So, what have you been listening to lately?

[uwe]

Candy Givens and some guitar unknown, I had no idea a video of this existed ...

[uwe]

It's like I'm 14, I still love this stuff, all four chords.

Oh, this is a new song from them?! Same same, but no different.  Angus even plays in a major key in the first few seconds of his solo - before he reverts to tried and trusted pentatonic minor. 

[uwe]

My fave current pop-rock outfit ...

[uwe]

I wonder what became of these guys here? I heard someone gave the guitarist a delay gadget and they all got haircuts to boot.

[gearHed289]

Eric doing his sci fi fantasy schtick plus a fast guitar segment that sounds like it was lifted off an early Rainbow album ...



That new BÖC album towers head and shoulders over anything they have done in a long time.

Not bad. The fact that they don't seem entirely serious makes it work.

I can't really recognize the guys in their old age - who's original here? Is that Buck with the Music Man guitar? Eric on Steinberger? Who's playing the "symbol" guitar?

[uwe]

Buck with the "West Coast", Steve Miller-akin pop voice (as on Reaper, Shooting Shark, Then Came The Last Days Of May or Burning For You) plays the Steinberger and has been doing so for ages, Eric (the monk-hooded singer in the vid) with the gravelly melodramatic voice (Godzilla, Cities on Flame, Dr. Music, Veteran Of A Thousand Psychic Wars, Harvester of Eyes or Astronomy) plays the "Symbol Guitar" (referred to as "Stun Guitar" on old BÖC albums), he rarely, if ever plays lead, but doubles on keyboards. The guy with the EBMM guitar is a "new" guy (though with the band for more than a decade): Richie Castellano. He is someone's relative here on the forum. Initially, the replacement for former Patti Smith squeeze Allen Lanier, he played more keyboards at the beginning of his tenure, but has by now become their third creative force (sort of like the Bouchard brothers were before they left), playing lead guitar and doing lead vocals on some songs. He wrote about a third (or more) of the new album and has really stepped up to the plate.

It's telling that you got confused about who is who - that was always the millstone round BÖC's neck: With all five of the original line up singing lead (as a result, BÖC's harmony vocals are idiosyncratic and hugely underrated), all of them playing guitar (the legendary BÖC guitar row during Buck's Boogie where even the drummer would strap a guitar and leave his drum stool), the original drummer (Albert Bouchard) also playing keyboards and guitar, one of the guitarists playing keyboards (Eric Bloom) and the keyboarder (Allen Lanier) playing guitar, nobody knew who was doing what at any given time! Eric Bloom once said that their individual versatility hindered their success, there was no frontman to latch onto for the audience. While Eric was no doubt their focal point during live shows (with Buck Dharma taking more spotlight over time as his songwriting and lead vocal share increased once the Bouchard brothers had left), he didn't sing the real big hits, Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser did (Eric's voice was a bit menacing and foreboding for ultimate commercial appeal - I continue to hold that it was an inspiration to James Hetfield's vocals).

That these guys - along with Grand Funk Railroad and J. Geils Band - aren't in the RHOF is a cryng shame. They epitomize "Yank thinking man's hard rock" to me, how many other US hard rock outfits can you think of that had lyrics penned by Patti Smith?

[gearHed289]

Genuine thanks for the BOC history lesson. You're totally right about the front man thing and their image in general. I don't mean this in a bad way, but they were kind of "faceless". I do remember from the rock mags back in the day the sunglasses and Gibson SG with symbol inlay (I might be getting this wrong again) on Eric? (Uwe: Nope, spot on!) And of course Buck Dharma had an interesting name. I actually witnessed the "guitar row" at my first concert when they played before KISS on the Agents of Fortune tour in '76. You could NOT get away from the Reaper that summer! And "Burnin For You" will forever remind me of the 1/2 Hawaiian cutie Suzy that I dated early senior year (She had graduated the year before, gasp!). Their harmony vocals really were great. In the late 90s, I was in a band that sounded like Joy Division meets the Offspring and we did our own version of Reaper with 3 part harmonies.

[uwe]

I became attracted to BÖC's image before I knew any of the music (except Cities on Flame, which I had on a cassette), I remember reading a CBS acts promo newspaper in a record store in the mid-seventies and it featured, inter alia, Aerosmith (who in an interview went out of their way to explain that they were neither New York Dolls nor Rolling Stones rip-offs, but inspired by Led Zep) and BÖC: They had this dark mysterious image and the weird name with the then unheard of Umlaut (they were the first - before Motörhead and Mötley), rumours prevailed that they were Nazis and/or Jews (neither was true, Eric Bloom is the only band member of Jewish descent, though their management and some outside songwriters were Jewish too). I then bought On Your Feet And On Your Knees (their first live album) and titles like "Harvester of Eyes" really gripped me.

As a frontman, a young Eric Bloom had something pleasantly urban and unsettling about him that wasn't dumb:



He also had a voice that wasn't really nice or smooth, it even sounded a bit like he couldn't sing, when in fact he actually could:





And they had a select taste in covers!

[uwe]

It's like I'm 14, I still love this stuff, all four chords.

Yet more from the nordic and female answer to the above antipodeans:

[Dave W]

[gearHed289]

Loved that! Is that Randy Jo Hobbs on bass? 

[doombass]

Loved that! Is that Randy Jo Hobbs on bass?

Yes! BTW, that's the best lineup Johnny Winter ever had IMO.

[westen44]

A Hofner in a volcano.  It's better to skip the first minute. 

[Pilgrim]

I've posted this before, but I keep coming back to my favorites.  I love to listen to the differences in the way Dick and Stevie play their solos....

I think Dick would says this is the most bitchin' version ever recorded.

[Dave W]

Loved that! Is that Randy Jo Hobbs on bass?

Yes! BTW, that's the best lineup Johnny Winter ever had IMO.

Yes, definitely Randy Jo. Somebody in the comments claimed it was Tommy Shannon.    Easy to tell those two apart.

Johnny's earlier blues trio with Tommy Shannon and Uncle John Turner was great too.