Re-Imaginos: Songs nobody knew and stories left undone

By Wallace McBride

There will probably never be a definitive version of Imaginos. There was a time when I would have written off that inconsistency as a bug, but Re-Imaginos — the latest installment in the occasionally on-going saga — suggests that inconsistency might be an essential feature.

Imaginos — both the character and the song cycle — has been lurking in the fringes of pop culture for about 50 years now, brushing up against the likes of Metallica, Academy Award nominee Grayson Hall and Stephen King along the way. The vision of long-time Blue Oyster Cult manager Sandy Pearlman, Imaginos tells the story of an "actor in history" commissioned by alien powers to push mankind toward an apocalyptic confrontation with evil. Think of it as Zelig filtered through H.P. Lovecraft and Joseph Campbell.

"The Soft Doctrines of Immaginos" (as it was originally called) began during Pearlman's college years in the 1960s, and found its first toehold when the psychedelic rock band The Stalk Forest Group abruptly swerved into heavy metal territory in 1971 when it became Blue Oyster Cult. In need of darker themes, Pearlman's stock got an overnight bump in value as his lyrics about occult sciences, satanic bikers and end-of-the-world rock concerts found an immediate home in the band's repertoire.

While Blue Oyster Cult balked at the idea of devoting an entire album to a solitary idea, songs from Pearlman's Imaginos epic leaked into the band's catalog over the coming years. Their 1974 album Secret Treaties served as a backdoor pilot of sorts for the rejected concept album, featuring at least three songs devoted to the as-yet unnamed "Imaginos" character. The liner notes include the cryptic (and unexplained) footnote: 

"Rossignol's curious, albeit simply titled book, 'The Origins of a World War', spoke in terms of 'secret treaties', drawn up between the Ambassadors from Plutonia and Desdinova the foreign minister. These treaties founded a secret science from the stars. Astronomy. The career of evil."

"Aggression unchallenged is aggression unleashed," was the album's tagline ... which doubled as the secret logline for the entire Imaginos saga. You can hear Grayson Hall pitch Secret Treaties to the masses in the video below.

The band began to resist Pearlman's gravity in 1975, leading to fewer of his lyrics finding their way to Blue Oyster Cult albums. It's difficult to say how many of his later lyrics were related to Imaginos, but it's likely that some of his work (Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, I'm looking at you) simply hasn't disclosed its familial relations yet. Pearlman busied himself in the latter half of the decade producing albums for The Clash and The Dictators, and it appeared Imaginos had met his end.

When drummer Albert Bouchard exited the band in 1981, he and Pearlman went to work on an album dedicated exclusively to the Imaginos concept. Pearlman and Bouchard were the central nervous system of BOC, and if anyone could make Imaginos finally happen it would be them, right? Turns out the answer was "sorta." Behind-the-scenes drama saw the album wrestled away from Bouchard, becoming a formal Blue Oyster Cult release in the summer of 1988. Much of his performance was erased, his vocals replaced by other band members and singers. The convoluted process even roped in such talent Robbie Krieger (The Doors), Joe Satriani and Marc Biedermann (Blind Illusion). During its lengthy gestation period the album endured so many overdubs and do-overs that it's almost impossible to trace everybody's contribution. Aldo Nova, for example, is one of the musicians credited as part of "The Guitar Orchestra of the State of Imaginos," but reportedly has no memory of playing on the album.

And it gets weirder. Because Pearlman lacked the time and money to include all of the songs intended for the planned double-album release, many tracks were deleted and the album condensed into a single 55-minute disc. The songs were then shuffled out of order to create a conventional track sequence. The bizarre assembly of non-linear songs was masked by the pretense of being a "random access myth." Chaos had always been central to the events surrounding Imaginos, so grafting chaos to the narrative was a good fit. 

It also had the unintended effect of making Imaginos a deeply interactive experience. Pearlman's already cryptic lyrics became a Gordian Knot of words. Fans worked to not only decipher the meanings of individual songs, but also to assemble the scattered tracks into a whole story. Meanwhile, casual fans rejected Imaginos as not being (or sounding) much like a BOC album, while more serious fans continue to nurse a variety of grudges over its piecemeal, contentious production. For some folks its neither fish nor fowl.

