Blue Oyster Cult – Three Tees in 10 years: 1979 – 1989

Don’t Fear (The Price Tag) – Blue Oyster Cult tee shirts 1979 – 1989 Pt. 1

This week’s post is on heavy metal legends, Blue Oyster Cult.  Long Island’s own purveyors of “thinking man’s heavy metal”.  Godzilla-sized riffs, awesome aliases (Buck Dharma!), and, with the help of cult rock scribes Richard Meltzer Jim Carroll, and Patti Smith, some of the best hard rock lyrics ever.  Here’s three vintage concert tees from their touring heyday of 1979 – 1989.  I’ll be doing a separate post on the “Black and Blue” tour 1980 jersey I have (from the famous 1980 tour with Black Sabbath – Dio’s first with them).

Tasco Sound 1979

Tasco Sound was a minor league sound company (like Sound Production Inc., Brass Ring, Pirate Sound, Morpheus Lights, and countless others) picking up tours that Showco and Clair Brothers (the two biggest) didn’t have time or equipment for, though cheaper prices probably helped too.  B.O.C. were headlining stadiums at this point with the prior success of “Don’t Fear (The Reaper)” and “Godzilla” but that year’s “Mirrors” album failed to reach the critical standard their previous 8 albums had delivered.  They reined in the creative juices of yore a few years later with the “Fire Of Unknown Origin” album (a Patti Smith song for a band whose keyboardist used to be her old man).  Here’s a clip of the heavy riffage, tongue in cheek wit, and creepy coolness of which I speak:

“Revolution By Night” was their lp after the success of their top forty smash “Burnin’ For You” off of the “Fire” lp.  But, B.O.C. found themselves back in the ‘trying to make another hit single’ bag and ended up putting aside the skills that so effectively wowed the rock press, radio jockeys, and concert goers in the 70’s.  This talent wouldn’t return until their magnum opus and final vinyl, 1988’s “Imaginos”.  Still, the “Revolution By Night” tour tee shirt offers one of the best graphics of any of their concert tees, especially with the heavy ancient Egypt meets H.P. Lovecraft vibe.

Though now less the Bouchard brothers, the 1988 “Imaginos” was a total group effort by complete mistake.  Started as drummer Albert Bouchard’s solo project after his ouster in 1982, it eventually ran over budget thereby getting repo’d by Columbia records and given to E. Bloom (where D. Boon of the Minutemen took his moniker from b.t.w.) and Buck Dharma to complete (with Joe Satriani, Aldo Nova, and Robby Krieger of the Doors guesting).  The result is one of their best.  I saw them on this tour at the utterly strange “Legends of Rock Reunion” show outside of Cleveland, Ohio in the summer of 1989.  This shirt is from that show which was an all day fest that about 10,000 of Ohio’s proudest freedom rockers attended.  Also on the bill were Donnie Iris, Foghat, Molly Hatchet, John Kay and Steppenwolf and a pre-comeback Meatloaf who played just before the headlining B.O.C.  As the Cult played, Meatloaf and crew glared menacingly from the side of the stage in what I thought to be total jealousy at them not being the headliner and some fucking Godzilla singing motherfuckers closing the show.  Blue Oyster Cult still tours to this day, making the back image of this tee shirt still eerily prophetic.

That wraps up this little episode.  Thanks for your time and interest.  Stay tuned for more trivial pursuit, choice cuts, and killer tees…