represented on "The Big Ball," "Schlagers," and others of that ilk included some very mainstream artists (like Petula Clark and Peter, Paul and Mary), but were dominated by crazies like the Fugs, Captain Beefheart, and Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention.Ĭolumbia Records also issued several samplers, and "Music People" included cuts by superstars (Bob Dylan, the Byrds), cult favorites (Spirit, It's a Beautiful Day, Mahavishnu Orchestra), and some utterly forgotten never-wases (Sweathog, Compost, Grootna, and Mylon with Holy Smoke). The most famous of these sampler albums were the "Loss Leaders" series of mostly double albums produced by Warner Brothers/Reprise records and sold by mail order for $2. Record companies issued sampler albums like this one to publicize new bands or give a bit of a goose to more well-known musicians whose forthcoming albums weren't expected to do very well.
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