It didn't take long for 1988's Imaginos album to go out of print. Which is tragic, because Pearlman's self-proclaimed "solo album" is one of rock's legitimately occult experiences. Not because of the story's many nods to voodoo, Rosicrucianism, cosmicism and indigenous legends; but because the experience of exploring its songs — for those who are open to it —  is almost numinous. There's probably even a book to be written on how Pearlman's original vision for Blue Oyster Cult predicted the advent of chaos magic a few years later. I had about 2,000 words written at the start of this piece about astral documents, memetics, the evolution of the Necronomicon from fictional plot device to player in numerorous American conspiracy theories, and how all of THAT related to Imaginos ... but I've probably bored you enough with metaphysics. Besides, we're here to talk about Re-Imaginos.

There have been at least three versions of Imaginos released over the years, all of which have conflicting track listings. The first version was the 1988 album, the second a leaked collection of Bouchard's earlier "demos" (actually low-quality recordings of his final tracks, including the deleted songs) and the release last week of Re-Imaginos, which sees Bouchard revisiting these songs in quieter, spookier arrangements he believes are better suited to the material. With Re-Imaginos, Bouchard gleefully tosses more mud into the waters, settling on a song sequence that thumbs its nose at previous attempts at constructing the Imaginos tale into a coherent narrative and breaking those songs down into four movements: Quandry, Sublime, Ghost and Dance. He goes a step further by including a new version of Workshop of the Telescopes, a song from the first BOC album in 1972 that, until recently, was not known to be part of the Imaginos storyline. 

Confused yet? Here's Stephen King to give you a concise explanation of the story, one that doesn't require any prior experience with the music. 

There's quite a bit more taking place on Re-Imaginos than a re-shuffling of the deck. This isn't just an unplugged version of the original recordings; Bouchard fully disassembled the original songs in order to breathe new life into them. Some of the arrangements seem at cross purposes to their original recordings. The Siege and Investiture of Baron von Frankenstein’s Castle at Weisseria was maximum strum and drang in the original interation. Guest vocalist Joey Cerisano delivered a performance that would shame Ronnie James Dio, while Satriani and Biederman clash electric guitars throughout. I can't imagine anyone could have predicted Bouchard would ever reimagine this song as a tango (or is it a rumba? Salsa?), replacing the lead guitars (mostly) with violin. And it works. Not just as an indepedent track, but also as a thematic lead-in to The Girl That Love Made Blind, a song both literally and figuratively about dancing ... and time travel, astrology and immortality, all tarted up as a gothic Christmas long song.

The Girl That Love Made Blind was one of the songs that didn't make the final cut on the 1988 album, which was a sin. It was one of the best songs written for that album, and it's one of the best on Re-Imaginos. But the real showstopper on the new album is Astronomy, which might be the definitive version of the song. If you were to conduct a poll about BOC's best tune ... well, (Don't Fear) the Reaper would absolutely win. But, if you were to sequester the fans who could name more than one song by the band and poll those people? I'd bet Astronomy would come out on top. It's proven to be an endlessly flexible song, adapting itself to metal, classical guitar, jam music and whatever that version on the 1988 Imaginos album was. (I LOVE that take, for the record.) The new version features a really interesting, weighty rhythm that that moves like a behemoth. The new arrangement also shows that Bouchard has been paying attention to how other artists (and his old band members) have interpreted Astronomy over the decades, picking and choosing elements to create a song that kind of sounds like all of them while sounding specifically like none of them. Astronomy is a song with a lot of history behind it and Bouchard wisely doesn't ignore that.

And then there's the album's title track. Bouchard comes so close to redeeming what was nobody's favorite song on the original album. (Putting it last on the 1988 version had the added benefit of never having to skip it.) It's not exactly a bad song ... it just never earns its keep. Being the title track for an album like this might make its rent disproportionately high, but nobody ever said life was fair. A title change might benefit this song to a degree, but the real problem is the lyrics, which don't have much to say until the closing act. I'd be interested in hearing what people think about this version of the song, but the original probably wasn't popular enough to provoke any strong feelings in fans one way or another. We're all probably going to be busy fighting among ourselves about Astronomy. 

Les Invisbles improves on the original in just about every way and creates a sense of urgency in its rhythm that was missing from the electronic drone of the original. Gil Blanco County, a song whose placement in the overall sceme of things still baffles me, is a wonderful mishmash 60's folk music, the faux classical guitar styles so beloved of '80s thrash, and surf guitar. None of those things ought to play well together, but they do. There's a subtle sadness to this version of Gil Blanco County that's reminiscent of early BOC, whose lyrics often demanded to know If U Are Ready 2 Rock, but whose melodies suggested you stay home and read Carlos Castaneda instead.

