BOC: A "dizzying excursion into Pearlman's world"

[John Swartz]

>
> Failures?...what failures...it's allllll goood!
> tim  8>)...

Actually, I think so.  I meant what were largely consider commercial
failures.


> Even "eyes on fire"?

Ain't one of my favorites, but I'll still listen to it.


>>>> (Albert writes)
>>>> It's all how you look at it. I know what you mean though. Sandy meant
>>>> commercial failures and Murray meant artistic failures and Meltzer,
>>>> he's just a grouch. I'm the only one who kept notes, however, and I
>>>> know how hard everybody worked to make those records. It was always a
>>>> group effort but by the time we got to FoUO everybody was running out
>>>> of steam. But it doesn't diminish me to acknowledge the others. As I
>>>> said the only failure I will admit is You're Not the One because it
>>>> wasn't supposed to be on the record (OK it was my little joke and now
>>>> you all are in on it - even Tom Werman - after he heard it and liked it
>>>> I didn't have the guts to tell him it was about him). Any other failure
>>>> were brave failures (over-reaching/experiments that failed stuff) and
>>>> to me that's not real failure.

Al's been very gracious to give credit where credit is due, especially
in light of the fact that it is almost universally acknowledged (at
least now if not then) that Al was one of the main driving forces
(certainly musically) behind the band, and that his departure left a
huge void.  Reading the book, however, helped reinforce the notion of
the "BOC Collective", and how certain things, despite being the
brainchild of a certain individual, just didn't make the cut until a
group analysis was applied.  Classic examples include "The Vigil" (the
original "Devil's Nail" lyrics by Patti Smith had to go to make this a
BOC song), and "Lips in the Hills" ("Hold me Tight"?  The riff may be
the same, but song sure ain't).

The fact that "You'e Not the One" is a BOC song, now that we know "the
rest of the story"...well, I for one think that's great.  A real Spinal
Tap moment for sure.  The drummer goes off and writes a stupid song
about the producer (ripping off another song in the process), and the
producer puts it on the album!  How cool is that?


>>>> (Carl writes)
>>>>
>>>> I can't remember whether Pearlman, Meltzer, and Krugman were still much
>>>> involved by the 80s, but whatever advice was being taken in the wake of
>>>> (or contributing to) the Bouchard Bros. various departures was clearly
>>>> the wrong advice, whether artistic or commercial.  Up to and including
>>>> _FoUO_ ... well, there were stronger and weaker moments (artistic and
>>>> commercial), but that's true for any band.  But it's only up to and
>>>> including _FoUO_ that the work is indelibly branded in my mind as
>>>> "proper BOC".  Thereafter its divided between "Imaginos" (which is
>>>> cool,
>>>> but not really BOC) and "BOC no longer on message" :/

Some would argue that BOC was "off message" once Agents of Fortune was
released - like you say, still cool...

>>>>
>>>> I don't know if the trail-off after _FoUO_ is wholly due to a lack of
>>>> Bouchard and/or Pearlman/Meltzer/Krugman involvement, but its an
>>>> evident
>>>> trail-off to me. Not that all the BOC output post-FoUO is bad; there
>>>> are
>>>> definitely some good songs (I will, for example, defend "Take Me Away"
>>>> to the death and I even enjoyed some of the Bad Channels stuff :) but,
>>>> on the whole, it's been ... less than stellar ;)

I think part of it wasn't so much the lack of Bouchard et al providing
material, but the fact that the band lost self-confidence.  It took them
until Heaven Forbid (and maybe even Curse of the Hidden Mirror) to
really establish their creativity as a "band" again in some sense.

John