BOC: a new Meltzer pov.

[Bolts of Ungodly Vision]

Scott:   In the intro to the "Punk" section of your book, you wrote, "I really
did want rock to DIE."
Richard:    At that time, yeah.

Scott:   I think the interesting word there is "want," 'cause to me that kind
of implies that you didn't think it necessarily WAS already dead. So if it
wasn't already...
Richard:    Oh, I wanted the ashes to be burnt; I wanted it to be, uh -- I
wanted it to GO AWAY.

Scott:   How come?
Richard:    At the time?

Scott:   Yeah.
Richard:    It was so on an employment level, it was like, uh, let's talk about
capitalism. I mean, once it got set up that writers were there to be shills and
FLAKS -- I mean, every review was HYPE, it was quotable in an ad. I did a
review of a movie about Hendrix called A Film About Jimi Hendrix, that I
actually thought was pretty good, but they took a piece of my review that they
used very out of context to hype this movie. And I objected to being used as
hype.

Scott:   They quoted you in the ad?
Richard:    They quoted me in the ad, but the piece of it they used didn't make
sense. But whatever it was, my feeling was simply that my exposure to what you
might call the blast furnace, working in the fucking blast furnace of the back
rooms of rock promotion, just very much -- just MEETING BANDS, I mean by then
it was like, you go to a show, and hang out backstage, and every single fucking
member of every band was an ASShole. I mean, who really had it in them to tour
forty weeks a year or whatever bands did? And it would turn them into BEASTS.
It would make the music completely digital -- it was like MACHINES playing
these same songs you were sick of. Blue Oyster Cult, who were my friends, I
couldn't stand to see them play anymore. But it really was, it was something
absolutely -- from whatever level, I mean, I didn't sit in Madison Square
Gardens, I didn't go to arena rock shows too often, but I imagine there are
social reasons to go to those things that have very little to do with the
music, which is fine. But to be backstage at some of these shows, to have ANY
connection to these musicians, by then, these musicians were LOATHsome, and
yes, there are exceptions.
[snip]
I mean, I've always liked anonymous metal bands who were the equivalent of
Spinal Tap, but I never liked the glory boys, the front-runners of
metal, 'cause I don't see them as different from the Eagles, I don't know why.
I mean, the sonic FACT of what they do, is just, how to put it, it doesn't
shake me on any level, it doesn't seem to function anymore except as VOLUME. I
mean, I remember seeing, there was this band the Dictators, who were managed by
the same guy, Sandy Pearlman, who had Blue Oyster Cult, and they were a kind of
half-decent, not-quite-a-punk band, they were kind of a Commie/wrestling-based
New York band, they were the band in New York between the New York Dolls and
Television, say; it was a brief moment. And then Blue Oyster Cult turned up the
volume, and so the Dictators had to do the same thing to show their manager
they could do it, and everything they did that had any charm to it just became
unlistenable volume. And to me, PUNK had so much more -- the kernel of sound
from punk -- had SO much more definition, had so much more, y'know, interesting
sonic atoms.
[snip to a really interesting fencing match:]
Scott:   I think that video is an afterthought, at least from the band's
perspective.
Richard:    Not the bands that I've talked to. Blue Oyster Cult would literally
think, when I was still writing lyrics for them, "Could you give us some songs
that we could make videos out of?"

Scott:   Yeah, Blue Oyster Cult, though, I mean…
Richard:    They were shit (laughs), but whose isn't?

Scott:   Not only that, but by the time of the video age I don't know if Blue
Oyster Cult really meant anything to anyone, so...
Richard:    They had an enormous hit with "Burnin' For You," and with a video.

Scott:   Did you write the lyrics for that one?
Richard:    Yeah.

Scott:   And no royalty cheques?
Richard:    I got some, but certainly not all.



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