Magna of Illusion might be the only real failure here. The song served as the climax to the 1988 album, but the new take is s little ... shapeless? Structurally, Magna is one of Bouchard's most impressive songs, the prior arrangement gaining strength as it moved from verse to verse, ultimately leaving the listener stranded on a real fucker of an ending ("... and then World War I broke out!") It's easily the most operatic tune on the album, one shunning traditional choruses in favor of ratcheting up the tension as the song unfolds through guitars and spoken-word performances. But the spooky analog version of the song on Re-Imaginos is never given much room to breath, though. It rushes to the finish line and winds up feeling small. 

With Les Invisibles moved to the end of the album, Magna of Illusion doesn't carry the full burden of delivering the story's climax. We still get that downer ending, only this time via a doom-laden march threatening the arrival of whatever is pulling our anti-hero's strings.

Re-Imaginos feels almost miraculous. I still have trouble believing Bouchard was willing to return to this demon haunted project, and that it happened during this off-brand trashbag of a year. Even better, Bouchard didn't create some lazy collection of covers. I'f put the talent appearing on Re-Imaginos up against the 1988 release any day. But it is absolutely not the album I expected — or even wanted — and it feels more satisfying because of that. There's an intimacy to the production that feels like it can fit in your living room ... if you're in the mood for entertaining monsters.

Imaginos is dead. Long live Imaginos.

Dark Shadows is metal as f*k

If you follow the social media accounts of the CHS, you'll be subjected to some occasional weirdness. This website is, more or less, the official "face" of the CHS, but our Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram accounts have taken on lives of their own. Some of this is out of desire to make these accounts uniquely interesting. Instagram gets a lot of weird images, for example, while Twitter is where I come out of my spider hole to occasionally interact with the outside world. Meanwhile, the more detailed commentary appears here, where we can explore things in more than 128 characters.

If you're not following those other accounts, you're missing out. Maybe. It depends on your tolerance for the kind of stuff I find amusing ... such as these DARK SHADOWS/heavy metal mashups that appeared on Instagram, Twitter and Tumblr back in March.

The whole thing started on a whim. A few years ago I noted a similarity between the Black Sabbath's "Heaven and Hell" cover and the composition of a promotional image of DARK SHADOWS the cast. It wasn't until March of this year that it occurred to me to merge the two, creating a faux CD of mashup. I chased this rabbit down the hole for about a week or so, adding Humbert Allen Astredo/Nicholas Blair to the cover for Blue Oyster Cult's "Agents of Fortune," Jonathan Frid/Barnabas Collins to the first, self-titled Sabbath album, and Frid again (this time from HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS) to Sabbath's "Vol. 4." After that, it was time to go all INCEPTION and dunk these images into secondary environments because I don't know when to quit.

Here's the weird thing: While doing this, I learned that the cover art for both "Agents of Fortune" and "Heaven and Hell" were created by artist Lynn Curlee. And his art was, in a sense, already a kind of mashup using vintage photos. Curlee's art for "Heaven and Hell" was inspired by a photo from the 1920s of women dressed as angels, taking a smoke break backstage during a college pageant. The cover of "Agents" was a riff on a vintage promotional image of Boston illusionist W. D. Leroy. At the time, I didn't know any of this. (The connection was probably Sandy Pearlman, who was managing BOC and Sabbath by 1980.)

These were fun to build, but probably had limited appeal to DARK SHADOWS fans beyond their short lifespans on social media. Sure, Blue Oyster Cult has a lot of weird connections to DARK SHADOWS (actor Chris Pennock and the band's vocalist, Eric Bloom, went to college together, for example) but the Collinsport crew never struck me as especially receptive to classic metal. And then I realized this is my website and I can do what I want.

So, for archival purposes, here's the full collection of "Metal Shadows" album covers. There's also a bonus punk visual, which I only mention so that nobody sends me an e-mail informing me the Misfits weren't/aren't metal.

- Wallace

Saturday Morning Cartoons: GODZILLA

By JONATHAN M. CHAFFIN

If you were a kid in the 70’s and 80’s, you know the Hanna Barbera logo... it was the last sign-off for multiple television shows every Saturday morning when you snuck down-stairs, grabbed a bowl of Frankenberry cereal (or Nintendo cereal), and waited for the “grownup shows” to stop and Saturday Morning Cartoons to start.  The sound of the H-B logo takes me back to snuggling in the sleeping bag (blue, with flowers and a red interior) my granny made for me.   

