BOC: AoF & Spectres: two of a perfect pair (?)

haiwhachahaiuh! scruto19 at POTSDAM.EDU
Tue Dec 10 12:43:16 EST 1996


I have always felt that CBS's decision to put them on the 2 for 1 cassette
perfectly mirrors the 2 LPs in their content. For me, they represnt BOC's
version of the  Rubber Soul/Revolver pairing of the Beatles (which in the
video documentary has surviving beatles say they are volumes 1 and 2 of
that period of Beatle growth).  Spectres all in all seems to me to be
refinement of the work done in AoF-more multi-segment songs (GAoL,Nosferatu
and RUR2R(because of the hep vocal things goin' down) off the top of my
head) and in some instacnes (like GTtM) experimentation with what we might
call "pop" forms.  The attitutde of Spectre seemed to be a shade more
positive than the starkness (or maybe it's just a subtler starkness) of
AoF's "Reaper" driven atmosphere.  After all, they did decide to close the
lp with Nosferatu instead of another "Debbie Denise" song.  In conclusion
(doing his best "Hi-I'm-Mr.-Rock-Critic" impersonation)
AoF/S (or "sofa" heehee) seem to be the A and B side of BOC's mid70's efforts,
but in this case, both are a fine testament to each other and to the band's
total sound picture. Stagnancy kills a good water supply after all; AoF/S
manage to keep BOC unique and good to "drink." (hows that for parallels?:))

Eating too many wheaties,
Jason



More information about the boc-l mailing list