Blue Öyster Cult’s 1978 live album Some Enchanted Evening is a devil’s bargain. Unlike the band’s live 1974 two-fer On Your Feet or on Your Knees it includes the absolutely essential “Godzilla” and “Don’t Fear the Reaper,” but unlike the latter album it’s short on classics—it has to be, seeing as how it only has seven songs and two of them are covers. The result is an album that despite its great songs is lacking in ambition, and the miracle is it remains the band’s biggest seller.
The entire Blue Öyster Cult Konzept was an elaborate shuck, right down to the cryptic band name, hilarious umlaut and utterly cool logo. The band’s “Career of Evil” persona was a goof, conceived by the high-spirited inmates of a group house at Long Island’s Stony Brook University. One of them was rock critic Sandy Pearlman, who was quickly named the band’s manager and contributed lyrics, and from the very start they exploited the kinds of dark imagery and subject matter (Nazi fighter jets, Altamont motorcycle gangs, dominance and submission) designed to induce a sense of menace. And this from a group of friendly Jewish guys from the nation’s first suburb whose collective notion of evil probably consisted of sneaking free food from the university’s dining hall.
But the masses bought it—hell, I bought it—and this despite such dead giveaways as songs like “She’s As Beautiful as Foot,” the lyrics of which were penned by noted rock scribe and band associate Richard Meltzer, who would go on to contribute the lyrics for “Burnin’ for You.” Blue Öyster Cult created a mock mythology for itself, which made the band one of rock’s most mysterious bands and greatest put-ons, although they probably wouldn’t have made it out of Long Island had it not been for the fact that guitarists/vocalists Eric Bloom and Donald Roeser (aka Buck Dharma), keyboardist Allen Lanier, bass player/vocalist Joe Bouchard, and drummer Albert Bouchard knew their way around their instruments and had a knack for writing powerful but melodic songs with gnomic subject matter. Take “7 Screaming Diz-Busters.” I’ll be damned if I know what a diz-buster is, and if you do I’d appreciate your letting me know.
Some Enchanting Evening opens with the anthemic “R.U. Ready 2 Rock,” which like most of their hard rock songs boasts a surprisingly catchy pop melody and nice harmony vocals. Bloom—who is so cool his name gets dropped in songs by both the Dictators (in the total crack-up “Two-Tub Man”) and the Minutemen (in band autobiography “History Lesson Part 2”)—handles lead vocals while Buck Dharma plays like a Buddhist with his hair on fire and Lanier throws in with some excellent piano. That “I only live to be born again” refrain is pure reincarnation cool, and when the band jacks up the tempo and Lanier turns his attention to the organ and synthesizer the song takes off like the aforementioned Nazi jet in “M.E. 262.”
“E.T.I. (Extra Terrestrial Intelligence)” is driving hard rock with an irresistibly catchy chorus and stunning guitar work by Dharma, including an extended guitar solo that takes the song out. And I love the reference to biblical Magi Balthazar in the chorus (“All praise/He’s found the awful truth/Balthazar/He’s found the saucer news”). Kinda makes you think he traveled a very great distance to hail the birth of the baby Jesus only to discover the Son of God was an alien.
“Astronomy” is a slower, moodier tune, with Bloom on lead vocals and Dharma playing an extended guitar solo that will boggle your tonsils. The lyrics were taken from a poem by Pearlman the meaning of which is above my literary pay grade, so I just kind of ignore them, except when the band delivers up a rousing “Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!” And there’s an exquisite little passage in the song’s middle that proves the guys who gave us the blunt force trauma of “Godzilla” are capable of being subtle too.
They follow “Astronomy” with a cover of the MC5’s “Kick Out the Jams,” which I find utterly befuddling—why choose to play it instead of a very long list of great originals that includes “Transmaniacon MC,” “Then Came the Last Days of May” (greatest drug burn song this side of Neil Young’s “Tired Eyes”), “O.D.’d on Life Itself,” “Flaming Telepaths” and countless others? It’s an appropriately raucous cover of “Kick Out the Jams,” granted—Dharma’s guitar generates enough electricity to re-illuminate a dead star, and the guys give it their all on vocals. But come on boys—Long Island ain’t the Motor City, and the days of dope, guns, and fucking in the streets were exactly the sort of thing Blue Öyster Cult liked to poke fun at.
“Godzilla,” on the other hand, crushes all it encounters underfoot—it’s one of the heaviest numbers you’ll ever run across and boasts a monolithic riff. And if I’m not crazy about the brief interruption in the middle, I like the guy who may or may not be speaking actual Japanese (how would I know?). I once fled screaming to the very back of a farm show arena when drummer Albert Bouchard appeared wearing a Godzilla head (I blame the acid), and I’m willing to admit I still find the song a bit traumatizing. But that moment of absolute terror was followed by a flash of spiritual enlightenment surrounding a phone booth at the rear of the hall (you can read about it here), so all things being equal I’d say the experience was a positive one.
If “Godzilla” is one reason to choose Some Enchanted Evening over On Your Feet or on Your Knees, the hard rock power pop masterpiece “Don’t Fear the Reaper”—which I recently included in my list of the upper reaches of the 100 best rock songs of all time—is the other. Its admixture of death and romance is as heady as it is timeless—they toss Romeo and Juliet in there for a reason—and while its reputation as the de rigeur anthem of lovers’ leapers everywhere is almost certainly the stuff of urban legend, that “you can be like they are” (namely “together for eternity”) certainly sounds like an endorsement of mutually assured romantic destruction. The live version hews closely to the original, which is as it should be—why fuck with perfection?
The album’s greatest mystery—and biggest disappointment—is the band’s choice of the Animals’ “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” as closer. “Godzilla” is a closer. “Don’t Fear the Reaper” is a closer. Hell, even “Kick Out the Jams” is a closer. But “We Gotta Get Out of This Place”? Sure, they invest the song with passion, all the passion you could ask for, but that title is almost enough to give you the idea the place they want out of is the arena, and they can’t get out fast enough. If you’re going to stake your rep on menace, ersatz or not, go out on a note of menace. ”Career of Evil” would have been nice. Or “Then Come the Last Days of May.” Nothing like ending the night with a song about double-crossing dope dealers and multiple murder.
Some Enchanted Evening is a case of under-ambition, sloth even, and as such is a disappointment in spite of the excellent playing and the power of its originals. On Your Feet or on Your Knees is a definitive showcase of the band’s best material; its only real weakness is it was released before “Godzilla” and “Don’t Fear the Reaper” existed. Some Enchanted Evening focuses on material on the two LPs released after the first live album, 1976’s Agent of Fortune and 1977’s Spectres. And the pair included plenty of great songs including “This Ain’t the Summer of Love,” “The Golden Age of Leather,” “The Revenge of Vera Gemini,” “Tattoo Vampire,” and “Sinful Love.” Why not play any two of those songs instead of two covers? It’s a mystery. Almost as great a mystery as the band’s name.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
B