Hanna Barbera is famous for coining the “Four meddling _______ & a _______” format of adventure show: Scooby Doo (4 kids & a dog), Captain Caveman (four musicians & a caveman), Jabberjaw (four  kids & a shark doing a Three Stooges impression), and countless others. I watched and loved all of those shows back in the day.  

Let’s talk about their 1978 effort, four irritating scientists & Godzilla plus a horrible “Scrappy Doo” version of Godzilla. Statement of bias; I don’t much like this show.  If you liked the show, I’m glad. I have some guilty cartoon and cinematic pleasures of my own.

Why am I writing about it?  I LOVE Godzilla.  And I love my 6 year old, and SHE loves this show.  So I’m going assume it’s doing its job by entertaining kids.  If you have kids and want to introduce them to Kaiju, this is a great way.

Like their other shows, GODZILLA is fairly described as “semi-animated,” a production technique that allows a show to be animated in about half the produced frames. Only the body parts that need to be moving are animated, and there is lot of reuse of animation. Most television cartoons of this era use the technique, but it is particularly noticeable (if not egregious) in this show. 

Gadzuki, everybody.

This series is pretty much summarized by the phrase “Godzilla Ex Machina.”  The plot of each episode is “Crew of the Calico gets in trouble, calls Godzilla like a giant doberman with firebreath, and the day is saved.”  Also, Gadzuki, the Scrappy Doo to Godzilla’s…Godzilla, bumbles around, gets stuck and causes problems and generally Jar-Jars up the place.  Fie upon thee, Gadzuki.  I hate you worse than Minya.

This Godzilla cartoon (there have been others) was an anchor show for a rotating host of other Hanna Barbara action cartoons aired from 1978-81 in various combinations.  There are 26 half hour episodes.  Well, really, there is about one proto-episode, and they switched the monster and the lesson learned 26 times. History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of man.[1]

It IS fun to see the cartoon Kaiju battles, and that payoff is pretty clearly where the animation budget (such as it was) was spent.  (About $3 grand an episode, the internet tells me).   A super cut of the Kajui monster battles would be pretty great, although sometimes they change scale from scene to scene. And, sometimes, their powers are interestingly modified. 

Something you’ll read a lot about if you research this show is that Godzilla breathes fire instead of destructive atomic energy. I’m fascinated by this choice.  By changing Godzilla’s breath weapon from atomic furnace to fire, Big G is effectively turned into a wingless fire-breathing dragon.  The whole overtones of the original movie relating to  the terror of the destruction of the atomic bomb are changed if Godzilla isn’t an atomic monster.  Perhaps the decision was a graphic choice; red flames instead of blue glowing radiation, but it is one that is curiously prevalent in a lot of American depictions of Godzilla. 

Regardless, giving Godzilla fire breath and having him run to heel and assist like Puff the Magic Dragon is a fundamentally different message from “unstoppable atonic monster of our own creation protects his territory from the menace of mankind.”  I might be reading too much into a Saturday morning cartoon, but hey, that’s what I’m here for.  Also, Godzilla has laser beam eyes, or heat vision, or something.  For…reasons.

Worth watching a few episodes if you are a Godzilla completist, but really, there are a lot of shows that do the formula better.  

For the die hard lovers of the show, or the (probably more numerous) college kids who fell in love with Sea Lab 2021 and Venture Brothers style modern send ups of 1970’s adventure shows, Cartoon Network created a short called “Godzilla vs. the Y2K Bug" using footage from the show.  It’s a one trick pony, so I won’t spoil it for you, but it’s kinda fun. 


[1]  The first concert I ever attended on my own in a dive bar was a Blue Oyster Cult concert.  The song “Godzilla” blew my mind, and I really wanted to put it in this review. Check it out. It’s way better than this cartoon.  It should be the soundtrack for the super cut of kaiju battles I mentioned.  Internet, you should make that. 

JONATHAN M. CHAFFIN is an Atlanta-based graphic designer and art director and a lifetime fan of horror stories and film. His current project is www.HorrorInClay.com where he uses artifacts and ephemera to tell stories... he also produces horror-themed tiki mugs and barware like the Horror In Clay Cthulhu Tiki Mug. In addition, Jonathan occasionally does voice-over and podcasting work and appears on panels at sci-fi fantasy and pop culture conventions on a variety of topics. You can follow him @CthulhuMug on twitter or by friending HorrorInClay on Facebook and G+

Monster Serial: THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, 1975

Hello, boils and ghouls! October is upon us and that means one thing: HALLOWEEN! While most holidays get a measly day or two of formal recognition, orthodox Monster Kids prefer to celebrate it in the tradition of our people: By watching tons of horror movies. This month at THE COLLINSPORT HISTORICAL SOCIETY, we're going to be discussing some of our favorites every day until Halloween. So, put on your 3-D spex, pop some popcorn and turn out the lights .... because we're going to the movies!

By WALLACE McBRIDE

It’s 1993, and I’m standing outside a nightclub talking to Buck Dharma of Blue Oyster Cult.

My own band had just broken up, which essentially decimated my social circle. I was depressed, but not so much that I was going to miss one of BOC’s rare visits to town. The last time I’d seen the band, though, two cars were needed to carry us all to the venue. This time, I drove alone. My hair was down past my shoulders, and I wore a black leather motorcycle jacket and matching boots. God only knows what Buck Dharma thought as I sprinted toward him in the darkness as he walked to his car after the show.

The club’s name at the time was Rocky’s, and was located on Independence Boulevard. The establishment had changed hands and names so often that I've long since lost track of its spiraling personality disorder.  I think Public Enemy was on the bill the week before BOC played the club, which should give you an example of how effed up this place was. It’s since been torn down.

At this point you’re probably asking yourself, “What does Blue Oyster Cult have to do with Rocky Horror?” The answer? Not a goddamn thing.

EXCEPT: Next door to Rocky’s was an old theater called the Silver Screen Café, which was once Charlotte’s hot spot for midnight movies. Frozen on its roadside sign were the names of the final films it showed before going out of business. One of them was HEAVY METAL, for which BOC coincidentally contributed a song. The other was THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW. It felt like a convergence of my two favorite obsessions, only a little too late.

By this point, I loved ROCKY HORROR as much as a person could without having actually seen it in a theater, which is an essential component of the film’s function. With ROCKY HORROR, audience participation represents about 70 percent of the experience, and I was acutely aware that I was missing out. So much so that, 20 years later, the memory of Silver Screen Café’s derelict sign still sorta haunts me. “THE MOVIE WAS HERE, BUT YOU MISSED IT.”

I wouldn’t get to see ROCKY HORROR in a theater until much, much later. It's not that I've never been in the same town as a ROCKY HORROR screening. There just always seemed to be social barriers between me and the film, which is understandable when you're an underage military brat. Asking an adult (especially one in that kind of culture) to take me to something like ROCKY HORROR would have been like asking them to sit with me on a float at a Gay Pride Parade. I’ve since come to value my status as Honorary Homosexual, but teenage me felt a great deal of anxiety about such things.
 

I'd first seen ads for ROCKY HORROR in newspapers in the late 1970s in Virginia, but the imagery was confusing. The logo looked like that of a horror movie (it even had the word “horror” in the title) but what was the story with those lips? On the off chance that I’d accidentally initiate a conversation with an adult about a porno film, I kept my curiosity to myself.  A few years later, I came across an article about the ROCKY HORROR phenomenon in an issue of STARBURST, published near the release of quasi-sequel SHOCK TREATMENT. The image of Tim Curry in drag, with his finger stuck in Peter Hinwood’s navel, didn’t exactly dispel my confusion. Where was the “horror” in ROCKY HORROR? What was I looking at?

So, flash forward to the night of my 15th birthday. I was at a mall, and a pocket full of cash was burning a hole in my pocket. There must have been some kind of “thing” happening that night, because the place was full of fly-by-night vendors selling all kinds of weird crap. When I went home that night, tucked under my arm were one-sheets of BACK TO THE FUTURE and INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM.

Also in my clutches was a copy of THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION ALBUM. I had no idea what I was getting myself in for.

The album was recorded with a live audience during a screening of the film, and was the most vulgar thing I’d ever experienced (at the time.) There was a feeling of chaos on the album that was a little terrifying.  It sounded like outright anarchy, only it wasn't. While everyone was screaming their lungs out, they seemed to be doing so in chorus with each other.

And it was hilarious.

For parental security reasons I had to listen to this album with headphones on. I was also left wondering about some of the gags that obviously involved on-screen queues. But I was intrigued, and have loved the movie ever since ... even if I didn't actually watch the movie until the inevitable home video release around 1990.

It wasn’t until 2010 that I got to see the film in a real theater, with a real live audience. I caught THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW at the Terrace Theater in Charleston, S.C., in August that year. Despite the punishing thunderstorm that hit that night, it was a record turn-out for the monthly screening. I had a blast, and spent the next six months making monthly treks to the coast for later screenings. (The group that stages these “shadowcasts” is called Back Row Productions, and you can find them on Facebook.)

But, things had changed since ROCKY HORROR’s glory days in the early ’80s. There were all new “lines,” squirt guns had morphed into Super Soakers, and the “props” prone to attracting roaches (hot dogs, bread, rice, etc.) were no longer a part of proceedings. It was like I was seeing the film for the first time, and I felt at home in that theater in a way I can’t completely explain.

Even better, the “shadowcast” that hosted the monthly screening used an actual print of the movie, not just a DVD. As a reward for my decades of patience, that print was the uncut UK edition of the film, complete with the song “Superheroes.” If I felt a moment of isolation during the event, it was in my surprise that nobody else seemed to think that was a big deal.

I mean, that was a big deal, right?

WALLACE McBRIDE is editor of the Collinsport Historical Society.

Grayson Hall Vs. Blue Öyster Cult

"Aggression unchallenged is aggression unleashed."

So begins this radio spot for 1974's "Secret Treaties" album by Blue Öyster Cult. A quote from the Roman fabulist Phaedrus, it's just one of many bizarre references to philosophy and war (some of them fabricated) associated with the third album from BÖC.

Grayson Hall

If you've already pressed "play" on the video above, you've probably figured out why I'm sharing it. During the 1970s, actress Grayson Hall did voice-over work on promotional spots for several bands. According to R.J. Jamison's excellent biography of Hall, A Hard Act to Follow, the actress loaned her voice to advertisements for groups like HEART, THE ROLLING STONES and ELO. While I've got no hard evidence that proves that's Hall's voice in the BÖC promo spot at the top of this post, it certainly sounds like her in full Magda Rakosi-mode. UPDATE: Her son has since confirmed that's her voice in the ad.

If you've wandered into this page after Googling the words "Blue Oyster Cult," here's a primer on Grayson Hall: She received an Academy Award nomination for her work in the John Huston movie, Night of the Iguana. Today, she's probably best known for her work Dark Shadows, where she played Dr. Julia Hoffman, enemy and ally to vampire Barnabas Collins. She passed away in 1985 at the age of ... well, nobody's really sure.

If I've got one passion in life, it's Dark Shadows. But, if I had two, the other would be Blue Öyster Cult, a band I've been obsessed with since discovering them in high school. The idea that Dark Shadows and Blue Öyster Cult would form a Venn Diagram of Awesome just delights me to no end. While I doubt Hall would have cared, her work on this radio promo puts her in the company of people like Stephen King and Howard Stern, who also provided voice over work for BÖC on different projects.

"Secret Treaties" is littered with allusions to producer Sandy Pearlman's long-delayed (and ultimately never finished) IMAGINOS concept album. The story behind the making "Imaginos" would fill a book but, barring that, the 1988 album's Wikipedia page will have to suffice. BÖC was a band that favored the "concept album" approach to recording ... not in the epic-narrative PINK FLOYD sense, though. BÖC preferred idea- and sound-driven concept albums. If that makes any sense.

Because of that, "Imaginos was difficult to fit into the sensibilities of a band like BÖC. A few ideas from "Imaginos" found their way to "Secret Treaties," but not in a way that made any sense to casual listeners. People were left scratching their heads about the album's references to war and philosophy for another 15 years, when an abridged version of "Imaginos" was finally unleashed upon the world.

For me, "Secret Treaties" is a weird beast. It contains my favorite BOC song, "Astronomy," but it's not one of my favorite albums. Many of the tracks feel like rough drafts when compared to the industrial-strength jam sessions they'd quickly become in concert. Compare the studio version of "Dominance and Submission" with any of the live versions and you'll hear what I mean.

If you're interested in the band, I'd suggest starting with their first album, the self-titled Blue Öyster Cult. It's an atmospheric, dangerous-sounding recording that straddles the band's early psychedelic days and the very beginnings of American heavy metal. Some of my other favorites are "Tyranny and Mutation," "Spectres," the live album "On Your Feet Or On Your Knees"* and 1998's "Heaven Forbid" (which features a number of lyrics by science fiction/horror genius John Shirley and a terrible, terrible album cover.)

(*For purists, though, LIVE IN THE WEST is considered the superior live album from this era. Story has it that BÖC was unhappy with the track selection for ON YOUR FEET  and compiled their own two-disc live album, giving it away to friends and family.)